Tag Archives: Pope Francis

Unique and Unrepeatable

As a spiritual director, I regularly journey with people who are seeking God’s will in their lives.  Young people frequently ask the question whether they are called to marriage, religious life or priesthood.  Young people who are already dating ask whether this is “the one”.  Young people who are drawn to religious life ask which religious community is the right one for them.  These are all important questions, but they often lose sight of the more foundational question.

When we group people into huge categories such as “priest” or ”religious” or “married” we sometimes overlook the more fundamental question of our individual uniqueness and the unrepeatability of the way God made us.  Pope Francis captured this beautifully in his exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate using the concepts of mission: “Each saint is a mission, planned by the Father to reflect and embody, at a specific moment in history, a certain aspect of the Gospel,” (#19) and message: “Every saint is a message which the Holy Spirit takes from the riches of Jesus Christ and gives to his people.” (#21) Using the terms of mission and message, Pope Francis reiterates what Pope Saint John Paul II expressed in his Theology of the Body that each person is “set into a unique, exclusive and unrepeatable relationship with God himself.” (TOB 6:2)

Each person has a unique message to share with the world.  Each person has a unique and unrepeatable mission to carry out.  It is insufficient to reduce this to “marriage” or “priesthood.”  Those are two wonderful paths in life and one of those may be the path on which that mission can be carried out, but the most important thing for each one of us to develop our own unique and unrepeatable relationship with God starting wherever we are today.  That is the first take-away from this post and the reader may want to stop right here and contemplate what this means for you.

One way to explore our individual uniqueness is through a human strengths assessment or through understanding one’s unique motivational blueprint. Although this seems to put us back into repeatable and general categories, the reality is that the particular combination of strengths and particular arrangement of motivational patterns elucidates the uniqueness of the individual rather than concealing it.  As a spiritual director, I have the blessing of knowing individuals in a very deep, personal and meaningful way.  Time and again, however, I have gained new insights from the results that come when my directees have taken an assessment such as Strengthsfinder or MCORE.

These two assessments gather together and present information about human uniqueness that can be a great help in guiding individuals to paths which are most deeply fulfilling for them.  I hope to offer some additional posts to go into some examples and detailed applications of this information for enhanced spiritual direction.  In this post, however, I will conclude with a podcast that I was able to record recently with one of the developers of MCORE, Joshua Miller.  Joshua Miller and Luke Burgis have also written a book called Unrepeatable: Cultivating the Unique Calling of Every Person that would be valuable reading for anyone who is seeking to understand themselves more deeply, seeking their purpose in life, or helping others in that way.

Please tune in to our podcast episode (by clicking that link) to understand some ways that Spiritual Direction (and some of the material from our book Spiritual Direction: A Guide for Sharing the Father’s Love), interface with Joshua’s work on understanding our motivational blueprint.  I hope that all these efforts will assist anyone who is seeking true happiness to find their purpose and help them live their mission and proclaim their message.

 

Day 28 Knowledge of Jesus Christ – Christ became poor

Day 28 – Christ became poor

A Reading from the Second Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians:

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. (2 Cor 8:9)

From Pope Francis’s Message for Lent 2014:

[Christ] does not reveal himself cloaked in worldly power and wealth but rather in weakness and poverty: “though He was rich, yet for your sake he became poor …”. Christ, the eternal Son of God, one with the Father in power and glory, chose to be poor; he came amongst us and drew near to each of us; he set aside his glory and emptied himself so that he could be like us in all things (cf. Phil 2:7; Heb 4:15). God’s becoming man is a great mystery! But the reason for all this is his love, a love which is grace, generosity, a desire to draw near, a love which does not hesitate to offer itself in sacrifice for the beloved. Charity, love, is sharing with the one we love in all things. Love makes us similar, it creates equality, it breaks down walls and eliminates distances. God did this with us. Indeed, Jesus “worked with human hands, thought with a human mind, acted by human choice and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, he truly became one of us, like us in all things except sin.” (Gaudium et Spes #22).

By making himself poor, Jesus did not seek poverty for its own sake but, as Saint Paul says “that by his poverty you might become rich“. This is no mere play on words or a catch phrase. Rather, it sums up God’s logic, the logic of love, the logic of the incarnation and the cross. God did not let our salvation drop down from heaven, like someone who gives alms from their abundance out of a sense of altruism and piety. Christ’s love is different! When Jesus stepped into the waters of the Jordan and was baptized by John the Baptist, he did so not because he was in need of repentance, or conversion; he did it to be among people who need forgiveness, among us sinners, and to take upon himself the burden of our sins. In this way he chose to comfort us, to save us, to free us from our misery. It is striking that the Apostle states that we were set free, not by Christ’s riches but by his poverty. Yet Saint Paul is well aware of the “the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph 3:8), that he is “heir of all things” (Heb 1:2).

So what is this poverty by which Christ frees us and enriches us? It is his way of loving us, his way of being our neighbour, just as the Good Samaritan was neighbour to the man left half dead by the side of the road (cf. Lk 10:25ff ). What gives us true freedom, true salvation and true happiness is the compassion, tenderness and solidarity of his love. Christ’s poverty which enriches us is his taking flesh and bearing our weaknesses and sins as an expression of God’s infinite mercy to us. Christ’s poverty is the greatest treasure of all: Jesus’ wealth is that of his boundless confidence in God the Father, his constant trust, his desire always and only to do the Father’s will and give glory to him. Jesus is rich in the same way as a child who feels loved and who loves its parents, without doubting their love and tenderness for an instant. Jesus’ wealth lies in his being the Son; his unique relationship with the Father is the sovereign prerogative of this Messiah who is poor. When Jesus asks us to take up his “yoke which is easy”, he asks us to be enriched by his “poverty which is rich” and his “richness which is poor”, to share his filial and fraternal Spirit, to become sons and daughters in the Son, brothers and sisters in the firstborn brother (cf. Rom 8:29).

It has been said that the only real regret lies in not being a saint (L. Bloy); we could also say that there is only one real kind of poverty: not living as children of God and brothers and sisters of Christ…

Reflection:

Jesus came to share His wealth with us. Pope Francis explains the wealth of Jesus: “Jesus’ wealth is that of his boundless confidence in God the Father, his constant trust…” and he further clarifies: “Jesus’ wealth lies in his being the Son; his unique relationship with the Father…” To share this wealth with us, Jesus became poor. He accepted human love in place of divine love: the love of Joseph and the love of Mary. He accepted human parents and human helplessness instead of His divine Father and His divine power. But because He could not actually lose His divine Father or His Father’s divine power, He actually filled the poverty of human love from human parents with divine love. Now we too, who are poor, can experience the wealth of Christ, because we can call His Father “our Father” and we can learn about His Fatherhood from our human fathers and mothers and we can receive glimpses of divine love through our experiences of impoverished human love. And so our human experience has been radically transformed because Jesus has entered fully into it and blessed all of it as the way to receive His wealth—His boundless confidence in the Father and the richness of the Father’s love. “Jesus is rich in the same way as a child who feels loved and who loves its parents, without doubting their love and tenderness for an instant.” And in opening Mary’s womb for us to share His experience, He opens the door for us to share in that richness.

Prayers:

Litany of the Powerlessness of Jesus

Litany of Christ Living in the Womb of Mary

Prayer of St Thomas Aquinas before Holy Communion

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Knowledge of Jesus Christ – Introduction and Day 27

Introduction to the Week of Knowledge of Jesus Christ

The ultimate culmination of Marian consecration according to the model of Saint Louis de Montfort is really consecration to Jesus Christ. It is a total consecration to Jesus Christ through Mary. For this reason our journey of preparation concludes with a week focused on Jesus Christ. He is, after all, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. He is our Savior and Lord. Saint Louis de Montfort simply intuited that a sweet and easy path to total consecration to Jesus Christ would be through Mary. As we have already been meditating, that total consecration happens particularly through the womb of Mary. That is where the God-man was formed and so that is where the “man-gods” can be formed. Jesus Christ is God by nature, but He makes us a sharer in His divinity, i.e. “God” by grace. That process of divinization is gradual and the mold is the womb of Mary. So we enter into the womb of Mary not simply out of love for Mary, but also in order to be transformed into Christ her Son.

As we have focused on throughout this preparation, a major obstacle for us is the disordered thoughts and desires of original sin, which fundamentally tempt us to try to become god without God. We seek control and self-sufficiency. We want to depend on God only insofar as it moves us to a point that we no longer need to depend on Him. We do the same with others. We are resistant to entering into truly interdependent relationships that are committed and eternal. Because of the wounds of broken trust, we always keep escape routes open in case things do not work out. Total consecration to Jesus Christ is a decision to close the escape routes in our relationship with God. It is a total consecration, involving our whole mind, heart, body and soul. It is a radical decision to enter irrevocably into a love relationship with Him starting in this moment and including all future moments as well, in time and in eternity.

We make this total consecration through Mary and as we place ourselves in her womb, we let ourselves develop the qualities of Jesus Christ her Son. We need to develop especially the counter-cultural qualities that reverse the pattern of original sin. These are qualities of trust and dependency on God. We develop this trust through prayer and we develop it also through our interdependent relationships with others. Interdependency with others is part of the life of Jesus. He placed His life in the hands of others, starting with Mary and Joseph and extending to His Apostles and disciples. He placed His life so radically in their hands that He gave them power to take His life away, and even when they betrayed Him, He never took away His trust and love. These are the heights we are called to.

In this Week of Knowledge of Jesus Christ, we focus on the way that Jesus became poor, little, weak and dependent. We focus on His powerlessness in His earthly life and His dependency on others and we focus on His ongoing powerlessness in the Eucharist and the dependency and trust that He still gives to us in our response to His Eucharistic Presence. We also focus on the illumination He brings us in the Resurrection and ultimately the way He made Himself subject to death. After each day’s meditation we pray a Litany of Powerlessness, focusing on the way that Jesus who always had the power of God truly emptied Himself and subjected Himself to our human limitations, becoming powerless like us. We pray that we might lovingly embrace His powerlessness and find all the power we need through our trust in God. We pray also a litany of Jesus living in the womb of Mary, deepening our reflection on how He “consecrated” Himself to Mary in this way, allowing Himself to be formed in her womb. Thirdly, we meditate, through Saint Thomas Aquinas’s Prayer Before Communion, on the humility of Jesus in His Eucharistic Presence. If it is possible, it would be an excellent final preparation to attend Mass each day this week and offer that Prayer of Saint Thomas before Communion in the context of the Mass. And lastly we continue our prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary. Let us also ask the Divine Artisan, the Holy Spirit to form us and lead us deeper in our journey throughout this week.

Day 27 – Jesus is little, near and real

From the Book of the Prophet of Isaiah:

Thus says the Lord:
Heaven is my throne
and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house which you would build for me,
and what is the place of my rest?
All these things my hand has made,
and so all these things are mine,
says the Lord.
But this is the man to whom I will look,
he that is humble and contrite in spirit,
and trembles at my word. (Is 66:1-2)

From Pope Francis’s Homily in Czestochowa, July 28, 2016:

God saves us, then by making himself little, near and real. First God makes himself little. The Lord, who is “meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29), especially loves the little ones, to whom the kingdom of God is revealed (Mt 11:25); they are great in his eyes and he looks to them (cf. Is 66:2). He especially loves them because they are opposed to the “pride of life” that belongs to the world (cf. 1 Jn 2:16). The little ones speak his own language, that of the humble love that brings freedom. So he calls the simple and receptive to be his spokespersons; he entrusts to them the revelation of his name and the secrets of his heart. Our minds turn to so many sons and daughters of your own people, like the martyrs made the defenseless power of the Gospel shine forth, like those ordinary yet remarkable people who bore witness to the Lord’s love amid great trials, and those meek and powerful heralds of mercy who were Saint John Paul II and Saint Faustina. Through these “channels” of his love, the Lord has granted priceless gifts to the whole Church and to all mankind. It is significant that this anniversary of the baptism of your people exactly coincides with the Jubilee of mercy.

Then too, God is near, his kingdom is at hand (cf. Mk 1:15). The Lord does not want to be feared like a powerful and aloof sovereign. He does not want to remain on his throne in heaven or in history books, but loves to come down to our everyday affairs, to walk with us. As we think of the gift of a millennium so filled with faith, we do well before all else to thank God for having walked with your people, having taken you by the hand, as a father takes the hand of his child, and accompanied you in so many situations. That is what we too, in the Church, are constantly called to do: to listen, to get involved and be neighbours, sharing in people’s joys and struggles, so that the Gospel can spread every more consistently and fruitfully: radiating goodness through the transparency of our lives.

Finally, God is real. Today’s readings make it clear that everything about God’s way of acting is real and concrete. Divine wisdom “is like a master worker” and “plays” (cf. Prov 8:30). The Word becomes flesh, is born of a mother, is born under the law (cf. Gal4:4), has friends and goes to a party. The eternal is communicated by spending time with people and in concrete situations. Your own history, shaped by the Gospel, the Cross and fidelity to the Church, has seen the contagious power of a genuine faith, passed down from family to family, from fathers to sons and above all from mothers and grandmothers, whom we need so much to thank. In particular, you have been able to touch with your hand the real and provident tenderness of the Mother of all, whom I have come here as a pilgrim to venerate and whom we have acclaimed in the Psalm as the “great pride of our nation” (Jud15:9).

Reflection:

“The little ones speak his own language…” and we can imagine how twin babies communicate in such a simple way in the womb or how a baby in the womb communicates so simply with his mother. The language of love is always simple—gestures of tenderness, embraces, a mother feeding her baby with her body, a mother holding her baby in her arms. This is the first language that Jesus spoke—a language of touch, of food, of kisses and embraces. And it is the last language that He and we speak in our last moments of life. Likewise, if we let ourselves be little, we can feel the nearness of Jesus who draws close to our weakness to bring the tender touch of the Father and the realness of Jesus who does not settle for ideas, but turns them into gestures of love. All this happens when we allow ourselves to be little and enfolded in the love of Mary’s womb.

 

Prayers:

Litany of the Powerlessness of Jesus

Litany of Christ Living in the Womb of Mary

Prayer of St Thomas Aquinas before Holy Communion

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Day 26 – Knowledge of Mary

Day 26 – Mary, our refuge

A Reading from the Book of Revelation:

And a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. And another sign appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which to be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days. (Rev 12:1-6)

From Pope Francis’s Homily for a Mass at St Mary Major Basilica for the Translation of the Miraculous Image of Mary, Salus Populi Romani:

The Christian people have understood, from the very beginning, that in difficulties and trials we need to turn to our Mother, as the most ancient Marian hymn has it: Beneath your protection, we seek refuge, O Holy Mother of God; do not despise our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin. Amen.

We seek refuge. Our fathers in faith taught that in turbulent moments we should gather under the mantle of the Holy Mother of God.  At one time those who were persecuted and in need sought refuge with high-ranking noble women: when their cloak, regarded as inviolable, was held out as a sign of welcoming, protection had been granted.  So it is for us with regard to Our Lady, the highest woman of the human race.  Her mantle is always open to receive us and gather us.  The Christian East reminds us of this, where many celebrate the Protection of the Mother of God, who in a beautiful icon is depicted with her mantle sheltering her sons and daughters and covering the whole world.  Monks of old recommended, in times of trial, that we take refuge beneath the mantle of the Holy Mother of God: calling upon her as “Holy Mother of God” was already a guarantee of protection and help, this prayer over and again: “Holy Mother of God”, “Holy Mother of God”… Just like this.

This wisdom, that comes to us from far off, helps us: the Mother protects the faith, safeguards relationships, saves those in storms and preserves them from evil.  Where our Mother is at home, the devil does not enter in.  Where our Mother is at home, the devil does not enter in.  Where our Mother is present, turmoil does not prevail, fear does not conquer.  Which of us does not need this, which of us is not sometimes distressed or anxious?  How often our heart is a stormy sea, where the waves of our problems pile up and the winds of our troubles do not stop blowing!  Mary is our secure ark in the midst of the flood.  It will not be ideas or technology that will give us comfort or hope, but our Mother’s face, her hands that caress our life, her mantle that gives us shelter.  Let us learn how to find refuge, going each day to our Mother.

Reflection:

Mary’s mantle is another image for her womb. We are invited to stay under the mantle of Mary, in the womb of Mary. “Where our Mother is at home, the devil does not enter in…fear does not conquer.” Our Mother is always “at home” when we are in her womb. She wants us not only to find refuge there each day, but as constantly as a baby finds refuge in its mother’s womb. The key is to spiritually press this against those places of anxiety and distress in our hearts. Remember the last time you were distressed and place it in our Lady’s womb. Remember the things that make you anxious and place them in our Mother’s womb. Let your anxious parts feel her firm support, secure refuge, tender caresses and absolutely safety from any spiritual harm.

Prayer:

Sub tuum praesidium: Beneath your protection, we seek refuge, O Holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin. Amen.

Litany of the Holy Spirit or Veni Sancte Spiritus

Rosary (or at least a decade) followed by the Litany of Loreto

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Good Friday – trust that we are loved in our weakness

Listen to the actual homily:

Transcript:

“At the foot of the cross, at the supreme hour of the new creation, Christ led us to Mary. He brought us to her because he did not want us to journey without a mother” (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium #285)

Why do we need a mother?

She is the one who teaches us to trust that we are loved in our weakness. To trust in love even when we are weak. This is the wealth that Jesus wants us to have. To trust that we are loved in our weakness. This is the wealth that exposes the bankruptcy of Satan’s lies. It is the currency of heaven. It is the power that can topple the kingdom of darkness and it transfers us to the kingdom of light: unwavering trust that we are loved in the midst of our weakness.

Saint Paul told us that Christ became poor that we might become rich (2 Cor 8:9). Pope Francis explained that the richness Christ gives us, the wealth that He shares with us is “His boundless confidence in God the Father, his constant trust…”. He said, “Jesus is rich in the same way as a child who feels love and who loves its parents, without doubting their love and tenderness for an instant.” (Pope Francis Message for Lent 2014)

Jesus waged war on the Enemy
In the hands of one who trusts like that, weakness becomes a weapon. The weapon of weakness defeats the power of Satan. It is the story of the Gospel. From the beginning of his public ministry when Jesus faced off with Satan by charging out into the desert, which was Satan’s own backyard, he wielded the weapons of human weakness: Hunger, helplessness, powerlessness…and despite Satan’s temptations, He did not grasp at divine power to save Himself, but He simply remained human, weak and TRUSTING. He used the wealth of His boundless trust in God the Father to buy us back from our slavery. And in so doing He brought that wealth to us. He brought us trust that we are still loved when we are hungry, when we are helpless, when we are powerless. He taught us to make our weakness a weapon against Satan by remaining weak but also trusting in divine love, rather than grasping at worldly power. Satan departed from him for a time, but we read today about the final face off…

In the Passion of Jesus, He wields again the weapons of weakness and He shares with us the wealth of his trust, His boundless confidence in the Father’s love. In His human weakness, He experiences betrayal, abandonment, helplessness, defenselessness. He is interrogated, ridiculed, labeled, bullied, beaten, stripped naked, drugged, immobilized, crushed and crucified. His heart swelled, His lungs collapsed, His hands were nailed, His tender skull pierced with thorns.

His weakness is so extreme we could say He is reduced to the state of a child, even an infant. He has no defenses, no worldly power. Like Frodo in the Lord of the Rings, He has lost all His friends with their swords and shields. He has only His Mother, His faithful Samwise who loves Him as He carries His burden. She is no earthly soldier, she is only armed with compassion and love. And she will never leave His side. She helps him to keep trusting that He is loved in His weakness. She is an abiding sign of the Father’s tenderness. We need those tangible human signs.

All the while, Jesus is spreading His wealth to the weak and the poor. As He touches our weakness, He holds out His trust and He points our hearts to the Father’s love. We are still loved. He looks on us with love. He gives us His Mother’s Heart and her compassion and love. We only have to let go of our defenses: our violence and passive aggression, our complaining, the tombs of fear that we hide in, our achievements and trophies, domination and manipulation, threats and cursing, greed and gluttony, our rivalries and comparisons, arrogance, pride, vanity, cynicism, sarcasm and hopelessness, our lusts and empty entertainments that dull our hearts as we escape into fantasies. We use all these to cover up weakness, but they only form a cyst around it. Our weakness never goes away. For some who hide it their whole lives, it only reappears at the end when in debilitating disease and death we have no other defenses left. The only way out is to trust enough to expose it, and to discover we are still loved in it.

In His Passion Jesus fervently pursues us. By embracing our weakness He seeks out and finds the lost sheep in us, a little sheep that is lost and frightened behind all our defenses. And He shares His treasure with us — boundless confidence in the Father’s love.

He even enters into our deepest agony, our most anguished cries, “My God, my God why have you abandoned me??” He gives us permission to cry out like this. The weak, hurting child in us needs to cry out, because the very fact of crying out is itself an act of hope. This cry is not an expression of despair but is filled with trust in God the Father. If he had no trust that He would be heard, He would never have cried out. Satan wields fear and pride to convince us to keep our cries to ourselves, but Jesus teaches us to cry out like a little child and to discover that our Father DOES hear us…and He still loves us. Later in the same psalm 22 he affirms

“… Give him praise … For he has never despised nor scorned the poverty of the poor.
From him he has not hidden his face, but he heard him whenever he cried.”
Jesus affirms our urge to cry out. It is an act of trust that we are loved in the midst of our weakness.

The victory of vulnerability

Finally, in the end, Jesus wins the victory of vulnerability. Vulnerability is another word for opening our hearts in trust when we feel so weak. In His last breath, Jesus shows us the victory of vulnerability. He dealt the final blow to Satan by embracing our greatest weakness—death. Even in death He trusted, “Into your hands, Father, I commend my spirit” and He declared victory, “It is finished…”. Like Frodo, He carried the burden of our weakness all the way into the pits of evil without ever letting go of trust in His Father’s love.

Now it is our turn to learn this trust, to collect the wealth Christ has left us, to learn the weapons of weakness and the victory of vulnerability. For this, He gave us His Mother. He says to us, “Behold your mother.” And we are invited to take her into the deepest center of our lives and learn trust from her.

That’s how it began with His disciples. After the crucifixion she taught them to hope. The Gospel tells us, “The sabbath was about to begin…” After the darkest night and the deep silence of the death of God, a light appeared in the windows of Jerusalem. First one and then another. In each household, the mother of the household lit a candle and prayed, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us through Your commandment and commanded us to kindle the Sabbath candles.” Even from the devastating weakness of darkness, death, silence and night, Mary lit the Sabbath candles and led her new little son John in prayer, teaching him to trust that he was loved in the midst of his weakness. The sky was still dark and Jesus was still in the tomb, but our Mother taught her little son to hope that love is stronger than death and goodness is stronger than hate and that he is still loved in the helplessness of Good Friday. She passed on to him and she passes on to us the wealth that Christ brought us—to trust that we are loved in the depths of our weakness.

Day 24 – Knowledge of Mary

Day 24 – Mary and the Church

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to John:

[S]tanding by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the Scripture), “I thirst.” (John 19:25-28)

From Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation The Joy of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium #285-286):

On the cross, when Jesus endured in his own flesh the dramatic encounter of the sin of the world and God’s mercy, he could feel at his feet the consoling presence of his mother and his friend. At that crucial moment, before fully accomplishing the work which his Father had entrusted to him, Jesus said to Mary: “Woman, here is your son”. Then he said to his beloved friend: “Here is your mother” (Jn 19:26-27). These words of the dying Jesus are not chiefly the expression of his devotion and concern for his mother; rather, they are a revelatory formula which manifests the mystery of a special saving mission. Jesus left us his mother to be our mother. Only after doing so did Jesus know that “all was now finished”(Jn 19:28). At the foot of the cross, at the supreme hour of the new creation, Christ led us to Mary. He brought us to her because he did not want us to journey without a mother, and our people read in this maternal image all the mysteries of the Gospel. The Lord did not want to leave the Church without this icon of womanhood. Mary, who brought him into the world with great faith, also accompanies “the rest of her offspring, those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus” (Rev 12:17). The close connection between Mary, the Church and each member of the faithful, based on the fact that each in his or her own way brings forth Christ, has been beautifully expressed by Blessed Isaac of Stella: “In the inspired Scriptures, what is said in a universal sense of the virgin mother, the Church, is understood in an individual sense of the Virgin Mary… In a way, every Christian is also believed to be a bride of God’s word, a mother of Christ, his daughter and sister, at once virginal and fruitful… Christ dwelt for nine months in the tabernacle of Mary’s womb. He dwells until the end of the ages in the tabernacle of the Church’s faith. He will dwell forever in the knowledge and love of each faithful soul”. (Isaac of Stella, Sermo 51: PL 194, 1863, 1865.)

Mary was able to turn a stable into a home for Jesus, with poor swaddling clothes and an abundance of love. She is the handmaid of the Father who sings his praises. She is the friend who is ever concerned that wine not be lacking in our lives. She is the woman whose heart was pierced by a sword and who understands all our pain…. As she did with Juan Diego, Mary offers [us] maternal comfort and love, and whispers in [our] ear: “Let your heart not be troubled… Am I not here, who am your Mother?” (Nican Mopohua, 118-119.)

Reflection:

After Jesus gave us His Mother to be our Mother, the Gospel says that He knew all was finished. Mary is able to turn the stable of our hearts into a home for Jesus, no matter how poor we feel we are. He knew that we needed a Mother to make the journey of Christian faith. In Mary we have a Mother and in the Church we have Mother. As Blessed Isaac of Stella taught us, what we can say about Mary, we can say about the Church. In one of the Church’s sacramentals of healing, the priest prays for the one who “ad Ecclesiae sinum recurrit,” (seeks refuge in the womb of the Church). The womb of Mary is the womb of the Church and that is the place of true liberation and healing. Through Marian consecration we come to see our relationship with the Church as being in the womb of our Mother and we discover the consolation and transformation that come from being so rooted in grace and surrounded by prayer.

Prayer:

Litany of the Holy Spirit or Veni Sancte Spiritus

Rosary (or at least one decade) followed by the Litany of Loreto

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Knowledge of Self Day 18 – Christian “diseases”

Day 18 – Christian “diseases”

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke:

[H]e told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:16-21)

From Pope Francis’s Address to the Roman Curia on December 22, 2014:

The disease of thinking we are “immortal”, “immune” or downright “indispensable”, neglecting the need for regular check-ups. A Curia which is not self-critical, which does not keep up with things, which does not seek to be more fit, is a sick body. A simple visit to the cemetery might help us see the names of many people who thought they were immortal, immune and indispensable! It is the disease of the rich fool in the Gospel, who thought he would live forever (cf. Lk 12:13-21), but also of those who turn into lords and masters, and think of themselves as above others and not at their service. It is often an effect of the pathology of power, from a superiority complex, from a narcissism which passionately gazes at its own image and does not see the image of God on the face of others, especially the weakest and those most in need. The antidote to this plague is the grace of realizing that we are sinners and able to say heartily: “We are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty” (Lk 17:10).

Another disease is the “Martha complex”, excessive busy-ness. It is found in those who immerse themselves in work and inevitably neglect “the better part”: sitting at the feet of Jesus (cf. Lk 10:38-42). Jesus called his disciples to “rest a while” (cf. Mk 6:31) for a reason, because neglecting needed rest leads to stress and agitation. A time of rest, for those who have completed their work, is necessary, obligatory and should be taken seriously: by spending time with one’s family and respecting holidays as moments of spiritual and physical recharging. We need to learn from Qohelet that “for everything there is a season” (3:1-15). …

The disease of gossiping, grumbling and back-biting. I have already spoken many times about this disease, but never enough. It is a grave illness which begins simply, perhaps even in small talk, and takes over a person, making him become a “sower of weeds” (like Satan) and in many cases, a cold-blooded killer of the good name of our colleagues and confrères. It is the disease of cowardly persons who lack the courage to speak out directly, but instead speak behind other people’s backs. Saint Paul admonishes us to do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent” (Phil 2:14-15). Brothers, let us be on our guard against the terrorism of gossip!

Reflection:

We can see how dangerous these “diseases” are when we see that we are in the womb of Mary. When we introduce diseases into the womb, we make that environment toxic and it poisons ourselves as well as others. This damages our own growth as well as the growth of others and if it becomes serious enough, it causes a kind of spiritual abortion. Boasting about our importance can be quickly corrected by remembering that we are infants in the womb—we are not that impressive, we are completely dependent on Mary and we are certainly no more important than all our twins who share the womb with us. Likewise, the idolatry of activism is ridiculous when we realize how limited we are in the womb of Mary. And the toxicity of gossip raises the pH in the womb to dangerous levels and stunts our growth. We can feel the poison of negativity in the amniotic fluid where we are swimming.

Am I impressed with myself? Do I think I am immortal or irreplaceable? Do I work too much, causing me to neglect prayer and proper rest? Do I engage in the terrorism of gossip and make comments that destroy the reputation of others? Let us become little and accept our beloved insignificance in the womb of Mary—our lives do not matter much to the world, but they matter tremendously to our Mother!

Prayer:

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Turm Praesidium

Dominican Litany of Humility

Litany of the Holy Spirit

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Knowledge of Self Day 17 – Pastoral acedia

Day 17 – Pastoral acedia

A Reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Philippians:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil 4:4-7)

From Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation The Joy of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium):

At a time when we most need a missionary dynamism which will bring salt and light to the world, many lay people fear that they may be asked to undertake some apostolic work and they seek to avoid any responsibility that may take away from their free time. For example, it has become very difficult today to find trained parish catechists willing to persevere in this work for some years. Something similar is also happening with priests who are obsessed with protecting their free time. This is frequently due to the fact that people feel an overbearing need to guard their personal freedom, as though the task of evangelization was a dangerous poison rather than a joyful response to God’s love which summons us to mission and makes us fulfilled and productive. Some resist giving themselves over completely to mission and thus end up in a state of paralysis and acedia.

The problem is not always an excess of activity, but rather activity undertaken badly, without adequate motivation, without a spirituality which would permeate it and make it pleasurable. As a result, work becomes more tiring than necessary, even leading at times to illness. Far from a content and happy tiredness, this is a tense, burdensome, dissatisfying and, in the end, unbearable fatigue. This pastoral acedia can be caused by a number of things. Some fall into it because they throw themselves into unrealistic projects and are not satisfied simply to do what they reasonably can. Others, because they lack the patience to allow processes to mature; they want everything to fall from heaven. Others, because they are attached to a few projects or vain dreams of success. Others, because they have lost real contact with people and so depersonalize their work that they are more concerned with the road map than with the journey itself. Others fall into acedia because they are unable to wait; they want to dominate the rhythm of life. Today’s obsession with immediate results makes it hard for pastoral workers to tolerate anything that smacks of disagreement, possible failure, criticism, the cross.

And so the biggest threat of all gradually takes shape: “the gray pragmatism of the daily life of the Church, in which all appears to proceed normally, while in reality faith is wearing down and degenerating into small-mindedness”. A tomb psychology thus develops and slowly transforms Christians into mummies in a museum. Disillusioned with reality, with the Church and with themselves, they experience a constant temptation to cling to a faint melancholy, lacking in hope, which seizes the heart like “the most precious of the devil’s potions”. Called to radiate light and communicate life, in the end they are caught up in things that generate only darkness and inner weariness, and slowly consume all zeal for the apostolate. For all this, I repeat: Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of the joy of evangelization! (Evangelii Gaudium #81-83)

Reflection:

Do I fearfully guard my free time? Am I afraid of being asked to give too much? Have I lost the joy of the Gospel and the joy of sharing the Gospel? Have I become disillusioned with the Church, with my ministry, with others or with myself? If I feel that I cannot do it alone, I am exactly right. Sometimes we settle for that which we believe we can accomplish on our own. When we do that we set our sights so low that we quickly lose inspiration and motivation. Although we are very small, with Mary’s help, by the grace of God we can truly do great things. In fact, if we remain in Mary’s womb, we really let her do great things and we consent to do them with her, as Jesus did when Mary took Him to greet her cousin Elizabeth. Are we willing to accept whatever Mary wants to do with us to spread the Gospel and bring Good News to the poor?

Prayer:

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Turm Praesidium

Dominican Litany of Humility

Litany of the Holy Spirit

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Knowledge of Self Day 16 – Beloved sinners

Day 16 – Beloved sinners; a dignified embarrassment

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke:

There was a man who had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that falls to me.’ And he divided his living between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took his journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in loose living. And when he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country, and he began to be in want. So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would gladly have fed on the pods that the swine ate; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants.” ’ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to make merry. (Luke 15:11-24)

From Pope Francis’s Retreat Meditation on June 2, 2016:

Let us think for a moment about the “embarrassed dignity” of this prodigal yet beloved son. If we can serenely keep our heart balanced between those two extremes – dignity and embarrassment – without letting go of either of them, perhaps we can feel how the heart of our Father beats with love for us. It was a heart beating with worry, as he went up onto the roof to look out. What was he looking at? The possible return of his son… In that moment, in that place where dignity and embarrassment exist side by side, we can perceive how our Father’s heart beats. We can imagine that mercy wells up in it like blood. He goes out to seek us sinners. He draws us to himself, purifies us and sends us forth, new and renewed, to every periphery, to bring mercy to all. That blood is the blood of Christ, the blood of the new and eternal covenant of mercy, poured out for us and for all, for the forgiveness of sins. We contemplate that blood by going in and out of his heart and the heart of the Father. That is our sole treasure, the only thing we have to give to the world: the blood that purifies and brings peace to every reality and all people. The blood of the Lord that forgives sins. The blood that is true drink, for it reawakens and revives what was dead from sin.

In our serene prayer, which wavers between embarrassment and dignity, dignity and embarrassment, both together, let us ask for the grace to sense that mercy as giving meaning to our entire life, the grace to feel how the heart of the Father beats as one with our own. It is not enough to think of that grace as something God offers us from time to time, whenever he forgives some big sin of ours, so that then we can go off to do the rest by ourselves, alone. It is not enough. … the important thing is that each of us feel that fruitful tension born of the Lord’s mercy: we are at one and the same time sinners pardoned and sinners restored to dignity. The Lord not only cleanses us, but crowns us, giving us dignity.

Reflection:

Pope Francis wrote earlier in this meditation, “Mercy, seen in feminine terms, is the tender love of a mother who, touched by the frailty of her newborn baby, takes the child into her arms and provides everything it needs to live and grow (rahamim).” More precisely, rahamim is closely related to the Hebrew word for womb rehem. Learning to balance embarrassment and dignity is another way of describing how we remain in the womb of Mary. We are very small in her womb and we feel how underdeveloped and incapable we are. At the same time, we are in the Seat of Wisdom and we share a home with the Almighty Lord, Jesus Christ as we are being formed into His likeness. We are embarrassed by our weakness, but dignified in the nobility God freely gives us—wrapped in his royal robe and wearing the ring of his royal dignity.

Prayer:

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Turm Praesidium

Dominican Litany of Humility

Litany of the Holy Spirit

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Blessed Emperor Karl von Habsburg

October 21 is the memorial of Blessed Karl von Habsburg, the last Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Blessed Karl is not merely an historical figure of minimal importance or a curiosity of a past age. To the contrary, he remains exemplary in his marriage and fatherhood, in his tireless pursuit of peace in the midst of war, and in the socially responsible way that he governed his people. These are three key themes of the magisterium of Pope Francis and so we can look to Blessed Karl for an example of how to live out what the Pope is teaching us today.

I have explored these connections at greater length in the three-part blog post on the Emperor Karl website.

  1. A man of the family
  2. A man of peace
  3. A socially responsible civil leader

One of the keys to Blessed Karl’s holiness was all the prayer and sacrificed he received from those who dedicated themselves in a special way to this purpose through the Emperor Karl League of Prayer. The League of Prayer still exists today, both as an organ for promotion of the Cause of his Canonization of Blessed Karl but also as an organization dedicated to pray and live as he lived. Perhaps our civil authorities today would be more like Blessed Karl if we dedicated more attention to praying and suffering for them.

Blessed Karl von Habsburg, pray for us!