The Power of Prayer

Is God all-powerful?  When he walked this earth was Jesus God?  Was Jesus all-powerful?  Most Christians would answer “yes” to these questions, and yet we have a scene in the Gospels where Jesus appears to have limited power.

Mark 6: 1-6 tells of Jesus’ return to his hometown of Nazareth where he is rejected.  The neighbors take “offense” at Jesus because he is too familiar to them.  He can’t be a prophet or a wonder-worker.  “Is he not the carpenter?”  As a result, “he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them.  He was amazed at their lack of faith.” 

It seems that Jesus’ power was limited by people’s lack of faith.  This makes sense.  God created humanity so that we—God and us—would work together tending the earth and caring for God’s human family. Being all-powerful, God could have done everything by himself.  But love involves sharing and so God created humanity to share in the work.  Children experience the love of their parents when they are invited to help them in the work that adults do.  They feel special and included.  And so it is with God.

Mary—whom the poet William Wordsworth called “our tainted nature’s solitary boast”—is the model for humanity.  She cooperated completely with God’s grace and became the “Mediatrix of Grace,” the means by which the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity became human.  She was a perfect channel for God’s grace to flow into the world.

Sin and lack of faith block grace’s flow.  Thus Jesus’ powerful love was blocked by his townspeople’s lack of faith.  Conversely, faith-filled prayer and action open channels for God’s powerful grace to enter the world.

When he met with Polish Bishops recently, Pope Francis told them: “We can all have an open heart and think of spending one hour in the parishes, an hour a week, of adoration and prayer. Prayer moves mountains!”  Open hearts, like the Immaculate Heart of Mary, allow the power that created the universe to enter the world. 

The message that Mary gave to three children in Portugal in 1917 was “prayer and penance.”  Mary said that if people prayed, especially a daily Rosary, and offered sacrificial actions like fasting, a greater war than the one that was currently going on could be avoided.  People did not listen and the world endured a second “world war.”

But many people did listen. They prayed and did penance.  In 1989 something happened that those of us who grew up in the 1950’s and ‘60’s never expected.  The Berlin Wall came down. A large portion of it is now on display at Our Lady’s shrine in Fatima.  Then, two years later, the Soviet Union broke up as the Communists lost power. 

But before that, as though to prepare the stage for what many thought was unthinkable—the end of the Soviet Union—prayer wrought another miracle.  On May 13, 1981 Pope John Paul II was shot in St. Peter’s Square.  By all accounts he should have died.  He didn’t and afterwards he attributed his survival to Our Blessed Mother.  He said that while one finger pulled the trigger, another finger guided the bullet millimeters away from certain death.  That bullet now rests in a crown used to honor Our Lady of Fatima.  In the millennial year 2000, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wrote: “That here ‘a mother’s hand’ had deflected the fateful bullet only shows once more that there is no immutable destiny, that faith and prayer are forces which can influence history and that in the end prayer is more powerful than bullets and faith more powerful than armies.”

Perhaps an even greater example of the power of faith-filled prayer is a little known story within a larger event that occurred seventy-one years ago today.  On this day in 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.  Eight blocks from where the bomb went off was the Church of Our Lady’s Assumption. Next door was the rectory where eight Jesuit missionaries resided.  One of them was Fr. Pedro Arrupe who later served as the General of the Jesuits from 1965 to 1983. Another was Fr. Hubert Schiffer who had just finished celebrating Mass and was sitting down to breakfast when the blast occurred. He wrote: “Suddenly, a terrific explosion filled the air with one bursting thunder stroke. An invisible force lifted me from the chair, hurled me through the air, shook me, battered me, whirled me ‘round and round’ like a leaf in a gust of autumn wind.” 

All around there was devastation, but, while damaged, the church and rectory stood and became a makeshift hospital for those who survived the blast. Dr. Stephen Rinehart who worked for the U.S. Department of Defense testified:  

 No way any human could have survived nor should anything have been standing at 1 kilometer.  I think there were a few badly burned survivors at ten to fifteen kilometers (all—except the Jesuits—died within fifteen years of some form of cancer). There are no physical laws to explain why the Jesuits were untouched in the Hiroshima air blast. There is no other actual or test data where a structure such as this was not totally destroyed at this standoff distance by an atomic weapon. All who were at this range from the epicenter should have received enough radiation to be dead within at most a matter of minutes if nothing else happened to them.  There is no known way to design a uranium-235 atomic    bomb, which could leave such a large discrete area intact while destroying everything around it immediately outside the fireball (by shaping the plasma). From a scientific viewpoint, what happened to those Jesuits at Hiroshima still defies all human logic from the laws of physics as understood today (or at any time in the future). It must be concluded that some other (external) force was present whose power and/or capability to transform energy and matter as it relates to humans is beyond current comprehension.       

Fr. Schiffer, who died in 1982, said: “We believe that we survived because we were living the Message of Fatima. We lived and prayed the Rosary daily in that home.” 

The ways of God are mysterious.  The Rosary is not magic.  Somehow God wanted to give a sign of the power of faith-filled prayer and the special protection of Mother Mary, Our Lady of Fatima. 

The question is: do I take faith and prayer seriously?  Events in our lives, in our nation, and in our world test our faith.  It’s easy to get discouraged and give up.  But if prayer can move bullets, bring down the Berlin Wall, and protect eight Jesuits from the atomic bomb, shouldn’t I trust in its power to continue to work wonders?    

Our Lady of Sorrows and Us

Jesus lived, died, and rose to save the world.  But just as God invites humanity to be co-creators, sharing in the work of caring for creation, so God calls each of us to share in the work of salvation. In one sense the work of salvation is complete because of what Jesus did.  But, in another sense, it is ongoing because not everyone knows Jesus, nor has everyone accepted the salvation he won for them.  This is where we come in.  We are called to do what St. Paul said he did in his Letter to the Colossians 1: 24: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church...."

It almost sounds as though Paul is saying that what Jesus did was not sufficient, but he would never say that.  We ought to read this passage in light of St. Paul's other writings, in particular, what he says about the Body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12.  Christ is the Head of the Body.  We are members of the Body, joined to Christ.  What Christ has done, we the Body are now called to do.  When we join our sufferings to the perfect offering of Christ on the cross and at Mass, we play a role in the ongoing work of salvation.

Mary is our model in this.  "Lumen Gentium," the Vatican Council II document on the Church, quotes St. Ambrose and states that "the Mother of God is a type of the Church" (#63).  She stood under the cross of Jesus and did not scream or try to stop the soldiers from crucifying her own flesh and blood. She shared in her Son’s faith that this act of violence would not be the end, that somehow God would bring great good from it, that God was saving the world through it.  She had great faith, but it didn’t take away her own pain and sorrow.

We are called to have that same faith when it comes to our own sufferings.  In "The Joy of the Gospel" Pope Francis wrote these encouraging words: "No single act of love for God will be lost, no generous effort is meaningless, no painful endurance is wasted.  All of these encircle our world like a vital force" (#279).  

Mary, Mother of the Society of Jesus

On this day in 1541, seven months after Pope Paul III gave official approval to the founding of a new religious order, the Society of Jesus, and two weeks after his election as its first General Superior, St. Ignatius and his first companions celebrated Mass at Mary's altar in St. Paul Outside-the-Walls in Rome. Before receiving Holy Communion, Ignatius held the consecrated host and each of the first Jesuits pronounced his vows. Then they received. April 22 is now celebrated in the Jesuits as the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Society of Jesus.

St. Ignatius had a deep devotion to Mary. She played a critical role in his conversion. One night in mid-August, 1521, she, with the Child Jesus, appeared to him.  He writes about this, using the third person, in his Autobiography:

"One night, while he lay awake, he saw clearly the likeness of Our Lady with the Holy Child Jesus, at the sight of which he received most abundant consolation for a considerable period of time. He felt so great a disgust with his past life, especially his sins of the flesh, that he thought all such images which had formerly occupied his mind were wiped out."

On the eve of the Annunciation in 1522, St. Ignatius made an all-night vigil at the Shrine of the Madonna of Montserrat. He left behind his sword and dagger and offered himself to Mary and her Son as their knight.

I've always considered Mary to be the Mother of my Jesuit vocation. As a high school student I began praying the rosary which became a chain linking me to Mary through various tests and trials.  In the past, Jesuits took "vow names" which never replaced their actual name as happens in other religious orders but which were a simple act of devotion. When I pronounced my first vows in 1973, I took the name "Mary." Since my middle initial is "M" for Michael, this has worked out well and whenever I use that initial I think of these two patrons--Michael the Archangel and Mary, Mother of my vocation and of the Society of Jesus.

Jesuits' devotion to Mary clearly shows up in our present pope who often prays to her and visits the Church of St. Mary Major before and after every trip abroad.

Here are the prayers which I and some of my brother Jesuits used as we celebrated Mass together this morning:

Collect:  "Almighty and everlasting God, you chose the Virgin Mary to be the mother of your eternal Word. Make us strong and faithful servants of that Word in the Society of Jesus, which has consecrated itself to you in the presence of Mary, our mother."

Prayer over the Gifts: "Lord God, you made the Virgin Mary a companion in the sufferings of your Son and in the glory of his resurrection. Turn our eyes toward him whom we have pierced, so that, seeking his kingdom on earth, we may enter eternal life with Mary, our mother."

Prayer after Communion: "You have raised up Mary, O Lord, because she believed in your word. By the grace of her Son, may we, who call her blessed, experience the power of her intercession."

Annunciation

I celebrated Mass this morning for the 600 students and faculty of St. Anthony's High School in Milwaukee.  I found it a good opportunity to preach about a very special woman and to encourage the young people to see themselves as loved and chosen by God.

The feast of the Annunciation could also be called the feast of the Conception of Jesus, Only nine more shopping months until Christmas!

We honor Mary today because she said "yes" to God.  No Mary, no Jesus.  It's as simple as that.  In order for the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity to become human, a very special woman was called to be his mother.  This is why we honor Mary.  It was God's plan to save the world through her.  Through her the Son of God took flesh, lived our life, suffered and died and rose from the dead. All to save humanity.  This was Mary's glorious destiny--to be the Mother of God.  This is why we use the words of Luke's Gospel every time we pray the "Hail Mary."

When Mary told the angel Gabriel, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word," Jesus was conceived in her womb through the power of the Holy Spirit.  With Mary's "yes" to God, Jesus was conceived and began to develop cell by cell.  Within three weeks the first physical organ of God-in-the-flesh appeared--his heart.

If you think about, every conception of a new life involves God's intervention.  It takes more than a sperm and an egg to create a new human life.  God is present instilling an immortal soul into the new life developing in a mother's womb.  In this way, every human life is special and, because its beginning involves God's intervention, you could say, "miraculous."

St. John Paul II once said that "each person is unique, precious, and unrepeatable."  There never was another you. Among the billions of people today there isn't another you nor will there ever be.  You are precious to God.  You give God a love and a joy that no other human being can give God because of who you are.

Shortly after he was elected, Pope Benedict XVI said: "We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God."  And God didn't just think of you some nine months and a couple hours before you were conceived. Since the thoughts of God are eternal, God had you in mind from all eternity.

Pope Benedict continued: "Each of us is willed."  God wanted you to exist.  Sometimes people tell me, "I'm an accident.  I'm a mistake.  My parents didn't plan on having me. In fact, they were pregnant with me before they got married and the only reason they got married is because they were pregnant with me.  They shouldn't have gotten married because it didn't work out and they were miserable together. I'm not only a mistake, I'm a bad mistake who made life miserable for my parents."  No, no one is a mistake or an accident in God's eyes.  Because God was present instilling an immortal soul, the principle of life for human beings, God willed or intended that person's conception. No matter what the circumstances of one's conception, God was present willing that person into existence.

"Each of us is loved," the pope went on to say.  Our experience of human love is finite, conditional. We put limits on our love and we tend to think of God's love that way.  But God is infinite and loves you as though you were the only person in the world. St. Francis de Sales once used the example of the sun which shines on the individual flowers of a garden.  Shining on one doesn't mean there is less sunshine for the others.  The sun shines on each flower as though it were the only flower in the garden. If that's true for a creature, the sun, then it is even more true for the Creator of the sun, God, who shines with his love on all the human flowers in the world with equal intensity.

And Pope Benedict said, "each of us is necessary."  You are essential to God's plan just the way Mary was.  Ask yourself, "What is God's plan, God's desire for me?  How is God calling me to bring his love come into the world?"

Shortly after his election Pope Francis said, "For God, we are not numbers, we are important, indeed we are the most important thing to him.... We are what is closest to his heart."

You are so important, that God took flesh, as we celebrate today.  Moreover, in order to save you, that flesh was nailed to a cross and died, as we will celebrate on Good Friday.  But that flesh rose never to die again, as we will celebrate on Easter.  It was all made possible by that special woman, Mary.  As we honor her today, let's thank God for our life and make an offering, asking that God's will may be done in our life as well.

Mary's Motherhood and Ours

Today is the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God.  There are many feasts that celebrate Mary. We recently celebrated her Immaculate Conception--that she was conceived without sin. In August we celebrate her Assumption--that at the end of her earthly life she was taken body and soul into heaven. Now, on the eighth day after Christmas, we celebrate her motherhood.

She is a mother unlike any other mother. First, she is a virgin mother.  Secondly, she is the mother of a child who is God.  Early theologians marvelled that the Creator of the universe, whom the world could not hold, was held in the womb and in the arms of Mary, a creature.

Early Christians were in awe of this and wondered how this could be. Some went so far as to say that while Mary could rightly be called the Mother of Christ she ought not be called the Mother of God. How can God, who is eternal, who has no beginning or end, have a mother who gives him a beginning in time?  The 5th Century Council of Ephesus declared that because Jesus Christ is truly God and truly man and because Mary gave birth to him, she can truly be called the Mother of God. This is a mystery beyond human comprehension.

The mystery continues. As Mother of Jesus Christ, Mary can also be said to be Mother of the Body of Christ, the Church. She is the Mother of all who are united to Jesus, the Head of the Body.

And there is more. We are called to share in the Motherhood of Mary.  Once, according to Matthew's Gospel (12: 26-50), when Jesus was busy teaching in a crowded house, Mary and some other close relatives came and asked to see Jesus.  He asked "Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?"  Then he pointed to his disciples and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother." Whoever listens to the Word, as Mary did, and acts upon it by doing the will of God, is a mother who gives flesh to Jesus, the Word.

Recall that at the Annunciation Mary received the Word of God from the Angel Gabriel. Surrendering to the will of God for her, she conceived the Word in her womb.  Her Immaculate Heart received the Word who became flesh through her.

St. John Paul II, in his encyclical on the Eucharist, called Mary "the Woman of the Eucharist" and said that her "Fiat" or "Yes" to God allowed Jesus to take flesh within her. He said that something analogously happens when we receive the Word-made-flesh, the Body of Christ, in Holy Communion. Our "Amen" is like Mary's "Fiat." The Word takes flesh within us and transforms us. We become what we receive. We become, in Pope Benedict's words at World Youth Day 2005, "the Body of Christ, his own Flesh and Blood."

On this day when we honor the Motherhood of Mary, we also celebrate the World Day of Peace. In a 1974 apostolic exhortation about Mary, Bl. Paul VI wrote about the connection between Mary's Motherhood and Peace: "This celebration ... is meant to commemorate the part played by Mary in this mystery of salvation. ... It is likewise a fitting occasion for renewed adoration of the newborn Prince of Peace, for listening once more to the glad tidings of the angels, and for imploring from God, through the Queen of Peace, the supreme gift of peace. For this reason ... we have instituted the World Day of Peace...."

As Mary gave flesh to Jesus, who is our Peace, so we, members of his Body, give flesh to peace.

Pope Francis' Message for the 2015 World Day of Peace is entitled "No Longer Slaves, But Brothers and Sisters." This comes from St. Paul's Letter to Philemon, a Christian who had a slave named Onesimus who had escaped and, after encountering Paul, was baptized. Paul wrote Philemon asking him to receive Onesimus back not as a slave but as a brother Christian.  With this in mind, Pope Francis wrote about the terrible phenomenon of human trafficking and modern slavery. Though slavery is outlawed throughout the world, tens of millions of people of all ages find themselves victims of various forms of slavery including forced labor, the sex trade and arranged marriages, child soldiers and drug runners, and people held captive by terrorists.

Pope Francis writes: "Today, as in the past, slavery is rooted in a notion of the human person which allows him or her to be treated as an object."  This is a sin against the sanctity of life. Persons, made in the image and likeness of God, are being treated as objects to be used for other people's gain or pleasure.  Such an objectification of the human person is a root cause of conflicts and war.

Pope Francis challenges all of us to view others as sacred, made in the image of God who sent his Son to live and die for them.  We are called to reverence life in a world that sees some human beings as garbage to be disposed of before birth and as burdens to be disposed of when they are no longer productive and become a drain on the economy.  Without such a reverence for the sanctity of human life, there will be no peace.

Peace begins here, in each individual heart, each family, each community.  As we receive the Word of Life, the Prince of Peace, and give flesh to him as members of his Body, we make peace a reality.

The Visitation

The month of May ends with the Feast of the Visitation when we recall how Mary, when she learned that she would be the mother of God’s Son and that her elderly kinswoman Elizabeth was also pregnant, raced off to be with her.  This was no short journey. The drive today is about 90 miles.  Yet Mary hastened to be with Elizabeth and to help her.  Mary, filled with the Holy Spirit, is always the one who loves and who helps those in need.

On May 26, 2013 Pope Francis visited the Roman parish of Sts. Elizabeth and Zechariah where he directed his homily toward the children who were making their First Holy Communion.  He said:

Our Lady, as soon as she had heard the news that she was to be the Mother of Jesus and the announcement that her cousin Elizabeth was expecting a child — the Gospel says — she went to her in haste, she did not wait. She did not say: “But now I am with child I must take care of my health. My cousin is bound to have friends who can care for her”. Something stirred her and she “went with haste” to Elizabeth (cf. Lk 1:39). It is beautiful to think this of Our Lady, of our Mother, that she hastens, because she intends to help. She goes to help, she doesn't go to boast and tell her cousin: “listen, I’m in charge now, because I am the Mother of God!” No, she did not do that. She went to help! And Our Lady is always like this. She is our Mother who always hurries to us whenever we are in need.

It would be beautiful to add to the Litany of Our Lady something like this: “O Lady who goes in haste, pray for us!”  For she always goes in haste, she does not forget her children. And when her children are in difficulty, when they need something and call on her, she hurries to them. This gives us a security, the security of always having our Mother next to us, beside us. We move forward, we journey more easily in life when our mother is near. Let us think of this grace of Our Lady, this grace that she gives us: of being close to us, but without making us wait for her. Always! She — lets us trust in this — she lives to help us. Our Lady who always hastens, for our sake.

Convinced of this, Pope Francis went to the Basilica of St. Mary Major as he prepared to leave Rome recently for the Holy Land.  We too should be convinced that our Blessed Mother will hasten to help us when we turn to her in our need.  

Mary, Mother of Peace

Today we honor Mary, the Holy Mother of God.   She made it all possible.  What does “it” refer to?  Christmas.  Our salvation.  Our union with God.  It all happened through her.
Now the blessing from the Book of Numbers 6:22-27 is fully realized.  God’s face shines forth  in the flesh.  God’s face shines upon us through the face of a baby.  Through Mary, God has given us peace, for Jesus has reconciled us with God after humanity’s rebellion and has made it possible for us to live at peace with one another.

Ultimately peace, like faith, is a gift from God.  Human efforts alone won’t bring it about.  Peace comes from the awareness that we are truly children of God. 

Since the Son of God united His divine nature to our human nature, He has made us all children of God. Moreover, since we are made in the image and likeness of God, you could say that we are all “spittin’ images” of God our Father. We are God’s children and the human family is one.

But even more, for Christians, according St. Paul in Galatians 4:4-7, there is a deeper reality to our identity as God’s children.  We are “adopted,” not in the way humans adopt children. Parents can give many things and much love to their adopted children but they cannot share with them their genetic make-up, their blood, their DNA.  When God adopts children through the sacrament of baptism a real transformation occurs. It is as though God changes our deepest interior, making us His children in reality.

This is the source of peace.

Since the 1960’s, the first day of the calendar year is the World Day of Peace.  Every pope has written a special message for this day and Pope Francis is no exception.  His is entitled “Fraternity: The Foundation and Pathway to Peace.” 

Referring to Matthew 23:8-9, he writes: “The basis of fraternity is found in God’s fatherhood. We are not speaking of a generic fatherhood, indistinct and historically ineffectual, but rather of the specific and extraordinarily concrete personal love of God for each man and woman.”  And, since Jesus shed his Precious Blood in order to save everyone, each person is precious to God.  Now we must see others as precious. As Pope Francis says, “there are no ‘disposable lives.’” 

Since God is Father of all, we are all brothers and sisters. This includes our enemies.  Addressing those who are in conflict with one another, Pope Francis writes: “in the person you today see simply as an enemy to be beaten, discover rather your brother or sister, and hold back your hand! Give up the way of arms and go out to meet the other in dialogue, pardon and reconciliation, in order to rebuild justice, trust, and hope around you!”

Pope Francis concluded his message with a prayer to Mary: “May Mary, the Mother of Jesus, help us to understand and live every day the fraternity that springs up from the heart of her Son, so as to bring peace to each person on this our beloved earth.”

Mary is the Mother of Jesus who is our peace. She shows us that peace is born and nurtured in the heart.  Mary first received the Word of God into her pure and Immaculate Heart and then she conceived Him in her womb.  In her Heart there were no obstacles to God’s will. There was no anxiety or worries, no resentments or anger, no jealousy or competition. Her Heart was totally open to Jesus who is our peace.

This is the scene we have in Luke 2:16-21 where Mary gazes upon the face of the Son of God and her Son, and treasures in her Heart all her moments with Him. 

With Mary as our Mother, we too focus our gaze on Jesus and treasure in our hearts our moments of encounter with Him. We open our hearts to Him and let His peace fill them. If we do this, then the peace that Christ alone can give will overflow into our families, our communities, the world. 

As the Russian Orthodox saint, Seraphim of Sarov, who has been called another St. Francis of Assisi, once said: “Maintain a spirit of peace and you will save a thousand souls.” 

The Heart of Jesus in the Womb

I like to imagine the moment when Mary told the Archangel Gabriel, “let it be done to me according to your word.” At that moment the Holy Spirit overshadowed her and a new life, the likes of which the world had never seen, was conceived in her womb. Cell by cell the child developed. Within three weeks the first organ appeared. His Heart—human and divine—started beating right under the Immaculate Heart of His Mother. 

At Christmas we imagine the Christ Child, just born and lying in a manger. But what about Advent? Can we imagine the Christ Child in the womb of His Mother Mary?  Can we have a devotion to the Child Jesus at this stage of His life? And couldn’t such a devotion help us reverence human life at all its stages?

George A. Peate thinks so. His book, Unborn Jesus Our Hope, reflects on the first nine months of Jesus’ life

as He lived and grew in Mary’s womb. It’s filled with references by Christians of all times and places and denominations. It includes prayers: a Litany of the Unborn Christ Child and a Litany in Honor of Mary, the First Christian. And it makes a strong connection between Sacred Heart devotion and the Pro-Life Movement. Here’s an excerpt:

“And so we picture the unborn baby Jesus within His mother’s womb, skin almost transparent in these early weeks of human life, and His Heart, not yet hidden by a thicker, more developed skin, but visible, actually throbbing, pulsing with divine love for us! This is the miniature reservoir of that one commodity that could purchase the salvation of the entire human race, the blood of God Himself! This Precious Blood is separate and different from His mother’s. A small delicate vial of heavenly medicine. It is a tiny Heart, but proportionately—compared to the rest of its body, during the first and second months—it measures up to nine times the size of the adult heart. Appropriately, the Heart of Unborn Jesus (and His head) dominated His Body: for the incarnation is about God’s Love for us.”

Unborn Jesus Our Hope was published by Life Cycle Books in 2006 and is available at the Unborn WordAlliance. 

Our Lady of Czestochowa

One of my favorite images of the Blessed Virgin Mary is Our Lady of Czestochowa. Of course being 100% Polish could be a reason for this, as well as the fact that in August, 2006 I visited the Polish shrine in which this image resides--Jasna Gora or Bright Hill.  There are various stories about the origin of this image.  Some say that it was painted by the gospel-writer St. Luke. It seems to have made its way to Constantinople, the seat of the Eastern Roman Empire.  From there it went to a castle in Belz, now part of Ukraine but in the 1300's part of the Kingdom of Poland. The castle was attacked by Tartars, one of whom shot an arrow through a window and into the room where the image was kept, piercing the throat of the Madonna.

After the attack was repulsed, Duke Wladyslaw of Opole decided to take the image to a safer place--his home in western Poland. The image was carried in solemn procession. Along the way, the group stopped in the town of Czestochowa to spend the night. In the morning the image was placed in a wagon but the horses refused to move. Wladyslaw prayed for guidance and was inspired to have the image remain in a church on a hill in Czestochowa.  This took place on August 26, 1382.

In 1430 a band of Bohemian Hussites, a heretical Christian sect, stormed the monastery in which the image resided and stole various precious items.  But as they fled, horses pulling the wagon which held the image refused to move. One of the robbers threw the image to the ground and in anger slashed it twice.  As he raised his sword a third time, he fell to the ground and died.  The other robbers fled in fear and the image has remained in Czestochowa ever since.

In time artists have tried to "repair" the damage done by the Tartar arrow and Hussite sword, but each time the wounds mysteriously reappeared.  It would seem that our Blessed Mother, wounded by sin, wounded by humanity's rejection of her and her Son, wants the wounds to remain, just as the wounds on her Son's risen body remain--a sign of the terrible effects of sin and a sign of love.

On May 26, 2006 Pope Benedict visited Czestochowa and prayed before the image. He said the following:

"Just as the Apostles together with Mary 'went to the upper room' and there 'with one accord devoted themselves to prayer' (Acts 1:12,14), so we too have come together today at Jasna Góra, which for us at this hour is the 'upper room' where Mary, the Mother of the Lord, is among us.  Today it is she who leads our meditation; she teaches us how to pray.  Mary shows us how to open our minds and our hearts to the power of the Holy Spirit, who comes to us so as to be brought to the whole world. ...

"My dear friends, we need a moment of silence and recollection to place ourselves in her school, so that she may teach us how to live from faith, how to grow in faith, how to remain in contact with the mystery of God in the ordinary, everyday events of our lives.  With feminine tact and with 'the ability to combine penetrating intuition with words of support and encouragement' (John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater 46), Mary sustained the faith of Peter and the Apostles in the Upper Room, and today she sustains my faith and your faith. ...

"When the Apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, went out to the whole world proclaiming the Gospel, one of them, John, the Apostle of love, took Mary into his home (cf. Jn 19:27). It was precisely because of his profound bond with Jesus and with Mary, that he could so effectively insist on the truth that 'God is love' (1 Jn 4:8,16). These were the words that I placed at the beginning of the first Encyclical of my Pontificate: Deus Caritas Est! This is the most important, most central truth about God. To all for whom it is difficult to believe in God, I say again today: 'God is love'. Dear friends, be witnesses to this truth. You will surely be so if you place yourselves in the school of Mary. Beside her you will experience for yourselves that God is love, and you will transmit this message to the world with the richness and the variety that the Holy Spirit will know how to enkindle."

Happy Solemnity of the Visitation!

For most of the world, today is the Feast of the Visitation, but here, at the Toledo Visitation Monastery, it's a Solemnity, the highest rank for liturgical celebrations.  Thus besides singing the Gloria at Mass today we also prayed the Creed and at the end of Mass had a special Papal Blessing.  That's because this is the patronal feast of the Visitation Order. 

Writing about the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, Wendy Wright captures well the spirit of the Visitation Sisters.  The following passage from her book Heart Speaks to Heart: The Salesian Tradition speaks of the place that the mystery of the Visitation held for the founders, St. Jane Frances de Chantal and St. Francis de Sales:

"It was the Virgin, dear to Jane's own heart since childhood, who was the patroness of the fledgling foundation. And it was the biblical image of Mary's visit to her cousin Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-56) that summarized in iconic fashion the spirit of the new congregation. The mystery of the Visitation for Jane and Francis summed up all the Christian mysteries, and as such it was first and foremost a mystery that expressed the dynamics of love. ... Since love wants to be shared, it likes to visit. Indeed, the mystery of the Incarnation, captured in the biblical scene of the Annunciation, was seen as God's 'kiss' to humanity, God's loving union with humankind through Mary, the spouse and lover. ... Having been visited and prompted, Mary in her turn recapitulates this loving dynamic: she hastens to the hill country and the house of her cousin Elizabeth. There, these two pregnant women meet--one older, long barren and now expecting, the other young and ripe with Love's own longing for the world" (pp. 52-3).

Two hallmarks of the spirituality of the Visitation are humility and gentleness.  God visited Mary with humility and gentleness as the Holy Spirit overshadowed her. Divine humility and gentleness are seen in how God comes to us: not with an army of angels to force the divine plan of love on the world, but as a tiny baby to attract and invite humanity's loving response.

I've often said that humility is not thinking less of oneself but thinking of oneself less.  It's not putting oneself down but taking the attention off oneself.  We see this in Mary after the Annunciation.  She does not think of herself but of her elderly cousin and so she races to her.  At their meeting, Elizabeth praises Mary as "most blessed ... among women."  Mary accepts this praise, recognizing that "all generations will call me blessed," but then she humbly gives credit where credit is due saying, "the Almighty has done great things for me." True humility is truthful and it involves getting the focus off  oneself and onto God and neighbor. 

Mary carried Jesus to Elizabeth. In doing so she was, as Blessed John Paul II put it, "the first tabernacle in history."   He wrote the following in his last encyclical: "When, at the Visitation, she bore in her womb the Word made flesh, she became in some way a “tabernacle” – the first “tabernacle” in history – in which the Son of God, still invisible to our human gaze, allowed himself to be adored by Elizabeth, radiating his light as it were through the eyes and the voice of Mary."

Pope John Paul also wrote that Mary's "Fiat" at the Annunciation--"let it be done to me according to your word"--is echoed in the "Amen" spoken when we receive Holy Communion. In the Eucharist we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ into ourselves. He joins Himself to us in an intimate union in which the two become one flesh (see Ephesians 5: 31-2).  In that sense we too, one with the Body of Christ, become tabernacles carrying Christ into the world. We become "monstrances" who radiate His light through our eyes and voices. 

But it takes great humility to do this.  It means, in the words of St. John the Baptist, "He must increase; I must decrease" (John 3: 30).  This is the goal of every Christian and the Visitation Sisters embody this ideal in a special way for us.

Our Lady of the Way

While today is the feast of Mary, Help of Christians, and the feast of Our Lady of Sheshan in China, it's also a Marian feast that my community, the Jesuits, celebrate--Our Lady of the Way or Madonna della Strada.  This was the name of the church where, in 1538, St. Ignatius and his first companions began celebrating Mass, hearing confessions, and teaching children when they arrived in Rome.  The pastor of this parish, Fr. Peter Codacio, was happy for the help and in time became the first Italian to enter the newly formed Society of Jesus.  This church was then given to the Jesuits who rented a house next door and made it the center for their ministries in Rome.  After his death in 1556 St. Ignatius was buried in front of the main altar of this church. 

Because the church was tiny and old, a new one was built--The Holy Name of Jesus or the Gesu.  All that was left of the old church was the image of Our Lady of the Way which was placed in a small chapel dedicated to her and located to the left of the main altar. 

St. Ignatius always saw himself as a pilgrim and the order he founded was designed to be mobile. It makes sense that Providence would have the first Jesuit church be one that honored our Lady of the Way.  Whenever I begin a trip
 I pray a Memorare and close with these words "Our Lady of the Way, pray for us." 

Holy Name of Mary

Today's feast of the Holy Name of Mary was first celebrated in Spain in 1513 but was extended to the whole Church as an act of thanksgiving by Pope Innocent XI. What was he thankful for? The victory of Christians forces over the Turkish army which had besieged the city of Vienna for two months. Pope Innocent XI had appealed to the leaders of Europe to come to the aid of Vienna and on August 15, 1683, King Jan Sobieski of Poland, answered the call and brought together their armies. On the way to Vienna, he and the army that began to gather, stopped in Czestochowa and prayed before the image of Our Lady that is there. Marching toward Vienna, the army prayed the rosary and the king gave them for their battle cry "In the Name of Mary: Lord God, help!"

Here is a description of the Battle of Vienna from Adam Zamoyski's book The Polish Way.

They reached the heights of the Kahlenberg just before nightfall. From this vantage-point the king and his generals surveyed the great plain stretching into the distance, cut across by the winding course of the Danube. At their feet lay the city of Vienna. Only the occasional flash of a cannon from its battered ramparts and the distress-rockets rising periodically into the evening sky from the tower of St. Stephen's Cathedral confirmed that after sixty days of siege the garrison was still holding out.

The proud Habsburg capital was dwarfed by a larger city, a sprawling encampment of many thousand tents which pullulated with a quarter of a million soldiers, slaves, camp-followers and houris; with horses, camels and buffalo. ...

"He's badly camped--we shall beat him!" said the king, turning to his generals. Few of them shared his confidence, but they trusted his experience, his reputation, and the renown of the strange-looking regiments he had brought with him. A beacon was lit on the heights to inform the defenders of the dying city that help was at hand. This signal did not unduly worry Kara Mustafa. He had over a hundred thousand fighting men securely entrenched with plenty of artillery, and he was convinced that no serious threat could come from the Kahlenberg: a large army would have chosen a longer route through the plain. His own army did not fear the solid but slow-moving Austrian and German troops, their unadventurous generals or their pusillanimous emperor, who had abandoned his capital. The only Christian general they held in awe was Jan Sobieski, the King of Poland. But he, Kara Mustafa believed, was still hundreds of miles away in Krakow.

Just before dawn on the following day, 12 September 1683, the King of Poland attended Mass in the ruins of an old convent on the Kahlenberg. ... Only about one third of the 68,000 troops were Polish--the rest were Germans, Italians, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Scots and Irishmen. ... The king felt tempted to put off the decisive battle to the following day, even though this would give the Turks time to turn the heavy guns bombarding Vienna to face his army. ... Instinct made the king change his mind....

Zamoyski goes on to describe the battle in which the Polish cavalry or Husaria, with eagle feathers on their backs rising above their heads, cut through the Turkish encampment and sent the Turkish army .

Then, he continues:

This battle, which was crucial to the future of the whole of Europe, had not been hard-fought, and the casualties on both sides were light. It had been won principally by the prestige of Jan Sobieski and his army. In 1683 Poland was the largest state in Europe....

As Pope Innocent XI recognized, there was another reason for the victory. Grace came to the aid of nature and that grace came through the powerful intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our secularized world tends not to see it that way and so today we tend to rely more on human than heavenly means in the battles we face. Today's feast is a reminder to seek and to trust in heavenly help, especially the help of her whom the first book of the Bible prophesied would crush the serpent (see Genesis 3:15).

The Visitation

The last few weeks have been very busy at the Apostleship of Prayer and they have culminated with today's annual meeting of our board of directors.  Fr. Joseph Koterski, S.J. has served for three consecutive five year terms, which is the limit.  He has seen the Apostleship through a significant time of change and renewal, serving a number of those years as president of the board.  We began our meeting with Mass and in his homily he made a comment that I want to share.

He said that the translation for the beginning of Mary's Magnificat, the great prayer of praise that she spoke in response to her cousin Elizabeth's words upon meeting her at the Visitation, is not a good one.  The current translation, in trying to make Mary's prayer better understood, loses something of the original Greek and the Latin and the English of the older Douhay translation.  In the current translation we have: "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; ..."  This is very different from the word which gives us the title of this prayer--Magnificat.  In Latin we have: "Magnificat anima mea Dominum."  Or, as the Douhay translation goes: "My soul magnifies the Lord."

Fr. Koterski thought that the translators were perhaps afraid that "magnifies" would make it sound as if Mary was "making God greater" or adding to God's greatness.  So, he speculated, they chose to have Mary saying that her soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.  I agree with Fr. Koterski that something is lost in this translation.  The something is the great mystery of how humans can cooperate with God and "magnify" his greatness.  When Mary said "yes" to God's will, the greatness of God's love became even greater because through Mary's cooperation God became flesh.  The Son of God shared our human nature.  When Jesus was conceived in Mary's womb, he grew, becoming physically greater.  In a very real sense Mary, always with the help of God's grace, made God greater, just as creation is made greater by the incarnation, the Word of God becoming flesh.

All of us, in our own way, when we say "yes" as Mary did, "magnify" God's greatness.  Perhaps the analogy of a magnifying glass can help.  The sun is powerful and burns, but the power of the sun can be concentrated and magnified through a magnifying glass.  So too the Son of God.  He is all-powerful, but he loves us so much that he invites us to share in his work of redemption.  Our lives, like the life of Mary, magnify God's power, concentrating it in the places where we live and work and recreate.  Like Mary, we give flesh to the Son of God because we are members of his Body.  God is great.  We cannot really add to God's greatness.  But his grace at work in us allows us to become magnifying glasses for his love and power to enter the world.  Like a good parent showing love for his or her children by inviting them to share in the work of cooking or fixing, God shows his love for all his children by inviting us to share in his work.  Though it makes no mathematical sense, his infinite love becomes greater by our magnification which is all the work of his grace.  This is why Mary also said: "the Almighty has done great things for me!"

Mary, Model of Womanhood

That was the theme of the retreat I gave last weekend to 90 women at the Sacred Heart Retreat Center in Alhambra, California. From Friday evening to Sunday afternoon we prayed together and I gave five talks and two homilies.

The talks were entitled: "Listen Like Mary," "A Woman and a Snake," "The Genius of Woman," "Mary our Model," and "St. Therese, a Child of Mary." To help me prepare I used the following resources: "Mulieris Dignitatem," Pope John Paul's 1988 Apostolic Letter to Women; Pope John Paul's 1995 Letter to Women, on the occasion of the United Nations Conference in Beijing; the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's 2004 "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World;" and Alice von Hildebrand's little book "The Privilege of Being a Woman."

This is a topic that has interested me for a while. In the 1960's Dr. Karl Stern, a Jewish Freudian psychiatrist who became a Catholic, wrote a book entitled "The Flight from Woman." Part of the back cover's description goes like this: "The scientific revolution of the last 300 years has yielded, in Dr. Stern's view, a de-feminization and de-humanization of society, in the sense that it is a rejection of the kind of wisdom, called sophia, that man comprehends intuitively. 'If we equate the one-sidedly rational and technical with the masculine,' he states, 'there arises the ghastly spectre of a world impoverished of womanly values.'"

More recently, Pope Benedict spoke about the need for the complementarity of the sexes. In an address that he gave in Luanda, Angola on March 22, 2009, he said:

Man and woman are both called to live in profound communion through a reciprocal recognition of one another and the mutual gift of themselves, working together for the common good through the complementary aspects of masculinity and femininity. Who today can fail to recognize the need to make more room for the “reasons of the heart”? In a world like ours, dominated by technology, we feel the need for this feminine complementarity, so that the human race can live in the world without completely losing its humanity. Think of all the places afflicted by great poverty or devastated by war, and of all the tragic situations resulting from migrations, forced or otherwise. It is almost always women who manage to preserve human dignity, to defend the family and to protect cultural and religious values.

I enjoyed the retreat very much and hope to return to Alhambra to give the retreat again in the Fall. Truly I was "blessed among women!"

Old St. Joseph's Church

I've been having a busy Advent. On the First Sunday of Advent I was still in Rome for the meeting of the International Advisory Council of the Apostleship of Prayer. Last weekend I was in Alhambra, California at Sacred Heart Retreat House for their annual Advent Retreat. And this weekend I'm preaching at all the Masses at Old St. Joseph's Church in Philadelphia. I'm here to lead a parish mission which begins this evening.

Today, at 5 P.M., we'll celebrate Vespers for this Gaudete Sunday. My talk is entitled "Heart Calls to Heart: Deepening Our Personal Relationship with Jesus." Tomorrow evening at 7:15, in the context of an Advent Reconciliation Service, I'll talk about "Meeting the Merciful Heart of Jesus." On Tuesday we will close the mission with Exposition and Benediction and a talk entitled "Take, Lord, Receive: Living a Eucharistic Life."

Old St. Joseph's Church is the Jesuit church in Philadelphia and its oldest Catholic church. It was built in an alleyway at a time in U.S. history when most of the original 13 colonies did not allow Catholics to practice their faith.

Periodically the Magis Center for Catholic Spirituality asks me to write a daily reflection for their subscribers. Below I've included my brief reflections for today and tomorrow.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

“Pray without ceasing.” Thus wrote St. Paul and over the centuries people have tried to figure out how to do this. For some, primarily in the Eastern Churches, it has meant praying “The Jesus Prayer”: “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Or simply, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,” uniting each phrase with one’s breath.

The Apostleship of Prayer encourages another approach—the Morning Offering. Here’s how the great Jesuit Fr. Walter Ciszek, whose cause for beatification has been opened, described this prayer in the account of his imprisonment in the Soviet Gulag and exile, He Leadeth Me:

In my opinion the Morning Offering is still one of the best practices of prayer—no matter how old-fashioned some may think it. For in it, at the beginning of each day, we accept from God and offer back to him all the prayers, works, and sufferings of the day, and so serve to remind ourselves once again of his providence and his kingdom. If we could only remember to spend the day in his presence, in doing his will, what a difference it would make in our own lives and the lives of those around us! We cannot pray always, in the sense of those contemplatives who have dedicated their whole lives to prayer and penance. Nor can we go around abstracted all day, thinking only of God and ignoring our duties to those around us, to family and friends and to those for whom we are responsible. But we can pray always by making each action and work and suffering of the day a prayer insofar as it has been offered and promised to God.

The Morning Offering, combined with an Examen or Evening Review of the day we have offered, can help us to seek and find God in all things, in all the people and events of our daily lives. In this way we better able to “pray without ceasing.”

Monday, December 12, 2011

Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe! Viva! Today we honor our Blessed Mother under her title “Our Lady of Guadalupe” and we remember how in December, 1531 she appeared to a humble Indian, St. Juan Diego, and gave him a miraculous image of herself as proof for the bishop of her appearance. The image, on material that should have disintegrated long ago, can be seen today in Mexico City.

When she appeared to Juan, she affectionately called him “Juanito” or “Johnny,” and said:

Know for certain, smallest of my children, that I am the perfect and perpetual Virgin Mary, Mother of the True God through whom everything lives, the Lord of all things near and far, the Master of heaven and earth. I am your merciful Mother, the merciful mother of all of you who live united in this land, and of all humanity, of all those who love me. Hear and let it penetrate your heart, my dear little one. Let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you. Let nothing alter your heart, or your face. Am I not here who am your mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else that you need? Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain.

St. Ignatius had a deep love for the Blessed Virgin Mary and he often turned to her when he needed special help. He recommends the same to us during key meditations in the Spiritual Exercises. As Jesus could not refuse his mother’s request at Cana (see John 2: 1-11), so, St. Ignatius was convinced, that if we go to Jesus with his mother and then with Jesus and Mary to the Father, we will receive what we need.

The Assumption

Yesterday we celebrated Mary's birthday in heaven. Though we also celebrate the Blessed Virgin Mary's conception (December 8) and her birth (September 8), we remember her as well on the day she passed from this life to the next. This is the usual date when a saint is honored: their birthday in heaven. But in Mary's case, we have an extra reason to celebrate. We believe that Jesus not only welcomed her soul into heaven but also her body.

This makes absolute sense. One of Mary's titles is "Ark of the New Covenant." The Ark of the Covenant was the the special chest which the Israelites carried through the desert and into the Promised Land. It contained signs of God's guidance and care--the tablets of stone on which were inscribed the commandments that God had given to the Israelites to help them know how to live; some of the manna or bread-like substance with which God fed the People during their journey through the desert. Mary is truly an Ark as well because she carried within herself the New Law of Love and the Bread of Life--Jesus himself. Through Mary, God was more present to the world than ever before.

According to Blessed John Paul II, writing in his last encyclical letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia #55, "When, at the Visitation, she bore in her womb the Word made flesh, she became in some way a 'tabernacle' – the first 'tabernacle' in history – in which the Son of God, still invisible to our human gaze, allowed himself to be adored by Elizabeth, radiating his light as it were through the eyes and the voice of Mary." Thus it is altogether appropriate that no corruption should touch the Ark of the New Covenant, the first tabernacle in history.

We too receive the Bread of Life into our bodies. Blessed John Paul II also writes: "At the Annunciation Mary conceived the Son of God in the physical reality of his body and blood, thus anticipating within herself what to some degree happens sacramentally in every believer who receives, under the signs of bread and wine, the Lord's body and blood." We too, in a mysterious and sacramental way, become tabernacles.

However, we have sinned and, unlike the sinless Blessed Virgin Mary, we must experience the effects of sin in our bodies--death and the corruption that follows it. In the words of Genesis 3: 19: "Dust you are and to dust you shall return."

Christ's Resurrection and Mary's Assumption are our hope. Though sin leads to the corruption of our bodies, Christ promises to share the fruits of the Resurrection with us. He began with his own Mother Mary. Our bodies are not meant for corruption and annihilation but will one day, in a mysterious way, be joined to our souls and given a new and eternal life. Because we have eaten the Bread of Life, because we have become tabernacles for Christ truly present in the Eucharist, we too will one day be in heaven body and soul, just like Mary, just like Jesus.

Receiving the Word

Today I celebrated Mass with the Sisters of St. Francis, the group that owns the building in which the national offices of the Apostleship of Prayer are located. Here is a summary of what I said in my homily.

According to our First Reading (Isaiah 55: 10-11), God's word is powerful and universal. God's word accomplishes what it was sent to do. In Genesis we see that when God spoke, creation came out of nothing. Like rain, God's word comes to the whole world; it comes to the just and the unjust. God sows the word, scattering it over a variety of terrains and peoples, as we read in the Gospel.

But, as we hear in the Second Reading (Romans 8: 18-23), "all creation is groaning." All creation, including ourselves, is made for more than what we currently experience. We're made for more than sin and its effect, death. We're made for what Isaiah prophesied in Chapter 11: 1-9--a peaceable kingdom where there will be total harmony, a time when "the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" (verse 9). When will this be? In another letter of St. Paul's, Ephesians, we hear that it will be when our destiny is fulfilled, when the union for which we are made will be consummated, when God will be "all in all" (1: 22). Or, as Paul puts it a few chapters later, when we and all creation will "be filled with the fullness of God" (3: 19). In short, the groaning will be over when the seed of God's word is received and brings forth the fruit of eternal life.

The seed, the word, is a person. It is Jesus, the very Word of God. After the 2008 Synod of Bishops, Pope Benedict wrote the Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini in which he said that the Word of God is more than a book, more than the Scriptures. It is the Living Word whom we encounter through the Scriptures. Throughout Verbum Domini Pope Benedict speaks about the "encounter" and the "relationship" to which we are called and which is facilitated through the Scriptures.

Jesus is the Word-Made-Flesh, God's perfect communication to creation. But communication is a two-way street. Spouses know this well. If one of them is reading the paper or watching television or surfing the Internet and the other is talking, communication does not occur. "Huh? What was that you were saying?" is the response to the one who asks a question, hears no response, and declares "You aren't listening!" God wants communication with us, the basis for a relationship. God does not want to talk at us but to us. God wants us to listen and receive His Word. God wants to talk with us, eager for our response to His communication. In Verbum Domini 86-87 Pope Benedict writes about this process which is called "lectio divina," divine or sacred reading. It involves not only listening to God speak through the Scriptures but also responding in prayer and in action, in the way we live our lives.

Prayer isn't easy. Many people get discouraged because as they read from a book or from the Bible they become distracted. The words seem to pass before their eyes while the thoughts in their minds are very different. This seems to be natural. Our minds always seem to race with thousands of thoughts. This is even more true today when so many distractions--radio, television, the Internet--are part of our daily lives. It isn't easy to focus on the words of a prayer or of the Bible. It requires hard work and discipline. When our minds wander away from the words on the page, we ought not get discouraged but should simply bring the words back into focus.

The ultimate example of this is the Blessed Virgin Mary. She was receptive to the Word, not passive. She had focus. Her Immaculate Heart was not filled with the birds and weeds of temptation and distraction. Her Pure Heart was purely open and devoted to the will of God. And, as St. Augustine said, after receiving the Word into her Heart, she then conceived the Word in her womb. She received the Word first into her Heart and then gave flesh to that Word.

Every time we celebrate Mass we do the same. We encounter the Word in the proclamation of the Scriptures and in the Sacrament. We open our minds and hearts to receive Him. We open our mouths to praise Him and to receive Him into our bodies. We receive the Word so that He might be "all-in-all" in us. We receive the Word and are transformed. We receive the Word-Made-Flesh, His very Body and Blood, and become what we receive. Having received the Word in the Scriptures and Sacrament, we now give Him flesh and bring Him to others.

Door County Weekend

Though I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I'd never been to Door County, the peninsula that sticks out into Lake Michigan and forms the bay for which the city of Green Bay was named. I'd never been there, that is, until this weekend.

The Diocese of Green Bay has a gem called "Holy Name Retreat House" that is located on Chambers Island, a 45 minute boat ride from the harbor in the town of Fish Creek. I gave a retreat there from Friday to Sunday on the theme "Put out into the Deep: Entering into the Heart of Jesus." My first talk was the homily at Mass on Friday evening and the two talks on Saturday were "The True Love Story: the Sacred Heart of Jesus" and "Entering into the Heart of Jesus through Word and Sacrament." On Saturday evening we celebrated a reconciliation service during a holy hour of exposition, adoration, and benediction. The retreat ended on Sunday morning with a talk on "Living in Union with the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus through the Apostleship of Prayer" and with Mass for which some of the 60 or so "Islanders" joined us. Holy Name Retreat House, which is celebrating its 60th year, is a beautiful, holy place, one of only two English-speaking island retreat houses in the world, and I highly recommend it.

On my way to Door County I stopped at the shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, the first and only Church-approved Marian apparition site in the U.S. There is a small church and in the crypt under it is a statue marking the place where Mary appeared in 1859 to a twenty-eight year old Belgian immigrant named Adele Brise.


I also visited the Catholic Youth Expedition camp located in Baileys Harbor. I know several of the staff members and it was a pleasure to spend some time with them, get a tour of the facility, meet some of the other young and enthusiastic staff members, pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy with them, and have lunch. They were getting the place ready for the 140 people who were coming for the Father's Day Weekend Family Expedition.




Though it was a grace to experience for the first time God's beautiful creation--Door County--I am savoring the greater grace of experiencing God's work at the shrine and in the lives of the enthusiastic and faith-filled people at the Catholic Youth Expeditions and Holy Name Retreat House.

"In My 'Yes', Find Yours"

Last Monday, on the flight back to Milwaukee from Los Angeles, I was able to read Pope Benedict's Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation "Vebum Domini" or "The Word of the Lord." A Synod of Bishops meets periodically and the last such meeting was in October, 2008. In 2010 Pope Benedict issued his reflections based on the planning documents and discussions of the Synod. That's what "Verbum Domini" is.

Three passages of that document speak very well to the "spirituality of offering."

1. "In stressing faith's intrinsic summons to an ever deeper relationship with Christ, the word of God in our midst, the Synod also emphasized that this word calls each one of us personally, revealing that life itself is a vocation from God. In other words, the more we grow in our personal relationship with the Lord Jesus, the more we realize that he is calling us to holiness in and through the definitive choices by when we respond to his love in our lives, taking up tasks and ministries which help to build up the Church" (#77).

Our lives are a response. Each of us is called to respond to the great love that God has shown us when he offering everything to and for us. Our response depends upon the depth of our relationship with God. If our relationship is superficial, our response and our lives will be superficial. If our relationship with God is deep, our response and our lives will have depth.

2. "In the word of God proclaimed and heard, and in the sacraments, Jesus says today, here and now, to each person: 'I am yours, I give myself to you'; so that we can receive and respond, saying in return: 'I am yours'" (#51).

Jesus gives himself to us totally as the Word-made-flesh who continues to give himself to us totally in the Eucharist. In our Daily Offering we commit ourselves to making a return of love for love.

3. "The Gospel, on the other hand, reminds us that every moment of our life is important and must be lived intensely..." (#99).

Every moment of our lives is either a "yes" to God or a "no." Every moment either builds the civilization of love or contributes to the culture of death, the consequence of sin. Every moment can be lived intensely because it can be united to Christ's perfect offering on the cross and in the Mass.

Yesterday I was the guest spiritual director for Relevant Radio's daily call-in spiritual direction show, "The Inner Life." The focus of the program was "Marian Devotions." It was a lively show with several people calling in to share the story of the role that various devotions and prayers to Mary had played in their lives. A man named Dan talked about how had once questioned prayer to Mary and its significance. One day in prayer he heard in his heart these words: "In my 'Yes,' find yours."

I wrote those words down. Mary is the greatest example we have of responding totally to God's love. She said "Yes" with no "ifs," "ands," or "buts." In her "Yes" we can truly find the response to God's love that we want to make.

Consecration

This evening I am going to celebrate Mass for a group of women who support one another in their spiritual lives. Part of that support has, over the years, included making and renewing the St. Louis de Montfort Consecration to Mary. I joined them in preparing for and then making this Consecration on December 8, 2003, a few months after becoming the U.S. director of the Apostleship of Prayer. We will renew the Consecration tonight and this is what I'll say in my homily.

Our first reading (Acts 8: 1b-8) begins on a very negative note--"a severe persecution of the Church in Jerusalem"--and ends on a very positive note--"There was great joy in that city [of Samaria]." What happened in the intervening verses to bring about such a change?

The persecution led the Christians of Jerusalem to leave the city and to scatter "throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria." They brought with them the Good News of Jesus. They brought healings, both physical and spiritual. Would these Christians have scattered had they not been persecuted? We don't know if they would have followed the command of Jesus to "make disciples of all nations" (see Matthew 28: 19), but we do know that God allowed the persecution to take place and used it to move the Church beyond Jerusalem. This is another example of what St. Paul wrote in Romans 8: 28: "We know that all things work for good for those who love God."

We struggle to believe that. Suffering seems pointless. We cannot see its value. We cannot see its effects other than the negative ones. Yet, as the Church has taught from the beginning, suffering has redemptive value. Blessed John Paul II was an example of that.

In Lent 2002, he asked Jean Vanier, the founder of L'Arche (The Ark), an international network of communities in which volunteers live with people who are mentally disabled, to come to Rome to address the press conference at which his Lenten Message was released. John Paul was 81 and suffering from Parkinson's. He was stooped, he walked with a cane, he slurred his speech, and he drooled. Vanier said the following:

"He's never been more beautiful. It is a blessing to have someone so fragile--he is an incredible sign for the world. He is teaching an incredible lesson in assuming his disability, his fragility and trusting in St. Paul's words: 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'

"There is a great mystery around people with disabilities. It is a scandal, and we cannot underestimate the pain. The most oppressed people in the world are those with disabilities--in France, 96% of women who find out that they are carrying a child with disabilities will opt for an abortion. The disabled are often made to feel guilty for existing.

"It is scandalous, but it is the same scandal as the Cross. Many handicapped children cry out: 'My God, my God, why have I been abandoned?' It is the same cry from the Cross. This is the mystery--those who appear to be less human teach us to be human and those who are most rejected are those who heal us."

This is the lesson of Jesus that we are all called to follow. In today's Gospel (John 6: 35-40), Jesus says, "I am the bread of life." These are more than words, more than a metaphor. In John 12: 24, Jesus said: "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit." Jesus is the grain that dies, the grain that is ground up to form bread to be consumed and give life. According to Pope Benedict, Jesus, at the Last Supper, anticipated his death on the cross and transformed it. In his homily at the end of World Youth Day 2005, he said:

"By making the bread into his Body and the wine into his Blood, he anticipates his death, he accepts it in his heart, and he transforms it into an action of love. What on the outside is simply brutal violence--the Crucifixion--from within becomes an act of total self-giving love. This is the substantial transformation which was accomplished at the Last Supper and was destined to set in motion a series of transformations leading ultimately to the transformation of the world when God will be all in all (1 Corinthians 15: 28)."

Jesus can give life because he died. In today's Gospel Jesus goes on to say that he came to do one thing--the will of the Father which he says is "that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day." His entire will is united to the will of the Father which is that all people may come to eternal life in heaven.

Consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary is one practical way that we follow the example of Jesus. In this consecration we offer ourselves to the Mother of Christ so that she in turn will offer us to him. She will purify all that is not worthy of God. She will complete what is lacking. In offering ourselves to Jesus through Mary, we declare that we want to die to ourselves, to our self-will. We declare that we want to surrender ourselves completely to the will of the Father, as both Jesus and Mary did, trusting that God will make everything work together for our good and the good of those with whom and for whom we live our lives.