RAnn of This,That and the Other Thing hosts Sunday Snippets—A Catholic Carnival. Join us or just check out our posts. This is a great way to share your posts from the past week.
Here are my snippets from the week:
Tough As Nails – Address to God
Incredible Man Adopts 50 Babies – video
Image via Wikipedia
Praise like cascading waters, like rushing rivers,
Praise like flying birds, and flight of eagles.
Praise like thundering herds cross vast expanse.
Praise written cross skies in clouds and drifting mists.
Praise with the quaking aspen. Praise golden and blissful.
Praise to the heavens, to the highest heavens.
Heartfelt and hallowed, on angels’ wings and from the mouths of babes.
Hush; listen in silence.
Creation, on tip toe, peering beyond Time to Eternity.Time poised on the brink of the Eternal, awaiting Your Word.
Praise from the heart, one poor and yearning heart.
Come, O Immortal. Come!
By Joann Nelander
by Bro. Lawrence Lew
Mary, Mother,
grace-filled vessel,
poised throughout your life
to receive God’s word.Always listening,
by obedience wooing,
caressing to your heart
the holy word of God
from your holy infancy.You conceived in your heart
our God eternal,
Before He entered
your virginal and immaculate Womb.Grace upon grace
Your beauty unfolded
in blossom so rare
upon this Earth.Season upon season,
you moved in silence hidden,
in prayer secure.O Mary Mother,
with kiss so sweet,
lavish upon me
Thy Holy Maternity.I entrust to your sublimity
my formation within my mother’s womb,
Make happy that dear chamber,
in which my life and love
were bequeathed and body grown.“Behold your Mother,”
He said from His Cross.
Now, do I behold you,
and take you to my heart.Speak here the words
you whispered in Christ’s ear
as He laid his little head
upon your breast.Jesus received from you
milk and kindness
with gentle regard.
Caress now my humanity.Make me ever your home,
as I welcome you to my soul,
Make me your hearth,
with fires burning bright.Purify my moments
and sanctify my soul.
By virtue, virtue of your wedded Spouse,
petition the Holy Spirit of Your Son.Send angels, as you once did stewards,
to wait upon the words of your Son,
Miracles followed
on your behest at Cana.I wait now and ever in your arms,
embraced as the Christ Child.
Look upon me, dear Mother
and heal my wounded yet happy heart.By Joann Nelander
Brian Burch and CatholicVote.org put together this video to show you what the Catholic vote looks like.
by Jobokai/Photobucket
We are willing to discard the person for the part.
“We’ve made great strides”, “…a long way, Baby.”
You and Your creation shall serve us.
Yes, that is our “Way”.It makes perfect sense to us.
After all, You are invisible,
as invisible as a child within the womb,
…that is, until the flesh is torn away.
We have the technology.See, no cringing here. “Just do it!”
We’re tough as nails.
You are familiar with nails?
Yes, tough as nails.
In this world you have to be!Hello, (knock,knock). Are You there?
…. See, He doesn’t care.
You hold Your anger, so we say,
“Where is this God of yours?”.Our world crumbles,
Chaos all around.
Evidence of Your absence or Your ire?
It doesn’t matter.
You are the Past. We are Now!If I pull Your beard, will You awaken.
Are You like us?
Will You take a poll
or turn Your blind eyes?In Your retirement or death,
we’ve found our voice. We’ve found our fist!
Not to worry. We’ve come a long way;
Crowned ourselves God!By Joann Nelander
Image via Wikipedia
Here I am Lord,sitting, kneeling, prostrate in spirit before You, adoring. Who You are in Your glory lies hidden under the appearance of this Holy Bread before me.
You have revealed to Your Church the wonder,and magnificence of Your living Presence. With Mother Church, I extol Your beauty. Truths come to mind and I give assent.
I am married to You, O Holy Bridegroom. In the fullness of time, I will embrace You with a glorified vision and body, but, for now, I reach with heart and mind’s eye to catch a glimpse of this splendid Truth hidden as it is ‘neathe Bread and Wine and broken Body on a Cross.
Favor me with an increase of love and desire, until my longing tears free from all that holds me captive still. I know my blindnss and have seen my foolishness. In my poverty and need, I seek refuge here before Your eyes.
Your Truth, Your splendid Truth be mine! These are such glorious Truths; I can not comprehend them in their reality and breath. I can only glimpse them and cry out in hope and faith.
My adorable Lord, looking upon me now as always, gather to Yourself, the groans and sighs of Spirit born,unto Your memories as so many Communions and Resurrections of spirit, as chains of Love in Time, but always only One Adorable Lord.
By Joann Nelander
Image via Wikipedia
Carrying the burden of past sin weighs the soul down. There will be a moment of freedom and healing as Jesus makes your burden light.
As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12
Welcome:
RAnn of This,That and the Other Thing hosts Sunday Snippets—A Catholic Carnival. This is a great way to share.
Check out the posts of this week’s contributor and enjoy then join us if you like, RAnn tells you how.
Here are my snippets from the week:
Expanding Our Desire in Prayer
Susan G. Komen Funds Abortion Provider
Vote “Though the Lens of Faith”
Why Do We Need the Rosary – Video
Click here to learn of Susan G. Komen’s multi-million dollar connection to Planned Parenthood. H/T Dr.Gerard M. Nadal
Komen Funds Planned Parenthood
Pro-Life Citizens May want to Support the Organizations listed below.The following breast cancer groups do not fund abortion facilities, nor do they advocate for destructive human embryo research. If you are aware of other organizations that meet this criteria, please contact us at info@bdfund.org.
Breast Cancer Prevention
Individual and schools opposed to Komen’s cooperation with Planned Parenthood, but interested in raising money to prevent breast cancer often choose to raise money with volleyball tournaments or walks to benefit the breast screening services at local hospitals provided to underserved women.
The National Breast Cancer Foundation is a national organization that funds mammograms.
Abortion-Breast Cancer Education:
Breast Cancer
Prevention Institute
Full information on avoidable risks including abortion and alternatives to hormone use for contraception and postmenopausal medication.Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer
Educational material on the political and media cover-up of the link between abortion and breast cancer.
Click here to learn the facts about the Komen-Planned Parenthood connection.
Image via Wikipedia
Susan B. Anthony List is running this ad in the district of Rep. Steve Driehaus, the Ohio Congressman who is trying to take away our free speech because he doesn’t want his constituents to know that he voted for taxpayer funding of abortion:
What Steve Driehaus doesn’t want you to know about his vote for tax payer funding of abortions through Obamacare.
The Dark Night
One dark night, fired with love's urgent longings - ah, the sheer grace! - I went out unseen, my house being now all stilled. In darkness, and secure, by the secret ladder, disguised, - ah, the sheer grace! - in darkness and concealment, my house being now all stilled. On that glad night in secret, for no one saw me, nor did I look at anything with no other light or guide than the One that burned in my heart. This guided me more surely than the light of noon to where he was awaiting me - him I knew so well - there in a place where no one appeared. O guiding night! O night more lovely than the dawn! O night that has united the Lover with his beloved, transforming the Beloved into his Lover. Upon my flowering breast, which I kept wholly for him alone, there he lay sleeping, and I caressing him there in a breeze from the fanning cedars. When the breeze blew from the turret, as I parted his hair, it wounded my neck with its gentle hand, suspending all my senses. I abandoned and forgot myself, laying my face on my Beloved; all things ceased; I went out from myself, leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.
A rare privilege to watch a saint celebrate Mass!
This documentary video shows the celebration of the /eucharist by Padre Pio,now, St.Pio
My Prayer
Lord, do others speak to you in whole sentences.
My prayer is like me in my raw and bewildered state,
mind and feelings at war within me,
straining to understand, to comprehend myself,
and wondering what You desire,
still in a quandary to know what to pray;
indeed, how to prayer.
All I know is that You, O Lord, are.
Though I seem alone, You are with me,
Your Holy Name, my byword.
My prayer is Your Name,
Now echoing in the Father’s ear.
I do not call it back.
It shall resound through eternity,
and on its strains I hold fast.
I wait and I adore.
Let me rest here,
safe in Your embrace.
By Joann Nelander
N.Y. bishops urge voters to vote and to vote “through the lens of faith.”
Primacy of life issues outweigh other voter concerns on moral grounds, life being the foundation of our very existence. First life, then it’s supports.
As religious leaders, we urge you to exercise your right and solemn duty to vote on Election Day.
+ Timothy M. Dolan
Archbishop of New York
+Howard J. Hubbard
Bishop of Albany
+Nicholas DiMarzio
Bishop of Brooklyn
+Edward U. Kmiec
Bishop of Buffalo
+ Terry R. LaValley
Bishop of Ogdensburg
+Robert J. Cunningham
Bishop of Syracuse
+Matthew H. Clark
Bishop of Rochester
+William F. Murphy
Bishop of Rockville Centre
Our Cherished Right, Our Solemn Duty
By the Catholic Bishops of New York State
We Catholics are called to look at politics as we are called to look at everything – through the lens of our faith. While we are free to join any political party that we choose or none at all, we must be cautious when we vote not to be guided solely by party loyalty or by self interest. Rather, we should be guided in evaluating the important issues facing our state and nation by the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of His Church.
Our national and state elected officials have profound influence on countless matters of great importance, such as the right to life, issues of war and peace, the education of children and how we treat the poor and vulnerable. We must look at all of these issues as we form our consciences in preparation for Election Day. Continue reading
Image via Wikipedia
Let us exercise our desire in prayer
Instruction to Proba by St. Augustine:
Why in our fear of not praying as we should, do we turn to so many things, to find what we should pray for? Why do we not say instead, in the words of the psalm: I have asked one thing from the Lord, this is what I will seek: to dwell in the Lord’s house all the days of my life, to see the graciousness of the Lord, and to visit his temple? There, the days do not come and go in succession, and the beginning of one day does not mean the end of another; all days are one, simultaneously and without end, and the life lived out in these days has itself no end.
So that we might obtain this life of happiness, he who is true life itself taught us to pray, not in many words as though speaking longer could gain us a hearing. After all, we pray to one who, as the Lord himself tells us, knows what we need before we ask for it.
Why he should ask us to pray, when he knows what we need before we ask him, may perplex us if we do not realise that our Lord and God does not want to know what we want (for he cannot fail to know it), but wants us rather to exercise our desire through our prayers, so that we may be able to receive what he is preparing to give us. His gift is very great indeed, but our capacity is too small and limited to receive it. That is why we are told: Enlarge your desires, do not bear the yoke with unbelievers. Continue reading
RAnn of This,That and the Other Thing hosts Sunday Snippets—A Catholic Carnival. This is a great way to share.
Read, enjoy and join us if you like. Here are my snippets:
Light in the Temple
Medjugorje Webcam – Apparition Hill
To the Wound in the Side of Jesus
Synod of the churches of the Middle East – Pope’s Address
Remembering Fr. Thomas Dubay S.M. – RIP Sept.26, 2010
Carmelite Tells of Incense of the Heart
Eucharistic Miracles
Our beloved Fr. Thomas Dubay died Sept.26,2010; reported here by Insight Scoop/ the Ignatius Press Blog
Imitation is the greatest form of compliment. Won’t it warm his heavenly heart to know we were are trying harder to be like his Master?
Beyond a ‘tea and cookies’ dialogue with Islam | National Catholic Reporter.
ROME — Given the setting of the Middle East, Christians are compelled to pursue dialogue with the vast Muslim majority; in fact, it would be virtually impossible to avoid.
Several participants at the Oct. 10-24 Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, however, seem eager to push that dialogue beyond a “tea and cookies” stage, where the point is merely being polite to one another, into blunt talk about religious freedom, democracy, and what one speaker described as “satanic plans by fundamental extremist groups” to extinguish Christianity in the region.
While it’s not clear what real impact either the local churches of the Middle East or Catholicism generally can have on those fronts, there appears to be a strong feeling in the synod that it’s time to lay things on the line.
One such call came from Archbishop Cyrille Salim Bustros, a Greek-Melkite prelate in the United States.
“On one hand and in principle, the assertion of tolerance is clear in the Koran,” Bustros said. “On the other hand, and in fact, the laws of all the Arab countries, except for Lebanon where one is allowed to change religion, threaten death to all Muslims who convert to another religion.”
Mincing no words, Bustros added, “We ask here: where can tolerance be found?”
“The first principle of all societies is the equality of all citizens before the law,” Bustros said. “The respect for the conscience of each individual is the sign of the recognition of the dignity of the human being.”
Chaldean Archbishop Thomas Meram of Iran was equally candid.
“The Christian hears every day from loudspeakers, television, newspapers and magazines that he is an infidel, and he is treated as a second-class citizen,” Meram said.
Those words seemed to have a special resonance in light of a presentation to the synod by Ayatollah Sayed Mostafa Mohaghegh Ahmadabadi, who claimed that “in most Islamic countries, notably Iran, as it has been stipulated also by law, Christians live side by side and in peace with their Muslim brothers.”
Despite the pressures he described, Meram said that Christians “stand firm and solid and … become more courageous and proud of their faith.”
Maronite Bishop Paul-Emile Saadé of Lebanon said that accelerating migration out of the Middle East is robbing the Christian community of its “brains and specialized personnel,” violating their right to build a future.
“Their homeland is the land of their ancestors,” Saadé said, adding a clinching sound-bite: “The homeland is not a hotel.”
In that light, Saadé, it’s critical for Christians to engage moderate Muslims and encourage them “to stand firmly against fanatical extremist religious movements.”
Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, President of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, also delivered a blunt diagnosis.
“The churches and minority religions in the Middle East must not be subject to discrimination, violence, defamatory propaganda (anti-Christian), the denial of building permits for places of worship and the organization of public functions,” he said.
Turkson told NCR Friday morning that when he spoke about building permits, he was partly thinking of a situation in Egypt where a Coptic church is crumbling but local political authorities have so far refused to issue permits for repairs. Turkson said that it seems as if there’s a deliberate policy to allow the church, and eventually its faithful, to disappear.
Turkson also took on a resolution of the United Nations on “Defamation of Religions,” which decries words or actions perceived as attacks on a religion, and which has been backed by Islamic nations. Some Christian activists have criticized the resolution as a not-so-subtle way of criminalizing Christian missionary efforts and of defending the controversial “blasphemy laws” in some Islamic states.
“Promotion of the resolution against the Defamation of Religions in the framework of the United Nations should not limit itself to Islam, or ‘Islamophobia, in the Western world,” Turkson said. “It should include Christianity, or ‘Christianophobia,’in the Islamic world.”
“We can also promote the adoption, again within the UN framework, of a resolution on religious freedom as an alternative to the resolution on the defamation of religions,” Turkson said.
Fr. Raymond Moussalli, an official of the Chaldean patriarchate in Jordan, said that Christians in Iraq are under attack – and he describeditt in unstinting terms.
“There is a deliberate campaign to drive Christians out of the country,” Moussalli said. “There are satanic plans by fundamental extremist groups that are not only against Iraqi Christians in Iraq, but Christians throughout the Middle East.”
Moussalli pled for global outrage.
“We want to make the international community aware that it cannot remain silent in the face of the massacre of Christians in Iraq, the countries with the Catholic tradition, so that they might do something for Iraqi Christians, beginning with placing pressure on local government,” he said.
Perhaps the most emotional speech of the day came Archbishop Ruggero Franceschini of Izmir, Turkey, who is also struggling to lead the small Catholic community in Anatolia after its own bishop, Italian Capuchin Luigi Padovese, was murdered in June by his longtime driver. Though the driver’s motives remain murky, many have speculated that he came under the influence of extremist groups.
Franceschini said the “organizers” of the killing are now spreading “intolerable slander,” likely a reference to claims initially voiced by police sources in Turkey that Padovese had subjected his driver to homosexual abuse. Those claims have been strongly denied by church personnel in Turkey.
“The survival of the Church of Anatoly is at risk,” Franceschini said, “and this is a situation in which I ask you, gravely and urgently, to participate.”
Franceschini openly described “a dark plot of complicity between ultra-nationalists and religious fanatics, experts in schemes of tension,” which is targeting the Christian presence.
Turkson said that the Catholic church may not be able to directly influence either the political realities in the Middle East or internal debates within Islam, but it can, and must, speak out, because the situation is too dire for diplomatic silence.
Certainly yesterday at the Synod of Bishops, that seemed to be the spirit of things.
Image by Lawrence OP via Flickr
There are moments when the physical and the spiritual harmonize in an astounding, yet simple symphonic moment.
That just happened to me.
You see, our Chapel is connected to our convent. So yesterday evening as I was walking in from the gardens, I was met by the unmistakable fragrance of incense, in the hallway of the convent. I’ve probably had this experience a hundred times, but last night it was very moving.
Incense is a sign of our adoration of God. We use it every day in our convents during Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction. It is a sign not only of our prayers rising before Him, but the total holocaust of our lives that we offer, holding nothing back, being totally consumed in the Flames of His Love.
But I was not in a particularly sacred space. It was a hallway. Actually, there was a bathroom right by where I smelled the incense. I pass through this area countless times every day. I probably know every nook and cranny. It could not be more familiar, or mundane for that matter.
Despite all this (because of all this?) I encountered a reminder of God’s presence. He is here. Right in the midst of my everyday “stuff.” A routine I follow day in and day out. Surroundings that I know like the back of my hand. Steps I could take blindfolded. Last night I was stopped in my tracks and made to reflect, “He is here. He is always here with me.”
I smelled it with my nose as I looked around with my eyes at what I could reach out and touch and know so well. And my spirit rose up within me. Just a brief moment, but deeply profound. Again, physical and spiritual intertwined in an inseparable and graced union.
My point is not to make you jealous of the beautiful life we have in Carmel. That hallway will be bustling today with sisters headed here and there, busy about the Father’s business. It will be moped later this week and the toilets will be scrubbed. Still, daily the perfume from the altar will penetrate this space, making it holy. May this same fragrance fill your lives, your very ordinary, yet anointed, lives.
Priests’ Secretary writes of Boston Catholics hitting the fan or more to the point:
Now, one blog has announced an all-out “Boston Catholic Tea Party” to drive the communication of their dismay all the way to the Vatican.
“Were fed up” sums up the feelings and furor of Boston Catholics who know better than to sit silent while dissent from Church teaching is tolerated by those responsible for teaching the faithful. Bloggers are making their voices heard at least in the bloggosphere.
Story here
Bloggers here: BostonInsider and ByranHehirExposed
The bloggers set up an on-line letter-signing campaign with concerns addressed to: Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, Cardinal William J. Levada. These concerns are spelled out in an open letter format in which they ask that two Boston-area priests in particular be banned from future Boston Archdiocesan programs. Specific points of dissent promoted by these priests (one is an archdiocesan official!) are listed in the letter.
Today’s post at BrianHehirExposed states:
…we’re asking you to join the “Boston Catholic Tea Party” and help rid these upcoming conferences from “negative attitudes of the world” such as those the Holy Father alluded to. Today’s the day to start firing away!
Online letter here
October 13 is the 93rd anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun that occurred in Fatima, Portugal in 1917
H/T Priests Secretary Rare video – Check it out!
Lúcia de Jesus Rosa Santos – Sister Lúcia of Jesus and of the Immaculate Heart, better known as Sister Lúcia of Jesus – one of three children who witnessed a series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Fátima, Portugal in 1917- sings Ave Maria in this video taken in her advanced years. She died on February 13, 2005 at the age of 97. On February 13…
Pope Benedict XVI’s opening address to the Synod of the Churches of the Middle East on October 12th,
Feast of the Divine Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The Maternal Heart of Our Lady
Dear brothers and sisters,
On October 11 1962, 48 years ago, Pope John XXIII inaugurated Vatican Council II. At the time, on October 11, the feast day of the Divine Motherhood of Mary was celebrated and, with this gesture, with this date, Pope John wished to entrust the whole Council into the motherly hands and maternal heart of the Madonna. We too begin on October 11th, we too wish to entrust this Synod, with all its problems, with all its challenges, with all its hopes, to the maternal heart of the Madonna, the Mother of God.
Council of Ephesus
Pius XI, in 1930, introduced this feast day, 1600 years after the Council of Ephesus, which had legitimated, for Mary, the title of Theotokos, Dei Genitrix. With this great word Dei Genitrix, Theotokos, the Council of Ephesus had summarized the entire doctrine of Christ, of Mary, the whole of the doctrine of redemption. So it would be worthwhile to reflect briefly, for a moment, on what was said during the Council of Ephesus, on what this day means.
Through Mary: Within the Intimacy of God Himself
In reality, Theotokos is a courageous title. A woman is the Mother of God. One could say: how is this possible? God is eternal, he is the Creator. We are creatures, we are in time: how could a human being be the Mother of God, of the Eternal, since we are all in time, we are all creatures? Therefore one can understand that there was some strong opposition, in part, to this term. The Nestorians used to say: one can speak about Christotokos, yes, but Theotokos no: Theos, God, is beyond, beyond the events of history. But the Council decided this, and thus it enlightened the adventure of God, the greatness of what he has done for us. God did not remain in Himself: he went out, He united in such a way, so radically to this man, Jesus, that this man Jesus is God, and if we speak about Him, we can also speak about God. Not only was a man born that had something to do with God, but in Him was born God on earth. God came from himself. But we could also say the opposite: God drew us to Himself, so that we are not outside of God, but we are within the intimate, the intimacy of God Himself.
God Born From Woman
Aristotelian philosophy, as we well know, tells us that between God and man there is only an unreciprocated relationship. Man refers to God, but God, the Eternal, is in Himself, He does not change: He cannot have this relation today and another relationship tomorrow. He is within Himself, He does not have ad extra relations. It is a very logical term, but it is also a word that makes us despair: so God has no relationship with me. With the incarnation, with the event of the Theotokos, this has been radically changed, because God drew us into Himself and God in Himself is the relationship and allows us to participate in His interior relationship. Thus we are in His being Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we are within His being in relationship, we are in relationship with Him and He truly created the relationship with us. At that moment, God wished to be born from woman and remain Himself: this is the great event. And thus we can understand the depth of the act by Pope John, who entrusted the Council, Synodal Assembly to the central mystery, to the Mother of God who is drawn by the Lord into Himself, and thus all of us with Her.
Christ Born to Create a Body for Himself
The Council began with the icon of the Theotokos. At the end, Pope Paul VI recognized the same title of Mater Ecclesiae to the Madonna. And these two icons, which begin and end the Council, are intrinsically linked, and are, in the end, one single icon. Because Christ was not born like any other individual. He was born to create a body for Himself: He was born – as John says in Chapter 12 of his Gospel – to attract all to Him and in Him. He was born – as it says in the Letters to the Colossians and to the Ephesians – to summarize the whole world, He was born as the firstborn of many brothers, He was born to unite the cosmos in Him, so that He is the Head of a great Body. Where Christ is born, the movement of summation begins, the moment of the calling begins, of construction of his Body, of the Holy Church. The Mother of Theos, the Mother of God, is the Mother of the Church, because she is the Mother of He who came to unite all in His resurrected Body.
Our Lady of the Cenacle: Mary at the Heart of the Church
Saint Luke leads us to understand this in the parallel between the first chapter of his book and the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, which repeat the same mystery on two different levels. In the first chapter of the Gospel the Holy Spirit comes upon Mary and thus she gives birth to and gives us the Son of God. In the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, Mary is at the center of Jesus’ disciples who are praying all together, pleading with the cloud of the Holy Spirit. And thus from the believing Church, with Mary at its heart, is born the Church, the Body of Christ. This dual birth is the only birth of the Christus totus, of the Christ who embraces the world and all of us.
Cross and Resurrection
Birth in Bethlehem, birth at the Last Supper. Birth of the Infant Jesus, birth of the Body of Christ, of the Church. These are two events or just one event. But between the two lie truly the Cross and the Resurrection. And only through the Cross comes the path towards the totality of Christ, towards His resurrected Body, towards the universalization of His being in the unity of the Church. And thus, bearing in mind that only from the wheat fallen to earth can a great harvest be reaped, from the Lord pierced on the Cross comes the universality of His disciples reunited in this His Body, dead and risen.
Mother of the Church and Queen of Martyrs
Keeping this connection between Theotokos and Mater Ecclesiae in mind, we turn our attention to the last book of the Holy Scripture, Revelation, where, in chapter 12, we can find this synthesis. The woman clothed with the sun, with twelve stars over her head and the moon at her feet, gives birth. And gives birth with a cry of pain, gives birth with great suffering. Here the Marian mystery is the mystery of Bethlehem extended to the cosmic mystery. Christ is always reborn in all generations and thus takes on, gathers humanity within Himself. And this cosmic birth is achieved in the cry of the Cross, in the suffering of the Passion. And the blood of martyrs belongs to this cry of the Cross.
The Fall of the Divinities
So, at this moment, we can look at the second psalm of this Hour, Psalm 81, where we can see part of this process. God is among gods – they are still considered as gods in Israel. In this Psalm, in a great concentration, in a prophetic vision, we can see the power taken from the gods. Those who seemed to be gods are not gods and lose their divine characteristics, and fall to earth. Dii estis et moriemini sicut nomine (cf. Psalm 81:6-7): the wresting of power, the fall of the divinities.
The Triumph of the Martyred Children of Mother Church
This process that is achieved along the path of faith of Israel, and which here is summarized in one vision, is the true process of the history of religion: the fall of the gods. And thus the transformation of the world, the knowledge of the true God, the loss of power by the forces that dominate the world, is a process of suffering. In the history of Israel we can see how this liberation from polytheism, this recognition – “Only He is God” – is achieved with great pain, beginning with the path of Abraham, the exile, the Maccabeans, up to Christ. And this process of loss of power continues throughout history, spoken of in Revelation chapter 12; it mentions the fall of the angels, which are not truly angels, they are not divinities on earth. And is achieved truly, right at the time of the rising Church, where we can see how the blood of the martyrs takes the power away from the divinities, starting with the divine emperor, from all these divinities. It is the blood of the martyrs, the suffering, the cry of the Mother Church that makes them fall and thus transforms the world.
False Divinities in the World
This fall is not only the knowledge that they are not God; it is the process of transformation of the world, which costs blood, costs the suffering of the witnesses of Christ. And, if we look closely, we can see that this process never ends. It is achieved in various periods of history in ever new ways; even today, at this moment, in which Christ, the only Son of God, must be born for the world with the fall of the gods, with pain, the martyrdom of witnesses. Let us remember all the great powers of today’s history, let us remember the anonymous capital that enslaves man, which is no longer in man’s possession, but is an anonymous power served by men, by which men are tormented and even killed. It is a destructive power, that threatens the world. And then the power of the terroristic ideologies. Violent acts are apparently made in the name of God, but this is not God: they are false divinities that must be unmasked; they are not God. And then drugs, this power that, like a voracious beast, extends its claws to all parts of the world and destroys it: it is a divinity, but it is a false divinity that must fall. Or even the way of living proclaimed by public opinion: today we must do things like this, marriage no longer counts, chastity is no longer a virtue, and so on.
The Marian Mystery
These ideologies that dominate, that impose themselves forcefully, are divinities. And in the pain of the Saints, in the suffering of believers, of the Mother Church which we are a part of, these divinities must fall, what is said in the Letters to the Colossians and to the Ephesians must be done: the dominations, the powers fall and become subjects of the one Lord Jesus Christ. On this battle we find ourselves in, of this taking power away from God, of this fall of false gods, that fall because they are not deities, but powers that can destroy the world, chapter 12 of the Apocalypse mentions these, even if with a mysterious image, for which, I believe, there are many different and beautiful interpretations. It has been said that the dragon places a large river of water before the fleeing woman to overcome her. And it would seem inevitable that the woman will drown in this river. But the good earth absorbs this river and it cannot be harmful. I think that the river is easily interpreted: these are the currents that dominate all and wish to make faith in the Church disappear, the Church that does not have a place anymore in front of the force of these currents that impose themselves as the only rationality, as the only way to live. And the earth that absorbs these currents is the faith of the simple at heart, that does not allow itself to be overcome by these rivers and saves the Mother and saves the Son. This is why the Psalm says – the first psalm of the Hour – the faith of the simple at heart is the true wisdom (cf Psalm 118:130). This true wisdom of simple faith, that does not allow itself to be swamped by the waters, is the force of the Church. And we have returned to the Marian mystery.
The Unshaken Foundations of Faith
And there is also a final word in Psalm 81, movebuntur omnia fundamenta terrae (Psalm 81:5), the foundations of earth are shaken. We see this today, with the climatic problems, how the foundations of the earth are shaken, how they are threatened by our behavior. The external foundations are shaken because the internal foundations are shaken, the moral and religious foundations, the faith that follows the right way of living. And we know that faith is the foundation, and, undoubtedly, the foundations of the earth cannot be shaken if they remain close to the faith, to true wisdom.
Entrustment to the Mother of God
And then the Psalm says: “Arise, God, judge the world” (Psalm 81:8). Thus we also say to the Lord: “Arise at this moment, take the world in your hands, protect your Church, protect humanity, protect the earth”. And we once again entrust ourselves to the Mother of God, to Mary, and pray: “You, the great believer, you who have opened the earth to the heavens, help us, open the doors today as well, that truth might win, the will of God, which is the true good, the true salvation of the world”. Amen
Translation by Fr Mark of a prayer, “Alla Piaga Del Costato di Gesù,” To the Wound in Jesus’ Side, composed by the Servant of God Father Eustachio Montemurro (1857–1923).
To the Wound in Jesus’ Side
O painless thrust of the spear
forever awaited with passionate love by my Saviour
that thou shouldst repair in the Father’s sight
the terrible wound opened by the sin of Adam
in the heart of humanity!
O glorious wound,
gushing forth life, love, and peace!
I adore thee inexhaustible wellspring of salvation,
the womb of new children
born of the water and of the blood of the Bridegroom.
Thou art for me an ever open refuge,
the door giving access to the nuptial chamber,
the vestibule of the banquet of the Lamb.
The living water that, at every moment, springs from thee,
invites me with the language of love
to enter, through thee, into the heart of my Saviour
that therein I might take the regenerating rest of new life
and spread it all about me
just as the bride coming forth from the nuptial chamber
radiates among her friends the signs and the sweetnesses of love.
Be thou for me, then, O blessed wound,
my blissful abode.
May I be drawn always to thee,
that in thee I may live and die.
In thee may I find the splendid riches
which eye has never seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart experienced.
I love Thee, Lord Jesus,
glory of my mind, joy of my eyes,
melody of my ears, gladness of my heart,
and peace of my soul.
I am Thine for time and for eternity;
nothing shall ever separate me from Thee,
for Thou hast espoused me,
drawing me with bands of goodness to Thy open side
and pouring out of Thy heart into mine
the joys of the Spirit
and the mercy of the Father who always hears Thee.
Into Stillness 