You Are Church: Consecrate Yourself to the Immaculate Heart

Happy Hypostatic Union Day!

(Otherwise known as the Solemnity of the Annunciation.)

"Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum."

The Annunciation by Carl Heinrich Bloch

Our Holy Father out of his devotion to our Blessed Mother has sought to answer again the request of Our Lady of Fatima for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart.  I have seen many debates regarding whether her request was satisfied by any of the previous consecrations that have been made.  I have heard specifically that it cannot be satisfied until every single Bishop throughout the world in union with the Pope makes this consecration.

The debate around private revelation often seems to me to wander far too near the realm of superstition for my comfort.  However, I do want to bring your attention to one important point regarding that stipulation for the request to be fulfilled: think of the state the Church would be in if all of the Bishops were in that kind of union with the Bishop of Rome.  What then would the Church herself look like?

Remember, though, that every baptized person is part of the Mystical Body of Christ.  If you belong to the Church, you are in a sense Church.  For the Church is not some abstraction beyond us, but a physically enfleshment of a spiritual reality, which is the gift of Christ to us and to His Father: we are Church.

Therefore, it is on my heart this day to ask you, if you have not already done so today, to consecrate yourself as Church and on behalf of the Church, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  All that you give to her she will give to Christ and He will accept most graciously this fiat of your heart as He did that of His Mother, allowing Him to become Man in her womb: by your consecration, then, you invite Him to reside more fully in your soul.

For that consecration, I propose you use first the words of the prayer given by our Holy Father, and then a personal consecration of yourself, which follows:

ACT OF CONSECRATION TO THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY

by Pope Francis

O Mary, Mother of God and our Mother, in this time of trial we turn to you.  As our Mother, you love us and know us: no concern of our hearts is hidden from you.  Mother of mercy, how often we have experienced your watchful care and your peaceful presence!  You never cease to guide us to Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

Yet we have strayed from that path of peace.  We have forgotten the lesson learned from the tragedies of the last century, the sacrifice of the millions who fell in two world wars.  We have disregarded the commitments we made as a community of nations.  We have betrayed peoples’ dreams of peace and the hopes of the young.  We grew sick with greed, we thought only of our own nations and their interests, we grew indifferent and caught up in our selfish needs and concerns.  We chose to ignore God, to be satisfied with our illusions, to grow arrogant and aggressive, to suppress innocent lives and to stockpile weapons.  We stopped being our neighbour’s keepers and stewards of our common home.  We have ravaged the garden of the earth with war and by our sins we have broken the heart of our heavenly Father, who desires us to be brothers and sisters.  We grew indifferent to everyone and everything except ourselves.  Now with shame we cry out: Forgive us, Lord!

Holy Mother, amid the misery of our sinfulness, amid our struggles and weaknesses, amid the mystery of iniquity that is evil and war, you remind us that God never abandons us, but continues to look upon us with love, ever ready to forgive us and raise us up to new life.  He has given you to us and made your Immaculate Heart a refuge for the Church and for all humanity.  By God’s gracious will, you are ever with us; even in the most troubled moments of our history, you are there to guide us with tender love.

We now turn to you and knock at the door of your heart.  We are your beloved children.  In every age you make yourself known to us, calling us to conversion.  At this dark hour, help us and grant us your comfort.  Say to us once more: “Am I not here, I who am your Mother?”  You are able to untie the knots of our hearts and of our times.  In you we place our trust.  We are confident that, especially in moments of trial, you will not be deaf to our supplication and will come to our aid.

That is what you did at Cana in Galilee, when you interceded with Jesus and he worked the first of his signs.  To preserve the joy of the wedding feast, you said to him: “They have no wine” (Jn 2:3).  Now, O Mother, repeat those words and that prayer, for in our own day we have run out of the wine of hope, joy has fled, fraternity has faded.  We have forgotten our humanity and squandered the gift of peace.  We opened our hearts to violence and destructiveness.  How greatly we need your maternal help!

Therefore, O Mother, hear our prayer.

Star of the Sea, do not let us be shipwrecked in the tempest of war.

Ark of the New Covenant, inspire projects and paths of reconciliation.

Queen of Heaven, restore God’s peace to the world.

Eliminate hatred and the thirst for revenge, and teach us forgiveness.

Free us from war, protect our world from the menace of nuclear weapons.

Queen of the Rosary, make us realize our need to pray and to love.

Queen of the Human Family, show people the path of fraternity.

Queen of Peace, obtain peace for our world.

O Mother, may your sorrowful plea stir our hardened hearts.  May the tears you shed for us make this valley parched by our hatred blossom anew.  Amid the thunder of weapons, may your prayer turn our thoughts to peace.  May your maternal touch soothe those who suffer and flee from the rain of bombs.  May your motherly embrace comfort those forced to leave their homes and their native land.  May your Sorrowful Heart move us to compassion and inspire us to open our doors and to care for our brothers and sisters who are injured and cast aside.

Holy Mother of God, as you stood beneath the cross, Jesus, seeing the disciple at your side, said: “Behold your son” (Jn 19:26).  In this way he entrusted each of us to you.  To the disciple, and to each of us, he said: “Behold, your Mother” (v. 27).  Mother Mary, we now desire to welcome you into our lives and our history.  At this hour, a weary and distraught humanity stands with you beneath the cross, needing to entrust itself to you and, through you, to consecrate itself to Christ.  The people of Ukraine and Russia, who venerate you with great love, now turn to you, even as your heart beats with compassion for them and for all those peoples decimated by war, hunger, injustice and poverty.

Therefore, Mother of God and our Mother, to your Immaculate Heart we solemnly entrust and consecrate ourselves, the Church and all humanity, especially Russia and Ukraine.  Accept this act that we carry out with confidence and love.  Grant that war may end and peace spread throughout the world.  The “Fiat” that arose from your heart opened the doors of history to the Prince of Peace.  We trust that, through your heart, peace will dawn once more.  To you we consecrate the future of the whole human family, the needs and expectations of every people, the anxieties and hopes of the world.

Through your intercession, may God’s mercy be poured out on the earth and the gentle rhythm of peace return to mark our days.  Our Lady of the “Fiat”, on whom the Holy Spirit descended, restore among us the harmony that comes from God.  May you, our “living fountain of hope”, water the dryness of our hearts.  In your womb Jesus took flesh; help us to foster the growth of communion.  You once trod the streets of our world; lead us now on the paths of peace.  Amen.

ACT OF PERSONAL CONSECRATION TO THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY

Once more I say to you, Holy Mother, to whom it was announced by the Archangel Gabriel that you would bear the Son of God in your womb, that I consecrate myself today to your Immaculate Heart.  I make this total offering of myself to you as part of the Church and on behalf of the Church that my life may serve to build up the Kingdom of God in this world and draw all souls to heaven by His mercy.  Receive, Loving Mother, this consecration for the glory of God my Father, as I trust my life entirely to His providence in union with Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit through your intercession this day and forever.  Amen.

Pilgrimage During the Pandemic

Many people have been criticizing our leaders in the Church for cancelling all public Masses while we quarantine for the pandemic and many complain of not being able to receive the Sacraments.  I must admit hearing those things does trouble me.  It makes me wonder what the Church should do.  Is She merely pandering to the government decisions to avoid outright conflict?  Is She thus abandoning Her mission to nourish our faith by treating the physical health and well-being of the most vulnerable as more important than our spiritual health?

Perhaps She might be rather calling us to enter more deeply into the mystical reality.  I have written already of our being called to receive the Sacrament of the Present Moment.  Now, however, I mean far more than that: I mean the eternal reality.

For the Church as we know Her will not endure.  The Sacraments will pass away.  The Eucharist, as precious a gift as It is, will no longer be needed.

When we come to the Eternal City, we shall be face to face with the living God, with I-Am-Who-Am.  We shall no longer need to receive through Sacraments, which make visible the invisible, providing grace to sustain us in our exile here in this valley of tears, for we shall then be in intimate union with Him.

All the grace we receive is meant to prepare us for that.  Reception of the Eucharist in particularly brings us into intimate relationship with Christ, our crucified Lord.

Does it?

"I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.  Thou shalt not have strange gods before me."

Exodus 20:2-3

Despite this commandment, we often allow our minds and hearts to turn to idols without realizing it.  Even our spiritual practices may become idols.  It is far easier to cling to devotions and the practice of the spiritual life than to come into a deep and intimate relationship with the Unknown God—the God we can never fully understand because He is infinite and we mere finite creatures.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord.  For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts."

Isaiah 55:8-9

The moment we believe we have understood the mind of God is the moment we have created God in our own image.  If that's not an idol, I don't know what is.

Perhaps that may sound extreme to you.  Perhaps you may wonder why I mention this possibility.

I will tell you: it is because I am trying to take seriously the call to conversion in this time.  I don't want to fall into criticizing our leaders in the Church or in our government, placing myself on the high pedestal of godhood in dictating what ought to happen in these present circumstances.  I don't want to fall into that trap even in the hidden corners of my heart.

Rather, I want this time of quarantine to bear the same fruit that grew from that of the Desert Fathers who chose isolation as a way to encounter God.  I want to see the harvest like unto that of those who seek a life of contemplation in the cloister.  I want my heart and mind to be converted.  In short, I seek and pray for that true metanoia that is to be transformed by Him who is leading us from glory to glory (see 2 Corinthians 3:18) that I may be purified of all attachment to sin or self-seeking, ready to see Him face to face.

I don't want to fall into desolation or despondency or frustration at being deprived of what I deem necessary.  I don't want to believe I am merely in a state of suspended animation, waiting for the virus to end.

Rather, I want to see these days in the desert as communion with the Father.  I want to see them as time to give Him my fiat as our Lady did when the Angel Gabriel appeared to her and told her that she would be the Mother of the Messiah and as Christ did in the Garden of Gethsemane when He asked that the cup of suffering should pass Him by:

"Nevertheless not what I will,
but what Thou wilt."

Luke 22:42

Pray for that for me.

I will pray the same for you.

Receive the Blessed Sacrament

In his homily at Mass this morning, Pope Francis spoke of Saint Joseph as a just man, a man of faith, a man who recognized that he was not in control.  He lauded Joseph for his ability to enter into mystery.  At the same time, he warned that if the Church forgets how to live in mystery, She forgets how to adore.

Our life most particularly as Christians is to enter into mystery that we may adore the Lord by our daily lives.  That is what it means to belong to the Mystical Body of Christ.

In these days of social isolation and the cancellation of public Masses, we are called to a deeper recognition of that truth.  We no longer have the distraction, if you will, of the sensory elements of our faith that make visible the invisible.  Instead we have only the living reality of our own union with Christ through the gift of His grace made possible by the great mystery of the Incarnation which we will celebrate in only a few days.

Although most of us cannot receive Christ physically in the Eucharist, we can still receive Him.  Thanks to the benefits of modern technology we can still assist at Mass and we can make spiritual communions not just then but throughout our day.

Even more, however, we can receive Christ in every moment of every day.  Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade calls this reality the Sacrament of the Present Moment.  He traces this idea from the life of the Blessed Virgin and of Saint Joseph in his book Abandonment to Divine Providence:

"There are remarkably few extraordinary characteristics in the outward events of the life of the most holy Virgin, at least there are none recorded in holy Scripture. Her exterior life is represented as very ordinary and simple. She did and suffered the same things that anyone in a similar state of life might do or suffer. She goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth as her other relatives did. She took shelter in a stable in consequence of her poverty. She returned to Nazareth from whence she had been driven by the persecution of Herod, and lived there with Jesus and Joseph, supporting themselves by the work of their hands. It was in this way that the holy family gained their daily bread. But what a divine nourishment Mary and Joseph received from this daily bread for the strengthening of their faith! It is like a sacrament to sanctify all their moments. What treasures of grace lie concealed in these moments filled, apparently, by the most ordinary events. That which is visible might happen to anyone, but the invisible, discerned by faith, is no less than God operating very great things. O Bread of Angels! heavenly manna! pearl of the Gospel! Sacrament of the present moment! thou givest God under as lowly a form as the manger, the hay, or the straw. And to whom dost thou give Him? “Esurientes implevit bonis” (Luke i, 53). God reveals Himself to the humble under the most lowly forms, but the proud, attaching themselves entirely to that which is extrinsic, do not discover Him hidden beneath, and are sent empty away."

In these days there shall certainly be few extraordinary characteristics in our lives.  Our exterior life becomes simpler and simpler.  We suffer the same things as do others across the world.  We are called to reach out to those around us and to live supporting ourselves by the work of our hands.  Yet in all these things we likewise can receive treasures of grace.

If we are humble enough to accept what the Lord wants to do within us, it may be a powerful time of sanctification for us.  We must shed the false mask of pride, however, that seeks to control—that believes it can be in control—and recognize that to God alone belongs that power.

Our role is rather one of receptivity as both our Lady and Saint Joseph model for us so well.  The words of Father de Caussade on this point resonate well with our current situation:

"The passive part of sanctity is still more easy since it only consists in accepting that which we very often have no power to prevent, and in suffering lovingly, that is to say with sweetness and consolation, those things that too often cause weariness and disgust. Once more I repeat, in this consists sanctity. This is the grain of mustard seed which is the smallest of all the seeds, the fruits of which can neither be recognised nor gathered. It is the drachma of the Gospel, the treasure that none discover because they suppose it to be too far away to be sought. Do not ask me how this treasure can be found. It is no secret. The treasure is everywhere, it is offered to us at all times and wherever we may be. All creatures, both friends and enemies pour it out with prodigality, and it flows like a fountain through every faculty of body and soul even to the very centre of our hearts. If we open our mouths they will be filled. The divine activity permeates the whole universe, it pervades every creature; wherever they are it is there; it goes before them, with them, and it follows them; all they have to do is to let the waves bear them on."

Today, as always, that great treasure awaits you wherever you look: in your prayer and in your work, in your frustration and isolation, in any little joys that come across your path, in your gratitude for what you have, in your fears for the future, in your sorrow for those who are sick....

In all things, Christ is there, giving Himself to you in as true a fashion as through the Holy Eucharist.  He cannot help but give Himself, for He is love, and it is the nature of love to give itself until it has nothing left to give.  That love pours itself out into our hearts to the measure that we open them to receive it:

"Divine love then, is to those who give themselves up to it without reserve, the principle of all good. To acquire this inestimable treasure the only thing necessary is greatly to desire it. Yes, God only asks for love, and if you seek this treasure, this kingdom in which God reigns alone, you will find it. If your heart is entirely devoted to God, it is itself, for that very reason, the treasure and the kingdom that you seek and desire. From the time that one desires God and His holy will, one enjoys God and His will, and this enjoyment corresponds to the ardour of the desire."

Let us seek within ourselves for that desire and when we have found it, no matter how small its flickering flame, let us feed it that it may grow more and more.  The more we desire to receive God's love, the more we become receptive to it.  What we have received we can then in turn pour out in love of the Father's will manifest in every moment of our lives and in every face who turns to seek God in us.

That is the path to enter into mystery—into the mystery of relationship with the Creator of the universe who is Existence Itself—whose infinite nature must transcend our finite understanding.  As we live in that mystery, let us enter also into adoration: let us adore God in the Sacrament of the Present Moment.

Our Only Comforter

As we honor today Our Lady, Mother of the Church, it seems fitting to speak of her Spouse, the Holy Spirit, in this afterglow of the great solemnity of Pentecost.  Specifically I would like to focus on one particular word describing Him.  While praying the novena leading up to Pentecost, one of His titles burst through the veil formed by the mundane repetition of having heard it said many times through my life:

Comforter.

I was listening to this Veni Sancte Spiritus when the word penetrated into the depths of my heart through the lyrics:

You are our only Comforter.

So many times we desire comfort to counter the trials and tribulations of our lives.  We look for the simple things—the reliable things—the coffee and cookies.

Of course we also look deeper.  We try to find happiness in fulfilling work, in relationships with those dear to us, in following our vocations, and so on.  Yet sooner or later all of these things fail to satisfy us.  The world will fail you left and right, as say the lyrics of the song "I'm Not Alone" from the singer Plumb.

Where do we look?

Everywhere except to the Holy Spirit.  After all, it's incredibly difficult to look at an invisible reality who happens to be the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity.  If you can find a way to look at Him, let me know.

I can't.  Although gazing at the beautiful alabaster image of the Holy Spirit symbolized by a dove in St. Peter's does help.

Looking to Him means opening ourselves to something beyond our control—it means letting go of control—abandoning our expectations.  We may find ourselves tossed on the seas of doubt and fear or joy and longing.  We may feel nothing.  Yet if we do dare to sink deep within ourselves, to stop looking outside, and to find Him within, we may just find that He gives the comfort that the world can never give.  For He gives the comfort of belonging, of being welcome, of being loved: the fulfillment of our hearts' deepest desires.  He gives the comfort of heaven—the comfort of our true home.

Of course He may not give it right away.  He likely won't give all the comfort we desire or at least not all the time.  Yet He can't give any comfort to hearts that are closed to Him.

If we will be patient and trust Him, we will experience comfort according to His promise.

It was the pouring out of the Holy Spirit that brought the Church to birth.  It is His pouring out of Himself on us today that brings us to birth as the Church—as the Mystical Body of Christ.  And it is Our Lady who is the Mother of Christ and therefore also the Mother of the Church.

Veni Sancte Spiritus! Veni per Mariam!

XIV. Jesus is Laid in the Sepulchre

V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee.
R. Because by Thy holy Cross, Thou hast redeemed the world.

Somehow death always feels like the end.  Even though we say that we believe in the resurrection of the dead, it is hard not to face a parting as if it were forever.

Think of how the apostles must have felt to see the body of Jesus laid in the tomb.  The finality of it must have struck their hearts with numb terror.  Everything they had given up to follow Him must have seemed in vain.  They had followed Him, believing that He was the Messiah, the Christ, the One who would set them free.  Instead, He had died the most horrible death of a criminal and now His body lay in the coldness of a sepulcher intended for another.

Our Lady must have sustained them by her presence, by her faith in God, but still what consolation could she give them?  How do you ever speak words of comfort to one who has suffered loss?

When one is in the darkness of grief, no light seems possible.  In the face of death, how can one believe in resurrection?

Yet it is precisely through that death and darkness that God crashes with His tremendous power, destroying all our expectations of gloom and doom.  What of the sealed tombs in our own lives?  Do we close off our hearts at the loss and turn our back on all that was good when it turns out wrong?  Or do we linger, waiting for the moment when the angel will roll back the stone?

Oh, my buried Jesus, I kiss the stone that encloses Thee. But Thou didst rise again the third day. I beseech Thee, by Thy resurrection, make me rise glorious with Thee at the last day, to be always united with Thee in heaven, to praise Thee and love Thee forever. I love Thee, and I repent of ever having offended Thee. Never permit me to offend Thee again. Grant that I may love Thee always; and then do with me what Thou wilt. (From the Stations of the Cross according to Saint Alphonsus Liguori.)

~

As we descend with our Lord into the darkness with the beginning of the Triduum tomorrow, I pray that each of you will deeply encounter the Paschal Mystery.

Please share any more particular prayer intentions with me if you wish.

Blessings to you this Holy Week!

XIII. Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross

V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee.
R. Because by Thy holy Cross, Thou hast redeemed the world.


What a terrifying experience it must have been to have stood beneath the cross on Calvary as the Savior of the world died, the earth quaked, and the veil of the temple was torn in two.  Then to receive His body....

Our Lady must have thought of the first time she held her Son in her arms when she held His broken body.  Then she must have marveled at how God could rest in the fragile flesh of an infant.  Now she grieved at the tortured body of that Son who had borne incomprehensible sufferings by taking on the sins of the whole world.

Her own heart had been pierced by the sword of sorrow foretold by Simeon in the temple.  Thus her suffering too became a well of love united with that of her Son, earning her the title Co-Redemptrix.

Although her heart must have broken as she pressed the body of her Son to her heart, still in the depths of her heart she uttered still that simple word of love: "Fiat."  Whatever she willed, she knew that God's will must be done.  She knew that no matter how cruel it seemed, no matter how dark the path that she must tread forward, that the Father's Providence would bring good out of evil.

Now by her prayers she seeks to obtain for us that same grace.

O Mother of sorrow, for the love of this Son, accept me for thy servant, and pray to Him for me. And Thou, my Redeemer, since Thou hast died for me, permit me to love Thee; for I wish but Thee, and nothing more. I love Thee, my Jesus, and I repent of ever having offended Thee. Never permit me to offend Thee again. Grant that I may love Thee always; and then do with me what Thou wilt. (From the Stations of the Cross according to Saint Alphonsus Liguori.)

IV. Jesus Meets His Mother

V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee.

R. Because by Thy holy Cross, Thou hast redeemed the world.

How could our Lady bear to see her Son suffer so dreadfully?  Every mother's heart aches for her children and she longs to be able to take those pains herself so that sometimes she offers a greater sacrifice by seeing others suffer than by suffering herself.  Mothers hate to feel powerless, for they must reach out to serve, to love, to lift up: it is their very nature.

Yet Mary, the Mother of God, did not try to take away her Son's suffering as she followed Him on the way to the cross.  Her willingness to suffer with Him by seeing Him suffer united her loving heart with His.

When finally she broke through the crowd to meet Him face to face, the tears must have streamed down her wordless face that saw His face so disfigured.  She must have longed to take Him into her arms to comfort Him as she had when He had been a little child, but she could not, for that would have renewed His pains a thousand-fold.

Perhaps she reached out to touch Him gently, her fingertips softly caressing His cheek in the only place still unhurt.  In that touch, He who had felt power flow out of Him so many times to heal must also have felt power flow into Him: the power of His mother's love, a constant love that embraced the will of the Father in all its unpleasant manifestations.  So too in the meeting of their gaze must love have flowed.  In that moment, the God of the universe drew strength from His dear creation.

In our sufferings, may we look to our Blessed Mother, knowing that she longs to take away our pain and grief, but knowing also that she bears to see us suffer out of love.  She knows that what our Lord allows to happen to us out of His most abundant Providence will transform us, transfiguring the muck of our lives into a brilliant pearl to offer Him.

My most loving Jesus, by the sorrow Thou didst experience in this meeting, grant me the grace of a truly devoted love for Thy most holy Mother. And thou, my Queen, who wast overwhelmed with sorrow, obtain for me by thy intercession a continual and tender remembrance of the Passion of thy Son. I love Thee, Jesus my love; I repent of ever having offended Thee. Never permit me to offend Thee again. Grant that I may love Thee always; and then do with me what Thou wilt. (From the Stations of the Cross according to Saint Alphonsus Liguori.)

Missionary of Divine Providence

Somehow I find myself speaking more and more boldly and freely of late about abandoning oneself to Divine Providence and, as I do so, I find my own belief in it strengthened.  It is like a gift that I have the more I give it to others.  I find myself compelled from within to become a missionary of abandonment to Divine Providence.

It seems fitting to write of this idea today upon the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker, for he was ever abandoned to the Providence of God throughout his life.  In his work, in his silence, in his love, in his tender care for the Blessed Virgin Mary and for Christ, and in his humility, we see a tremendous example of one committed to living for the Lord.  He did not question, he did not shirk his duties, he did not flee from suffering.  Instead, he gave himself wholly to God's will in ways that we may never know upon this earth.

Saint Joseph seems to keep presenting himself in little ways in my life.  Some months ago now, I was blessed to visit the miraculous staircase he built at the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  I think of that experience now as I lift up my life to him, asking his intercession, that he may build of my life also something miraculous as a gift for my Lord and for the world.

He is a powerful spiritual father.  I look up to him as I continue my earthly pilgrimage and speak—I hope—by both words and actions of abandonment to Divine Providence.  I pray that you may do the same.

May it ever be for His glory and not our own!

Holy Saturday

Continuing with our meditations from said character, here is the one for today:

In silence, our Lady waited, perhaps in grief at the death of her Son and yet with great trust, for she who was conceived with no sin and remained without sin could not doubt the Lord's will. Surely she could not have known, nor understood, that He would rise from the dead any more than the apostles. Yet she trusted, waiting in the darkness of pure faith. What then did she expect? Did she wonder about the future, about what would happen? Her place was merely to accept and embrace all as the will of God, finding therein such intimate union that she needed nothing else. It was not for her to sit and grieve at her loss, at the dashing of all her hopes as some must have done, the apostles no less than the others, but rather she moved among them all with the same peace that had always graced her life, the same smile to encourage those who cowered in fear. Perhaps she spoke words to them of her trust in the Lord, but her presence spoke more than any words, and it was her presence that drew all she touched nearer to Him even without her knowing it.

Even then she must have been praying, pleading for those around her, especially those who seemed to be losing hope. As a mother it was her part to seek first the care of her Son, and so she did, even now in His death, for she served each person she met as if he had been her Son, as if he were indeed God Himself.

So it was that she found Him where no other could see Him, her heart ever the resting place of the Living God. So it was that she guided the Church in the pangs of its birth, when all seemed lost.

It was easy for others to forget her presence, to take for granted the peace she radiated. Few could have known the tremendous part she played in the salvation of the world; for her it was not enough to be the Mother of God: she had also to give her life for others in union with her Son, becoming the servant of all, and suffering all for love of Him, heeding only His will at each and every moment and never displeased that it was not her way, answering each temptation with the simple “fiat” that was her path to the heavens, leading across the sea to the glory of the risen Son.

Live in Abundance

​Yesterday, as I mentioned in a letter how I wished I could make a holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament more often, a phrase sprang to my mind that I had forgotten: the Sacrament of the Present Moment. I believe this phrase originated with de Caussade. One might also say merely the duty of the present moment, but that would be to forget about the incarnational presence of Christ in each moment.

For Christ comes to us not just in the Eucharist, not just in the Scriptures, not just in exceptional signs and visions, but in each and every moment and in all that happens to us. After all, He is everywhere and in everything.  We often speak those concepts intellectually without understanding with our hearts how He is constantly pouring Himself out for us, as is the nature of love.  Yet that is the reality.  I daresay we would die if we could truly see Him fully in each moment, for none can see the face of God and live.

It is that awareness of the Sacrament of the Present Moment that keeps us present to things and people around us.  It sets us free to live fully each moment. I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly, said Christ.  (John 10:10.)

Saint Joseph must have lived most faithfully in that vein, for he responded so promptly to the workings of grace and the Holy Spirit.  Although so much of his life was hidden and shrouded in silence, that hiddenness and silence speak strongly of a life lived in adoration of the Sacrament of the Present Moment.

How much peace Joseph must have found in adoring the Omnipotent God in the smallest of circumstances.  It is no wonder then that he should have been chosen to serve as the foster-father of the Incarnate God and as the husband of the one who uttered her absolute fiat to the will of God in all circumstances, who certainly saw with the eyes of faith her Lord in every twist and turn of her earthly pilgrimage.