GEESE ON THE ROOF

 

Canada geese are known to nest on flat rooftops, especially in urban or suburban areas. They choose these high, open spaces to protect their eggs from ground predators and to gain a clear view of their surroundings. They are often attracted to "green roofs," planters, and quiet, elevated spaces.

It is a first for us, and we have daily been fascinated by this mother goose who chose the roof of our llama/sheep fold. We were all concerned as the days went by. How could those goslings get off that roof.  There are some birds, such as the marbled murrelets who actually push their babies out of trees, when they know they are old enough to fly. But for geese it is a problem as the goslings cannot fly down, creating a challenge for them to reach food and water. At times parents will drop the goslings down to the ground, where they can survive the fall by landing on soft surfaces or because of their light weight. A rather hit and miss prospect.

Once the female starts sitting on the eggs, they will hatch in about 25 days. Baby geese can walk within hours of hatching, and the parents will try to lead their new family away from the nest area.

 Because the goslings cannot fly until they are three months old, they may be unable to jump safely from the roof to follow their parents. Generally newly hatched goslings can fall about 2 storeys without hurting themselves, because they are so small and fluffy.

If the nest is more than two storeys high, or there is a barrier more than 4 inches tall preventing the goslings from jumping off, it is rcommended to call the local wildlife rehabilation center. 

Then today at dinner, we watched two raptors, either juvie bald eagles and or a pair of red wings (they were going too fast to identify) fly by the windows.  Hours later at Vespers I spied a raptor out of the corner of my eye swooping very near if not from that goose rooftop. Looking closer I noted movement and could see yellow goslings. 

What to do? Where is that camera when you need it? One of the nuns bravely climbed up and got the babes into the pasture near the pond, with the hope they could hide in the grass and maybe soon get to the pond and the rushes which would protect them. 

 Time will tell, but we hope to see some of these babes survive- as much as we dislike the adults at times.  Perhaps my greatest complaint -not the poopy mess they make- is that they drive away smaller ducks, such as the colorful wood duck, which no longer come to make its nest near the pond’s edge.

POPE LEO AND A NEW MOTH

 

My Arizona friend, Jeff, will be happy to know a new moth has been found in the White Mountains of Crete. Jeff loves moths (as well as birds).  I am happy that it has been named after our Holy Father,  Pope Leo.

 

Its name  reflects its "noble appearance," explain the scientists who identified this unique insect, but it is also "a message of hope for the environment." Researchers from the Tyrolean State Museum, the Finnish Museum of Natural History, and the Bavarian State Zoological Collection describe the discovery in the open-access journal "Nota Lepidopterologica," detailing the "technical" name adopted: PYRALIS PAPALEONEI, derived from Pope Leo. This discovery, they emphasize, demonstrates how, even among such eye-catching European moths, little-known species remain to be discovered.  

The so-called Pope Lion moth has a wingspan of approximately 0.79 inches, placing it among the medium-sized species in its group. Its most distinctive features are its purple forewings with an orange-golden spot and conspicuous white bands. The moths have been observed near artificial light sources and appear to be primarily active in June. Little is known about the biology and lifestyle of the new species so far. It was distinguished from related species based on classical morphological characteristics, such as wing pattern, coloration, and genital morphology, as well as through genetic analysis. Molecular analyses revealed a divergence of approximately 6% from the most closely related species, clearly indicating that it is a distinct species. 

Butterflies and moths are often named based on physical characteristics, geographic origins, or in honor of illustrious figures. Within the Pyralis genus, however, a unique tradition can be observed: as early as 1775, Austrian naturalists Michael Denis and Ignaz Schiffermüller described the first species in the group as Pyralis regalis ('royal'), inspired by its splendid coloration.

 Other high-sounding names followed, such as Pyralis princeps and Pyralis cardinalis, which also referred to its extraordinary beauty. All these species belong to the diverse superfamily Pyraloidea, which includes approximately 16 described species worldwide and represents one of the largest groups of micromoths. 

The naming of living organisms has a historical-cultural dimension. In the bok of Genesis, Adam is first entrusted with the task of naming all animals. In this sense, taxonomy (the science of classifying, naming, and organizing organisms) can be considered one of humanity's first endeavors, experts argue. 

For Peter Huemer, the study leader (former head at the Tyrolean State Museum Ferdinandeum), naming a species is therefore more than just a formal scientific act: it also serves as a symbolic appeal to the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV, to underscore humanity's central responsibility for safeguarding creation (something Benedictines have done for 1500 years). This is particularly fitting, he says, since butterflies and moths are considered in Christianity to be symbols of resurrection, transformation (metamorphosis), and the immortal soul. 

"We are facing a global biodiversity crisis, yet only a fraction of the world's species have been scientifically documented. Effective biodiversity conservation requires that species are first recognized, and then named. Around 700 new  moth species are described each year, primarily in tropical regions. However, basic research in Europe is far from complete: in the Alps alone, around 200 previously unknown species have been identified in recent decades", observes Peter Huemer.

The discovery of the Pope Lion's moth, Pyralis papaleonei, highlights "how much remains to be discovered," even in already extensively studied European regions, and underscores "the urgent need to protect sensitive habitats," experts comment. 

NEW FOR USA

 

 Another American woman has been put forth for canonization.  Although she was not born in the United States, she spent the  majority of her life  here.

SERVANT OF GOD ADELE BRICE was born in Belgium in 1831. Although she suffered an accident at a young age that left her blind in her right eye, those who knew her best describe her cheerfulness, fervent piety, and simple religious ways. 

Upon receiving her first Holy Communion, Adele and a few close friends promised the Blessed Virgin Mary that they would devote their lives to becoming religious teaching sisters in Belgium. However, this promise grew difficult to keep when her parents decided to move to America alongside other Belgium settlers. After seeking advice from her confessor, she was told to be obedient to her parents. He assured her that if the Lord willed her to become a teacher and a sister, she would serve in that vocation in America.

After the six-week voyage to America, the Brice family joined the largest Belgian settlement – near present-day Champion, Wisconsin. Belgian pioneers’ and settlers’ lives were difficult, and many died in the harsh Wisconsin winters. Adele served her family’s needs by often taking grain to the grist mill.

 In early October 1859, Adele reported seeing a woman clothed in dazzling white, a yellow sash around her waist, and a crown of stars on her flowing blonde locks. The lady was surrounded by a bright light, and stood between two trees, a hemlock and a maple. Adele was frightened by the vision and prayed until it disappeared. When she told her parents what she had seen, they suggested that a poor soul might be in need of prayers.

The following Sunday, October 8, 1859, Adele saw the apparition a second time while walking to Mass in the community of Bay Settlement. Her sister and another woman, Marie Theresa VanderMissen ( d.1898), were with her at the time, but neither saw anything. She asked the parish priest for advice and he told her if she saw the apparition again, she should ask it, "In the Name of God, who are you and what do you wish of me?"

 Returning from the Mass, she saw the apparition a third time, and this time posed the question the priest had told her to ask. The apparition replied, "I am the Queen of Heaven, who prays for the conversion of sinners, and I wish you to do the same." Adele was also given a mission to "gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation."

Adele, who was aged 28 at the time of the apparitions, devoted the rest of her life to teaching children. She began going door-to-door, up to 25 miles a day, offering to teach the children about the faith. She would even offer to do household chores during the daytime so the children could have time to learn in the evening. By extension, the parents of these children would often listen to Adele’s lessons and grow in their love of the Lord as well.

Later opened a small school. Other women joined her in her work and formed a community of sisters according to the rule of the Third Order Franciscans, although she never took public vows as a nun.

Their presence and influence had a lasting effect on the people of Northeast Wisconsin, especially within the Belgian community of the Door County Penninsula.

This influence even was helpful when the town where Adele lived and did her ministry work decided to change its name. It is recalled that when the community asked Adele what the new town’s name should be, she requested “Champion.” A nod to her promise given to the Blessed Mother to serve in Champion, Belgium. Although Adele was no longer in Belgium, she was able to fufill her promise in Champion, Wisconsin. The name of the town to this day is Champion.

Adele Brice died on July 5th, 1896, and is buried in the cemetery located near the Apparition Chapel of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion. On her headstone is inscribed the disposition of her life: “Sacred Cross Under thy Shadow I Rest and Hope.”

The original chapel built on the site of the apparitions was a 10x12 foot wooden structure built by Lambert Brise, Adele's father, at the site of the Marian apparition. 

Isabella Doyen donated the 5 acres around the spot, and a larger (24x40 foot) wooden church was built in 1861. This chapel bore the inscription  "Notre Dame de bon Secours, priez pour nous"  (“Our Lady of Good Help, pray for us”), giving the shrine its original name.)

The site became a popular pilgrimage site, and the chapel was soon too small to accommodate the growing number of devotees. A larger brick chapel was built in 1880 and dedicated by Francis Xavier Krautbauer, the second Bishop of Green Bay. A school and convent were also built on the site in the 1880s.

On October 8th, 1871, almost twelve years to the date of Mary’s last appearance to Adele, the Great Peshtigo Fire broke out. Lumber companies and sawmills had been harvesting the woods of northeastern Wisconsin for decades, leaving immense piles of sawdust and branches as they produced lumber and other wood products. 

Unable to outrun the flames, nearly 2,000 people in the area died in the inferno. Some people assume that, driven by strong winds the conflagration leaped across Green Bay of Lake Michigan and began burning huge sections of the Door Peninsula.

When the firestorm threatened the chapel, Adele refused to leave and instead organized a procession to petition the Virgin Mary for her protection. The surrounding land was destroyed by the fire, but the chapel and its grounds, together with all who had taken refuge there, remained unharmed. The conflagration engulfed about 1,200,000 acres and is the deadliest wildfire in recorded history.

The current shrine was constructed with support from Bishop Paul Peter Rhode, who dedicated the new building in July 1942. The Apparition Oratory contains a collection of crutches left behind in thanksgiving  by those who came to pray at the shrine.

The largest annual gatherings at the chapel are on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, August 15, where Mass is celebrated with an outdoors and a procession is held around the shrine precincts, and the Walk to Mary pilgrimage, which takes place on the first Saturday of May, where pilgrims walk 7, 14, or 22 miles to the Shrine from other locations. Both events attract thousands of people.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Champion gained national recognition when the apparitions were approved after a two-year investigation by Bishop David Ricken on December 8, 2010. This makes it the first and only apparition approved by the Catholic Church in the United States. Bishop Ricken noted his predecessors had implicitly endorsed the shrine in holding services there over the years.

On August 15, 2016, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops designated the church as a national shrine. To reflect this, the shrine's name was changed to The National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help.

On April 20, 2023, the shrine was again renamed to The National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion.

UPDATE: ANOTHER RECOGNIZED HOLY MAN FOR HAWAII

 

On April 23, Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii signed into law a bill that established April 27 of each year as Brother Joseph Dutton Day.

SERVANT of GOD JOSEPH DUTTON worked along side of St. Damien and St. Marianne of Molokai, who served those suffering with leprosy.

“Brother Joseph Dutton’s life is a powerful reminder of what it means to serve others with humility and compassion,” Gov. Green said.

Brother Joseph (called Brother, but he was not a religious)  was born in Stowe, Vermont., but grew up in Janesville, Wisconsin. He fought in the U.S. Civil War and later became a military captain with the 13th Wisconsin Volunteers. In 1886, recently converted to Catholicism, he traveled to Molokai to join St. Damien in his work. It was his way to atone for a failed marriage and the years of alcoholism that dogged him following the Civil War.

His work alongside Father Damien helped bring dignity, comfort and hope to those living in isolation. He quickly becoming skilled in caring for patients afflicted by Hansen’s disease and after Father Damien’s death in 1889, Brother Dutton continued managing the Baldwin Home for Boys, dedicating the remainder of his life to serving the residents of Kalaupapa.

“For 44 years Joseph Dutton was an important member of the Kalaupapa community, embracing aloha and compassion in giving of his life of service to the patients living during challenging times,” said Maria Devera, board president of the Joseph Dutton Guild. “It is fitting that we take time to recall and honor that life of service and take a moment and reflect on our call to service.”

“As state senator representing Molokai, this recognition is deeply meaningful to our community,” said Senator Lynn DeCoite. “Brother Joseph Dutton stood alongside the people of Kalaupapa during one of the most difficult chapters in our history, bringing care, dignity and hope to those who needed it most. Establishing April 27 as Brother Joseph Dutton Day ensures that his legacy and the strength and resilience of Kalaupapa will continue to be honored for generations to come.”

ART: The late artist , Dietrich Varez from the Big Island, created block prints of St. Damien and St. Marianne and “Brother” Joseph Dutton in his singular monochromatic style in 2013.  The print includes the American and Hawaiian flags in tribute to Brother Joseph’s patriotism and a desk, pen and paper in recognition of his prolific letter writing.

FAITHFUL SERVANT REMEMBERED

 

The canonization cause for our friend, Jesuit FATHER WALTER CISZEK, has been terminated, although the Vatican's decision does not "diminish the enduring spiritual value" of his witness, said a leading advocate for the cause (see Blogs: 3/15/2012, 4/28/2020).

"This development comes after years of careful study and discernment at the level of the Holy See, which bears the responsibility of evaluating each Cause with thoroughness, integrity, and fidelity to the Church's norms," said the diocese, which assumed responsibility for the cause following its initiation by the New Jersey-based Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic.

Father Ciszek was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1937, becoming the first American in the order in the Byzantine Catholic rite, one of the 23 Eastern Catholic churches that, along with the Roman Catholic Church, comprise the universal Catholic Church.

As a seminarian, he studied in Rome as part of an initiative under Pope Pius XI to equip priests for ministry in Russia. Originally assigned to Poland, he was able to enter Russia on false papers after World War II broke out in 1939 to minister in secret.

 Working as an unskilled laborer, he was arrested in 1941 by the secret police as a suspected spy and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in Siberia. While in various prison camps, he managed to celebrate Mass and hear confessions.

 After his sentence ended in 1955, he was forced to reside in Russia, and worked in a chemical factory. After decades of no communication, he was at last able to write to his American family, who had presumed him dead.

 In 1963, President John F. Kennedy secured his release and that of an American student, exchanging them for two Soviet agents. Until his death in 1984, Father Ciszek worked at the John XXIII Center at Fordham University, which is now the Center for Eastern Christian Studies at the Jesuit-run University of Scranton in Pennsylvania.

 Father Ciszek recounted his experiences in the books He Leadeth Me and With God in Russia, co-written with fellow Jesuit Fr. Daniel Flaherty.

 Even as his canonization cause has been halted, Father Ciszek's impact lives on, said the diocese.

"While this news may understandably bring disappointment to the many who have been inspired by Father Ciszek's example of heroic faith, it does not diminish the enduring spiritual value of his life, witness, and legacy," the diocese said in its statement.

 "We are deeply grateful for the many years of prayer, devotion, and support from the faithful. Father Ciszek's courage, perseverance, and unwavering trust in God amidst extraordinary suffering has led many souls to God and will continue to touch countless lives," said the diocese. "Even as the formal canonization process has been stopped, the grace flowing from his witness remains alive."

The prayer league will now become the Father Walter J. Ciszek Society and "remain committed to honoring his memory, sharing his message, and encouraging devotion to the profound spiritual insights he left to the Church.

His beautiful prayer of surrender:

 Lord, Jesus Christ, I ask the grace to accept the sadness in my heart, as your will for me, in this moment. I offer it up, in union with your sufferings, for those who are in deepest need of your redeeming grace. I surrender myself to your Father’s will and I ask you to help me to move on to the next task that you have set for me.

Spirit of Christ, help me to enter into a deeper union with you. Lead me away from dwelling on the hurt I feel: to thoughts of charity for those who need my love, to thoughts of compassion for those who need my care, and to thoughts of giving to those who need my help.

As I give myself to you, help me to provide for the salvation of those who come to me in need. May I find my healing in this giving. May I always accept God’s will. May I find my true self by living for others in a spirit of sacrifice and suffering.

May I die more fully to myself, and live more fully in you. As I seek to surrender to the Father’s will, may I come to trust that he will do everything for me.

THANKS FOR BIRDS

 

                       Birds

That God made birds is surely in His favor.
I write them as His courtesies of love.
Hidden in leaves, they offer me sweet savor
of lightsome music; when they streak above

my garden wall they brush my scene with color.
They are embroideries upon the grass.
I write the gayest stitched-in blossoms duller
than birds which change their patterns as I pass.

I nurse a holy envy of St. Francis
who lured the birds to nestle at his breast.
Yet I am grateful for this one which dances
across my lawn, a reckless anapest.

Subjects for gratitude push up my living
praise to a sum that tempts the infinite;
but birds deserve one whole psalm of thanksgiving
and these words are my antiphon for it.

Jessica Powers (1956) (See Blog: June 23, 2022) 

Painting:   “Concert of Birds”,  Frans Snyders (1601), Flemish

MERCY FOR THE WORLD

 

Lord, You have passed over into new life, and You now invite us to pass over also.  In these past days we have grieved at Your suffering and mourned at Your death.  We have given ourselves over to repentance and prayer, to abstinence and gravity.  Now at Easter You tell us that we have died to sin.  Yet, if this is true, how can we remain on Earth?  How can we pass over to Your risen life, while we are still in this world?  Will we not be just as meddlesome, just as lazy, just as selfish as before?  Will we not still be bad-tempered and stubborn, enmeshed in all the vices of the past?  We pray that as we pass over with You, our faces will never look back.  Instead, let us, like You, make Heaven on Earth.   (St. Bernard of Clairvaux)

Eternal God, in Whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion — inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and increase Your mercy in us, that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent, but with great confidence submit ourselves to Your holy will, which is Love and Mercy itself.

Art: Divine Mercy for the World, Stephen Whatley, England

THE MARYS

St.  John’s Gospel tells us, “Standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala” (Jn 19:25). These three Marys were special witnesses of the Lord’s death.

Because of their faithfulness, each of the three Marys were the first  witnesses of the Risen Christ. They symbolize, faith, hope, and love,  the theological virtues present in the Easter mystery.

In various Catholic countries, particularly in the Kingdom of Spain, the Philippines and Latin American countries, images of the three Marys (in Spanish Tres Marías) associated with the tomb are carried in Good Friday processions referred to by the word Penitencia (Spanish) or Panatà (Filipino for an act performed in fulfilment of a vow). They carry attributes or iconic accessories, chiefly enumerated as follows:

Santa Maria Jacobe (2024 Good Friday processions, Philippines)

Mary Cleopas (sometimes alternated with Mary Jacob) – holding a broom

Mary Salome – holding a thurible or censer

Mary Magdalene – holding an alabaster chalice or jar.

The Blessed Virgin Mary is not part of this group, as her title as Mater Dolorosa is reserved to a singular privilege in the procession.

A common pious practice sometimes alternates Mary Salome with Jacob, due to a popular belief that Salome, an elderly person at this time would not have had the energy to reach the tomb of Christ at the morning of resurrection, though she was present at the Crucifixion.

Art:   “The Marys at the Tomb;  Colin McChan, 1950

ON THE ROAD

 

Who are these disciples  on the road to Emaus? (Luke 24:13-35) Cleopas is named  in the Gospel, but the other remains a mystery. Tradition and scholars often identify her as Cleopas' wife, Mary.They most probably were traveling together, sorrowing, after the death of Jesus. It could also be another male disciple, such as Simon or Luke. 

The main message of this story after the resurrection of Jesus is twofold:   One never knows when and where the Lord will turn up and secondly, the risen Jesus is present with us even in times of doubt or disappointment. Even when we are blind to His presence, He stays with us. 

As with us, Jesus does not force Himself upon the disciples, but He waits to be invited to stay and share a meal, highlighting the importance of inviting Him into our own lives, especially as we receive Him in the Eucharist..

                                                   

Art: Amanda O Mcconnell  (USA)

THE GARDENER

 

“Tell Them” 

Breaking through the powers of darkness
bursting from the stifling tomb
he slipped into the graveyard garden
to smell the blossomed air.

Tell them, Mary, Jesus said,
that I have journeyed far
into the darkest deeps I’ve been
in nights without a star.

Tell them Mary, Jesus said,
that fear will flee my light
that though the ground will tremble
and despair will stalk the earth
I hold them firmly by the hand
through terror to new birth.

Tell them, Mary, Jesus said,
the globe and all that’s made
is clasped to God’s great bosom
they must not be afraid
for though they fall and die, he said,
and the black earth wrap them tight
they will know the warmth
of God’s healing hands
in the early morning light.

Tell them, Mary, Jesus said,
smelling the blossomed air,
tell my people to rise with me
to heal the Earth’s despair.

                            Edwina Gateley (USA)

Art:  "New Gardener",   Janpeter Muilwijk (Dutch, 1960–)  2017.

HE IS RISEN

 

“I who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth day of life and love and wings: and of the gay great happening illimitably earth.”  e. e. cummings

If in that Syrian garden, ages slain,
You sleep, and know not you are dead in vain,
Nor even in dreams behold how dark and bright
Ascends in smoke and fire by day and night
The hate you died to quench and could but fan,
Sleep well and see no morning, son of man.

But if, the grave rent and the stone rolled by,
At the right hand of majesty on high
You sit, and sitting so remember yet
Your tears, your agony and bloody sweat,
Your cross and passion and the life you gave,
Bow hither out of Heaven and see and save.

A.E. Housman

 

Art: Julia Stankova, Bulgaria, 2014 

ENTOMBED

"Jesus, lying in the borrowed tomb, was at peace – His suffering was over, His love was consummated, every hour of darkness moved closer to the light, closer to the morning of resurrection, closer to the time when He would rise from the dead to live forever.  

In every life of every Christian there are countless resurrections – just as there are always many times when every Christian is buried with Christ.

In the soul of the sinner Christ dies many deaths and knows the glory of many resurrections

In the souls that have served Him faithfully, too, there are long periods that seem like death, periods of dryness of spirit when all the spiritual things that once interested them have become insufferably tedious and boring, when it is very difficult, even sometimes impossible, to say a prayer; when the sweetness has gone out of the love of God, when the soul seems bound in the iron bondage of the winter of the spirit like the seed held in iron of the black frozen earth in the wintertime.

 These are the winters of the spirit indeed!  But just as Christ suffered everything that all those who were to follow Him would suffer, all those “other Christs” who have come after Him have suffered, and will suffer in a spiritual sense, everything that He suffered in His human life on Earth.

One of these things is lying in the tomb, bound and restricted in the burial bands.  There come times in every life when the soul seems to be shut down, frostbound in the hard, ironbound winter of the spirit; times when it seems to be impossible to pray, impossible even to want to pray; when there seems to be only cold and darkness numbing the mind.

These indeed are the times when Christ is growing towards His flowering, towards His spring breaking in the soul – towards His ever-recurring resurrection in the world, towards His glorious resurrection in the hearts of men.

Again and again He has referred to Himself and to His divine life in us as seed buried in the earth, and so it is.  There are times when we experience no sweetness, no consolation, no visible sign of the presence and the growth of Christ in us; these above all other times are those in which Christ does in fact grow to His flowering in us.

There seems to be nothing that we can do in these times to honor God, but by ourselves there is nothing that we can do at any time.  In Christ we can do just what He did, remain quietly in the tomb, rest, and be at peace, trusting God to awaken us in His own good time to a springtime of Christ, to a sudden quickening and flowering and new realization of Christ-life in us.

 There are many deaths before the death of the body.  There are many, many resurrections, before that last eternal resurrection that will reunite our bodies and souls forever, to live forever full lives of love and endless bliss that will never be interrupted again.

All those little deaths of the spirit show us the mystery of that last death and that endless rising from the dead.

Death is not something to fear.  Fear will be over and done with when it comes.  Then the possibility of sin will be over, the danger of ever again being parted from Christ will be over, the pains and the desolations of body and soul on Earth will be over… We have nothing to fear. Christ has died each of our deaths for us.  He will be with us all, saint and sinner alike, in our rising from the dead. 

It is to each one of us that He spoke on the night before He died, saying, “Peace is my bequest to you, and the peace which I give you is mine to give; I do not give peace as the world gives it.  Do not let your heart be distressed, or play the coward,” (John 14:27). (Caryll Houselander)

Art: Andrea Mantegna (d. 1506), The Lamentatiom over the Dead Christ", Italian 

RELEASED

" They took His body down from the cross and laid it in His mother’s arms, and she held it upon her heart; and in it, all those Christs to come to whom she was mother now.

That first birth of Christ in Bethlehem was painless, because Mary, his mother, was sinless and He was the Son of God.  But this mysterious birth of Christ on Calvary began in the travail and agony of the whole world borne by one man and one woman, God-made-man and Mary, His mother: because this was the birth of Christ in us, Christ the redeemer born in the souls of sinners; and every sinner who would receive Him in all time became Mary’s child, even her only child; every sinner who would be indwelt by Christ was laid in Mary’s arms, and she received them all.

Mankind was born again.

 Already even in the agony of that night of sorrow, Mary, who had shared Christ’s passion shared His peace.  In the consummation of His pain, and her pain and suffering, she knew the beginning of the joy that would never end; she knew the birth of life in the souls of men that would be immortal life, never ending.  She knew the utter joy of experiencing the consummation of His love for men, and of loving them with all His love.

 She herself was indwelt by Him now as really as her body had been indwelt by His advent.  Now she who had given Him life would live His life forever; her life would be His, her words His words, her acts His acts; her heart beating, the beating of His heart 

She who had said long ago in Nazareth, “Let it be unto me according to thy word,” was the first of all human creatures since Christ was conceived to be one with Him.  She gave Him her life, and He gave her back her life in His forever.  He gave His life, too, to all those who would receive Him through the ages: “And I have given them the privilege which thou gavest to me, that they should all be one, as we are one; that while thou art in me, I may be in them, and so they may be perfectly made one,” (JohnJohn 17:22-23).

 As the dead Christ lay in His mother’s arms she laid to her heart all those sinners to whom He would give not only life but His own life: in baptism, that first stream of the waters of birth, cleansing and irrigating the souls; in the sacrament of penance, restoring the soul of the sinner to its primal innocence.  She saw them as God sees them.  No matter how battered and bruised they had been by sin, the innocence of Christ was restored to them, they were restored to His beauty; no matter how darkened their minds and hearts had been by evil and by the oppressive sadness that follows upon evil, they shone now with the purity, the glory, of Christ of Tabor, clothed in His loveliness that burns with the splendor of a fire of snow.  No matter how cynical and faded and old their sins had made them, they were restored to their childhood now, to Christ’s childhood.  Now they could possess the Kingdom of Heaven in a wild flower, a stream of water, or a star, and now in the body of Christ Mary took them, each of them as her only child, to her sinless heart.

And there from the summit of Calvary, at the foot of the cross with her dead child in her arms, Mary saw how in all the centuries to come Christ would be born again day after day, hour after hour, in the sacred Host.  She heard the multitudinous whisper of the words of consecration coming to her on Calvary from every part of the world, from every place on Earth: from the great cathedrals of the world; from the little village huts that are makeshift for churches; from the churches themselves, whether they were beautiful or cheap and tawdry; from the chapels and wards of hospitals; from prisons and from concentration camps; from the frozen forests of Siberia – from dawn till dusk, and from dusk till dawn, the words of consecration on the breath of men, and Jesus lifted up, as he had been lifted up on the cross, in the Sacred Host.

 And she saw, through the darkness that covered Calvary, how at all those Masses those who were to be her children and the children of God would flock to the altars to receive her son in the Host – little children clothed in the white muslin and gossamer of their First Communion clothes, old people leaning upon their sticks, young men and women who would carry Christ in their hearts to face and conquer the workaday world.

She saw, too, how he would be carried into prisons and hospitals and concentration camps, to be given to the lonely and the sick and the dying.  And how in all these people, in every one of them, sinners as well as saints, Christ, her son, would live again and overcome the world.

So it was that when Jesus was taken down from the cross, Mary received her dead son into her arms and took the whole world to her heart."  (Caryll Houselander)

 

DEATH

 

In Jesus’ passion and death, we see the suffering of the world, past and present. Our faith tells us that in our own suffering and death, which leads to the tomb, we will one day wake with Him in everlasting life.

 If anything, this walk with Christ during these days of sorrow, must reveal to us- and to a world that will listen- His infinite love for us. To paraphrase the refrain after each Station of the Cross: We adore You, O Christ, and we bless You, because You love us”. 

"As Christ died on the cross He drew all those to Himself who would die His death and enter with Him into the mysterious glory of it, all those who by dying would redeem other men: those whose lives seem to be failures, to be cut off before they have come to their flowering; those people who could have had brilliant careers, who could have benefited their fellow men immeasurably, but are cut off at the very beginning of manhood, or who die in childhood; deaths that seem to be nothing else but waste to which we cannot reconcile our hearts.

He identifies Himself with all the young men who would die in battle, all the men and women who would fall in the squander of destruction that is war, all those children who would die in innocence with the burning splendor of His purity still radiant in their souls, with His passion of love still whole and not frittered away.

 He identifies Himself with the old people who, when death comes, will think their lives were wasted, who will think that they have done nothing for God’s glory, taken no part in the world’s redemption, but who in reality are dying His death and saving the world in the power of His love.

 Christ on the cross is God and man, He is wholly human; He knows the utter desolation and loneliness of death as no other man will ever know it.  He knows the grief of leaving those whom He loves – His mother, His friends, Mary Magdalen who seems utterly dependent on Him.

 He feels abandoned by His Father.

He is dying all our deaths.  Death is too big a thing for any one of us to face alone.  It separates us, for a time, from those we love on Earth.  It is difficult for us Earthbound, rooted creatures to want Heaven; it is impossible for us to realize what the glory of God will be to us.  It is loving God, and that only, that can make Heaven, Heaven.  Here imagination does not help us: we cannot really imagine ourselves loving the “Supreme Spirit” – we even want to cling to our human frailties and comforts, to our human weakness

It is now that Christ takes over.  He has died all our deaths on the cross; now we are going to die His; it is Christ in us who surrenders to God.  It is not with our own heart and our own will that we can long for God, but with Christ’s.  And Christ has given His heart and will to us.  In this is the supreme mercy that comes to us in the hour of death.

“Father, into thy hands….”  We can say it with Christ’s love and trust in the Father.  “Father, into thy hands not only my spirit, my body and soul, but those people whom I love, and whom you love infinitely more than I 

Now I love God with Christ’s will, with Christ’s heart, with Christ’s trust; and because He has taken whole possession of me, in the hour of my death I shall at last love my friends too with His loveNot only will my suffering of mind and body, molten into His in the fire of His love, be the beginning of my blessed purgatory purifying me; it will also be Christ’s sacrifice on the cross offered for those whom I love.

Of each one surrendered wholly to Christ in the hour of death, we can say: “Greater love than this no man has, that he lays down his life for his friends.”  (Caryll Houselander)

Art:  Gianpaolo Berto- Italian

NAILS

 

“As Christ stretched out His beautiful craftsman’s hands and composed His blameless feet on the hard wood of the cross to receive the nails, He was reaching out to countless men through all time: as He stretched his body on that great tree that was to flower with His life forever, He gave Himself to be made one with all those who in every generation to come would willingly bind and fasten themselves irrevocably to the cross, for the love of God and the love of men.

 For all through time for those who love Christ and who want to be one with Him, love and the cross would be inseparable; but because Christ willed that He should be nailed to the cross Himself in His human nature, love will always predominate and redeem the suffering of the cross.

 As the three nails were driven home into the wood, fastening Him to it irrevocably, Christ gave Himself to all those men and women who in the years to come would nail themselves to His cross by the three vows of religion – poverty, chastity, and obedience; those wise ones who know the weakness of human nature, who know how easily the will can falter when the sweetness of the first consolation of prayer is over; how hard and bleak the winter of the spirit when its springtide and its summer and harvesting seem passed forever; how hard to go on faithfully clinging to the Christ life with only one’s own weak will to drive one.  Christ, receiving the nails, gave Himself to those men and women who would nail themselves by binding vows to Himself upon the cross, who would have the ability to remain true to their chosen life because their hands and feet are put into His hands and feet, and they are held onto the cross by the nails that held Him.

 He gave himself in that moment to all those men and women who would pledge themselves to Him and to one another with the vows in matrimony, the three blessed nails of human love safeguarding husbands and wives from the assaults of temptation in every circumstance of the world, the vows to love, honor, and obey.

He gave himself to all those converts who bind themselves to the laws of the church and all those Christians who persevere in the faith, nailed to it by their own baptismal vows, no matter what hardships it may involve them in; nailed to it willingly because they know well that without Christ they can do nothing, and that Christ in this world is inseparable from His cross.

And with what great tenderness, with what depths of understanding, Christ gave Himself in that hour on Calvary to all those whom He would indwell – Religious, married people, ordinary Christians, trying to adhere to Him, not through emotion, not through sentimentality, but by uniting their wills to His, and binding themselves irrevocably to him.  With what love He gave himself to them, knowing how they too would be considered to be fools, would be mocked, and even looked upon with distrust and anxiety by their own people – by those who loved them…

…Despite the fact that in many countries of the world today, to openly vow yourself to religion is to put your head into the noose, to invite persecution!

Not only would the Religious be thought to be fools, but those married men and women who were faithful and compelled themselves to be faithful to their three vows – whose love and whose fidelity to love is not that which the world of today can understand.

…To all these Christ reached out across the years when He was nailed to the cross.  He identified Himself with them; He accepted their limitations; He gave them His will.  For them as well as for Himself, His prayer was uttered forever: “Father, not my will but thy will be done.”     (Caryll Houselander)

 Art: Kevin Rolly, Los Angeles