15 Modern Women Celebrate St. Mary Magdalene

Ateleia is a Catholic social networking website that gathers together "seekers of the truth" - a project of the Foundation for Evangelization through the Media (FEM), developed under the patronage of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications and the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization. Ateleia describes itself, in it's YouTube video, as "The 1st Question and Answer Community About Faith, Life and Society". July 22, 2016, Kathryn Jean Lopez writes an article announcing the first time the Church celebrates the feast of St. Mary Magdalene. In her article Kathryn gathers a symposium of Catholic women to share their thoughts on the "Apostle to the Apostles", including a submission by Kathleen Beckman. Learn more about the significance of this new feast day by reading Kathryn's article here.

Profile in Mercy: Eucharistic Witness

Providence ordained that Cardinal Francis Xavier Van Thuan exercise his priestly ministry as a Vietnam prisoner of war for thirteen years. He entered the school of the cross when he was captured in the midst of a terrifying war and put in a Vietnamese prison camp. He had to overcome himself, his plan, to give assent to God’s permissive will. Could he drink the bitter chalice now offered him, as did Christ in Gethsemane?

He not only drank the bitter chalice to the dregs, he proclaimed Christ’s victory by his witness to merciful love. His Eucharistic witness to divine mercy transformed the prison camp. If a Vietnamese prison camp can be transformed by the witness of one holy priest, one believing, humble, forgiving, man of God, perhaps we can learn from his example how to transform our homes and world.

The Eucharist played a central part in the transformation of the prison camp. The Eucharist then is key to transforming our environments. Yes, the Eucharist must enter into the darkest areas of humanity to transform it. After all, it is true that eyes are opened and we recognize Christ in the breaking of the bread (cf. Luke 24:31). The Cardinal’s story proves this again.

Triumph of Mercy through the Witness of Suffering

In the Cardinal’s own words: “Alone in my prison cell, I continued to be tormented by the fact that I was forty-eight years old, in the prime of my life, that I had worked for eight years as a bishop and gained so much pastoral experience and there I was isolated, inactive and far from my people.

‘One night, from the depths of my heart, I could hear a voice advising me: “Why torment yourself? You must discern between God and the works of God. Everything you have done and desire to continue to do, pastoral visits, training seminarians, sisters and members of religious Orders, building schools, evangelizing non-Christians—all of that is excellent work; the work of God but it is not God! If God wants you to give it all up and put the work into His hands, do it and trust Him. God will do the work infinitely better than you; He will entrust the work to others who are able than you. You have only to choose God and not the works of God.

‘This light totally changed my way of thinking. When the Communists put me in the hold of the boat, the Hai-Phong, along with 1500 other prisoners and moved us to the North, I said to myself, “Here is my cathedral, here are the people God has given me to care for, here is my mission: to ensure the presence of God among these, my despairing, miserable brothers. It is God’s will that I am here. I accept his will.” And from that minute onwards, a new peace filled my heart and stayed with me for thirteen years.”

 Eucharistic Transformation Amidst the Darkness

“I was taken to prison empty handed. Later on, I was allowed to request the strict necessities like clothing, toothpaste, etc. I wrote home saying, “Send me some wine as medication for stomach pains.” On the outside, the faithful understood what I meant. They sent me a little bottle of Mass wine, with a label reading, “medication for stomach pains”, as well as some hosts broken into small pieces. The police asked me, “Do you have pains in your stomach?” “Yes.” “Here is some medicine for you!” I will never be able to express the joy that was mine: each day, with three drops of wine, a drop of water in the palm of my hand, I celebrated my Mass.

‘At night, the prisoners took turns and spent time in adoration. The Blessed Sacrament helped tremendously. Even Buddhists and other non-Christians were converted. The strength of the love of Jesus is irresistible. The darkness of the prison turned into light, the seed germinated silently in the storm.

‘When I began to discern between God and God’s works, when I chose God and His will and left everything else in His hands, and when I learned to love others, especially my enemies as Jesus loved me, I felt great peace in my heart.”

The Eucharist Empowers Forgiveness of Enemies

“It was very hard for my guards to understand when I spoke about loving our enemies, reconciliation and forgiveness. “Do you really love us?” “Yes, I really love you.” “Even when we cause you pain? When you suffer because you’re in prison without trial?” “Look at all the years we’ve been together. Of course I love you!” “And when you get out, will you tell your people to find us and beat us and hurt our families?” “I’ll continue to love you even if you wish to kill me.” “But why?” “Because Jesus taught us to love always; if we don’t, we are no longer worthy to be called Christians.”

Reflecting on the Cardinal’s merciful love for his enemies is equally inspiring and challenging. Who is our enemy? The Psalmist articulates, “For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me, speaking against me with lying tongues. They beset me with words of hate, and attack me without cause. In return for my love they accuse me, even as I make prayer for them. So, they reward me evil for good, and hatred for my love” (Ps. 109:2-5).

There is heavenly beauty in the forgiveness we grant to our enemies because it is the essence of Divine Mercy. The Christ life within us, made possible by Eucharistic transformation, makes us capable of great acts of mercy. But mercy for enemies is not cheap. It costs our pride to sacrificially grant mercy as God wills.

Mercy in the Grace of the Present Moment

“On 15 August, 1975, on the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, I was invited to the Palace of Independence, the President’s Palace in Saigon, only to be arrested. The motive was the Pope Paul VI had transferred me from my diocese in Nha Trang where I had been bishop for eight years, between 1967 and 1975, to Saigon, to become Archbishop Coadjutor. For the Communist Government this transfer, made one week before their arrival in Saigon, on 30 April 1975, was proof of a conspiracy between the Vatican and the Imperialists.

‘From the very first moment of my arrest, the words of Bishop John Walsh, who had been imprisoned for twelve years in Communist China, came to my mind. On the day of his liberation Bishop Walsh said, “I have spent half my life waiting.”

‘It is true. All prisoners, myself included, constantly wait to be let go. I decided then and there that my captivity would not be merely a time of resignation but a turning point in my life. I decided I would not wait. I would live the present moment and fill it with love. For if I wait, the things I wait for will never happen. The only thing that I can be sure of is that I am going to die. No, I will not spend time waiting.”

Lessons from the Cardinal’s Eucharistic Witness

1. Interior torment can exist because of our unwillingness to let go and let God.
2. It is necessary to distinguish between the works of God and God himself. By so doing, we are set free for more love.
3. Live well the grace of the present, unrepeatable moment in time. One well-lived day at a time is all that God asks. Resist temptations to look back or too far forward.
4. Cardinal Thuan made his prison cell a Eucharistic sanctuary. When we bear witness to Eucharistic life, are transformed by it, we bring the Eucharistic Lord into our circumstance, thereby transforming it.
5. Even non-Christians were converted by Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in the Vietnamese prison camp. Adoration is transformative as we gaze upon God rather than problems and ourselves. Christ is the solution.
6. In the prison camp, the Mass made all the difference in the lives of those who encountered the Eucharist as the saving light in the darkness. This should be our experience also.
7. The Eucharist empowers us to forgive our enemies as Christ forgave us from the Cross and as Cardinal Thuan forgave his tormenters.
8. We can echo the Cardinal’s words in our circumstance: “…Here are the people God has given me to care for, here is my mission: to ensure the presence of God among these, my despairing, miserable brothers. It is God’s will that I am here. I accept his will.”
9. Do not spend your life waiting. Eucharistic life is about engaging in truth not escaping.

Editor’s note: This article contains an excerpt from God’s Healing Mercy: Finding Your Path to Forgiveness, Peace, and Joy, which is available from Sophia Institute Press.

All priests, saints and strugglers alike, need our prayers

The CRUX website bills itself as "Taking The Catholic Pulse -  ...where different voices in the Catholic conversation can interact, be taken seriously and treated with respect, without the deck being stacked against anyone in advance." June 12, 2016, Kathryn Jean Lopez writes about her conversation with Kathleen Beckman regarding the dire need for our prayers for priests everywhere. In her article Kathryn declares, "There’s a book called Praying for Priests that I find myself carrying around more often than I ought to." It reminds her to sound a siren just as we all should - our priests need our prayers! You can read the full article over at the CRUX website by clicking here.

“Fight Like a Knight”: Spiritual Warfare Prayers

“My daughter, I want to teach you about spiritual warfare. Never trust in yourself, but abandon yourself totally to My will. …I will not delude you with prospects of peace and consolations; on the contrary, prepare for great battles. Know that you are now on a great stage where all heaven and earth are watching you. Fight like a knight, so that I can reward you. Do not be unduly fearful because you are not alone.” (Diary 1760)

In reading the lives of the saints we discover that many endured diabolical attacks. The above quotation from St. Faustina’s Diary was the inspiration for a chapter on spiritual warfare in “God’s Healing Mercy” book. The words of Christ to St. Faustina are perpetually relevant and worthy of reflection.

Why does the God of mercy ordain a spiritual battle for His people on earth? Christ’s words to St. Faustina lend understanding: “But child, you are not yet in your homeland; so go, fortified by My grace, and fight for My kingdom in human souls; fight as a king’s child would, and remember the days of your exile will pass quickly, and with them the possibility of earning merit for heaven. I expect from you, My child, a great number of souls who will glorify my mercy for all eternity” (Diary 1489). Christ’s lesson applies to all believers: a greater number of souls will eternally glorify The Divine Mercy because they received mercy in the way that David did in the defeat of Goliath (cf. 1 Sam. 17). (God’s Healing Mercy, pg. 113)

Not only Satanists engage in spiritual warfare. St. Paul exhorts all, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand” (6:10-14).

Recently on a popular secular news radio program, during a panel discussion on current affairs, someone referred to the devil. Immediately another panelist responded forcefully, “There is no devil!” Must a Catholic believe in the devil?

CCC 414. Satan or the devil and the other demons are fallen angels who have freely refused to serve God and his plan. Their choice against God is definitive. They try to associate man in their revolt against God.

CCC 391. Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the Church’s Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called “Satan” or the “devil”. The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: “The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing.”

People from all backgrounds and faiths turn to the Catholic Church, namely our clergy, when they need liberation from diabolical suffering. Even those who enter into diabolical practices willing, often come to the point of seeking liberation from the assaults of Satan and his cohorts who seduce with empty promises and then torment the person in mockery.

Jesus Christ is the chief exorcist. His healing and deliverance ministry continues throughout the ages. The Catholic Church has an arsenal of sacraments and sacramentals to serve the people in need of deliverance. The clergy do the heavy lifting in the healing and deliverance ministry because they have the God-given authority to cast out evil spirits.

For the care of God’s beloved people, usually diocesan protocols are established, taking into account the best holistic outcome for healing. Deliverance and exorcism ministry is a collaborative work between clergy and health professionals, intercessors, discerners, and other team helpers. Like a medical physician who must diagnosis a condition, the priest must discern the manifestations. They must consider medical, psychiatric, and diabolical components. We cannot compartmentalize a person. Prudence, prayer, patience, and perseverance are necessary for the afflicted person, the priest and his team.

Often I have the task of speaking and praying with diabolically afflicted persons since I serve clergy in the ministry of deliverance and exorcism. I prayerfully walk with the suffering as they journey toward healing. Recently when I shared suggested prayers with someone awaiting their appointment with the priest and team, it occurred to me that perhaps such prayers would be a resource for our readers.

St. John Chrysostom’s Deliverance Prayer

O, Eternal God, You who have redeemed the race of men from the captivity of the Devil, deliver me, Your servant, from al the workings of unclean spirits. Command the evil and impure spirits and demons to depart from the soul and body of Your servant and not to remain nor hide in me. Let them be banished from me, the creation of Your hands, in Your own holy name, and that of Your only-begotten Son, and of Your life-creating Spirit, so that, after being cleansed from all demonic influence, I may live godly, justly, and righteously and may be counted worthy to receive the Holy Mysteries of Your only-begotten Son and our God, with whom You are blessed and glorified, together with the all-holy and good and life-creating Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
(Beckman, God’s Healing Mercy, pg. 119)

Saints Invocation

Come Holy Spirit with Thy seven-fold gifts and anoint us with Thy divine light, wisdom and power. Come Lord Jesus Christ and anoint us with Thy Precious Blood, freeing us from every snare and stronghold of the principalities and powers of darkness. O Mother of God, glorious and immaculate and ever Virgin Mary, come and crush the head of the ancient serpent. O great father, St. Joseph, terror of demons, come and annihilate the enemies of our souls. St. Michael, great prince and commander of the heavenly army, strike down the insidious foes who seek to destroy us. Come glorious band of Apostles, come great patriarchs and prophets; come white robed army of martyrs, come pure and noble throng of virgins. Come to our aid St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross, St. Elijah, St. Elisha, St. John the Baptist, St. Therese, all you Saints of Carmel, St. Pio, St. Isaac Jogues and companions. St. Faustina, St. Benedict, St. Francis, St. Anthony, St. Claire, our Guardian Angels. Archangels, and all you Holy Angels and Saints, come repulse the attacks and deceits of our wicked enemies; render them impotent and helpless. Let God arise; let his enemies be scattered and all those who hate Him flee before Him. As smoke is driven away, so are they driven away; as wax melts before the fire, so the wicked perish at the presence of God.

A Personal Prayer of Deliverance

Lord, almighty, merciful and omnipotent God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, drive out from me all influence of evil spirits. Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, I plead you to break any chain that the Devil has on me. Pour upon me the Most Precious Blood of your Son. May His immaculate and redeeming blood break all bounds of my body and mind. I ask you this through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Archangel St. Michael, intercede and come to my help. In the name of Jesus I command all demons that could have any influence over me to leave forever. By His scourging, His crown of thorns, His cross, by His blood and resurrection, I command all evil spirits to leave me. By the true God, by the Holy God, by God who can do all, in the name of Jesus, my Savior and Lord, leave me. Amen. (Approved for the personal use of laity: Bishop Julian Porteous)

Prayer for Inner Healing

Lord Jesus, you came to heal our wounded and troubled hearts. I beg you to heal the torments that cause anxiety in my heart. I beg you, in a particular way, to heal all who are the cause of sin. I beg you to come into my life and heal of the psychological harms that struck me in my early years and from the injuries that they caused throughout my life. Lord Jesus, you know my burdens. I lay them all on your Good Shepherd’s heart. I beseech you—by the merits of the great, open wound in your heart—to heal the small wounds that are in mine. Heal the pain of my memories, so that nothing that has happened to me will cause me to remain in pain and anguish, filled with anxiety. Heal, O Lord, all those wounds that have been the cause of the evil that is rooted in my life. I want to forgive all those who have offended me. Look to those inner sores that make be unable to forgive. You who came to forgive the afflicted of heart, please, heal my own heart. Heal, my Lord Jesus, those intimate wounds that cause me physical illness. I offer you my heart, accept it Lord, purify it and give me the sentiments of your Divine Heart. Help me to be meek and humble. Heal me, O Lord, from all that is oppressing me. Grant me to regain peace and joy in the knowledge that you are the Resurrection and the Life. Make me an authentic witness to your resurrection, your victory over sin and death. Amen. (Approved for the personal use of laity: Bishop Julian Porteous)

Author’s note: For more information on spiritual warfare see Chapter 8 in God’s Healing Mercy or visit the spiritual warfare section at www.foundationforpriests.org.

image: Bill Perry / Shutterstock.com

What Mary Does For Priests

Most people are aware that Pope John Paul II credited Mary’s intercession for sparing his life when four bullets from a would-be assassin struck him while he was blessing pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981. A year to the day later, the pope placed one of those bullets in Mary’s crown at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima in Portugal. This leaves little doubt as to the real, practical and powerful grace of Mary’s maternity toward priests.

The renowned Mariologist Fr. Emile Neubert, S.M., in his wonderful book Mary and the Priestly Ministry, helps us to understand Mary’s spiritual maternity, which stems from her “cooperation in the mysteries of the Incarnation, the Redemption, and the distribution of grace.” Let us note how Mary, in these three functions, becomes the Mother of priests:

1. The Incarnation sets special grounds for Mary’s motherhood of priests. Mary provided the material cause of Christ’s priesthood. Mary then carried all her Son’s future priests in her womb along with Him. She did not know them individually at that time, but she wished for them what Jesus wished for them at that time, and loved them with the same special love her Son had for them.
2. Our Mother Mary’s special role in the Redemption: If Mary, in the Incarnation, conceived us spiritually, as it were, then in the mystery of the Redemption she gave us birth. At the foot of the Cross, Christ confided Mary to John, who was a priest, and it is to priests, above all, that Christ gives His Mother because He has a greater love for them and they have a greater need of her.
3. Our Mother Mary’s special role in the distribution of grace: Mary has a special love for priests: if maternity consists essentially in giving and in nurturing life, can any human maternity be understood apart from such a love? Mary loves all the faithful with incomparable love. But she loves priests with an altogether unique love because she sees in the priest a greater resemblance to the image of her Son than in any other Christian of equal holiness.

Mary’s femininity draws out the best of the priest’s masculinity

That we might better understand the essence of spiritual motherhood of priests, we can reflect upon Jesus’s entrustment of His Mother Mary and John the Beloved to each other. Fr. John Cihak, reflecting on the scene at the foot of the Cross, develops the complementary of the feminine heart of Mary which calls forth the best of the masculine heart of John for their mutual support:

[At the foot of the Cross]…pondering the eyes of Our Lady and St. John as they meet in their mutual agony. Neither of them seems to have Jesus anymore. At that moment she needs St. John; she also allows him to help her. She is so alone at the moment. She who is sinless allows her great poverty of spirit to need this man and priest beside her. Her feminine complementary draws out the best in St. John’s masculine heart. The need for his support and protection must have connected to something deep within him as a man. How does he help her? St. John says that he then took her “into his own” (in Greek, eis ta idia). What does this mean? “His house,” as many translations read? “His things”? What about “everything that he is”? Perhaps it indicates that he takes her into his life as a priest.

She also is supporting him. He is depending on her in that moment for he too is so alone. I wonder if he felt abandoned by the other apostles. She leads the way in sacrificing herself, for her feminine heart is more receptive and more attuned to Jesus’s. She is not only present but leads the way for him, helping the priest to have his own heart pierced as well. There is much here to ponder as she engages his masculine love. He gives himself over to her, to cherish her and console her. At this moment she needs him and needs him to be strong, even if she is the one really supporting him.

The Blessed Virgin Mary’s role is to call out of the priest this celibate agape to help him become a husband to the Church and a spiritual father — a strong father, even in his weakness. She does this at the Cross by drawing the priest out of his own pain to offer pure masculine love in the midst of her own pure feminine love. This scene becomes an icon of the relationship between the priest and the Church. The priest hands himself over to the Church in her suffering and need — to have his life shaped by hers. At the foot of the Cross the Church agonizes in labor to give birth to the members of the mystical body.
(Monsignor John Cihak, “The Blessed Virgin Mary’s Role in the Celibate Priest’s Spousal and Paternal Love”)

The DNA of the Incarnate Word remains with Mary just as the DNA of any child remains with his mother. Mary’s Child is the Eternal High Priest sent by the Father for the redemption of humanity. Mary’s heart goes out to the priest because she sees the indelible image of the Eternal High Priest that is conferred upon him by the sacrament of Holy Orders. She who was mystically crucified with Jesus is mystically united to the priest by an act of God’s will to which she is completely surrendered.

What Mary did for Jesus on earth she does for the priests who continue the unbroken lineage of the Eternal High Priest. She loves, encourages, protects, feeds, embraces, cleans, delights, teaches, and keeps him company. She who did not leave her Son at the foot of the Cross remains with the priest for his singular mission. Mary experienced her Son’s Crucifixion mystically with her steadfast fiat. She knows how to lead the priest to victory through the Cross. Mary assists the priest in the refinement of his will, in the purification of his heart, in the conformity of his mind to God. Mary aids the priest in living chastely and growing in charity, wisdom, and fortitude for a martyrdom of love. She who experienced the mystical Crucifixion of Jesus will help each priest to do the same for the joy of the kingdom of God.

The priest needs the love of Mary’s feminine heart to bring him to the fulfillment of the masculine ideal: to protect humanity from all that is detrimental to salvation. Jesus, the New Adam, is the Redeemer and protector of the human family. The priest is the protector of all that belongs to Christ: men, women, and children, heaven and earth. The priest is at his best when, like Christ, he guards the dignity and vocation of every man, woman, and child.

God chose Mary to be a guardian of the priest’s dignity and vocation. The Mother gently moves the priest to be transfigured into Christ. Through the maternal mediation of Mary, the priest becomes the sacrifice that offers the perfect Sacrifice; the priest becomes the love that offers Love.

Prayer for Priests

O Jesus, our great High Priest, hear my humble prayers on behalf of Thy priests. Give them deep faith, a bright and firm hope and a burning love which will ever increase in the course of their priestly life. In their loneliness, comfort them. In their sorrows, strengthen them. In their frustrations, point out to them that they are needed by the Church; they are needed by souls; they are needed for the work of redemption.

O Loving Mother Mary, Mother of Priests, take to your heart your sons who are close to you because of their priestly ordination and because of the power which they have received to carry on the work of Christ in a world which needs them so much. Be their comfort, be their joy, be their strength, and especially help them to live and to defend the ideals of consecrated celibacy. Amen. (John J. Cardinal Carberry)

Editor’s note: This article is an excerpt from Praying for Priests: A Mission for the New Evangelization, which is available from Sophia Institute Press.

Jubilee of Mercy: A Final Gift, Prophecies, End Times

Not yet half way through the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, the universal Church continues to invite the faithful to focus on the need to ask for Divine Mercy and to be reconciled with the Father of Mercy. Repentance and conversion are central to the call to become ambassadors of the Father’s mercy for others. Acknowledging the deep need for Divine Mercy and cultivating a merciful heart is more challenging than it appears.

St. John Paul II’s 1980 encyclical, Dives in Misericordia (Rich in Mercy), taught, “The present day mentality, more perhaps than that of people of the past, seems opposed to a God of mercy, and in fact tends to exclude from life and to remove from the human heart the very idea of mercy”(No. 2).

God’s mercy cannot be presumed, nor does it mean the absence of accountability, justice, or fraternal correction. The scriptures are replete with merciful acts of God combined with the exhortation to change, “Go, and sin no more” (Jn 8:11). Jesus forgives but also corrects, exhorts, and warns because His nature is love and His greatest attribute is mercy. Merciful love can do no less.

Prophecies in the Diary of St. Faustina

God warns. The Prophet of Mercy dictated several warnings to Sr. Faustina. Her writings, scrutinized and approved by the Holy See are additional (optional) supports to biblical prophecy and Church teaching in the Catechism regarding an ultimate trial that is coming. Approved prophecies are helpful reminders of the last four things: death, judgment, heaven and hell. In other words, they can help us to keep our eyes on the prize: eternal beatitude.

First, we’ll look at a sampling of prophecies from the Diary and then the Catechism’s teaching about the Church’s ultimate trial. Why do so? Perhaps the Lord’s words to St. Faustina are the best reason: “I will not delude you with the prospects of peace and consolation; on the contrary, prepare for great battles. Know that you are now on a great stage where all heaven and earth are watching you. Fight like a knight, so that I can reward you. Do not be unduly fearful, because you are not alone” (No. 1767.) Jesus taught and warned St. Faustina so that in turn we are taught and warned now.

“Speak to the world about My mercy…It is a sign for the end times. After it will come the Day of Justice. While there is still time, let them have recourse to the fountain of My mercy.” (848)

“Tell souls about this great mercy of Mine, because the awful day, the day of My justice, is near.” (965)

“I am prolonging the time of mercy for the sake of sinners. But woe to them if they do not recognize this time of My visitation.” (1160)

“He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice.” (1146)

Biblical Prophecy: Matthew 24: 29-30

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken; them will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory…”

Prophecy in the Catechism: The Church’s Ultimate Trial

675. - Before Christ second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah comes in the flesh.

677. - The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. This kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.

The Jubilee of Mercy: A Gift & Warning to “Keep Watch”

Jesus told St. Faustina, “The pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous; the red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls. Fortunate is the one who will dwell in their shelter, for the just hand of God shall not lay hold of him.”

Our Lord said, “Keep watch, therefore, praying at all times, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that are to come, and to stand before the Son of man.”

The Pope in the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, extends a great opportunity, a gift of grace, and a prophetic sign consistent with his predecessors, biblical prophecy, the Catechism and the writings of a Saint. What is our response to the Jubilee?

Crossing the threshold of a Holy Door is pure grace worth every effort. Reconciling with God and others is a powerful step forward. What is the more that awaits us the next six months of the Jubilee? Passivity will gain nothing. Wisdom would have us seizing the opportunity for Jubilee indulgences, availing ourselves of many timely opportunities to be converted, grow in holiness, and engage in the spiritual battle all around us.

Divine Mercy is the greatest love story. God is reaching for us, His fallen creatures, offering a hand up from the polluted atmosphere of sin and evil into the sublime atmosphere of sanctity. He wants us to breathe the air of holiness. For all the beauty that He offers sinners, it’s sometimes difficult to leave the ugliness behind. Some feel unable to escape from the prison of sin and evil. Like the Prodigal Son, sometimes we have to hit rock bottom before we turn back to the Father’s house. The Father is already looking to meet us with open arms.

Despite the challenges of daily life with the knots, twists, turns and chaotic daily news, a life lived with Christ will never lose sight of the prize of eternal life in Paradise. Prophecies are not meant to cause servile fear, but to inspire virtue, especially, fear of the Lord. It is an infused gift of the Holy Spirit. Ask the Holy Spirit to deepen this gift in others and us.

In light of credible prophecy Christ’s words to St. Faustina offer solace, “Let all mankind recognize My unfathomable mercy. …While there is still time, let them have recourse to the fount of My mercy; let them profit from the Blood and Water which gushed forth for them” (276). As Mother Mary proclaimed, “His mercy is on those who fear him from generation unto generation”(Luke 1:50).

Virgin Mary, Mother of Mercy, pray for your poor children who have recourse to you; that we may be established in the gift of fear of the Lord; and profit everything from the Blood and Water which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus, your beloved Son, our Lord and Savior. Help us to receive the fullness of grace available in this Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy—all for the glory of God. Amen.

Author’s note: Some of this article paraphrases an “Inside the Vatican” piece written by the ITV staff, published in the March 2016 Magazine.

image: DimaSid / Shutterstock.com

God the Father’s Messages to St. Catherine

Catherine of Siena moved in remarkably wide circles for a woman of
fourteenth century Italy. She was a mystic whose plunge into God plunged
her deep into the affairs of society, Church and the souls of all those who came
under her influence.
(Suzanne Noffke, O.P., The Dialogue, Foreword, xi.)

I am very grateful that I came under St. Catherine’s influence. My patron saint is like an old friend and spiritual mother accompanying me on the spiritual journey. The Catechism affirms, “…The patron saint provides a model of charity; we are assured of his intercession” (2156).

Desiring to literally walk in Catherine’s footsteps, in 1992 I made a pilgrimage to Siena, Italy to pray where she prayed and to venerate her relics. At that time, I was in the midst of a reversion to the practice of Catholicism. What attracted me to saints such as Catherine was their radical gift of self to God. I had spent a few years in the grey place of mediocrity. Now, I had decided that discipleship for me would be all or nothing for God. The lives of the saints, particularly Catherine’s, seemed far more meaningful and adventurous than how I was living my young life focused on worldly pursuits that rendered me bored and empty.

Over the years I’ve returned several times to lovely Siena and to St. Catherine’s tomb in Rome’s church Santa Maria Sopra Minerva to contemplate the life and legacy of this great souled doctor of the Church. She is perennially relevant to the interior life of a believer striving to listen, hear and respond to God. I cherish the messages that God the Father gave to Catherine for our edification.

Spiritual Mother to a Pope

There is so very much to appreciate about St. Catherine’s contribution to the Church, not the least of which is her influence as spiritual mother to Pope Gregory XI (r. 1370-1378). Catherine spent three months in Avignon tirelessly working to realize her dream of the pope’s returning to Rome. Pope Gregory apparently resisted, but she persisted and became more convincing when she revealed that she knew of his secret vow that if elected pope he would return the papal residence to Rome. After completing her mission Catherine left Avignon. Then Pope Gregory began having second thoughts due to the influence of some French cardinals. Catherine, considered illiterate, dictated letters urging the pope to fulfill his promise. Note her courage.

I have prayed, and shall pray, sweet and good Jesus that He free you from all servile fear, and that holy fear alone remain. May ardor of charity be in you, in such wise as shall prevent you from hearing the voice of incarnate demons, and heeding the counsel of perverse counselors, settled in self-love, who, as I understand, want to alarm you, so as to prevent your return, saying, “You will die.”  Up, Father, like a man! For I tell you that you have no need to fear.

Messages of God the Father

St. Catherine was given the extraordinary gift to listen, hear and record messages from the Eternal Father. Her book, “The Dialogue”, contain the revelations of The Father that affirm and challenge. Here, The Father is our parent and heavenly teacher.

On Pride

• Pride is born from and nurtured by sensual, inordinate self-love.
• Pride obscures the knowledge of the truth.
• Pride is the enemy of obedience.
• Pride’s pith is impatience.
• Pride blinds the eye of the intellect.
• Pride gives the appearance of tender self-love, but in truth it is cruel.
• Pride causes the greatest poverty and misery,
• Pride deprives of virtue and causes treacherous injustice.
• Pride causes the elect to fall from heights to depths of mortal sin.
• Pride is like a bandage over the eyes of the Spirit.
• Pride perverts judgment.

On Humility & Virtues

• Your humility is tested by the proud, your faith is tried by the unjust, your compassion by the cruel, and your gentleness and kindness by the wrathful.
• The source of humility is the soul’s true knowledge of …self and of my goodness.
• Without humility, the soul would be without discernment. For lack of discernment is set in pride, just as discernment is set in humility.
• Your neighbors are the channel through which all your virtues are tested and come to birth, just as the evil give birth to all their vices through their neighbors.
• When I say that humility is tested by pride, I mean that a proud person cannot harm one who is humble, for the humble person smothers pride.
• When you return good for evil you not only prove your own virtue, but often you send out coals ablaze with charity that will melt hatred and bitterness from the heart and mind of the wrathful, even turning their hatred to benevolence.
• Consider the virtue of steadfast courage. It is tested when you have to suffer much from people’s insults and slanders, which would like to drag you away from the way and teaching of the truth either by abuse or flattery.

On Discernment

• Discernment is that light which dissolves all darkness, dissipates ignorance, and seasons every virtue and virtuous deed. It has a prudence that cannot be deceived, a strength that is invincible, a constancy right up to the end, reaching as it does from heaven to earth, that is from the knowledge of me to the knowledge of oneself, from love of me to love of one’s neighbors.
• Discernment’s truly humble prudence evades every devilish and creaturely snare, and with unarmed hand-that is, through suffering—it overcomes the devil and the flesh. By this gentle glorious light the souls sees and rightly despises her own weakness; and so by making a fool of herself she gains mastery in the world, treading it underfoot with her love, scorning it as worthless.

On Free Will

• Each of you have your own vineyard, your soul, in which your free will is the appointed worker during this life.
• Once the time of your life has passed, your “will” can work neither for good nor for evil; but while you live it can till the vineyard of your soul where I have placed it.
• This tiller of your soul (free will) has been given such power that neither the devil nor any other creature can steal it without the will’s consent, for in holy baptism the will was armed with a knife that is love of virtue and hatred of sin. This love of virtue and hatred of sin is found in the blood. For my only-begotten Son gave his blood for you in death out of love for you and hatred for sin, and through the blood you receive life in holy baptism.

On The Blood of Christ

• So the precious life-giving blood of my only-begotten Son, dispelled death and darkness, confounded falsehood, and brought the gift of light and truth.
• For those who are receptive this blood bestowed and accomplished all that they need to be saved and made perfect. But since its gift of life and grace is in proportion to the soul’s readiness and desire, it deals death to the wicked.
• I created humankind anew in the blood of my only-begotten Son and reestablished them in grace, but they have so scorned the graces I have given them and still give them!

On Suffering

• In this life guilt is not atoned for by any suffering simply as suffering, but rather by suffering borne with desire, love, and contrition of heart.
• The value is not in the suffering but in the soul’s desire.
• Likewise, neither desire or nor any other virtue has value or life except through my only-begotten Son, Christ crucified, since the soul has drawn love from him and in virtue follows his footsteps.
• Suffering satisfies for sin then, with gentle unitive love born from the sweet knowledge of my goodness and from the bitterness and contrition the heart finds in the knowledge of itself and its own sins.

On Priests

• If you should ask me why it is my will that the sins of the clergy should not lessen your reverence for them, this is how I would answer you: Because the reverence you pay to them is not actually paid to them but to me, in virtue of the blood I have entrusted to their ministry. If this were not so, you should pay them as much reverence as anyone else and no more. It is this ministry of theirs that dictates that you should reverence them and come to them, not for what they are in themselves but for the power I have entrusted to them…
• To me redounds every assault they make on my ministers: derision, slander, disgrace, abuse.
• Among all my creatures I have chosen these ministers of mine. They are my anointed ones, stewards of the body and blood of my only-begotten Son—your human flesh joined with my divinity.

Prayer of St. Catherine on Mercy

O eternal Mercy, you who cover over your creatures’ faults!

Your mercy is life-giving. It is the light in which both the upright and sinner’s discover your goodness. Your mercy shines forth in your saints in the height of heaven. And if I turn to the earth, your mercy is everywhere. Even in the darkness of hell your mercy shines, for you do not punish the damned as much as they deserve.

I see your mercy pressing you to give us even more when you leave yourself with us as food to strengthen our weakness, so that we forgetful fools should be forever reminded of your goodness. Every day you give us this food, showing us yourself in the sacrament of the altar within the mystic body of holy Church. And what has done this? Your mercy!

O Mercy! My heart is engulfed with the thought of you! For wherever I turn my thoughts I find nothing but mercy!

St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us please.

Note: all quotations of the Eternal Father are gleaned from: Suzanne Noffke, O.P., The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena (Paulist Press, NY, 1980), pg. 1-216.

image: By RomkeHoekstra (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Rays of Mercy on Marriage

Merciful love is supremely indispensable between those who are closest to one another: between husbands and wives, between parents and children, between friends; and it is indispensable in education and in pastoral work.

— Pope St. John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia

The book of Tobit eloquently reminds us that the sacrament of marriage is a love story with God in the middle.

“When the door was shut and the two were alone, Tobias got up from the bed and said, ‘Sister, get up, and let us pray and implore our Lord that he grant us mercy and safety.’

And they began to say, ‘Blessed are you, O God of our fathers, and blessed be your holy and glorious name for ever. Let the heavens and all your creatures bless you.

You made Adam and gave him Eve his wife as a helper and support.

From them the race of mankind has sprung. You said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; let us make a helper for him like himself.”’ And now, O Lord, I am not taking this sister of mine because of lust, but with sincerity. Grant that I may find mercy and may grow old together with her.’ And they both said, ‘Amen, amen.’” (Tob. 8:4–8)

Indeed we cry out to God, “Call down your mercy on marriage!” We are called to exercise our prophetic voice to protect the sublime authenticity of sacramental marriage. The inspired book of Tobit is a striking reflection on God’s mercy and an important reminder that when God is in the middle of marriage, spouses are blessed, healed, and delivered. Marriage, elevated to a sacramental state, is a priceless gift to couples, children, society, and Church. The “merciful love” that St. John Paul II speaks of in his encyclical Dives in Misericordia is indispensable to the vitality of marriage as God envisioned it. Pope St. John Paul II recognized that sacramental marriage and matters relating to sex, the body, and the family are the battleground of the war between good and evil, and he gave us the gift of the Theology of the Body given between 1979 and 1984.

Healing the Wounds of Marriage

On June 24, 2015, in his general audience in Rome, Pope Francis preached on the wounds of the family:

We know well that every family on occasion suffers moments when one family member offends another. The resulting wounds come from words, actions and omissions, which, instead of expressing love, hurt those nearest and dearest, causing deep divisions among family members, above all between husband and wife. If these wounds are not healed in time, they worsen and turn into resentment and hostility, which then fall to the children. When the wounds are particularly deep they can even lead a spouse to search for understanding elsewhere, to the detriment of the family.

We have a responsibility to God and to one another to apply medicinal mercy wherever there is a wound. Probably we have experienced the deep fissures of the heart wounded by marital and family divisions that beg for healing.

I was struck by additional comments of the Supreme Pontiff during the same Wednesday audience: “We speak a lot about behavioral problems, mental health, the well-being of the child, the anxiety of the parents and the children—but do we even know what a wound of the soul is? Do we feel the weight of the mountain that crushes the soul of a child in those families where members mistreat and hurt one another to the point of breaking the bonds of marital fidelity? What effect do our choices — often poor choices—have on the souls of children?” he asked. The pope concluded with a prayer for “a deep love to approach all families with His merciful heart.”

Do we believe that God is eager to open the floodgates of mercy to heal marriages? Believers have a serious responsibility to engage in the spiritual war to reclaim marriage according to God’s original plan in the ordered harmony of Eden, when He created us male and female.

Sacramental marriage, unsupported by the present anti- Christian culture, requires graced due diligence. There was a time when my marriage nearly unraveled. The emotional wounds came from within and without. Forgiveness saved us. I thank God for calling my husband and me to the vocation of sacramental marriage and for blessing us with the undeserved gift of children. We made mistakes and yet amazing sacramental grace holds us together, growing and learning to love as God wills. Marriage is too precious a gift of God to discard because the sacrifice of love hurts occasionally. The sacrifice is beautiful when understood in the light of the dignity of marriage that reflects the spousal love of God for His Church. Marriage, worth every effort, is one of the greatest goods of divine mercy.

Absent God in the middle, marriage according to His plan is nearly impossible in our secular culture, where anything goes. Marriage challenges our selfishness, egoism, independence, and indulgence. Ideally marriage is where the male and female hearts intertwine with the merciful heart of the Redeemer to produce more charity.

Family built on the solid foundation of a happy marriage is happening less today for a number of reasons. William B. May, President of Catholics for the Common Good and author of Getting the Marriage Conversation Right, says that although a high percentage of high school seniors still aspire to marriage, “The numbers achieving their dreams of marriage has dropped precipitously. Marriage is in crisis.” For children the stakes are extremely high. Anyone who, as a child, has suffered his parents’ divorce can attest to this. In my family, when a cousin divorced, his son committed suicide. Such wounds beg God’s mercy. The Church is on the forefront of defending marriage and family in the public square; this is a mission for all the faithful.

I propose the Beatitudes as a way of strengthening marriages. Here I paraphrase Dr. Gregory Popcak’s eight marriage-friendly habits that many happy married couples exhibit as presented in When Divorce Is Not an Option. Please do not become demoralized if your marriage is missing these habits. Pray and discern whether these might be helpful and patiently begin.

1. “Rituals of Connection”: work, play, talk, prayer
2. “Emotional Rapport and Benevolence” (Gal. 6:2:“bear one another’s burdens”)
3. “Self-regulation”: capacity to stay calm and to regain composure even under pressure.
4. “A Positive Intention Frame”: the ability to assume the best about your spouse even at his or her worst.
5. “Caretaking in Conflict”: solving the problem is not as important as taking care of each other as you work toward the solution.
6. “Mutual Respect, Accountability, and Boundaries”: Ephesians 5:21 challenges husbands and wives to defer to one another out of reverence for Christ.
7. “Reviewing and Learning from Mistakes”: work hard to learn from mistakes and do not dredge up past hurts or attack each other. But do not ignore the past so that mistakes are not repeated.
8. “Getting Good Support”: choose wisely your network of support: friends, family, pastors, and counselors.

Marriage in God’s Plan

It may be helpful to consider the following in light of the virtues: chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility.

The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.

Sacred Scripture begins with the creation of man and woman in the image and likeness of God and concludes with a vision of “the wedding-feast of the Lamb.” Scripture speaks throughout of marriage and its “mystery,” its institution and the meaning God has given it, its origin and its end, its various realizations throughout the his- tory of salvation, the difficulties arising from sin and its renewal “in the Lord” in the New Covenant of Christ and the Church. (CCC 1601–1602)

Marriage Under the Regime of Sin

It may be helpful to consider the following in light of the capital sins: pride, lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, anger, and envy.

Every man experiences evil around him and within himself. This experience makes itself felt in the relationships between man and woman. Their union has always been threatened by discord, a spirit of domination, infidelity, jealousy, and conflicts that can escalate into hatred and separation. This disorder can manifest itself more or less acutely, and can be more or less over- come according to the circumstances of cultures, eras, and individuals, but it does seem to have a universal character. (CCC 1606)

According to faith the disorder we notice so painfully does not stem from the nature of man and woman, nor from the nature of their relations, but from sin. As a break with God, the first sin had for its first consequence the rupture of the original communion between man and woman. Their relations were distorted by mutual recriminations; their mutual attraction, the Creator’s own gift, changed into a relationship of domination and lust; and the beautiful vocation of man and woman to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth was burdened by the pain of childbirth and the toil of work (CCC 1607).

Prayer for Marriage: Ever More a Woman, Ever More a Man

Most Holy Trinity, we come before you as husband and wife bound in the sacrament of matrimony by chords of divine love. You called us to this sacrament of communion assuring us of your presence, grace, and protection. We are sorry for our mutual imperfection of love, weakness in virtue, taking each other for granted, hurtful actions and words, insecurities and indiscretions. We ask you to restore us, to renew what we have lost, to heal what has been wounded and worn out. Graciously restore our joy of journeying together through the adventure of life with you in the middle of our hearts. As spouses we entrust ourselves to your merciful love that heals all wounds. Grant a drop of your Precious Blood to fall upon us now. We echo the words of Christ’s Vicar Pope Francis (9-14-14), “I love you, and for this love I help you to become ever more a woman”; “I love you, and for this love I help you to become ever more a man.” Jesus, we trust in You.

Editor’s note: : This article is an excerpt from God’s Healing Mercy: Finding Your Path to Forgiveness, Peace, and Joy, which is available from Sophia Institute Press.

Mother Angelica’s Ten Eucharistic Lessons

“I live because of the Eucharist.” With these poignant words of Mother Angelica reveal her identity as an apostle of the Eucharist. We can learn from her Eucharistic witness if we pray as she did, “Give me the faith to understand that the Eucharist makes everything possible.”

From the first moment when my eyes beheld the exquisite golden Eucharistic Monstrance at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, Alabama, I grasped what had taken hold of Mother Angelica’s heart. To be perfectly honest, at first I thought the exquisite gilding and sheer size of the Monstrance was excessive. With that thought, a ray of light washed over my wedding ring, a gold ban adorned with 14 diamonds twinkling in the light. I thought—here on my finger is a symbol of a sacramental marriage covenant of human love. Suddenly I understood. Mother, a Poor Clare of Perpetual Adoration Nun, made a covenant of love also. For her Divine Spouse she desired nothing less than the most beautiful vessel to hold the excess of Divine Love that is the Eucharist. She was in love with her Eucharistic Lord.

Many words more eloquent than mine have been written about beloved Mother Angelica since her Easter resurrection. Like thousands of Catholics around the globe, I have been remembering her life and legacy, praying with the EWTN global family, experiencing joy for Mother and personal grief. When she passed to eternal life, I realized how much this witty, wise, courageous Nun influenced my faith journey. I wished to sit at the feet of a great pupil of the Blessed Sacrament and learn from her. Here are ten Eucharistic lessons from her writings. She left us many priceless pearls, none of which are sugar coated.

1. Eucharistic Truth

“There is no prayer so high; there’s no ecstasy so sublime; there’s no work so great; there’s no suffering so severe; there’s nothing to compare with that moment when I and the Trinity—Almighty God through Jesus, Your Son, and the power of Your Spirit—are one. It is the greatest gift You could ever give us.”

2. Eucharistic Suffering

“Lord God, help me to abandon the preoccupations that seem so important to me as I approach You in the Eucharist, as on Calvary.”

“I feel sick today, dear Jesus. My head throbs, and my body is so weak that it is an effort even to talk to You. I try to think of Your poor head when it was crowned with thorns, and I marvel at Your fortitude. I think of how very weak You must have been when You took the Cross upon Your shoulders. I marvel at Your love. Well then, I will do the same for You. It is strange, dear Jesus, that as soon as I think of Your pain, mine seems slight.”

3. Eucharistic Mercy

“You humbled Yourself by becoming man, by permitting Yourself to suffer, and now by masking Your unparalleled glory in the form of a small piece of bread—all so that I can have You inside me.”

4. Eucharistic Humility

“Lord God, if I truly appreciated the majestic humility of the Eucharist, if I fully grasped the opportunity to participate in Your very nature, it would change me life forever.”

“I stand before You, Lord God, a sinner. In all the realms of Your creation, no one is more undeserving of Your love than I…This is why I dare approach Your presence…Your power is at its best in weakness. Your love is more gratuitious to the ungrateful and Your mercy more sublime to the undeserving.”

5. Eucharistic Courage

“Strengthen my love and my gratitude for this tremendous gift. Give me the faith to understand that the Eucharist makes everything possible.

“Divine Jailer, You have the key to release my soul from the prison of discouragement. Unlock the doors, and let me roam freely into the regions of Your love. Deliver me from the tyranny of my own will. Surely You take no pleasure in my soul disquieted within me, for then I am wrapped in myself. Do I hear You whisper, “Unlock the door for the key is within; I wait ready to enter and comfort you?”

6. Eucharistic Love

“You never take Your eyes from me, and yet my eyes wander through the world looking for a place to rest. Why can’t I love You as You love me? Why do I seek what is finite when I can possess the Infinite? My fickleness must astound the angels, who see how passing are the things I cling to.”

“Let my fumbling ways be a poem of desire that tell You I love You. Let my weaknesses and failures be like the plaintive cry of a wounded bird that cannot fly to its nest alone. Let my nothingness be lost in Your omnipotence so I may never be separated from You.”

7. Eucharistic Patience

“Every day, Jesus, I learn by some situation or experience of my great need for You. When I try to be patient on my own, my patience is forced and short-lived. It is obvious to everyone that I am desperately trying to be patient. When I raise my mind and heart to You, dear Jesus, and see You so serenely patient, my soul drinks in that spirit of patience like a cool breeze on a humid night. Your patience penetrates my being, and only then am I truly patient. It takes so long to learn that I can bear fruit only in You.”

8. Eucharistic Companionship

“There are times, my Jesus, when I like to imagine Your face and picture how You walked down the dusty roads. I like to think You are standing beside me, watching all I do with great love and understanding. Then I realize that once more I have brought You down to my size, encompasses Your beauty in the narrow realms of imagery, and constrained You in a tiny space beside me. Grant, dear Jesus, that when my imagination pictures You, I never lose sight of the truth that Your real beauty is beyond my wildest dreams. Your presence is much closer than at my side.”

9. Eucharistic Forgiveness

“Lord Father, I enter into Your compassionate Spirit and try to drink deeply of Your merciful love My memory smarts with the remembrance of past offenses, and my soul is pained by the anger of yesterdays—days in the past that bring tears and sadness. Every time I think they are gone, they return with renewed vigor, and I realize I have not grown in compassion and forgiveness. I put my memory into Your compassionate mercy, and I ask You to cover its wounds with the healing balm of Your mercy. Let my soul sink into the fathomless ocean of mercy, and return to me renewed, healed, and refreshed with love for everyone and malice toward none.

10. Eucharistic Time

“Life is so short, my Lord. I look at all my yesterdays, and they seem so hazy, while all my tomorrows are uncertain. The only I really possess is this tiny moment, and it passes so quickly. Why does time weight so heavily in my life? It is a most precious gift from Your hands, and I should look at it as I would a treasure. It provides the opportunity for me to know You better and love You more, to become like Jesus and be filled with Your own Spirit, to increase in holiness and to make reparation for my sins. Thank you, my Lord, for time.”

Eucharistic Resurrection

“The Eucharist bridges the gap between fallen humanity and redeemed humanity and prepares us for our glorified humanity in Christ’s second coming. We are in a process of deification through the Eucharistic life. This process is one of healing from fallen nature (sin) to redeemed nature (sanctity) to glorified nature (transforming union with God: beatific vision). The Holy Spirit is the key agent in the process of transformation in Christ.”

“The Holy Spirit brings us to an abiding encounter with Christ in the Eucharist, in which we are grafted like branches onto the vine (cf. John 15:4). This communion is by no means temporary. The physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist is vital because our physicality, our bodies, matter as ‘temples of the Holy Spirit’ (cf. 1 Cor. 6:19).”

The Eucharist affects your resurrection. Fr. Lawrence Lovasik teaches, “Holy Communion establishes between Jesus Christ and us not merely spiritual contact but physical contact as well through the ‘species’ of bread. The resurrection of the body can be traced from this physical contact with Christ. The resurrected bodies of those who have worthily received the Eucharist during their lifetime will be more strikingly resplendent because of their frequent contact, during life, with the risen Body of their Lord.” (Beckman, God’s Healing Mercy)

Imagine the striking resplendency of the soul of a Franciscan Nun who lived her spirited and suffering life in constant communion with the Eucharist. Mother’s life and legacy are captured in her words, “I live because of the Eucharist”.

Editor’s note: This article contains excerpts from Praying with Mother Angelica and God’s Healing Mercy books, both available from Sophia Institute Press.

Divine Mercy: “I Desire to Heal”

In light of the glory of Easter, the Church’s greatest Feast, we journey toward the grand finale, the Octave of Easter known as Divine Mercy Sunday. If that were not enough, this present Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy adds weight to the promise of extravagant grace. Our faithful Lord will do His part to open the floodgates of mercy upon aching humanity. He promised that much.

Our part is to avail ourselves of the liturgical celebrations in our parishes and dioceses wherein a treasury of grace is obtainable. In the shadow of the increasing global grief, trauma, and threat, the convergence of this Feast and Jubilee of Mercy seems providentially designed to heal. Divine Mercy is far beyond an optional devotion; it is the heart of Sacred Scripture. This past Easter Sunday, Pope Francis stated, “Only mercy can save the world”. We must use this great opportunity to save poor sinners, to heal “aching mankind”.

Christ said to St. Faustina, “Today I am sending you with My mercy to the people of the whole world. I do not wish to punish aching mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to My Merciful Heart” (Diary 1588) (Emphasis mine). Let us ponder the Lord’s words. Christ refers to us as “aching mankind”. His response to our “ache” is to “press us to His Merciful Heart”. In doing so, healing occurs. Let us consider this.

The Catechism (1432) helps us to understand the “ache” of the human heart: “The human heart is heavy and hardened. God must give man a new heart. Conversion is first of all a work of the grace of God who makes our hearts return to him: “Restore us to thyself, O Lord, that you may be restored!” God gives us the strength to begin anew. It is in discovering the greatness of God’s love that our heart is shaken by the horror and weight of sin and begins to fear offending God by sin and being separated from him. The human heart is converted by looking upon him whom our sins have pierced.” Now let us look at what is meant by “heart” in Sacred Scripture.

The Catechism (2563) teaches us, “The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place “to which I withdraw.” The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation; it is the place of covenant.”

How beautiful that Jesus said, “I desire to heal aching mankind, pressing it into My Merciful Heart”. He gently draws our aching heart into His merciful heart where we are incorporated into His healing love.

In practical terms how does this “heart exchange” heal? A simple metaphor may help. When a child is brought into the hospital burning up with fever, doctors sometimes order an ice bath to bring down the temperature. The feverish child is plunged into the ice water to save life. Christ plunges our hearts into His Merciful Heart to heal us also. We all suffer from sin-sickness.

The Lord’s message to St. Faustina, “I desire to heal” is consistent with what He did throughout the Gospel. Jesus preached and healed. Pope Francis reminds us of this in his Papal Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee.

Jesus, seeing the crowds of people who followed him, realized that they were tired and exhausted, lost and without a guide, and he felt deep compassion for them (cf. Mt 9:36). On the basis of this compassionate love he healed the sick who were presented to him (cf. Mt 14:14), and with just a few loaves of bread and fish he satisfied the enormous crowd (cf. Mt 15:37). What moved Jesus in all of these situations was nothing other than mercy, with which he read the hearts of those he encountered and responded to their deepest need. When he came upon the widow of Nain taking her son out for burial, he felt great compassion for the immense suffering of this grieving mother, and he gave back her son by raising him from the dead(cf. Lk 7:15). After freeing the demoniac in the country of the Gerasenes, Jesus entrusted him with this mission: “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you” (Mk 5:19). The calling of Matthew is also presented within the context of mercy. Passing by the tax collector’s booth, Jesus looked intently at Matthew. It was a look full of mercy that forgave the sins of that man, a sinner and a tax collector, whom Jesus chose – against the hesitation of the disciples – to become one of the Twelve. Saint Bede the Venerable, commenting on this Gospel passage, wrote that Jesus looked upon Matthew with merciful love and chose him: miserando atque eligendo. This expression impressed me so much that I chose it for my episcopal motto.

The same can be said for each of us—God looked with merciful love and chose us! What’s our response?

Confession: The Healing Sacrament

“Tell souls they are to look for solace that is, in the Tribunal of Mercy (The Sacrament of Reconciliation). There the greatest miracles take place and are incessantly repeated. To avail oneself of this miracle, it is not necessary to go on a great pilgrimage, or to carry out some external ceremony; it suffices to come with faith to the feet of My representative and to reveal to him one’s misery, and the miracle of Divine Mercy will be fully demonstrated. Were souls like a decaying corpse so that from a human standpoint there would be no hope of restoration and everything would already be lost, it is not so with God. The miracle of Divine Mercy restores that soul in full (Diary, 1448).

From 1998 to 2005, with a team, I had the privilege of chairing large annual diocesan conferences for the Feast of Divine Mercy. The schedule always included Mass, sacramental Confession, Eucharistic Adoration, veneration of the miraculous Image of Divine Mercy, veneration of the first class relic of St. Faustina and prayers for healing. Gratefully many priests from the local Abbey came to hear confessions throughout the day. Stories of miracles, conversions, and healing abound, some documented and published.

More recently, I asked the Lord to grant me a deeper level of contrition for my sin. In reading the Saints lives I noted how they often wept over their sins. I lamented that I was confessing in the same manner since my first Confession. I desired to grow in this area. God was gracious to answer my prayer.

Throughout St. Faustina’s Diary the Lord emphasizes the need to go to Confession often, and to trust that He is there in the person of the priest. St. Faustina recorded the conditions for a good confession: transparency, humility, and obedience. Pray also for Confessors who are God’s instruments of healing.

Please do not deprive yourself of the healing sacrament —especially as it relates to Divine Mercy Sunday and the plenary indulgence.

The Last Gift of St. John Paul II for Divine Mercy Sunday

In closing, let us recall the life and legacy of St. John Paul II. He died peacefully on the evening of 2 April, 9:37 p.m., Rome time. The last gift of the Holy Father for Divine Mercy Sunday, April 3, was the Regina Caeli message. At the end of the Holy Mass celebrated that day in St. Peter’s Square for the deceased Pope, Archbishop Leonardo Sandra stated, “I have been charged to read you the text that was prepared in accordance with his explicit instructions by the Holy Father John Paul II. I am deeply honored to do so, but also filled with “nostalgia”. The following is the translation of this “last gift” of St. John Paul II.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today the glorious Alleluia of Easter resounds. Today’s Gospel from John emphasizes that on the evening of that day he appeared to the Apostles and “showed them his hands and his side” (Jn. 20:20), that is, the signs of the painful passion with which his Body was indelibility stamped, even after the Resurrection. Those glorious wounds which he allowed doubting Thomas to touch eight days later, reveal the mercy of God who “so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (Jn. 3:16).

This mystery of love is at the heart of the liturgy today, the Second Sunday of Easter, dedicated to the Divine Mercy. As a gift to humanity, which sometimes seems bewildered and overwhelmed by the power of evil, selfishness and fear, the Risen Lord offers his love that pardons, reconciles, and reopens hearts to love. It is a love that converts hearts and gives peace. How much the world needs to understand and accept Divine Mercy!

Lord, who reveal the Father’s love by your death and resurrection, we believe in you and confidently repeat to you today: Jesus, I trust in you, have mercy upon us and upon the whole world. –Last message of Pope John Paul II (Observatore Romano, 30 March 2005)

Editor’s note: This article contains excerpts from God’s Healing Mercy which is available from Sophia Institute Press.

The Cross: Defeat of Evil, Victory of Love

“In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command you to look at the Crucifix, focus on the Cross.” With calm determined authority the exorcist priest utters these words addressed to the energumen (a person believed to be possessed by an evil spirit) during the major rite of exorcism. Often I have witnessed how the demons are tormented by having to stare at the Crucifix held in the hands of the Lord’s anointed priest. The evil spirits strongly resist having to look at the Cross but they are bound to obey the priest because of the authority granted to him. This is a telling indication of the power of the Crucifix for defeating evil.

I marvel at the unfailing authority of the Roman Catholic priesthood and the power of the Cross to perpetuate Christ’s victory. Sometimes during the major Rite, I find myself starring at the Crucifix also, captivated by the Lord Jesus who laid down His life to save, heal and free humanity from the tyranny of sin, death, and evil. For the one third fallen angels the Crucifix is their defeat, eternal damnation. For believers the Crucifix is the perfect sacrifice of love and the school of Divine Mercy.

Scriptures related to the power of the Cross

Here are four scriptures representative of the power of the Cross.

1. Mathew 27:39-40: And those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the Cross. Note: The words, “Come down from the Cross” represent a demonic tactic then and now. The devil will always tempt us to throw away the Cross or to do away with co-redemptive suffering. Why? Because the evil one is defeated by the incarnational love of the Lord Jesus Christ. Demonic pride is utterly defeated by the perfect sacrifice of divine love and humility.

1. Colossians 1:13: He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son…

1. 1 John 3:8: He who commits sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

1. Hebrews 2:14-15: Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He himself likewise partook of the same nature, that through death He might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage

The Cross: Victory of Love

Twenty-six years ago, by the grace of God, I underwent a powerful conversion, a reversion actually. In the years following, I intentionally began an intense sacramental life focused on the Church’s liturgical life. Daily Mass and holy hour became the center of my prayer life. During holy hours, I often found myself starring above the Tabernacle or Monstrance to the Crucifix. I reported to my spiritual director that I experienced incredible consolation when gazing at the Crucifix. Filled with newfound fervor of soul, I longed to be with Christ on the Cross, to remain close to His pierced Sacred Heart, to share the experience of His suffering and see everything through His holy eyes of eternal wisdom. My spiritual advisor who lived seventeen years in a Trappist Monastery had great depth of knowledge and experience in the interior life. He replied calmly, “Interesting. You do not have any suffering in your life presently. Well, I suppose the Lord is working within you to prepare, teach and lead you along the same path of His journey to the Cross. Let yourself be led by the Holy Spirit. Keep gazing at the Crucifix with eyes of wonder, gratitude and love. In time, we will see the fruit.” He was correct. Suffering would find me later. Good fruit manifested sooner.

As I continued to gaze at the Crucifix during daily holy hours, I began to perceive two important truths. First, I was part of Christ’s crucifixion. It was personal. My sin nailed Him to the wood. The fruit of this truth was repentance and a contrite heart. I was humbled. Secondly, Christ chose to rest His Sacred Body and Soul on the rough-hewn wood for love of me. Incarnational divine mercy kissed the Cross for the sake of love.

It was personal. He loved me that much. The words of St. Paul to the Ephesians seemed carved into my heart, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love” (Eph. 1:3-4). He chose me before the foundation of the world to be holy! That’s my identity! —Who I am before God.

I was purchased at an extravagant price. I cost the Lord of Lords, Kings of Kings, the Alpha and Omega— everything—the terror of crucifixion—every last drop of His Precious Blood. According to St. Bridget of Sweden (June 14, 1303- July 23, 1373), Christ revealed, “I received 5,475 blows to my Body.”

This Holy Week in the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy when we consider the Passion of Christ anew, let us be filled with immense compassion for the Lord. As we remember and contemplate the Lord who is lifted up onto the Cross we honor and adore the Suffering Servant. Let our hearts arise to meet Him face to face, heart to heart. We can offer gratitude, contrition, praise, sacrifice, and consecration to His Merciful Heart, a personal act of oblation; affirm our yes to His divine will. It is extremely consoling to know the truth of incarnational redeeming Divine Love that is personal, collective, and universal. On Good Friday, when we venerate the Cross we kiss the wood in acknowledgement of its saving power and grace because Christ kissed it first.

Reflection: O Passion of Christ!

O Passion of Christ, consecrate my heart. Anoint Love’s fervor all over my life. Create ardent desire to perpetuate Your sacrifice. That I live not for myself but only for You.

O Passion of Christ, become my praise and hymn of perfect charity. Be my fragrance of purity and joy. Lift my spirit into Yours that I may breath Love’s truth and augment Your sanctuary.

O Passion of Christ, unite me to Calvary. Open my eyes to see Your Glory. Wrap my arms around the Cross. Incline my ears to Your pierced Heart. Let the rhythm of sacrificial love resound in me.

O Passion of Christ, transfigure me! Crucify my wayward spirit. Create something new and beautiful. Yours is the power to transform! Change the sinner in me. Let holiness become my covering.

O Passion of Christ, the horror and shame of your death, the scandal of the Cross became eternal victory and glory! You confounded the cunning Serpent and opened the gate of heaven. Carry me there by the power of the Your Blood. Through your Holy Wounds, may I enter?

O Passion of Christ, engrave Your mercy into my soul. Let divine love reign in my life. Teach me of holy victimhood that I may die to self and rise in You. By Your stripes I am healed, set free to discover my true identity as a redeemed child. In freedom You lead me to live abundantly the gospel of life and your law of love. You change my suffering into joy. Thank you, Lord Jesus for Your Passion, Death and Resurrection!

O Passion of Christ, thank you for praying, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Lk. 23:34). I receive Your mercy, O Lord.

For a Close Encounter with God’s Extravagant Mercy

Kathryn Jean Lopez

Patheos

Kathleen Beckman

Today, Kathryn Jean Lopez has her article, "For a Close Encounter with God’s Extravagant Mercy" posted on the Patheos web site. In it, Kathryn reminds us it is Women's History Month and tells about the upcoming Women's Conference held in the Diocese of Arlington, Va., where Kathleen Beckman is one of the featured speakers. Kathryn has included links in the article to get further information about the conference in Arlington, Va.

Then, Kathryn presents a Q&A with Thérèse Bermpohl, director of the Office for Family Life in Arlington, which is running the conference. Also included in the article is a video for "2minutes2virtue", a weekly video challenge hosted by Arlington Diocesan priests that helps Catholics on the go to get the most out of the Sunday readings.

So, please take the time to read the full article on Patheos, >here.

Jesus Cleanses

Be not afraid of His cleansing mercy. Too often it's easier for us to give mercy than to receive it. Lord Jesus, cleanse us with your Mercy please.

The Eucharist Is Our Salvation

God is Love. From love comes mercy. From mercy comes forgiveness. From forgiveness comes salvation.
Our salvation is found in the Eucharist - our communion with Christ.

Jubilee of Mercy: Lent with Mary

In the Holy Father’s homily on December 8, 2015, the start of the Extraordinary Jubilee, he emphasized, “the simple, yet highly symbolic act of opening the Holy Door, which highlights the primacy of grace; the same grace that made Mary worthy of becoming the mother of Christ.” The Pope continued, “The fullness of grace can transform the human heart and enable it to do something so great as to change the course of human history. The feast of the Immaculate Conception serves as a reminder of the grandeur of God’s love in allowing Mary to avert the original sin present in every man and woman who comes into the world.” (CNS quoted in “Inside the Vatican” p. 11, Jan. 2016)

The Father willed that the grandeur of His love, the extravagance of divine mercy would come to us through a holy doorway: The Virgin Mary. That the Church began the Jubilee of Mercy on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception signals: Walk with Mary on the jubilee journey of mercy so she can help you live intensely the grace of these important days.

Now the Lenten season approaches beginning with Ash Wednesday. We desire this Lent to be unique, the best ever, the most fruitful for good, beautiful in communion with God, transformative. The cry of the human heart, “Father, I need your love in the most desperate way.” Our Father heard that cry before we could utter it. His Paternal Heart aches for us: “My child, I want you to be with Me forever. I will send you a Savior, a spotless Lamb who is one with My Heart. He will take away your sins so you can come home to Me.” And the Father sent the Savior, born of a woman, the Virgin Mary. Her distinction? Sinlessness!

Absent the stain of original sin, there is nothing to hinder the flow of divine mercy to Mary’s Heart. The Immaculate Heart is where I can more deeply encounter Divine Mercy since no one can know Christ more than His Mother. I will remain with Mary on the hard road to Calvary. She will help me to see Jesus through her clear eyes. My vision is veiled in the darkness of sin but Mary’s vision is without obstruction or corruption. I will experience more of Jesus by entering into Mary’s seven sorrows for these are the portals of maternal love. Divine mercy is a spirituality of accompaniment.

Accompanying Jesus Through Mary: The Seven Sorrows of Mary

The First Sorrow: The Prophecy of Simeon: Luke 2:25-35.

When Mary and Joseph present the infant Jesus in the temple, the prophet Simeon predicts that a sword of sorrow will pierce her soul. Mary pondered the meaning of this.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, in union with Mary’s sacrifice of obedience, sorrow and faith, I approach You with my heart that has suffered because of sin. Though my suffering is only a shadow of Your perfect sacrifice, I offer it to You in reparation and gratitude. Thank You for rescuing me. I will live in hope of Heavenly joy where all suffering will cease.

The Second Sorrow: The flight into Egypt: Matthew 2:13-15.

Mary and Joseph flee to Egypt with the infant Jesus when King Herod orders the death of all male children age two or younger.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, in union with Mary’s trusting faith and her obedience in protecting You from Herod’s sword, thank you for protecting me from the sword of eternal death. You are my Redeemer. Please forgive me the times when Ihave been deaf and blind to your holy will for me. Please open my heart, mind, ears, and eyes to know You more.

The Third Sorrow: The Loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple: Luke 2: 41-50.

Mary and Joseph search for the child Jesus for three days, and after agonizing sorrow, at last, find Him in the temple.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, in union with Mary’s persevering love and humility, I implore the grace of virtuous discipleship that I may never lose You. Like Mary and Joseph, I do not understand all that occurs within Your permissive will but I choose to trust You who are Mercy Incarnate. Thank you for finding me when I have been lost.

The Fourth Sorrow: Mary meets Jesus carrying the cross: Luke 23: 27-29.

Condemned to death by crucifixion, Jesus walks the way of Calvary and meeting His mother Mary, their pure eyes meet in mutual agreement of the Father’s will. Mother and Son are inseparable in sorrow and courage. “Onward” they silently urge one another for the fulfilment of the salvation of humanity.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, in union with Mary’s courageous fortitude in the midst of the horror of crucifixion, I offer You all the hurts, injustices, rejections, and sorrows of my life. Please take my history into Your pierced Heart, immerse me in the present moment and prepare me for Your future plans. As You accompany me, I’ll accompany others who carry their crosses too.

The Fifth Sorrow: Mary at the foot of the cross: John 19: 25-30.

Mary stands near her dying Son unable to help as He cries, “I thirst.” She hears Him forgive His enemies and promise heaven to a repentant thief. His last words, “Behold your mother,” are written on our heart. He wills it with dying breath.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, in union with Mary’s compassion and mercy, I desire to alleviate your thirst by giving You to drink of my stream of love. My imperfect offering is made with all sincerity of my will. It’s all I have to give. Thank You for breaking Your Heart open to satisfy my thirst.

The Sixth Sorrow: Mary receives the body of Jesus: Psalm 130.

Jesus is taken down from the cross and His body is placed in Mary’s arms. The passion and death are over, but for His mother, grief continues. His body in her arms, she lavishes maternal love on her Son.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, in union with the inconsolable sorrowful heart of Mary, I offer You my heart filled with the sorrow of causing You to suffer so cruel a death for love of me. If You hold me in such merciful love, then I am consoled in the truth that sets me free.

The Seventh Sorrow: Mary witnesses the burial of Jesus: Luke 23: 50-56.

The body of Jesus is laid in the tomb. The most tragic yet triumphant day in history ends, Mary alone in sorrow, is awaiting the Resurrection.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, in union with Mary’s steadfast faith, hope and love, in union with her tears of sorrow and of unceasing hope, I offer You my life. I am but ashes, yet my soul will proclaim your mercy forever. Thank you for burying my guilt, covering me in the cloak of your mercy. You have overcome the tomb; changed death into life.

Lenten Liturgy: Ashes to Easter Lilies

The gravitas of Lent motivates us for the sacrifice of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. By these we are refined in the crucible of self-emptying love. The Mother of Jesus, a devout Jewish woman, undoubtedly prayed, fasted and gave alms also.

The ashes that we receive remind us that we are marked and set apart for Christ. We belong to Him. We are His creatures who will return to dust. This most powerful reminder corrects my short-sided thinking that interrupts my consideration of the final four things: death, judgement, hell and heaven. Humility never forgets these.

In the first reading of this year’s Ash Wednesday liturgy (Jl 2:12-18), the prophet Joel exhorts, “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment. Perhaps he will again relent and leave behind him a blessing, offerings and libations for the Lord, your God.”

In the Gospel we are reminded to “pray in secret”. Mary undoubtedly prayed in secret, communing constantly with God in an intimate way. She can only help us to do the same. During Lent when prayer can become an arduous battle, when we wrestle with self, the world and the devil, we need Mary’s help.

We go full circle from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday: from forgiveness to forgiveness; witness to witness, death to life, repentance to resurrection, sorrow to joy, wounds to victory, ashes to lilies. With Mary’s accompaniment, we can become less a sinner and more a saint.

Lent in the Jubilee shines the bright rays of the Father’s mercy into the deep recesses of our heart. We remember the Jubilee theme: Merciful like the Father. We echo Mary: Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum. May the Lord make our Lenten journey a Jubilee of Mercy with Mary as we engage in the spiritual and corporal works!

image: Renata Sedmakova / Shutterstock.com

God’s Special Weapon Against Evil: Spiritual Mothers

There is a most beautiful, vital vocation within a vocation that is “largely unknown, scarcely understood and, consequently, rarely lived, not withstanding its fundamental importance”: spiritual motherhood for priests. “It is a vocation that is frequently hidden, invisible to the naked eye, but meant to transmit spiritual life.”
(Mauro Cardinal Piacenza, Eucharistic Adoration for the Sanctification of Priests & Spiritual Motherhood, 2013, p 12,13).

Cardinal Piacenza further explains the reason why now is the time to emphasize this vocation for the broader Church, “The present situation of the Church in a secularized world and the subsequent crisis of faith has the pope, bishops, priests and faithful looking for a way forward. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly clear that the real solution lies in the interior renewal of priests, and in this context the so-called “spiritual maternity for priests” assumes a special role. Through being “spiritual mothers”, women and mothers participate in the universal motherhood of Mary, who as mother of the Supreme and Eternal High Priest, is also the mother of all priests of all times.”

Other Mary’s

From the heart of the Church comes a call to imitate Mary in transmitting spiritual life to souls. A trumpet sounds, a need arises, and the role of Catholic womanhood is called forth. Where are the “other Mary’s”? I’ve often reflected on why the Lord Jesus, when He ascended to the Father, left behind His holy Mother at the start of the Church? Her presence, prayer, encouragement, wisdom, and exhortation; her feminine love must have strengthened the Apostles. Her maternal holiness and prayer helped to form the first clergy.

In the words of Fr. John Cihak, “The Blessed Virgin Mary’s role is to call out of the priest this celibate “agape” to help him become a husband to the Church and a spiritual father—a strong father, even in his weakness. She does this at the foot of the Cross by drawing the priest out of his own pain to offer pure masculine love in the midst of her own feminine love. This scene becomes the icon of the relationship between the priest and the Church.” (Fr. John Cihak article, “The Blessed Virgin Mary’s Role in the Celibate Priest’s Spousal and Paternal Love”, quoted by Beckman, Praying for Priests: A Mission for the New Evangelization, p 54, 55.)

The lesson for spiritual mothers: the more we reflect the heart of Mary, the more God can use us to spiritually call forth from men the masculine ideal of Christ-like spiritual fatherhood.

The role of a Catholic woman might be summed up in a word: MARY.

• Motherhood (physical and spiritual)
• Adoration (first duty to God)
• Resourceful (wise, creative)
• Yes to God (serving the divine will)

Some women will transmit life physically but all women of faith can be life bearers: Christ-bearers. What does Catholic womanhood have to do with the clergy? We can learn from several female saints whose lives bear witness to the beauty of spiritual maternity for priests.

“Woman: God’s special weapon in His fight against evil”

St. Edith Stein helps us to understand the unique role of woman in God’s plan. Always the role of woman is best revealed in the life of the Virgin Mary. Her singular dignity to be the Mother of Christ reveals the thought of God regarding the dignity of women. He chose women to be cooperators in creating new life. In light of how much the fallen angels despise and fear the Virgin Mary, we better understand the teaching of St. Edith Stein:

The intrinsic value of woman consists essentially in exceptional receptivity for God’s work in the soul. For an understanding of our unique feminine nature, let us look to the pure love and spiritual maternity of Mary. This spiritual maternity is the core of a woman’s soul. Wherever a woman functions authentically in this spirit of maternal love, Mary collaborates with her. This holds true whether the woman is married or single, professional or domestic or both, a Religious in the world or in the convent. Through this love, a woman is God’s special weapon in His fight against evil. Her intrinsic value is that she is able to do so because she has a special susceptibility for the works of God in souls—her own and others. She relates to others in His spirit of love.

Here, a great woman and saint of the Church broadens spiritual motherhood beyond the walls of the cloister or convent where for centuries beloved women Religious Sisters interceded for priests; and thankfully, continue to this present time. More recently, Fr. Raniero Cantalamesa addresses the movement of the Holy Spirit: “God calls some souls to the even higher task of atoning for priests…only men can be priests, but the wisdom of God has kept aside a task for women, and even a higher task in a certain sense, which the world does not understand and thus rejects with distain: that of forming priests and of contributing to raising the quality, not quantity, of Catholic priesthood. The Lord is calling the faithful in ever growing numbers to pray, to offer sacrifices, in order to have holy priests. A concern, a passion, for holy priests has spread as a sign of the times though today’s Church” (Fr. Cantalamessa, OFM, Sober Intoxication of the Spirit: Part Two quoted by Beckman, Praying for Priests, p 18-19).

We turn to Mary to understand how women of faith who are called to be spiritual mothers become God’s special weapon in His fight against evil. We’ll consider the ten evangelical virtues of Mary that form a powerful arsenal of spiritual arrows to mortally wound the fallen angels; those demons who “prowl the earth like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

The ten evangelical virtues of Mary:

1. Most Pure (Mt 1:18, 20, 23, Lk 1:24,34)
2. Most Prudent (Lk 2:19; 51)
3. Most Humble (Lk 1:48)
4. Most Faithful ( Lk 1:45; Jn 2:5)
5. Most Devout (Lk 1:46-47; Acts 1:14)
6. Most Obedient (Lk 1:38; 2:21-22; 27)
7. Most Poor (Lk 2:7)
8. Most Patient (Jn 19:25)
9. Most Merciful (Lk 1:39, 56)
10. Most Sorrowful (Lk 2:35)

Marian virtues perpetuate the victory of her Son Jesus Christ and can render Satan’s corrupting vices impotent. Satan fears Mary. Why? He knows God is omnipotent. But Mary is a lowly creature favored by God, raised to such a level of dignity and influence that her little heel can crush Satan’s head. He can’t get over this! In many rites of major exorcism in which I have participated on the team assisting the exorcist priest, Mary responds to the plea of the priest to help him cast out demons. Frequently, the Virgin Mary’s presence is the finishing touch to evict the evil one.

A woman who identifies with Mary is His special weapon in His fight against evil. The humble Mother of the Eternal High Priest is gathering a little army of daughters who attain to her virtues. God uses Mary’s daughters as righteous arrows against the malice of the devil.

The example of an ordinary wife and mother

Here’s a practical example in the ordinary life of a Catholic wife and mother of five young sons. She has answered the call to spiritual maternity for priests. Recently, in an interview we did for the Foundation of Prayer for Priests, she shared that when she is making her children’s lunches, desiring to feed them the most nutritious food, she also considers the priest who desires to feed God’s flock the imperishable food of the Eucharist. Then she offers up her tiredness for him.

I asked her how praying for priests has impacted her life as wife and mother. She shared that, at first, she did not fully understand the priest. He was set apart for God and a bit mysterious. When she realized that the Holy Spirit was quickening her heart to pray for her parish priest, the Holy Spirit began to teach her how to pray for him. She came to understand that the priest is a spiritual father of the Catholic family entrusted to him. He is charged with the care of parishioner’s souls but is subject to weariness and spiritual warfare also. During the Mass she observed more carefully the reverent gestures of the priest and began to see more of Jesus on the altar. Also, in recognizing the priest’s spiritual paternity, her appreciation of her husband’s role as spiritual father for the family grew.

When we pray for the priests, the Sanctifier pours graces of wisdom, knowledge and understanding upon us. Thus, we become more like Mary—attuned to the things of God. Priests and laity have a mutual need to mirror holiness for one another. Often this takes place in a silent, hidden, real and transformative way.

“The priest is the target of the devil’s malice”

“The priest is a marked man, the target of the devil’s malice. Don’t pray for priests superficially. Pray fervently. We priests need your prayers and sacrifices” –these words of Fr. William Casey are confirmed by Fr. John Hardon, “…No words I can use would be too strong to state that the Catholic priesthood needs prayer as sacrifice as never before since Calvary. Priests experience pressures with a violence and a virulence such as no one else but a priest can understand. One saint after another has declared that the devil’s principle target on earth is the Catholic priest. Priests need special graces from God. We ask why pray for priests? We should pray for priests and bishops because this has been the practice of the Church since apostolic times. It’s a matter of truth. It is a divine mandate.” (Fr. John Hardon, The Value of Prayer and Sacrifice for Priests, The Real Presence Association, quoted by Beckman, Praying for Priests: A Mission for the New Evangelization, p 21). Priests are the spiritual head of the Body of Christ and therefore; Satan aims to spiritually decapitate the Body of Christ in mockery of the Eternal High Priest. Some spiritual writers refer to Mary as the spiritual neck of the Church connecting the members of Christ’s body with the head, the priests in “persona Christi”—a beautiful analogy.

Spiritual motherhood of priests is our response of love for Jesus Christ. This Year of Mercy is an opportune time to practice a vital spiritual work of mercy: spiritual adoption of priests. May the Lord help you to discover this beautiful vocation within your vocation to His glory.

Visit www.foundationforpriests.org for more information on spiritual motherhood, fatherhood and spiritual warfare. This article contains excerpts from Praying for Priests: A Mission for the New Evangelization.

Religious Life Magazine Interview with Kathleen Beckman

The Institute on Religious Life (IRL) publishes Religious Life magazine six times a year. It is educational, informative and inspirational, focusing on the wondrous gift of the consecrated life for the life and mission of the Church. The magazine's March/April issue features a written interview with Kathleen Beckman in the InnerView section discussing her newest book, "God's Healing Mercy". The interview is a question and answer dialogue which gives readers a clear sense of what the book contains for individuals and families who wish to participate in the Jubilee Year of Mercy as announced by Pope Francis. The interview can be read now by clicking here. 

Saint Faustina’s full religious name was Sister Maria Faustina of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Her profound love and devotion to the Eucharist was the center of her life. Eucharistic love motivated her every action. Almost every page of her spiritual diary makes reference to the Eucharist. To a friend she said, “The most solemn moment of my life is the moment when I receive Holy Communion and for every Holy Communion I give thanks to the Most Holy Trinity” (Diary of St. Faustina, 1804). Another time she recorded, “…All my strength is in You, O Living Bread. It would be difficult for me to live through the day if I did not receive Holy Communion. It is my shield; without You, Jesus, I know not how to live” (Diary of St. Faustina, 814).

Eucharistic love: 10 gems

1.  Jesus wanted to stay with us and opened His heart of mercy.

Jesus gave St. Faustina a clear love of the mystery of the Eucharist. She described it “as the wonderful gift of His presence on earth”. She wrote that during Mass, “I thanked the Lord Jesus for having redeemed us and for having given us the greatest of all gifts, the Holy Eucharist.” “You wanted to stay with us, and so you left us yourself in the Sacrament of the Altar, and you opened wide your mercy to us. You opened an inexhaustible spring of mercy for us, giving us your dearest possession, the Blood and Water, that gushed forth from Your Heart” (Diary 1747).

2.  Love’s sacrifice was fully consummated at the consecration

During a Holy Hour, in a vision of the cenacle, Sr. Faustina saw the institution of the Holy Eucharist. She came to understand that, “At the moment of consecration…the sacrifice was fully consummated. Hereafter, only the external ceremony of death will be carried out. Never in my whole life had I understood this mystery so profoundly as during that hour of adoration” (Diary 684, 757, 832).

3.  The mercy that gushed from His Heart…

St. Faustina asked God to bring the world to understand more the mystery of divine mercy and the Eucharist. She said, “Who will ever conceive and understand the depth of mercy that gushed forth from His Heart? It is only in eternity that we shall know the great mystery given to us in Holy Communion. One day we will know what God is doing for us in each Mass, and what sort of gift He is preparing through it for us.”

4.  Eucharist: Transform me into a living host to atone for sinners.

“All the tongues of men and angels united could not find words adequate to describe this mystery of Your love and mercy”. “Transform me in Yourself, 0 Jesus, that I may be a living sacrifice and pleasing to You. I desire to atone at each moment of my life for poor sinners.“ Jesus answered her prayers telling her: “You are a living host, pleasing to the Heavenly Father” (Diary 1826). Through our communion with Christ we grow in self-emptying love that desires to offer reparation for sinners. The Eucharist moves us to an ever-greater thirst for the salvation of souls.

5.  I owe everything to Holy Communion.

St. Faustina said: “All the good that is in me is due to the Holy Communion. I owe everything to it.” She was transformed into a living host in imitation of her Lord; hidden, and broken like Jesus in His passion laying down His life for our redemption. St. Faustina’s union with God was increased during the Mass, Holy Communion and during Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Eucharistic life is transformative.

6.  Love demands only one thing: reciprocity.

Her union with the Lord was, in His words, as a bride: “Here, I am entirely yours, soul, body and divinity as Your Bridegroom. You know what love demands, one thing only, reciprocity”. (Diary 1770) What she experienced during Holy Communion was a complete union with the Holy Trinity, “At that moment, I was drawn into the bosom of the Most Holy Trinity, and I was immersed in the love of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” (Diary 1670, 1121,1129)

7.  “In the Host is the power…”

“These times of union are a taste of Eternity,” she said (Diary 969). St Faustina was strengthen and supported in the daily struggles of life by receiving Holy Communion. The Lord told her: “In the Host is the power; it will defend you always” (Diary 616). Eucharistic love is infinitely powerful to defend us from all that is harmful to our salvation.

8.  Rays of Mercy come from the Holy Eucharist covering the world.

During Holy Mass, many times St. Faustina experienced visions of the Lord and over sixty such visions are found in her spiritual diary. She often saw the infant Jesus during Mass, but also, on occasion, saw the Blessed Mother, or Jesus during His passion, and sometimes, in His glorious majesty. She records seeing the rays of mercy as in the image of Divine Mercy coming from the Holy Eucharist, at times covering the world. (Diary 420, 441, 1046).

9.  The Eucharist is closely associated with the vessels of mercy.

Holy Communion is the most important part of the celebration of the Feast of Divine Mercy. The Feast of Divine Mercy, the Image, the Chaplet, and the three o’clock prayer are all closely related to the Eucharist. On a number of occasions, St. Faustina saw the Eucharist radiate red and white rays, like in the Image of Divine Mercy. The Chaplet of Divine Mercy is Eucharistic. It is an offering of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the Father, in atonement for the sins of the world.

Faustina’s Eucharistic Act of Oblation

During the reception of the Eucharist Sr. Faustina offered herself in total abandonment to God’s will composing her personal act of oblation:

Jesus-Host, whom I have this very moment received into my heart, in this union with you I offer myself to the Heavenly Father as a sacrificial host, abandoning myself totally and completely to the most merciful holy will of my God. From today onward, your will, Lord, is my food. You have my whole being; dispose of me as you please . . . I no longer fear any of your inspirations, nor do I probe anxiously to see where they will lead me . . . I have placed all my trust in your will which is, for me, love and mercy itself. (Diary of St. Faustina, 1264, 456)

Eucharistic Healing & Resurrection

The Eucharist is healing in ways seen and unseen, and affects our resurrection. Fr. Lawrence Lovasik wrote, “Holy Communion establishes between Jesus Christ and us not merely spiritual contact but physical contact as well through the ‘species’ of bread. The resurrection of the body can be traced from this physical contact with Christ. The resurrected bodies of those who have worthily received the Eucharist during their lifetime will be more strikingly resplendent because of their frequent contact, during life, with the risen Body of their Lord.” (Fr. Lawrence Lovasik, The Basic Book of the Eucharist, Sophia Press, 140)

Prayer to Become a Living Monstrance

Lord Jesus, please fashion me into a living Eucharistic monstrance so that I may become a vessel of mercy carrying Your love to others. Through our Eucharistic incorporation, grant that I may be a child of the light, salt of the earth, bread for the hungry, water for the thirsty, new wine, and healing oil for others. May people see You in my servant’s heart, You in the light of my eyes, You in the warmth of my heart, You in the works of my hands, You in the words of my mouth, You in the incense of my prayer, You in the lightness of my laughter, You in the glistening of my tears, You in the lowliness of Your creature. Hide me, I pray, in the gilded monstrance of Your loving heart so that I can be a living monstrance radiating Your healing rays of mercy.(Kathleen Beckman, God’s Healing Mercy, Sophia Press, 133-134).

image: Fr. Lawrence Lew, OP / Panem Supersubstantialem via Flickr

Mercy & Mary: Healing From No To Yes

Mary’s yes to God untied the knot of Eve’s no. Rooted in faith and humility, Mary’s yes was born of an obedient heart attuned to God’s word. Eve’s no to God was rooted in prideful disobedience and distrust of God. With her yes, Mary became the Mother of Divine Mercy, the handmaid of the Divine Physician. Born of a dual yes the Church is the hospital of mercy. We need the Church to be a hospital of mercy to heal the countless wounds of her members –wounds that occur and fester because of our no to God, our no to sacrificial, self-emptying love. Saying no to God is never a good idea. The consequences are real and harmful.

Yes to God: Surrender, Sacrifice, Self-Emptying

“At times we are called to gaze even more attentively on mercy so that we may become a more effective sign of the Father’s action in our lives. For this reason I have proclaimed an Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy as a special time for the Church; a time when the witness of believers might grow stronger and more effective” (Pope Francis, Bull of Indiction, n. 3).

How strong and effective is our witness to the Father’s mercy? At the Twenty-Eighth World Youth Day in Rio de Janiero, on Sunday, July 28, 2013, Pope Francis said, “Go and make disciples of all nations…Jesus is calling you to be a disciple with a mission!” The baptized have a mission to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ. The proclamation of the kingdom, like sanctity, is not the privilege of a few but the call and duty of every disciple.  How we go about proclaiming Christ to others depends on our vocation in life.

Whether we are called to priesthood or to the religious life, to consecrated single or married life, our yes is key to the fulfillment of God’s design for our life. Foundational to all vocations is falling in love with Jesus Christ. When was the last time you experienced God so realistically that you could not deny Him? If you have not yet had such an experience of divine love, pray and ask the Lord for the grace. Your desire is born of His desire. His yes and your yes combine to enkindle the fire of a love above all loves.

When we ponder the vocation of Mary, we begin to understand that she led the way for us to be open to the surprising adventure of God’s call in our life. Like Mary we are chosen for something greater than ourselves—something greater than we have imagined. Nothing is impossible with God who seeks to work small and big miracles of grace in and through us. Yet the God of love will not burst through our free will and force us to respond to Him. Divine Love is the supreme respecter of human freedom.

The singular mission of Mary was God’s idea, not hers. This is an important reminder that God has ordained a mission for each person within the context of our unique vocations. Each believer has a vocation to magnify Jesus Christ in the world. All vocations share a common calling: transformation in Christ. We are called to be Christ-bearers. Mary’s yes to the Trinity required a decision to surrender, self-empty and sacrifice. She emptied herself so that God could fill her. Mary’s Magnificat is much more that her hymn of praise to the Trinity, it is her identity. Mary is the embodiment of the Magnificat. How does this relate to our vocation? Because of Christ’s yes and Mary’s yes, our identity as a child of God is realized. Our yes to God is key to our identity also. It unlocks the door of mercy so we can enter into our unique place in the drama of salvation history where divine love lives.

The Healing Journey from No to Yes

Consider Adam and Eve’s no to God. The result is that the false self emerged—the self that wants to hide from God and run away in shame. Our yes to God binds us to Him so that we are unbound from what is not of God. How does saying no to God wound the Church and the world? Many people say no to God by refusing the gift of children. Abortion is one of the wounds of that no. Numerous couples say no to sacramental marriage and cohabitate instead. Fornication is the wound of that no. Some people say no to fidelity in marriage, and adultery is the wound of that no. When priests say no to their priesthood, and leave, scandal is the wound of that no. When young people refuse God’s call to the priesthood or consecrated life, the wound of that no is empty rectories and convents. Most of us have experienced the negative impact of someone’s no to God. As with Adam and Eve’s no, there are negative consequences that cause increased suffering.

The challenge is not with the process of discernment as much as it is with our perception of a vocation. Whatever our vocation, it is not meant to fulfill the God-shaped hole in our heart. God alone is the fulfillment of all human desire. In the present narcissistic culture, filled with false promises of complete happiness and fulfillment based on everything but the gospel of Jesus Christ, we fail to arrive at a complete yes to God because of our self-concerns, preferences, and failure to commit to anything that is lifelong, sacrificial, or less thrilling than the exciting transitory allurements of the flesh, the world and the devil. Contrast this with the persistent call of Jesus to serve Him and others humbly, with self-emptying love and sacrifice. Whether we realize it or not, our expectations are simply unrealistic, and they can set us up for failure and disappointment. Christ said, “deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow me” (cf. Luke 9:23). No servant is greater than the Master who laid down His life for us. With the complete gift of self we discover the beauty of the Christ-life and live it.

Mary was led by the Holy Spirit and formed by God to mirror the yes of Jesus to the Father. Whatever she may have imagined her life to be, she let go to say yes to God’s plan. Can we let our preconceived plan go in favor of God’s surprising and superior plan? Certainly, we discern, receive counsel, and test the promptings, but then we say yes without hesitating—we commit and let God lead us on the adventure of merciful love and service.

Saints like John Paul II, Mother Teresa and Faustina remind us that God’s will for us in usually the harder choice, the more difficult path, the one that requires more of Him and less of me. Our vocations are not meant to solve the mystery of human life, love and longing. They are where we work out our salvation while keeping our eyes fixed on Christ and Heaven. The answer to our human longing will be forthcoming in the Father’s house. On earth we walk by faith, hope and love; we toil and press on amid temptations and trials. Merciful love is strong, capable of great things, capable of withstanding the cross—because Jesus remains with us always.

A Prayer for the Grace to Say Yes to God

Lord Jesus, you have helped me to understand that I am not fully surrendered to your will in my life. My self-will is strong. Self-love hinders my yes at times. I realize that you desire my yes in totality. You invite me to trust in your merciful love.

I repent of the times when, knowingly or unknowingly, I interfered with your plan for my life either by weakness of will, neglect in prayer, procrastination in doing what you asked, fear of making a wrong decision, fear of failure, or of letting go of options that make me feel that I have control of my life.

With all my heart I ask for the healing that I need; the healing of the wounds that are the result of folly; the healing of my heart that is fearful, the healing of my thoughts that are not Your thoughts, the healing of my life that is in knots.

With the full strength of my free will, I now offer you, my unreserved yes. Thank You for Your patience, providence and peace. Your will be done in my life. I surrender. I say yes with of my heart. I am yours and with you I am safe. O Divine Mercy, please never let me refuse your holy will that is infinite goodness.

“The Church’s first truth is the love of Christ. The Church makes herself a servant of this love and mediates it to all people: a love that forgives and expresses itself in the gift of one’s self. Consequently, wherever the Church is present, the mercy of the Father must be evident”(Pope Francis, Bull of Indiction, n. 12).

Editor’s note: this article contains excerpts from God’s Healing Mercy, which is available from Sophia Press.

Mercy, Mary & 10 Resolutions

“A good way to start the New Year is to ask how you can be different than you are now”— said Archbishop Fulton Sheen in a speech on December 31, 1944. His suggestion spiritualizes the essence of many New Year’s resolutions. In his talk, “Who Can Re-Make You?” he explains, “We were like a clock whose mainspring was broken. We have the ‘works’ but we do not ‘go’. Man cannot redeem himself any more than the clock can fix itself. If man is ever to be redeemed, redemption must: 1) Come from without human nature, and 2) be done from within.” Sheen continues, “human nature has contracted a bigger debt than it can pay. In sinning against God we piled up an infinite debt, and we have not enough balance of merits in our finite bank to meet the burden. …Evil is too deep-seated in the world to be righted by a little kindness or reason or tolerance.”

Divine Mercy

From the pierced Heart of the Redeemer flows blood and water, the medicine that cures the infection of Original Sin. Yet, as Sheen writes, “human nature in some way must be involved in its own redemption.” The Catechism (1847) teaches the same truth quoting St. Augustine, “God created us without us: but he did not will to save us without us.”  To receive his mercy, we must admit our faults. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 8-9). Sinners all, we repeatedly fail to live the standard of Christ’s self-emptying love.

The Eternal Father made a provision for us: Incarnate Divine Mercy. Jesus re-makes us, “Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself…”(2 Cor. 5:17-18). In moments of truth we long for our transformation into Christ; we desire to become the best version of our redeemed self, and to fulfill the unique mission imprinted into our spiritual DNA.

For most believers, the arrival of a new year brings hopeful expectations. Perhaps this is the year that we allow God to radically change us into an icon of Jesus, ever humble, patient and kind, but also ever zealous to build up His Kingdom. The saints, echoing the Gospel, tell us that Jesus seeks to walk the earth again through your footsteps, seeks to heal humanity through your prayerful hands, seeks to find the lost sheep through your missionary work, seeks to transform the world through your spiritual and corporal works of mercy. Will you ardently confirm your “yes” to God’s love and plan?

Mary, Mother of God

On January 1st, the Church liturgically honors Mary, Mother of God. We are encouraged to entrust ourselves to her maternal love and protection just as God the Father entrusted His only begotten Son to Mary. St. John Paul II writes of her, “Mary, then, is the one who has the deepest knowledge of the mystery of God’s mercy. She knows its price, she knows how great it is. In this sense, we call her the Mother of mercy: our Lady of mercy, or Mother of divine mercy” (Dives in Misericordia). This year the liturgy for the Mother of God is uniquely situated in the Jubilee of Mercy. In the papal bull for the Year of Mercy, Pope Francis wrote:

“My thoughts now turn to the Mother of Mercy. May the sweetness of her countenance watch over us in this Holy Year, so that all of us may rediscover the joy of God’s tenderness. No one has penetrated the profound mystery of the incarnation like Mary. Her entire life was patterned after the presence of mercy made flesh. The Mother of the Crucified and Risen One has entered the sanctuary of divine mercy because she participated intimately in the mystery of His love. (Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Paragraph 24).

Who better than Mary can help us “rediscover the joy God’s tenderness”, and why is it important to that we do so? Deprived of “the joy of God’s tenderness” we wither and are vulnerable to the temptations of the flesh, the world and the devil. “The joy of the Lord is my strength” (Neh 8:10b). Mary is the perennial woman of praise joyfully proclaiming the greatness of the Lord. This is her mantle and armor. We think of Mary who first kissed the face of God, who embraced the Christ Child with the gentle strength of maternal love. His Mother is ours also. Mary’s maternal kiss of grace deepens our experience of divine mercy. Mary is perpetually interceding for our transformation into Christ before the mercy seat of the Father.

The papal bull helps us to understand Mary’s vital role:

Chosen to be the Mother of the Son of God, Mary, from the outset, was prepared by the love of God to be the Ark of the Covenant between God and man. She treasured divine mercy in her heart in perfect harmony with her Son Jesus. Her hymn of praise, sung at the threshold of the home of Elizabeth, was dedicated to the mercy of God which extends from “generation to generation” (Lk 1:50). We too were included in those prophetic words of the Virgin Mary. This will be a source of comfort and strength to us as we cross the threshold of the Holy Year to experience the fruits of divine mercy.  (Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Paragraph 24).

Mary experienced the fruits of divine mercy through the joyful, sorrowful, glorious and luminous mysteries of the life of her Son Jesus. She was more intimately intertwined with incarnate mercy than any other human being. Mary’s knows the beauty as well as the challenge of living merciful discipleship.

Merciful Discipleship: 10 Resolutions

The following list is suggested at the start of my book, “God’s Healing Mercy”. While researching various persons to highlight as “profiles in mercy”, I discovered that Cardinal Francis Xavier Van Thuan, while a prisoner of war in Vietnam, wrote a “rule of life” for his time of confinement. He made a decision to live the grace of the present moment, not to live only in waiting for liberation. He decided to make the jail his cathedral, the prisoners and guards, his parishioners. Though he was severely abused in prison he exercised merciful discipleship. Thus, he brought many non-believers to Christ by his witness to divine mercy. It struck me that the Cardinal made a plan at the onset of his prison confinement and that his intentional “rule of life” proved to be transformative not only for him but also for the prison population.

For the Jubilee of Mercy, we might consider these resolutions as appropriate for living merciful discipleship. With God’s grace we can be re-made.

1. I will decide to believe and trust in God’s mercy.
2. I will live the present moment in Christ’s merciful love.
3. I will hold firm to one secret of mercy: prayer.
4. I will see in the holy Eucharist my only power and stream of mercy.
5. I will have the wisdom of mercy: the science of the cross.
6. I will be faithful to my mission in the Church as a witness to Divine Mercy.
7. I will seek the peace the world cannot give and rest in God’s merciful love.
8. I will carry out a holy mission of renewal in the Spirit and works of mercy.
9. I will speak one language and wear one uniform: mercy.
10. I will have one unique love: Mary, Mother of Mercy. (God’s Healing Mercy, pg.1)

Prayer: Beloved Mother of God, Mary, Mother of Mercy, please take us by the hand and guide our steps over the threshold of the holy door that represents God’s Heart. Graciously lead us to see the face of divine mercy. Show us how to receive anew the gift of Incarnate Mercy, Jesus. With maternal grace, help us to be re-made into Christ-like love that forgives. Gently apply the salve of healing mercy to our wounds and guide us to be vessels of merciful love. O Mother of God, please form us to live merciful discipleship. Like you, we desire to magnify Jesus and bring many souls to the knowledge of God’s healing mercy. Amen.

Author’s note: This article features excerpts from God’s Healing Mercy, which is available from Sophia Institute Press.