Our Lady of Loreto
Friends in Christ, although it is not on the Liturgical Calendar today, December 10th is observed as Our Lady of Loreto, Loreto being the place in Italy where is Mary’s little house from Nazareth.
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According to legend, the house where Mary was born and where the Annunciation happened – this little house – when under the threat of war, was moved from the Holy Land to Croatia, to Italy, to Loreto – they say, by angels. Shepherds there discovered the sudden appearance of a little house in one of their fields. They went to the priest who himself was crippled; visiting the house, he had a vision and was suddenly cured.
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It seems that indeed, the house of Mary in the Holy Land had disappeared, leaving only a foundation that measured the exact size of the house. There are others that say a family of workmen disassembled the house and moved it. In any case, this shrine is a revered and holy place, and the source of many miracles.
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One miracle involved a young boy named Giovanni who had been sickly for many years. He wanted to be a priest, but was subject to seizures and other maladies. The Pope, who knew him, advised him to place himself in the hands of Mary. He therefore made a pilgrimage to Loreto and calling out to his heavenly Mother, was cured. Ultimately, he became not only a priest, but the Pope: Pope Pius IX, who would proclaim the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. As Pope he visited Loreto seven times, and this Holy house of Loreto is a favorite place for Popes to go and pray.
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Also originating at that Shrine, was the Litany of Loreto, which we usually call the Litany of the Blessed Virgin. When I was a young man, I was once speaking to an old priest. He showed me in his church, the verses of the Litany of Loreto inscribed around the walls of the Church. He then sat down, and as I looked at those verses, he recited all 51 of them by heart. He knew them all. His love for Mary made a big impression on me.
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It is a beautiful practice to add the Litany of Loreto to the end of Our Rosary each day.
Mary shows our destiny
Friends in Christ, today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. It is very apropos that during this Advent season, we meet Mary along the way on this feast day, and then we meet Mary again at the end of this week in Our Lady of Guadalupe, preparing for the birth of Christ.
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The Immaculate Conception.
‘Immaculate,’ means pure and clean. The Immaculate Conception, is when Mary was conceived without sin in her mother’s womb. She never had Original Sin. But what does this mean?
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A young woman asked, how Mary could have been conceived without sin, isn’t she human like us?’
Well, what IS Original Sin? A person with Original Sin actually has something missing. They are missing grace. We are born into the world without the supernatural grace of God. We come into the world in a natural sate, not supernatural – without the Life of God in us. THAT is what Original Sin is. It’s a condition of being without sanctifying grace. So Mary was just as human as us,[i] just as human as her mother and father. Our Lady is a true member of the human family, one of us.
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WE acquire the supernatural life of God when we are baptized; grace comes into our soul. The Life of God. But for Mary, she received the Life of God in her – grace – right away. As the angel clearly said, ‘Hail Mary, FULL of grace.
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Eve had the life of God in her when she first was made; she and Adam walked with God, but they lost grace. Mary is called the New Eve, and St. Paul will say that Christ is the New Adam. So Mary is full of grace, from the very beginning, because she will be the model of what we can be.
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A protestant friend said to me, ‘Father, we are all sinners, we are nothing, we are vile and filthy and weak before the Lord God.’ Isn’t this true of Mary? I said, ‘It is true that we are sinners and wretches before the Good God.’ But you have forgotten the rest of the story: God wants us to become great. He has made us his children. Sons and daughters of the Most High. He wants us to be other Christs, like Jesus. He wants grace to increase in us – until we are Full of Grace!
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Now ONE of us shows the goal that God has for us, the Greatest Saint. Mary is the image of the whole Church. She is the first one of us to have it all. In heaven, Our Mother is sinless, pure, holy, great, beautiful, and alive. And this is the goal of the entire Church – to reach heaven and be great and pure, and immaculate.[ii] Mary leads the way, and so she is called the Gate of heaven.
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St. Bernard[iii] says that if we have the misfortune to lose grace, by mortal sin, if we are discouraged, Mary will help us. She will obtain for us the courage to confess, and change our life. He calls Mary the Finder of Grace!
Finder of Grace? She does not find it for herself, because she is full of grace; she finds it for us sinners.
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[i] Peter Kreeft in Catholic Christianity, p. 405. Protestants confuse Original Sin with a distorted humanity. They think Mary suddenly was born with a different humanity. Not so, same humanity, but with grace.
[ii] AD DIEM ILLUM LAETISSIMUM, number 5.
[iii] Glories, p. 81.
Advent for us
2nd Sunday of Advent
Beloved in Jesus Christ,
During the horror of Naziism during World War II in Germany, there emerged a truly heroic figure, a priest by the name of Fr. Alfred Delp. He was pastor of a parish in Munich, and an outspoken critic of the Nazi regime; quietly, he led a Resistance movement, and was arrested in 1944. After 6 months in prison, he was martyred by hanging.
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While in prison, he was able to write secretly some beautiful meditations on small scraps of paper that were smuggled out in the laundry. Not only during his prison time, but in all of his preaching, one of his favorite subjects was that of Advent, the time we are in today. In 1942 during a Holy Hour, he says: ‘These fateful days have hit us all hard, and we feel it. We want something more than this suffering and wory and visible distress that we have been going through.’
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Now he is talking about life under the Nazi’s, but I’m sure that those words might resonate with us today. There is more than enough to make us worried, or angry, or frustrated with the way the world seems to be going. But in all of those horrible years of the War, when Fr. Delp could have been arrested at anytime, he said: ‘Advent means remembering the freedom of God, and then abandoning ourselves to the divine unpredictability.’[i]
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God’s deep intention is to keep pursing us; pursing each person until he ‘gives’, until we freely give him our freedom, beyond our own desires or worries or crosses. St. Bernard, in an Advent homily says ‘Christ is our rest and consolation; therefore, keep God’s word and let it take possesion of your desires and your whole way of life.’ Allowing God to take posession of our life is not an easy thing, but as the saints tell us, it is the only way to true freedom.
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During this holy season, as we try to be more contemplative, we see that God is not only asking us to give him our whole heart, but we see that God is pursing us, chasing us down, as it were. Francis Thompson wrote a poem about this, of how God is pursuing us, the Hound of Heaven:
‘I fled from Him, down nights and days;
I fled from Him, down arches of the years,
of my own mind and in my tears – I hid from Him.’
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We hide from God in our own Will. He can’t get there. But if God is seeking us, then let him find us.
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Today John the Baptist’s disciples come to Jesus; he says: ‘What did you come out to the desert to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what did you come to see? This is he of whom it is written: Behold, I send my Angel before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way before Thee.’
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Advent is a time to prepare for the coming of Christ; you say, ‘but Christ has already come!’ yes. There was that lost world before Christianity; lost in sin and idolatry and death and despair – with no hope, and Christ came. But isn’t that a description of much of our world today as well, without Christ. And it is emblematic of ourselves at times: dark and lost.
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These days are days to throw ourselves into the arms of God, and for once, to trust him and his plan. Even in our best moments, we often just check with God to see if our plans fit in ok with his.[ii] But it should really be the other way around. When the cross is in front of us, or fears paralyze us, or anger confounds us, maybe we can begin to seek the peace of embracing and suffering over the reality of the world.
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We mentioned Fr. Delp. Writing from prison, he recalled when once a good person gave him an Advent banner with an angel announcing the Good News.[iii] He says, ‘A bomb destroyed the angel. A bomb killed the good person, the terror of this time would not be bearable except for the promises of Advent.’
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For us, Advent is a time to be found by God, but he needs some silence, the Lord needs us to give him some quiet, to work in us. The 1st week of Advent spoke of the end of the world, signs in stars and moon, ‘the powers of the heavens will be shaken.’ This was to shake us – to shake us into reality. God is seeking to be close to us, he is asking for freedom to work in us; to give him our heart and our will; not in worry or resistance or defiance, but in docility.
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Think of the 1st Advent – what if Mary had not given her ‘fiat,’ her yes to the angel?[iv] What if in the desire for an untroubled life, this Virgin would have said, ‘no, I’m not up to this. I pass.’ Sure, God could have then found another way to save us. But what about Mary? Her life would have been pathetically empty, not even close to the potential God had offered her. She would never have become the Mother of all, and Queen of heaven.
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Following God’s will in our life is not an ‘accessory’ or an ‘add-on,’ any more than the training of an athlete is a mere ‘bonus’; following God’s will is essential to our becoming fulfilled.
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‘I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe. Plans to give you a future full of hope.’ (Jer 29:11)
Advent is a time to put our trust in God. To abandon ourselves to the Divine unpredictability.
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[Entrusted to the prayers of Blessed Bartolo Longo]
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[i] Advent of the Heart – Alfred Delp, p. 81. Ideas in this homily are from this book.
[ii] p. 69
[iii] p. 26
[iv] see p. 83
The Creator became little
Friends in Christ,
God can do whatever he wants, he is all powerful. As St. Alphonsus says, by a mere nod of his head, he created heaven and earth out of nothing. And if he wanted to, he could destroy the immense machinery of the universe by a glance. God is all powerful.
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And yet despite this power of the Creator, there is a surprising rashness in mankind. Proud sinners flagrantly sin against God, defying him every day. And this is us.
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Suppose we would see some insect, say a tiny ant. And if this ant decided to make an attack against a soldier, we would think this is ridiculous and fool-hardy. Well, how much more foolhardy it is, for man to make an assault against his Creator by sinning.
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Here we are beginning the season of Advent. And we are preparing to celebrate a surprising event: The reckless and ungrateful sinners of this world are the very ones, for whom the Son of God comes down to save, by making himself a humble child.
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God becomes a child who needs milk to live, who is so feeble that he cannot even feed himself. The Eternal Word in coming into the world, wishes to conceal his strength. St. Cyril says: ‘Behold he who governs the heavens;’ ‘Behold God in swaddling cloths, unable to even stretch out his hands.’
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When Mary and Joseph took Jesus to Egypt, he could not even walk, he had to be carried. As St. Bonaventure says, when they returned from Egypt, Jesus was too large to be carried, but too little to make a long journey, and so they often had to stop and rest. God reduces himself to this weak and lowly state, for us.
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There he is in the shop at Nazareth; he busily works, helping Joseph as a carpenter. The boy Jesus exhausting himself to shape some piece of wood, laboring a whole day on it. He, who could create it out of nothing in a glance.
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A God then, has become so little and so weak. Why did he do this? To make himself loved.
Advent is a time to love this Child as he deserves.
The End and the Coming of Christ
1st. Sunday of Advent
Beloved in Jesus Christ,
Every Catholic often says the prayer: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Now people sometimes ask, why does it say: ‘world without end? The world will have an end, won’t it?’ Well, this is an old English translation of the prayer; they had their ways of speaking, but the proper translation would be: ‘As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever, or, ‘unto the ages and the ages.’ The prayer is saying, that glory to the Persons of the Blessed Trinity has always been given and forever will be given. And so those who ask about this ‘world without end’ rightly call this strange phrase into question. The world WILL end. All that we see will be destroyed.
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One day, a man was walking along with Cardinal George, commenting on the beauty of the skycrappers and the City of Chicago; Cardinal George, in his characteristic fashion said, ‘You know, one day, all of this will be gone.’ This world will have an end.
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As the last Liturgical Year has ended, and we begin the new Liturgical Year today, an important theme given to us is: The End of the World. Today, Our Lord continues to warn his followers that the End will come: ‘There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay. People will die of fright for what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.’ In many places, Jesus foretells the End of this Universe.
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As if to give us trust in what he says, Christ also predicted that the Great Temple of Jerusalem would be destroyed within the lifetimes of those living, and although it had stood for over 500 years, it was destroyed, just as he had foretold. And so we can trust his telling of the end of this universe.
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‘The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When everyone says ‘we have peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them.’ (1 Thess 5:1) ‘the heavens will pass away with violence, the elements destroyed by fire, and the earth and it’s works will be burnt up.’ (2 Peter 3:10)
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For sure, we should care about our world, take an interest in the affairs of this age, work for justice and peace, avoid poluting the environment; but as Christians, we are not overly anxious or worried about whatever is happening this week or this year, because all of this is temporary. Jesus says, ‘do not be anxious about your life;’ St. Paul says, ‘have no anxiety about anything.’ This is because our hearts are fixed, not on the passing things of this world, but on the New World to Come. And so we live accordingly.
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People come up with all kinds of predictions or claims about the end of the world, as you know; but they do not get these ideas from Jesus Christ. “Beyond a shadow of a doubt, said Harold Camping, ‘beyond a shadow of a doubt, May 21, 2011, will be the date of the Rapture and the day of judgment, and the end of the world will be 5 months later. Well – we are still here.
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Jerry Falwell predicted the end of the world, would be in 2009. The Jehovah Witnesses predicted the world would end in 1914, then they changed it to 1915. When nothing happened, they insisted the end would be in 1918. When that didn’t happen, they assured us it would be 1925. And then 1975. But we are still here. Jesus Christ assures us, ‘you know not the day nor the hour.’ But it will come.
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So what do we know about the end? What events will lead up to it? We only need consult the Catechism of the church, which summarizes what we have been taught by the Holy Scriptures and the teaching of the Apostles.
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Four basic movements will signal the End.
1. The faith will have been preached to all the world, and also the Jewish people will finally accept Christ as the Messiah.
2. The Anti-Christ will appear and lead many Christians away from the faith. Whoever or whatever this will be, will bring a very seductive message, convincing many people that they will find happiness best in turning away from Christ and the Church. This will be the great Apostasy, only those willing to go against the grain will remain faithful.
3. Then will be the great Persecution against the remaining faithful followers; it will be a persecution unlike anything ever before, and so a lot of courage will be needed.
4. Then finally, the 2nd Coming of Christ in glory, the ressurection of the dead, and the End of the World. Then God will bring us to a whole, New Creation, a renewed cosmos – this will be the glory for those who are faithful. On that Last Day, when Christ comes on clouds in glory, good people will rejoice, but evil people will be in terror.
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We can imagine a family in those days. Their life has been hard for that Catholic family, with the persecution; perhaps the father has lost his job because of his faith, or even arrested or tortured. There is pressure against them. The daughter Joanne is doing her homework in her room, when suddenly a bright light, through the curtains, lights up her room. A shout from her mother: ‘Joanne, come outside, come!’ And she runs to her mother, and her mother points to the bright sky. There is coming Jesus in the clouds, in glory – ‘He’s here Joanne. Jesus is here. He’s come for you and I, and daddy.’ And they are so happy, because the End has finally come, and the resurrection, and the New World.
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‘And you will see the Son of Man coming on clouds in great power, and when these things come to pass, lift up your heads, for your redemption is at hand.’
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Friends, as we begin Advent today, to prepare for the Birth of our Savior, Mother Church asks us to consider the first coming of Jesus as a little Child, and not to forget his 2nd Coming, in Glory, that Great Day. We prepare our hearts in these weeks ahead, confess our sins, renew our daily habits of prayer. Maybe something new for these weeks: have the family read from the bible before dinner, pray the Rosary, a little sacrifice – something to bring us closer to Jesus.
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Our Lord gives us the message for our Advent: “Beware that that day not catch you by surprise like a trap. Be vigilant and pray, that you have the strength to stand before the Son of Man.” So as we await the Birth of Christ, we don’t forget the day we will meet Him face to face in glory.
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And in these days, let us wait with Mary too. Mary, pray that during this Advent, Christ would be born ever more in our hearts, making us true Christians, and worthy of his Coming.
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[Entrusted to the prayers of St. Thomas Aquinas]
Thank God (thanksgiving)
Friends in Christ, today is Thanksgiving, and we will hear people say, ‘we should be thankful.’
We read in newspapers stories about being thankful. Being grateful. But I have noticed that few people say Who we are thankful to. They just say, ‘we should be thankful.’
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At another parish, I was asked to go to an inter-faith meeting to plan a thanksgiving inter-faith prayer service. There were representatives there from various religions. The Methodist minister asked, ‘what should be our theme this year for Thanksgiving?’ I said, well, how ’bout our theme be, Thanksgiving is to God. We could remind people that this holiday is about thanking God.’ That seemed to be something we could all agree on.
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The Lutheran minister immediately spoke and said, ‘Oh, we can’t say that, it could offend Buddhists, some of whom don’t believe in God.’ I thought, ‘for heavens sake, then what are we doing here? Let’s just say, that was the last meeting I went to.
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Today our country celebrates Thanksgiving. A true reading of the history of Thanksgiving shows us that this national holiday is definitely about thanking God. When the Pilgrims arrived in America, having survived the first brutal New England winter, they had a meal of thanksgiving. Thanking who? Almighty God.
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The first national thanksgiving was connected with our declared independence from Britain in 1776; the months that followed were very despairing and worrisome times. For much of 1777 the situation was bleak. British troops controlled New York City, Americans lost Fort Ticonderoga, and many troops were killed at the Paoli Massacre. America’s largest city, Philadelphia fell to the British in September. John Adams wrote in his diary: ‘The situation is chilling, gloomy, and very dark.
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But Adams cousin, Samuel Adams spoke with hope: ‘Good tidings will arrive, he said. We shall never be abandoned by Heaven while we act worthy of its protection.’ He was right. Victories began to occur. France took America’s side, and with hope, Congress appointed a committee to draft a resolution. It declared this is ‘A day of Thanksgiving to God, so that with one voice good people may express grateful feelings of their hearts and consecrate themselves to the service of God. It would be the first of many Thanksgivings.
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During the 18th century individual colonies often observed days of thanksgiving. These were not about lots of food, but were usually days of prayer and fasting. In 1789 and 1795, George Washington declared a day of Thanksgiving – to God. In the middle of the Civil War, in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln, proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be on the final Thursday in November. Thanksgiving from then on, was celebrated every year by our nation.
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Thanksgiving Day, therefore, is about thanking Almighty God. It is about gratitude to God. So that is what we will do.
Our Child King
Solemnity of Christ the King
Beloved in Jesus Christ, in ancient times there lived St. Christopher. He was a huge man, 7½ feet tall, and at first he was a pagan. Now Christopher wanted to do a great thing with his life, and so he wanted to find the greatest king that there was, in order to serve him. After traveling around, he found a great King and entered into his service.
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One day however, the king heard someone speak of the devil; he immediately made the sign of the cross. Christopher noticed this, and asked what this sign meant. The king said, when I hear the devil mentioned, I defend myself with this sign. Christopher realized that the devil then, must be more powerful than the king so he went off to find the devil to serve him.
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Coming upon a very wicked man, Christopher said: ‘I am seeking the devil. ‘You have found him,’ said the man, because the devil lived in him. And so Christopher followed him; but as they were walking along the road, they came upon a cross. The devil became very afraid. Why are you afraid asked Christopher? He told him: There was a man named Christ who died on a cross, and when I see this sign, I am filled with terror. So leaving him, Christopher went in search of Christ, to make him his king.
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Finally he came upon an old hermit who lived in a hut, and this hermit taught him about Christ. He told him: Christ asks that you always do his will in your life. ‘Tell me what should be my work, said Christopher, and I will do it for Christ. Your work will be this said the hermit: Go and live near the Great River where many travelers perish trying to cross it, because there is no bridge. You are big enough to carry them over the river. ‘Good! Said Christopher, I will do it!
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And so he built a shelter near the Great river, and, for many years he carried travelers across the river; and it came one day that a small child asked to be carried across. Seeing the beauty of the Child, he hoisted him onto his shoulders, and began carrying the Child across the river. The child grew heavy – as heavy as lead, and reaching the other side, he said: ‘Child, I felt as though I carried the entire world on my shoulders.’ And the child responded, you carried not only the world, but He who created the world – I am Christ your King, whom you serve; with that, the Child vanished.
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Friends in the Lord, today is the Feast of Christ the King. Now our King is a Child King, who uses his Divine power to help us to become great; for this reason, when we enter Church, we look to the tabernacle, wherein lives our King, and we genuflect on our right knee to Jesus. Also, after Holy Communion, we kneel down and speak to our Beloved King, who joins to us in body and soul. But what about the rest of our life, outside of Holy Mass? Is Jesus then our King? And here we come to the question of the Christian life, that is, sanctifying all our daily activities.
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How do we sanctify – how do we make our daily activities holy? Quite simply, we offer it to God and do it well, for Him. When we rise, we make a morning offering. It can be a prayer we read, found in prayer books. Or we can make it up ourselves, like this: O Lord, I offer you this day. All that I do and say and think, I offer as praise to you. Let my life today give you glory and honor. Something like that. It is essential that we offer our day to God, for his glory. This is to make Jesus, Lord of our life.
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Now if Christ really is our King, we must do all of our activities for him throughout the day. In the machine shop, we are careful in cutting or grinding, so as to do things well – not for our self-satisfaction, but for the Lord. When we are on the job-site, or in the office, or doing laundry or sweeping, we speak and act and work as true sons and daughters of God. As we lay down to rest, and the baby starts to cry; ‘O Lord, I offer this up to you;’ – and we get up.
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Young people should think of Jesus during their sports; play with good sportsmanship, in wins and losses. There are a thousand little ways we can offer our activities to Christ.
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“Are you the King of the Jews?, Pilate asked Jesus. Jesus Christ is king of all. No one is above He who has created the universe. No president or senator or mayor or executive is above Christ. And we ourselves will always call him our King.
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‘My kingdom does not belong to this world,’ says the Lord. We can say as well, that our kingdom is not in this world, but in the next – with the Great King, the Child King. St. Christopher carried this Child King on his shoulders. Let us too, carry Jesus with us, all our day. In our work and in our play.
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A young woman recently was lamenting what a horrible day she had; everything went wrong; ‘Did you pray?,’ I asked. ‘Did you think of the Lord during your day?’ ‘No, she said, I guess I was too busy.’ Glancing to Christ during our work, whispering a short prayer – this can make our burden much lighter and easier to carry.
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Some serve kings of the earth – money or material things or power, and that is unhappiness. Some make the Devil their king, and that is sorrow. But our King is not like those who rule the earth, nor like the devil who rules with fear; Our King is the Child King, and if we serve him well in our daily life, he will prepare crowns for our heads; golden crowns for each of us, to reign with him.
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And we will also reign with our Queen, the Blessed Virgin. May this Queen of heaven intercede for us – Mary pray for us, to live each day for the glory of Christ our King.
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[Entrusted to the prayers of St. Teresa of Avila]
