August 15 2022 - Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary - De Maria, numquam satis, Concerning Mary, never enough.

Looking around my office this morning, I saw a painting of the immaculate heart, a small statue of the Blessed Virgin I found in Madagascar, a cross stitch of the Blessed Mother holding the Christ child my mother gave me on the occasion of my ordination, an icon of Mary, Seat of Wisdom, I had commissioned, a stained glass window of the crucifixion with Mary standing at the foot of Jesus, and an image of Our Lady of Czestochowa, I rescued from a garage sale. Some might think this excessive. But I say, never enough. 

 St. Bernard, the eloquent doctor of the Church, who is remembered for his great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary once wrote: “De Maria,  numquam satis”, “Concerning Mary, never enough.” That's certainly true for the spiritual writers and theologians who extoll the virtues of Mary: there is never enough ink to write about her holiness. But it's also true for the honor that we are to show our Lady.

 When we love Mary, it helps us to love God. So we can never love Mary enough. When we seek Mary’s intercession, we are seeking help from the woman God chose to bear his only Son. So we can never seek her intercession enough. When we honor her, we show honor to her Creator, who made her Immaculate. So we can never honor her enough. Mary reflects the light of God like a perfect Mirror, she is called Mirror of Justice. Peering into her face, we see God’s love for us reflected, and magnified. So, we can never say enough about her, because we can never say enough about God.

 St. Louie Marie de Montfort wrote, “We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought. She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service.”

 Today’s glorious Feast of Our Lady’s Assumption celebrates the dogma of our faith solemnly defined by the Venerable Pope Pius XII during the Holy Year of 1950. The Assumption is the supreme crown of her privileges – to be preserved immune from the corruption of the tomb,  to be carried up body and soul to the exalted glory of heaven, there to sit in splendour at the right hand of her Son, the immortal King of the ages. "De Maria, Numquam Satis" apparently also applies to the favors God Himself shows to Our Lady.

 In the beautiful Papal decree (MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS), defining the Dogma of the Assumption, Pius XII recalls the eloquent words of St. John Damascene from 1200 years prior. Pius XII writes St. John Damascene, an outstanding herald of this traditional truth, spoke out with powerful eloquence when he compared the bodily Assumption of the loving Mother of God with her other prerogatives and privileges.” And then he quotes St. John Damascene who writes, "It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death. It was fitting that she, who had carried the Creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles. It was fitting that the spouse, whom the Father had taken to himself, should live in the divine mansions. It was fitting that she, who had seen her Son upon the cross and who had thereby received into her heart the sword of sorrow which she had escaped in the act of giving birth to him, should look upon him as he sits with the Father. It was fitting that God's Mother should possess what belongs to her Son, and that she should be honored by every creature as the Mother and as the handmaid of God."

It is always beneficial to us to honor our Lady throughout the Christian life, and yet, in celebrating this glorious Feast, we also contemplate and celebrate our own destiny, provided we endeavour to persevere along the path of grace. The Mother filled with God’s grace is brought body and soul into heaven. She is the stamp of guarantee that we too can come to heavenly glory if we persevere in living in God’s grace, in allowing God’s grace to live in us.

She is, as we sing in the salve regina, Mary is spes nostra: Our hope. We have firm hope that trusting in God like she has, obeying God, loving Christ as she has, is sure foundation for hoping in heaven. And she is our hope, in that she will always help us achieve that end, if we turn to her—her example and most powerful intercession.

She knows the Way, more intimately than any human creature, and she will always help us follow Him, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

- - - - -

That Pope Francis and all members of the Church, like the Virgin Mary, magnify the goodness of God through word and deed.

That the Assumption of Mary may awaken government leaders to the supreme dignity of each human life, called to the heights of heavenly glory.

For all mothers, that they may find in Mary the example and strength to carry out their vocation, for the sanctification of all families, and the protection of all young people from the evils of error and sin.

For those who suffer any sort of trial, illness, addiction or trial: that the help of Our Lady, gloriously assumed into heaven, may fill them with the grace needed to carry their crosses with faith and hope

For the deceased members of our family and friends, for all of the poor souls in purgatory…

[EF READINGS]

A reading from the book of Judith

Blessed are you, our God, who today have humiliated the enemies of your people. Blessed are you, daughter, by the Most High God, above all the women on earth; and blessed be the Lord God, the creator of heaven and earth, who guided your blow at the head of the leader of our enemies. Your deed of hope will never be forgotten by those who recall the might of God. May God make this redound to your everlasting honor, rewarding you with blessings, because you risked your life when our people were being oppressed, and you averted our disaster, walking in the straight path before our God. You are the glory of Jerusalem! You are the great pride of Israel! You are the great boast of our nation!

A continuation of the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke

At that time Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit cried out in a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

And Mary said: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his Name. He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation. He has shown the strength of his arm, and has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has come to the help of his servant Israel for he has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever.”

13th Sunday of OT 2018 - Healing and Hopeless Causes

I’ve discovered that one of the beautiful traditions here at Holy Family Parish is that every Tuesday morning after the weekday mass is a special set of prayers, a perpetual Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. If you aren’t familiar with it, I invite you to visit the icon after mass today, say a prayer before this beautiful image of our Lady, tightly holding the Christ Child. Join your fellow parishioners in invoking her help for our parish, our families, our broken world. We face so many difficulties, and it is so good, to turn to Our Lady, who is united to Her Son, in bringing healing and peace to the world.

It is said that among the saints whose heavenly help and intercession is sought by the faithful, second only to Our Lady, is the apostle St. Jude.  Even many non-Catholics venerate St. Jude as the patron saint of Hopeless Causes. The patron of hopeless causes is so popular because so many of our difficulties seem hopeless: the terminal illness, the seemingly endless cycle of addiction, the corruption of government leaders, the plights of the poor—they seem hopeless.
Our readings this weekend speak to the experience of hopelessness.

Jairus, the synagogue official goes to Jesus for his very sick little twelve-year-old daughter. Is there any hopelessness like a parent who knows their child is dying? Jairus who feels he has nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to, turns to this itinerant preacher, this wandering miracle worker from Nazareth. Without saying word, at least St. Mark doesn’t record any spoken reply, Jesus begins to travel to the home of Jairus, to the bed of his dying daughter.

Jairus’ own servants emphasize the hopelessness of the situation. They meet Jesus en route, and say, “it’s no use, it’s hopeless, you are wasting your time, the little girl is dead.” And here we see the difference between Jesus Our Lord and so many of the charlatans of his day and our own. At the prospect of death, the charlatans, the fakers would find an excuse to turn away, for nothing exposes man’s limitations like death.

But Jesus brings to this hopeless situation, not the limitations of man’s science, but the grace of God. To God, death is as easy to be conquered as waking up a child from a nap. So, to this hopeless case, a dead little girl and her desperate Dad:, Jesus brings light and life.

St. Mark reports this weekend not just one hopeless case, but two. While on the way to the house of Jairus, a suffering, desperate woman, inflicted with terrible, mysterious hemorrhages, approaches Jesus. She had visited doctor after doctor, tried medicine after medicine, her savings were depleted, a truly hopeless case.  And then she hears of Jesus, who brings healing to the hopeless cases. She presses close as he is passing by, just hoping to touch his garment; and when she does, she is healed. 
It doesn’t take a great skeptic to say “well,  these stories from Jesus’ earthly ministry are fine and good, but what about my hopeless case: what about my sick child, my unemployment, the addict in my family, my broken marriage, the fallen-away Catholic, my unanswered prayers?”
So what is the Christian to do in our very own hopeless cases?

Like Jairus and the woman, we are to draw close to Jesus, in the sacraments and in prayer and ask for help. Jesus wants us to bring our needs to him.  He may not answer them in the way we want.  But God is not bothered by our prayers.  There are prayers he wishes to answer through our persistence in asking for them.

Now some of us confuse prayer with anxious worrying. Just because we are thinking about our hopeless cause, or worrying about our hopeless cause, doesn’t mean we are praying about our hopeless cause. Worry and fretting are bad, often sinful. Worry wastes time, prayer is powerful and productive.

So what do we mean by prayer? The 6th century bishop and doctor of the Church, St. John Damascene, said, “Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God.” Prayer shifts the focus from the object of worry to God the giver of peace. St. Paul says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Prayer is a request, not a demand. Prayer certainly does not mean telling God what to do. Jairus uses the word “please”, please help me, please help my daughter, if it pleases you, if it’s your will, if it will bring about the greatest good for my soul. Prayer does not seek to make God an instrument of our wills, but to change our wills to become instruments of his.

I think this is one reason why people don’t pray. Prayer requires surrendering control. We get our lives just like they like them, and to introduce God into the equation is to introduce an element we can’t control. Prayer requires giving up control, and such surrender is unacceptable to the willful heart.

We want healing, we want eternal life without having to change much, we want the healthy marriage and peaceful nation without having to expend too much energy, we want healing for ourselves without having to suffer for others.

You’ve probably heard it said that prayer is less about changing God than changing us. And many don’t turn to God because they know God calls them conversion. But it’s precisely through the converted heart, the surrendered heart, the obedient heart, it’s through you and me becoming saints, that God wants to bring healing into the world, into the hopeless causes.

So what is the Christian to do in the face of hopeless cases? We seek to become saints. We go to Jesus, we go to the Blessed Mother and the saints in heaven, with a truly open heart, a heart willing to be changed, to suffer for others, a heart willing to give up its vices and selfishness, a heart willing to say, “I was wrong”, “I’ve not trusted God enough”, “I’ve spent so much time on selfish pursuits rather than on your holy will, help me.”

May the Lord bring miraculous healing and peace to our hopeless cases, through our cooperation with his Holy Will, through our humble prayer and repentance and service. May he continue to shape us and form us to bring faith to the faithless, hope to the hopeless, love to the loveless, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.