Our Lady Of Ostrabrama

The original of the holy image of Our Lady of Ostrabrama is housed in the chapel of the Dawn Gate of Vilnius, Lithuania.

The original painting is 163 x 200 cm and was painted by an unknown artist on 8 oak planks around 1630. It was covered with silver and gold around 1671. The head of Our Lady is adorned with two crowns. Two little angels lower the crown with colored glass inlays upon the smaller crown. The two crowns, made of pure gold, were blessed by Pope Pius XI in 1927. On July 2, 1927 a coronation ceremony took place and the painting received the title of Mother of Mercy.

The painting is an unusual portrayal of Mary since she is depicted without the infant Jesus.

The painting depicts the many facets of Mary. Her head is gently leaning to her right, her eyes are half closed, her hands are crossed in devotion. This reminds us that she is a virgin, humble servant of the Lord, merciful mother and patron of the people. At the same time, her head is surrounded by sun rays and her body is covered in elaborate gold and silver clothes and crowns. These are the symbols of her divine and majestic role as the Queen of Heaven.

The history of Our Lady of the Dawn, who is also known as Our Lady of Ostra Brama, begins in 1386. In that year prince Władysław Jagiełło (1351 – 1434) of Lithuania married the Polish princess Jadwiga. As part of the contact for marriage Jagiełło pledged the conversion of the Lithuanian people to Christianity. The marriage resulted in the joining of Poland and Lithuania into a Commonwealth of Nations. With the advent of Christianity, Marian devotions were introduced by princess Jadwiga.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (or The Commonwealth of the Two Nations, Rzeczpospolita Oboja Narodów in Polish) was a federal monarchy-republic formed by the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania and which was governed by an elected monarch.

Due to frequent attacks on the Lithuanian lands from the Tartars and regular conflicts with the Grand Duchy of Moscow, in 1503 Grand Duke Alexander of Lithuania granted the city of Vilnius a privilege to build fortifications of brick and stone around the entire city. The Gate of Dawn was built between 1503 and 1522 as a part of these defensive fortifications for the city of Vilnius. It has also been known as the Medininkai Gate, as it led to the village Medininkai south of Vilnius. 

In the Lithuanian language this gate was commonly known as ‘Auros Vartai’ (the gate of dawn). The Polish speaking population knew it as ‘Ostra Brama’ (the sharp gate).

Of the nine city gates, only the Gate of Dawn remains, while the others were destroyed.

Above each of the gates the people of the town placed an image of the Blessed Virgin. in the 16th century city gates often contained religious artifacts intended to guard the city from attacks and to bless travelers. About a century later, the Carmelite Order took over one of the parish churches in the vicinity of the southeastern gate of the town.

In 1655 the army of Moscow set fire to the city of Vilnius and most of the town was destroyed. The fire lasted seventeen days. However, the image above the Ostra Brama gate survived without any damage. This strongly encouraged the people’s devotion toward it and attracted many pilgrims. Since then it is considered a miraculous symbol of Lithuanian and Polish independence.

Between 1671 and 1761 seventeen more miracles attributed to the Lady in this image were chronicled. One story tells of a boy who fell from the second floor of a building and died. When his mother prayed before Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn he revived.

In 1702, when Swedes occupied Vilnius, it was forbidden to worship the icon publicly and to gather in the street. During the liberation fight of the gates, the icon of Our Lady was damaged by a shot. In 1711 the Chapel holding the image burned completely, but not before the miraculous painting was carried out of the fire by a young monk. For 20 years, the painting resided in the Church of St. Teresa. A new Chapel was subsequently built by the gate and the miraculous painting was reinstalled with great ceremony.

In 1799 Russian forces began to destroy the walls and gates of Vilnius. Inexplicably the Ostra Brama gate was left untouched.

In 1829, the chapel took on the style of the late Classicism. The chapel was built so that the faithful could pray in front of it in the street, because the entrance to the chapel was from the monastery's garden, and lay people, especially women, were not allowed to enter there. During the reconstruction work in 1828-1829, the side windows were enlarged to reach the floor level.

The chapel was renovated in 1931-1932. During the Second World War and the Nazi German occupation of Lithuania the Archbishop of Vilnius decided that the miraculous picture should stay in the town. During the Russian communist occupation of Lithuania the chapel of Ostra Brama remained open.

On September 4, 1993 Pope John Paul II said The Rosary at the Gate of Dawn Chapel.

Prayer

Prayer to The Mother of God of Ostra Brama Mother of Mercy

From St Faustina Maria Kowalska’s Diary

“O Mary, my Mother and my Lady, I offer you my soul, my body, my life and my death, and all that will follow it. I place everything in your hands. O my Mother, cover my soul with your virginal mantle and grant me the grace of purity of heart, soul and body. Defend me with your power against all enemies, and especially against those who hide their malice behind the mask of virtue (79). Fortify my soul that pain will not break it. Mother of grace, teach me to live by God’s power (315).” “O Mary … a terrible sword has pierced your holy soul. Except for God, no one knows of your suffering. Your soul does not break; it is brave, because it is with Jesus. Sweet Mother, unite my soul to Jesus, because it is only then that I will be able to endure all trials and tribulations, and only in union with Jesus will my little sacrifices be pleasing to God. Sweetest Mother, continue to teach me about the interior life. May the sword of suffering never break me. O pure Virgin, pour courage into my heart and guard it (915).”

The messages concealed in the bronze ciborium of St. Charles Borromeo

The ciborium, which dominates the main altar of the Duomo di Milano, is the heart of the Cathedral’s Eucharistic life.

It could be considered the architectural element that, more than others, recalls the legacy of St. Charles’ Liturgical Reform (ca. 1580), specifically regarding the themes narrated in bronze, but we shall take a few steps back in time to understand why.

When Card. Charles Borromeo came to Milan in 1565 as Archbishop, he appointed Pellegrino Tibaldi (called Pellegrini), architect of Veneranda Fabbrica from 1567 to 1585, to create a new presbytery that would implement the Counter-Reformation model of the church in the Duomo to celebrate Eucharistic worship even outside the mass, thus contrasting the Lutheran negation of the actual presence of Christ in bread and wine.

Hence, the Holy Eucharist was given the utmost importance in symbolic references and in the episodes portrayed.

St. Charles’ project followed a solution that had already been proposed by Nicolò Ormaneto, Borromeo’s Vicar General during his absence from Milan in 1564-65. The tower-shaped tabernacle lifted by angels (it was donated by Pius IV, at the time Giovanni Angelo Medici, to his nephew Charles Borromeo during his episcopacy) was placed at the centre of the monumental bronze ciborium, which was designed ex novo.

Visually the displayed presence of the Holy Eucharist in the presbytery formed the one-point perspective not only of the Cathedral’s architectural lines. In fact, it also summarised the spiritual tension dictated by usinf the presbytery both for festive celebrations and as weekday chapel.
The faithful had to solely focus on the ciborium, while the former altar was turned into the base of the ciborium itself. Hence, adoration and worship were emphasised.

The ciborium designed and constructed by Pellegrino Tibaldi in the 1580s features 8 bronze Corinthian columns with capitals and golden details. They support a dome that is lined, both inside and outside, with embossed, gold-plated bronze sheets. The circular architrave that embraces the perimeter of the dome counts 8 bronze angels with the symbols of the Passion. An almost life-size statue of the Blessing Resurrected Christ is placed at the top.

This construction stands on a composite-shaped base that includes four steps to access the tabernacle and a complex shape that develops to a height of ca. 10 m with maximum width 6 m. The tabernacle alone, which is placed at its centre, is 2.30 m high with base diameter ca. 1 m. The latter, one of the most precious masterpieces of art, was made in Rome, designed by Pirro Ligorio and cast in bronze on a model by Aurelio, Gerolamo and Lodovico, the Solaro brothers from Lombardy who designed the creation.

There are many references to the Holy Eucharistic, precisely decorations with grape vines and ears of wheat, the life of Jesus depicted in 8 scenes in the lower base, Melchisedech’s offering presented as the first episode narrated, after Prophet Elijah with the bread, the food the angel brought him for his long journey. An actual example of the Counter-Reformation’s new expressiveness.

The ciborium was the source of deep architectural, spatial and artistic inspiration, and became the model for many variations during the subsequent European Baroque period.

The restoration of the ciborium was completed in 2015. All operations concerning metal parts and cleaning were performed by three highly qualified restorers under the guidance of Dr. Stefano Lanuti, owner of Studio Angelucci. Workers from Veneranda Fabbrica’s Construction Site provided a crucial contribution for all that concerned handling and disassembling the various parts.

A Eucharistic Prayer Of Saint Bonaventure

Pierce, O most sweet Lord Jesus, my inmost soul with the most joyous and healthful wound of Thy love, and with true, calm and most holy apostolic charity, that my soul may ever languish and melt with entire love and longing for Thee, may yearn for Thee and for thy courts, may long to be dissolved and to be with Thee.

Grant that my soul may hunger after Thee, the Bread of Angels, the refreshment of holy souls, our daily and super substantial bread, having all sweetness and savor and every delightful taste.

May my heart ever hunger after and feed upon Thee, Whom the angels desire to look upon, and may my inmost soul be filled with the sweetness of Thy savor; may it ever thirst for Thee, the fountain of life, the fountain of wisdom and knowledge, the fountain of eternal light, the torrent of pleasure, the fullness of the house of God; may it ever compass Thee, seek Thee, find Thee, run to Thee, come up to Thee, meditate on Thee, speak of Thee, and do all for the praise and glory of Thy name, with humility and discretion, with love and delight, with ease and affection, with perseverance to the end; and be Thou alone ever my hope, my entire confidence, my riches, my delight, my pleasure, my joy, my rest and tranquility, my peace, my sweetness, my food, my refreshment, my refuge, my help, my wisdom, my portion, my possession, my treasure; in Whom may my mind and my heart be ever fixed and firm and rooted immovably.

Amen.

Our God Is A Fabulous God

Can U Imagine This -- There are 80,000 Humpback Whales That Come To Breed and Live Off The Australian Coastline.

Off The Western Australian Coastline there are 45,000 Humpback Whales and Off The Eastern Australian Coastline there are 35,000 Humpback Whales.

Australia is really blessed in more ways than one with a variety of Marine Mammals like Pygmy Blue Whales, Southern Right Whales and Most Importantly Humpback Whales.

Additionally, Off The Brazilian Coastline there are 25,000 Humpback Whales.

Off The South African Coastline in the Western Indian Ocean there are 30,000 Humpback Whales.

This Only Means That Our God is a Fabulous God who blesses us with the best of "MARINE MAMMALS" to appreciate but do we ever take the time to appreciate them. 

Credits : Whale Watch Western Australia and National Geographic

Saint Juan Diego --- A Humble Peasant Who Loved The Blessed Mother

Every weekend, Juan Diego walked nine miles to the nearest church to attend Mass and learn more about his faith. He lived during the Aztec Empire, which practiced human sacrifice to keep the gods happy. When the Spanish arrived, they brought missionaries to convert the people to Christianity but had limited success.

However, Juan and his wife were baptized into the Catholic Faith. They were one of the first Catholic married couples in the New World.

On one of those journeys, December 9, 1531, an apparition of the Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego. His devotion to her and her request led to his canonization in 2002 and the conversion of countless people. As Juan Diego travelled near Tepeyac Hill, he heard an unusually beautiful birdsong. As he reached the top of the hill, a voice called his name and he saw before him a beautiful woman shining like the sun. She told him she was Mary, the mother of the true God as well as his own compassionate mother. She asked him to deliver a message to Friar Juan de Zumarraga requesting the construction of a Shrine on Tepeyac Hill.

Taking a Different Path:

Juan Diego took the request to the friar, but the friar was skeptical and sent him away. Friar Zumarraga was working hard to combat the idolatry of the time and was reluctant to believe the humble Juan Diego.

When he returned to Tepeyac Hill and saw Mary for the second time, he begged her to find someone more respected and important to give the message to the Friar. he said:

“’I am really just a man from the country, I am the porter’s rope … just a tail, a wing’” (Anderson, Sanchez 11).

She replied that she wanted him to relay the message and ordered him to return.

At the second meeting, Friar Zumarraga asked for proof that Juan Diego is in fact carrying a message from the Virgin Mary.  Juan Diego left, confident he could get the evidence needed. When he returned home he found his uncle was very sick and in need of a priest for his final confession. On December 12, Juan Diego set out, wrapped in a tilma to keep warm, and as he passed Tepeyac Hill, he remembered he had to go see the Virgin Mary again. He took a different path, hoping to avoid her but she appeared anyway. He explained that his uncle was dying and promised to return after he found a priest.

The Plain Tilma of Peasants:

Mary comforted him and reminded him of her love.  She told him not worry about his uncle’s illness. She directed him to the top of the hill where he would find flowers to take to the friar as proof. Despite the cold winter weather and the rocky ground, he found the flowers. He gathered them and brought them to Mary who arranged them in his tilma. In his culture, flowers were a symbol of truth.
He returned to the friar but the servants would not let him in. Curious, they asked what he held in his tilma and when he showed them, the flowers suddenly appeared as if someone painted them onto the tilma.

The servants then let him in and when he opened the tilma to show the friar, the flowers spilled out and revealed an image of the Virgin Mary on the fabric. The Friar realized that this was truly a message from God.

It was through Juan Diego’s tilma that Mary gave “a new and elevated dignity to the common person and especially the Indian” (Anderson, Sanchez 19). In that time, only those who were wealthy and noble had decorated tilmas. The peasants wore plain ones.

Exposed and Unblemished :

While Mary was giving the flowers to Juan Diego, she was also visiting his uncle. She healed him from his illness and told him to call her “Holy Mary of Guadalupe.”

On December 26, less than a month after the first apparition, the locals finished building the temple on Tepeyac Hill. Many people, after seeing the tilma in the temple, requested baptism. Often they came from places missionaries had not yet visited.

The tilma has remained intact for 487 years despite nitric acid being spilled on it in 1785 and a bomb exploding near it in 1921. For the first 116 years, the tilma was displayed without any protection, exposed to the saltpeter in the air, humidity, dust, incense smoke and pilgrims touching and kissing it.

No Natural Explanation:

In March of 1666, experts received permission to study the tilma. They could not explain how such a detailed image could be painted on such a rough surface. They determined only God could do this. Later that month, a group of chemists studied the tilma and could not explain how it survived the humidity and the airborne saltpeter. They also noted that the image itself was soft to the touch yet the material was rough and coarse. In the late 1700s, pilgrims made several replica tilmas and placed them near the original. It wasn’t long before they became discolored and fell apart.

As technology developed, experts performed more studies. In 1956, someone took a photograph of the Virgin’s eyes and revealed that the image’s “coloration not only depicts her pupils but also depicts the types of images one would see reflected in the eyes of a living human being – in this case, the reflected images of people” (Anderson, Sanchez 30).

“Even as science has advanced … it has become increasingly clear that there is no natural explanation for the phenomenon of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Juan Diego’s tilma” (Anderson, Sanchez 30).

The One True Son:

In addition to the tilma’s extraordinary physical qualities is the message embedded in the image itself that would be meaningful to the Aztecs. The blue green cape with stars represents heaven and the flowered dress represents earth. Together they represent the universe. An angel under the moon has eagle wings, not dove wings as is common to European depictions of angels. The eagle was a sacred bird to the Aztecs. Juan Diego’s birth name translates to Talking Eagle.

The angel is holding the cape (heaven) in his right hand and the dress (earth) in his left which tells the Aztecs that the one true son has united heaven and earth, bringing them in harmony.  The black ribbon above her stomach indicated Mary was pregnant, but her hair is worn straight as was customary for virgins in the Aztec culture—reaffirming the virgin birth of Christ.

Scholars have recently discovered the importance of the flowers. The flowers are symbols or glyphs in the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs. The four petaled jasmine represents the fifth sun god to the Aztecs. On the tilma it is just below Mary’s black pregnancy band indicating that her son, Jesus Christ, is the one true Son. 

Saint Catherine Laboure ---- The Apostle Of The Miraculous Medal

The sound of the evening Angelus bells floated across the fields and vineyards of Burgundy. It was the second day of the month of May in the year of Our Lord 1806. In the little village of Fain-les-Moutiers a child of destiny was coming into the world, a tiny instrument of God, who would one day be the confidante of the Queen of Heaven to usher in the age of Mary. Her name was Catherine Labouré, the ninth child of a family of eleven.

The following day, the Feast of the Finding of the True Cross, the small child was baptized. All her life she was to have a deep devotion to the Cross of Our Lord. It would not be long before she was to feel the weight of sacrifice with the death of her mother at the age of nine.

Early one morning shortly after her mother's death, a family servant came silently upon the little one standing on her tiptoes, stretching upwards, impelled by love, until she reached the statue of the Blessed Virgin. As she held the statue in  her arms and leaned her head against the Madonna, the servant heard the child say: "Now, dear Blessed Mother, now you will be my Mother!"

Catherine received her First Holy Communion at the age of eleven on January 25th, 1818. From that day on, she rose at four o'clock each morning and walked several miles to assist at Mass and to pray for grace and strength before the start of her day's work. Her only desire now was to give herself without reserve to her dear Lord. Never was the thought of Him far from her mind.

By this time Catherine's elder sister, Marie Louise, had left to join the Daughters of Charity, and the little girl who had always been obedient now had to direct and supervise the homestead. She looked after everything: she made the bread, cooked and did the housework, carried daily meals to the workmen in the fields and cared well for the animals.

A Daughter of Charity:

Once, when she was in the village church, she saw a vision of an old priest saying Mass. After Mass the priest turned and beckoned to her with his finger, but she drew backwards, keeping her eyes on him. The vision moved to a sickroom where she saw the same priest, who said: "My child, it is a good deed to look after the sick; you run away from me now, but one day you will be glad to come to me. God has designs for you. Do not forget it!" At that time, of course, she did not understand the significance of the vision.

As is the European custom, Catherine's father invited various suitors to seek her hand in marriage and always her reply was: "I shall never marry; I have promised my life to Jesus Christ." She prayed, worked, and served the family well until she was twenty-two, when she asked her father's permission to become a Daughter of Charity. He flatly refused, and to distract her, sent her to Paris to work in a coffee shop run by her brother Charles. During the entire year spent there, she maintained her resolve to become the bride of Christ.

Her aunt, Jeanne Gontard, came to Catherine's aid and enrolled her in the finishing school she directed at Chatillon. Since Catherine was a country girl, she was miserable at this fashionable school. One day, while visiting the hospital of the Daughters of Charity, she noted a priest's picture on the wall. She asked the nun who he might be, and was told: "Our Holy Founder, Saint Vincent de Paul." This was the same priest Catherine had seen in the vision. Later, after much persuasion from her Aunt Jeanne, her father granted permission for Catherine to enter the convent.

In January of 1830 Catherine entered the hospice of the Daughters of Charity at Chatillon-sur-Seine. This was just after the Reign of Terror in France, where sacrileges were committed in the name of freedom. Licentious women danced on the main altar of Notre Dame. Even the body of St. Genevieve, the Patroness of France, was desecrated. Saint Vincent de Paul's body had been hidden, but four days after Catherine's entry into the Mother House, his remains were transferred back to his own church with joyous processions and ceremonies.

Shortly after her entrance, God was pleased to grant Catherine several extraordinary visions. On three consecutive days she beheld the heart of Saint Vincent each time under a different aspect. At other times she beheld Our Divine Lord during Mass, when He would appear as He was described in the liturgy of the day.

First Apparition:

In 1830 Catherine was blessed with the apparitions of Mary Immaculate to which we owe the Miraculous Medal. The first apparition came on the eve of the feast of St. Vincent, July 19. The mother superior had given each of the novices a piece of cloth from the holy founder's surplice. Because of her extreme love, Catherine split her piece down the middle, swallowing half and placing the rest in her prayer book. She earnestly prayed to St. Vincent that she might, with her own eyes, see the Mother of God.

That night, a beautiful child awoke her from her sleep, saying: "Sister Labouré, come to the chapel; the Blessed Virgin is waiting for you." When Catherine went to the chapel, she found it ablaze with lights as if prepared for Midnight Mass. Quietly, she knelt at the Communion rail, and suddenly heard the rustle of a silk dress. The Blessed Virgin, in a blaze of glory, sat in a chair like that of Saint Anne's.

Catherine rose, then went over and knelt, resting her hands in the Virgin's lap, and felt the Virgin's arms around her, as she said: "God wishes to charge you with a mission. You will be contradicted, but do not fear; you will have the grace. Tell your spiritual director all that passes within you. Times are evil in France and in the world."

 

A pained expression crossed the Virgin's face. "Come to the foot of the altar. Graces will be shed on all, great and little, especially upon those who seek them. Another community of sisters will join the Rue du Bac community. The community will become large; you will have the protection of God and Saint Vincent; I will always have my eyes upon you." (This prediction was fulfilled when, in 1849, Fr. Etienne received Saint Elizabeth Seton's sisters of Emmitsburg, MD, into the Paris community. Mother Seton's sisters became the foundation stone of the Sisters of Charity in the United States.)

Then, like a fading shadow, Our Lady was gone.

The Second Apparition:

Four months passed until Our Lady returned to Rue du Bac. Here are Catherine's own words describing the apparition:

"On the 27th of November, 1830 ... while making my meditation in profound silence ... I seemed to hear on the right hand side of the sanctuary something like the rustling of a silk dress. Glancing in that direction, I perceived the Blessed Virgin standing near St. Joseph's picture. Her height was medium and Her countenance, indescribably beautiful. She was dressed in a robe the color of the dawn, high-necked, with plain sleeves. Her head was covered with a white veil, which floated over Her shoulders down to her feet. Her feet rested upon a globe, or rather one half of a globe, for that was all that could be seen. Her hands which were on a level with Her waist, held in an easy manner another globe, a figure of the world. Her eyes were raised to Heaven, and Her countenance beamed with light as She offered the globe to Our Lord.

"As I was busy contemplating Her, the Blessed Virgin fixed Her eyes upon me, and a voice said in the depths of my heart: ' This globe which you see represents the whole world, especially France, and each person in particular.'

"There now formed around the Blessed Virgin a frame rather oval in shape on which were written in letters of gold these words: ' O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee.' Then a voice said to me: ' Have a medal struck upon this model. All those who wear it, when it is blessed, will receive great graces especially if they wear it round the neck. Those who repeat this prayer with devotion will be in a special manner under the protection of the Mother of God. Graces will be abundantly bestowed upon those who have confidence.'

"At the same instant, the oval frame seemed to turn around. Then I saw on the back of it the letter 'M', surmounted by a cross, with a crossbar beneath it, and under the monogram of the name of Mary, the Holy Hearts of Jesus and of His Mother; the first surrounded by a crown of thorns and the second transpierced by a sword. I was anxious to know what words must be placed on the reverse side of the medal and after many prayers, one day in meditation I seemed to hear a voice which said to me: ' The 'M' with the Cross and the two Hearts tell enough.' "

The Miraculous Medal:

The Mother of God instructed Catherine that she was to go to her spiritual director, Father Aladel, about the apparitions. At first he did not believe Catherine, but, after two years, approached the Bishop of Paris with the story of the events that had taken place at Rue du Bac. Our Blessed Mother had chosen well Her time for the apparitions as the Bishop at that period was an ardent devotee of the Immaculate Conception. He said that the Medal was in complete conformity with the Church's doctrine on the role of Our Lady and had no objections to having the medals struck at once. The Bishop even asked to be sent some of the first.

Immediately upon receiving them, he put one in his pocket and went to visit Monsignor de Pradt, former chaplain to Napoleon and unlawful Archbishop of Mechlin who had accepted his office from the hands of the Emperor and now lay dying, defiant and unreconciled to the Church. The sick man refused to abjure his errors and the Bishop of Paris withdrew in defeat. He had not left the house when the dying man suddenly called him back, made his peace with the Church and gently passed away in the arms of the Archbishop, who was filled with a holy joy.

The original order of 20,000 medals proved to be but a small start. The new medals began to pour from the presses in streams inundating France and the rest of the world beyond. By the time of St. Catherine's death in 1876, over a billion medals had been distributed in many lands. This sacramental from Heaven was at first called simply the Medal of the Immaculate Conception, but began to be known as the Miraculous Medal due to the unprecedented number of miracles, conversions, cures, and acts of protection attributed to Our Lady's intercession for those who wore it.

In 1841, the most remarkable miracle occurred - the conversion of Alphonse Ratisbonne, a wealthy Jewish banker and lawyer and also a blasphemer and hater of Catholicism. M. de Bussieres, gave him a medal, daring him to wear it and say a Memorare. After considerable persuasion he agreed to do so. Not long after, Alphonse accompanied M. de Bussieres  to the Church of Sant'Andrea delle Frate to make funeral arrangements for a dear friend. There Alphonse saw a vision of Mary as on the Miraculous Medal. He was converted instantly and immediately begged for Baptism.

Alphonse Ratisbonne later went on to become a priest, taking the name of Father Alphonse Marie. Working for thirty years in the Holy Land, he established several institutions. Out of reverence and gratitude to Our Savior, he built the expiatory sanctuary of the Ecce Homo on the spot where Pilate displayed Jesus to the Jews. So great was the love he had for his people, that he dedicated the remainder of his life, as did his brother, Father Theodore, to work for the conversion of their immortal souls. Among the converts of these two priest brothers were a total of twenty eight members of their own family.

Conclusion:

On the last day of 1876, St. Catherine passed to her eternal reward. For the forty-six years from the year of the apparitions until her death, only she and her confessor knew who it was to whom the famous Miraculous Medal was revealed, despite many pressures she received to reveal the secret. 

The years passed by, Catherine performed daily her mundane and very ordinary tasks of sewing and door keeping, unknown to the world around her, which was buzzing with the miraculous effects of the medal. Because of this humility, she is often called the Saint of Silence. When her body was exhumed for beatification 57 years after her death in 1933, it was found as fresh as the day it was buried. 

 Her incorrupt body can still be seen today at the Mother House of the Daughters of Charity in The Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, 140 Rue du Bac in Paris.

Venerable Henriette Delille --- A Formidable Catholic Woman Of Color

The last line in Venerable Henriette Delille’s obituary from 1862 sums up her vocation.

Henriette Delille, the obituary reads, “for the love of Jesus Christ made herself the humble devout servant of slaves.”

“In the eyes of the world, Venerable Henriette may not have accomplished much, but in the eyes of God, she did very much,” said Sister Doris Goudeaux, a Sister of the Holy Family and the co-director of the Sisters’ Henriette Delille Commission Office.

Sister Doris is assisting with the canonization cause of Venerable Henriette Delille, who in 1842 founded the Sisters of the Holy Family, a congregation for black women religious headquartered in New Orleans.

Venerable Henriette Delille — who was born a free woman of color in 1812 — and her sisters helped the poor, cared for the sick and instructed the ignorant — free and enslaved, children and adults. They educated slaves in pre-Civil War New Orleans when that was prohibited by law.

“They had to be careful and do some things in secret,” Sister Doris said. “When they were teaching, they would have classes for free people of color in the daytime, and in the evening they would teach the slaves. They would do the same thing for classes in religion.”

Delille and her sisters cared for the sick and dying during a yellow fever epidemic that struck New Orleans in 1853.

They arranged homes for orphans and took in elderly women, opening one of the country’s first Catholic nursing homes.

 “We think she’s a saint. It’s up to the Church now to affirm that,” said Sister of the Holy Family Sylvia Thibodeaux.

“She lived faith, hope and love heroically, and she left that legacy for us to follow,” Sister Sylvia told Our Sunday Visitor. “We’ve tried for over 175 years to carry out that mission by responding to the needs of our time, in the best way we could, and she has served as an intercessor for so many of us.
“We call on her in our time of need,” Sister Sylvia said.

Journey to beatification

Henriette Delille’s cause for sainthood was opened by Archbishop Philip Hannan of New Orleans in 1988 and unanimously endorsed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1997. Pope Benedict XVI declared her “venerable” on March 27, 2010.

A possible miracle that would have cleared the way for her beatification stalled in 2005 when the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints failed to reach a definitive conclusion about whether her intercession had lead to the miraculous healing of a 5-year-old.

Nearly 15 years later, another alleged miracle — the unexpected healing of 19-year-old Arkansas college student Christine McGee from an aneurysm — has the Sisters of the Holy Family hopeful that their foundress may soon joined the ranks of the “blessed.”

“The student was very sick, and the doctor said she probably wouldn’t make it, but her mother is very devoted to Henriette Delille,” said Sister Doris, who added that McGee’s mother later wrote to the sisters to inform them that she had prayed for her daughter’s recovery through Venerable Henriette’s intercession. She had family members also seek out her intercession.

“The mother told us that she called (Christine) her walking miracle,” Sister Doris said.
The Diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas, gathered evidence and submitted documentation on the alleged miracle to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which last December issued a decree certifying that the inquiry was done correctly and that the case could continue.

“We’re hoping it’s accepted as a miracle,” said Sister Doris, who added that the beatification Mass would be held in New Orleans.

“It would be much bigger than Mardis Gras,” she said.

Sainthood cause of Venerable Henriette Delille

Venerable Henriette Delille is the first U.S. native born African American woman whose cause for canonization has been opened by the Catholic Church. Her cause was opened in 1988 and endorsed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1997. She was decreed “venerable” in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI. The next step is validation of an alleged miracle, after which she would then be beatified and named “blessed.” A second miracle is needed for sainthood.

Antebellum New Orleans

The New Orleans that Henriette Delille was born into more than two centuries ago was much different than the modern beloved city of jazz, Bourbon Street and the French Quarter.
Free women of color in antebellum New Orleans had limited life choices. Many of them, in essence, became long-term concubines with white European men. Venerable Henriette Delille’s mother was a descendant of her slave ancestor from West Africa. Her father was French.

“Venerable Henriette’s whole background has slavery in it,” Sister Doris said. “Henriette’s mother may have been the first in the family to be born free before her.”

There is some evidence that a teenage Henriette Delille may have had a similar relationship with a white European man of means. In recent archival discoveries, diocesan workers located funeral records for two young boys identified as the sons of Henriette Delille.

“We didn’t find this out until 2004,” Sister Doris said. “The archdiocese was compiling and digitizing their records of funerals and baptisms. A worker came across a death certificate saying the child was the natural child of Henriette Delille. After doing more research, they found another certificate, indicating a second child had been born to her. She probably did have these two children, both of whom died before the age of 3.”

Henriette Delille had not yet been confirmed at that time, so the revelation that she may have had two children out of wedlock did not interfere with the cause for her canonization, Sister Doris said.

A belief and hope in God

When she was 24, Henriette Delille underwent a dramatic religious conversion that she later expressed in a brief declaration of faith and love, one of the few pieces of writing that the community has from her life.

On a prayer book about the Eucharist, Henriette Delille wrote on the flyleaf page her profession of faith in French: “Je crois en Dieu. J’espère en Dieu. J’aime. Je v[eux] vivre et mourir pour Dieu.” (“I believe in God. I hope in God. I love. I want to live and die for God.”)

“It’s the prayer we always promote,” Sister Goudeaux said. “We don’t have many writings of hers, but this one, it’s very special.”

One of the few other writings the sisters have of their foundress are the rules and regulations she drew up for the The Sisters of the Congregation of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was described as an organization “of [lay] pious women founded for the purpose of nursing the sick, caring for the poor and instructing the ignorant.”

In the years leading up to founding the Sisters of the Holy Family, Henriette Delille and her companions carried out many apostolic works in the city. They served as witnesses for many marriages and as sponsor for the baptisms of slave and free adults and children.

Henriette Delille lived in community with two lifelong friends, Juliette Gaudin and Josephine Charles. They went on to form the Sisters of the Holy Family, but they still encountered discrimination in the Church and society.

“They were discriminated against by other religious people, other sisters and other congregations. They couldn’t go to any church they wanted to go to,” said Sister Doris, who added that there were many in the Church at the time who doubted that women of color could be celibate.

According to an early journal, the community was very poor, and the sisters made many sacrifices to accomplish their mission.

“People brought them food and old clothes for them to wear, and shoes they could put on when it rained,” Sister Doris said. “They had to beg, and whatever they had, they shared with the poor.”

In the last 20 years of her life, Venerable Henriette Delille overcame numerous obstacles in the forms of social, political and financial opposition in carrying out her religious community’s three-pronged mandate to care for the sick, help the poor and instruct the ignorant.

When she died at age 50, her obituary said that “Miss Henriette Delille had for long years consecrated herself totally to God without reservation to the instruction of the ignorant and principally to the slave.”

More than 175 years later, the Sisters of the Holy Family continue their foundress’ legacy by doing the same corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Seeing her raised to the altars one day would be a poignant moment for many sisters who themselves experienced racism in discerning religious life.

“I’ve been in the community over 60 years. At the time I wanted to become a sister, the Sisters of the Holy Family was the only congregation in Louisiana that I could enter as a woman of color,” Sister Sylvia said.

“It would mean a lot to people of our own race that the Church is affirming that it’s possible for people of color, knowing what we went through in trying to become legitimate in the Church, that one of us could be elevated to sainthood,” Sister Thibodeaux said. “I think it would be inspiring to our people and to all people.”

Credits : Our Sunday Visitor, September 6, 2019 

The Presentation Of The Blessed Mother

The years of Mary's childhood were quiet, as befits her humility. Holy Scripture tells us nothing about them. Nevertheless, it is easy to understand why the early Christians were eager to know more about her life prior to the Gospel account of the Annunciation. And so, popular piety gave rise quite early to some simple stories inspired by passages from the Old and New Testament, and these found their way into Christian art, poetry, and spirituality.

One of these stories, perhaps the most typical, speaks about Mary's Presentation in the Temple. Joachim and Anne offered their daughter to God in the Temple at Jerusalem, just as another Anne, the mother of the prophet Samuel, had offered her son to God's service in the tabernacle where his glory was manifested (cf. 1 Sam 1:21-28). In the same way, some years later, Mary and Joseph would bring the newborn Child to the Temple to present him to the Lord (Lk 2:22-38).

"All her beauty and grace, in both soul and body, was for the Lord. That is the theological content of the feast of her Presentation."

Strictly speaking, no history exists of our Lady's early life; we have only what tradition has handed down to us. The first written text that refers to this event (which became the basis for later accounts) is the Protoevangelium of James, an apocryphal document from the second century. “Apocryphal" means that it does not belong to the canon of books inspired by God. But this doesn't mean it contains nothing true. In fact, the Church includes this scene in her liturgy, omitting possibly legendary elements. In Jerusalem, in the year 543, a basilica was dedicated to our Lady in memory of her Presentation. In the fourteenth century, this observance was commemorated in the West as a liturgical feast on November 21.

Mary in the Temple. All her beauty and grace, in both soul and body, was for the Lord. That is the theological content of the feast of her Presentation. The liturgy applies to our Lady some phrases from the Old Testament: “In the holy tent I ministered before him, and in Zion I fixed my abode. Thus in the chosen city he has given me rest, in Jerusalem is my domain. I have struck root among the glorious people, in the portion of the Lord, his heritage" (Sir 24:10-12).

Just as Jesus after he was presented in the Temple, Mary would have continued living a normal life at home with Joachim and Anne. Subject to her parents, growing towards womanhood, Mary was “full of grace" (Lk 1:28), her heart ready for a complete self-giving to God and mankind for the love of God

"No one would have noticed anything unusual about Mary's behavior, though without doubt she charmed those around her because holiness is always attractive."

No one would have noticed anything unusual about Mary's behavior, though without doubt she charmed those around her because holiness is always attractive—more so in the case of one who is All-Holy. She was a smiling, hard-working young girl, always immersed in God, pleasant to everyone at her side. When she prayed, with a deep understanding of Holy Scripture, she would have often reflected on the prophecies that announced the coming of a Savior. That interior richness would later be poured forth in the marvelous verses of the Magnificat when she heard the greeting of her cousin Elizabeth.

Everything in our Lady's life was wholly oriented towards Jesus' Most Holy Humanity, the true Temple of God. The feast of Mary's Presentation teaches us that our Lady belonged only to God, that she was completely dedicated, in soul and body, to the mystery of salvation, which is the mystery of our Creator drawing near to his creatures.

“Like a cedar of Lebanon I am raised aloft, like a cypress on Mount Hermon, like a palm tree in Engedi, like a rose bush in Jericho, like a fair olive tree in the field, like a plane tree growing beside the water" (Sir 24:13-14). Holy Mary brought God's love to fruition around her. She did so without being noticed, because her deeds were those of every day, little things imbued with love.

Being A Catholic In Utah

The state of Utah is widely and rightfully associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Nearly everything about the state’s settling by Westerners, its statehood, and much of its history is inextricably tied to the Mormon Church.

Yet the Catholic Church has been there since the beginning and continues to thrive in the Beehive State. In a state where the population is majority Mormon, it can seem like it would be nearly impossible to live there as a Catholic. But for many Catholics in Utah, this simply provides more opportunities for evangelization.

Mark Longe is starting his fourth year as superintendent of Catholic schools for the Diocese of Salt Lake City and his 26th year in Catholic education in Utah, having previously worked at elementary and middle schools. Prior to this, he worked in Catholic schools in the Diocese of Orange in southern California.

Most of the Catholic schools in the state of Utah are located near Salt Lake City. Most are within 15 to 20 minutes of each other, and of the 16 schools in the diocese, only three are about an hour from the city center. This allows Longe to communicate regularly with principals and to plan professional development opportunities that all of the teachers can attend. These 16 schools serve about 5,500 students, which is nearly double the number from about 20 years ago.

“When I used to take parents on a tour at my school, I used to say that ‘Our school is like a small town in a big city,'” Longe said. “Schools and parishes become small ‘neighborhoods’ for the Catholic community. Parents and students find and make lifelong friendships because they become involved with our schools.”

Catholic Education:

The population of Utah is around 3 million people, the majority of whom belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. There are around 300,000 Catholics in the state, which makes them the second-largest faith group.

“Because we are such a minority, it is a challenge to find trained teachers and administrators who are Catholic,” Longe said. “This is a challenge for us, as principals are required to be a Catholic and any teacher who teaches religion needs to be Catholic.” This has become a particular challenge recently, as Utah is facing a teacher shortage. It is also a challenge to provide financing and scholarships in Utah, as with a smaller Catholic population there are fewer people to provide financial support.

“Like schools across the country, our Catholic schools are tasked with assisting parents in their role as the primary educators of their children, especially when it comes to their faith,” he said.

For Longe, operating Catholic schools in such a heavily non-Catholic region provides an opportunity for evangelization. Quoting the USCCB’s 2005 document “Renewing Our Commitment to Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools in the Third Millennium,” Longe observes that, “Catholic schools afford the fullest and best opportunity to realize the fourfold purpose of Christian education, namely to provide an atmosphere in which the Gospel message is proclaimed, community in Christ is experienced, service to our sisters and brothers is the norm, and thanksgiving and worship of God is cultivated. When schools do this well, they are also powerful instruments of evangelization for our non-Catholic brothers and sisters.”

Interfaith opportunities

Magdalene Religious Goods is the only religious goods store in the Salt Lake City area. Opened in November 2013, the establishment has already become a staple of capital city life, having received Salt Lake Magazine’s Best of Salt Lake Award and City Weekly’s Best of Utah Award. For the owner, Jacque Smithe, living as a Catholic and operating a Catholic shop in Utah presents more blessings and opportunities than challenges.

“I don’t find it difficult to live my faith despite Utah being predominantly Mormon,” Smithe said. “I, rather, suspect that Catholics in Utah are perhaps stronger because of our status as not being predominant.”

“We are a strong bunch here in Utah,” she said. However, growing up as a Catholic did present a number of challenges. “We really didn’t know any of our neighbors, as they all belonged to the Mormon ward — and, of course, our family didn’t. There were parents who also discouraged their children from playing with non-Mormons.” Smithe was lucky enough to attend the parochial school, so she did not personally experience this issue, but said that many Catholic children — including her niece and nephew — who attend public school do often feel alienated.

Magdalene Religious Goods serves an eclectic clientele, being the only religious goods store in the area. “Many people find us interesting and different, so we don’t just see Catholics but all different religions,” said Smithe. “We even get a few Mormons who stroll in.”

Smithe strives to foster a welcoming atmosphere at Magdalene, with couches and free coffee and tea, as well as a prayer room where they ask visitors to leave prayer requests and obituaries, which is another opportunity to evangelize.

The atmosphere in much of Utah is different from most of the rest of the country. While much of the country is increasingly secularized, which makes faithful Catholics feel out of place and “other,” Utah is another story: very religious, but not in a traditional Christian sense.

‘Ecumenical draw’

Luke Stager went from Portland, Oregon — one of the bastions of secularism and the unchurched — to Utah as part of earning his master’s degree in teaching. First assigned to teach math and theology to juniors at St. Joseph Catholic High School in Ogden, Utah, for two years, he later applied to work at Judge Memorial Catholic High School in Salt Lake City.

At Judge, he taught math and freshman theology and eventually became a campus minister. As campus minister, he organized the school liturgies and retreats, among other responsibilities. He has since returned to Oregon and is now a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Portland.

While in Utah, Stager saw many opportunities for evangelization, as well. He sang with the choir of the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City.

“The Cathedral of the Madeleine was a bastion of the arts and good liturgy,” he said, “which was a large ecumenical draw and was significant in developing relationships with the LDS Church through a common interest in a pursuit of the arts.”

Over the years, relations between Catholics and Mormons have been quite strained at times; however, great improvements have been made due to the dogged efforts of the leadership of both churches. This has, in large part, been due to a renewed common commitment to a pursuit of the arts, especially music. This is a common theme when exploring the relationship between Catholics and Mormons: Where is there common ground? And, on the other hand, what unique element can each bring to the table?

Resistance to piety

In spite of the major differences between Catholics and Mormons, and the insular nature of many Mormon communities, Stager did not feel like an “other” during his time in Utah — “at least,” he said, “not any more than I feel like an ‘other’ in pagan and unchurched Portland.” In Portland, he observed, being religious at all can seem very foreign, whereas in Utah it doesn’t seem foreign.

The makeup of the Church in Utah is affected by the culture of the state, including the exclusivity of many Mormon communities. “From a macroscopic perspective, life as a Catholic in Utah did not seem to me to be too different from life as a Catholic in Portland,” Stager said. The largest difference, in his experience, is that there are markedly fewer young Catholics — that is, college age and young adults — in Utah. Most Utah natives go out of state for college, and few Catholics come to the state to study, he said.

“One thing I noticed as a Catholic high school teacher was that the students were more resistant to what they perceived as being overly religious,” Stager said. “I think the kids associate piety and high levels of devotion with Mormons, and they generally wanted to distance themselves from that.”
While the trends observed and experienced by these individuals may not be universal, they speak to the overall culture in the state of Utah.

Credits : Our Sunday Visitor, April 17, 2019 

Deep In The South --- Deep In The Sacred Heart Of Jesus

Knoxville’s Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral Pulses with Local and Sacred Tradition

On March 3 2018, the bishop and the people of Knoxville, Tennessee, together with five cardinals and 18 other bishops, dedicated their new cathedral, named in honor of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The event received local media coverage as a milestone marking the growth of Catholicism in a region where only three percent of the population identifies as Catholic. But relatively unnoticed was the cathedral’s importance in the renewal of Catholic architecture in the United States. With its intentional embrace of the classical tradition, design sophistication, theological fullness, and iconic richness, the construction of the $31 million edifice marks a singular high point in the recent revitalization of Catholic visual and liturgical culture.

From the early planning stages, the diocese and its leaders sought a classical architectural mode for several reasons. First, the building was envisioned to embody a clear Roman Catholic identity with a renewed ecclesiology presenting a deep understanding of the truths of the Catholic faith, including the eschatological emphasis in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, which famously stated:

“In the earthly liturgy we take part in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims…” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 8).

Moreover, within that cultural and theological vision stood the explicit understanding of the leadership role of the cathedral church in a diocese; it was designed to model architectural and artistic excellence for the diocese and even provide for the musical leadership expected of a diocesan mother church by creating ample space for a pipe organ and consideration of the building’s acoustical properties.

Secondly, the design acknowledged its presence in the historically Protestant American South. As such, the cathedral was meant to give outward signs of being “good neighbors,” beginning with a prominent front porch. In a kind of architectural inculturation, the southern tradition of the welcoming porch was engaged while at the same time using a deeply Roman version of the classical orders, combining the local and universal characteristics of the Church in Tennessee.

The cathedral was at first envisioned as a fully limestone structure to indicate its inherent dignity, but to engage the local culture, a mix of brick and limestone was eventually chosen.

The design intentionally avoided bright red brick, however, instead choosing a blend of stone-colored Roman brick—characterized by long, slender proportions—which provided a finish with high visual interest as well as a distinctly Roman, public character.

A similar approach to architectural inculturation was taken with the cathedral’s great dome, taken as much from the architectural tradition of local buildings as from the great Catholic tradition. Yet by being topped with a golden cross, the Catholic identity of the cathedral reads clearly.

Woven through the exterior design choices, however, lies a combination of perceived simplicity at the level of the entire design, but with sophistication in its many details.

Over the entry doors, for instance, an almost lyrical design of cut stones form elongated and structurally-logical keystones which interlock with the stonework of the walls. On the porch, a prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus appears in sophisticated “V-groove” lettering centered around a subtle but legible carving of the Sacred Heart. Even the downspouts which carry rainwater were carefully designed to match the dignity of the building and its use.

The cathedral’s design architect, James McCrery of Washington, DC, compared the design of every part of the building to the Mystical Body of Christ, where each member, no matter how different or differently placed, contributes to the beauty of the whole. The true noble simplicity of the building is achieved in simple shapes and exquisite details, yet each one is given careful attention.

While the exterior uses the relatively subdued colors of the earthly realm, the interior presents itself as the world redeemed, where large scale, decorative richness, and fine materials enchant the viewer. Unlike the grey granite of the exterior paving, the interior suddenly changes to carefully-designed patterns of colored marble, marking the glorified “streets” of heaven.

Looking up from these magnificent floors, giant-order Corinthian flat columns, known as pilasters, line the nave, sitting on pedestals which themselves are nearly six feet tall. Between their capitals, honorific titles for Christ from the Litany of the Sacred Heart give the building an architectural “voice” of praise. An arcade of marble Ionic columns in polished marble tucks between the large pilasters, scaling the high ceiling down to the human scale.

The ceiling is organized by a grid of inset squares, known as coffers, in which the paint changes from the earthly white color of the walls, to golden hues that signify heaven, to blue inset panels filled with glorified stars suggesting the heavens above, which also participate in liturgical worship. As the viewer moves closer to the altar, a great dome rises to 144 feet above the floor, claiming the symbolic number of the height of the walls of the Heavenly Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation (21:17).

Within the cathedral’s dome, a 25-foot image of Christ with his Sacred Heart exposed stands surrounded by the saints in a heavenly garden, an iconographic plan developed by the architect together with the cathedral rector and executed by Evergreene Architectural Arts of New York.
The richness of the cathedral’s interior provides a setting for a great stone altar surmounted by a 45-foot baldachino, a four-columned canopy roughly the height of a four-story building.

The large interior provides a setting of awe and grandeur, yet the baldachino scales the great interior down to the size of the altar and, like a picture frame, makes it the natural focus of the viewer’s attention. Beyond the altar, the tabernacle sits under a tiny replica of the baldachino, marking the Presence of Christ both in the action of the Eucharistic liturgy and the abiding Presence in the reserved Eucharistic species.

Seen on the golden rear wall through the baldachino and above the tabernacle, a golden Tree of Life pattern in vine-like spirals extends the reach of the large crucifix, the true Tree of Life that healed the effects of Adam and Eve eating of the tree in the Garden of Eden.

In sum, the patrons, architects and artists of the new Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus have done something not seen for more than half a century: they commissioned an affordable building which nonetheless uses an erudite and recognizable classical mode, fine materials, local customs, time-honored Roman motifs, and a theologically-informed iconographic program.

To a faithful Catholic, it might sound obvious to do these things. But recent years have seen many new churches where the client meant well, but lacked the architectural sophistication to hire a classical specialist or the liturgical understanding to see an iconographic program as more than a collection of devotional images.

In Knoxville, the cathedral shows a wholistic approach to sacramentalizing a new world on the interior, a place where space and time suddenly change from the limitations of the fallen world to the expansiveness of the restored cosmos.

The cathedral does indeed represent a great local achievement, and congratulations are in order to all involved. But it is also more. With a humble budget in a diocese of a mere 70,000 Catholics, this cathedral has set the high point to date for architectural and theological richness in the postconciliar United States.

Credits : Adoremus 

Christmas And The Real Presence

It is not a matter of revving ourselves up to experience again the wonder of the Christ Mass. There is no point in trying to recapitulate Christmas as you knew it when you were, say, seven years old. That way lies sentimentalities unbounded.

The alternative is the way of contemplation, of demanding of oneself the disciplined quiet to explore, and be explored by, the astonishment of God become one of us that we may become one with God. He embraced the whole of our experience, beginning as an embryo, as we began as an embryo. In his abject helplessness is our only help.

In response to the announcement by the angel, Mary, the mother of Our Lord, and Zechariah, the father of John the Baptizer, asked the same question: “How can this be?” Zechariah asked in disbelief. Mary asked in wonder. Zechariah doubted, while Mary exemplified the maxim of John Henry Newman that a thousand difficulties do not add up to a doubt.

That the Creator of all should become a creature is a skandalon that is of a piece with the scandal of the cross, the skandalon that God could die. Maternal love is joined to maternal mourning as the mother pondered and anticipated the sword that would pierce her own heart. This is the decisive turning point in the history of man and, if you will, the history of God, for the two are one. Finitum capax infiniti—the finite is capable of the infinite.

There is in the Christian theological tradition the accent on God as the “Totally Other,” the ineffable that transcends our capacity to think or speak. J.B. Phillips’ popular classic Your God Is Too Small is always recommended reading. To appreciate the total otherness of God is to be immune to the angry ravings of the “new atheists” who so ferociously attack a “God” in whom Christians do not believe.

Their God is too small, and yet not small enough. Throughout the ages, people had looked up into the heavens in search of God. Bearing Jesus in her womb, holding Jesus in her arms, Mary looked down into the face of God. Immanence and transcendence require one another. The Totally Other is the predicate of Emmanuel, God with us. Finitum capax infiniti.

Call it a paradox, call it a tension, call it a dialectic. Better still, call it Incarnation. Incarnatus est is the end of playing off the infinite against the finite, the human against the divine, as though Reality were a zero-sum game. How can modern man believe in miracles, Rudolf Bultmann asked, when he knows how to switch on a light bulb? Or, as a parishioner opined the other day, why pray for the healing of a headache when Tylenol works so well?
  
 Incarnatus est is the forging of an unbreakable union between the miraculous and the quotidian, the transcendent and the immanent. All our thinking, our creativity, our science, our labors, along with our sorrows and disappointments, is participation in the life of God become man, in faith’s anticipation of our destiny fulfilled in the life of God.

Not for nothing is the day called Christ Mass. In the Eucharist, it happens again and again. Just as he says, this is his body, this is his blood. Sacramental realism is looking into the face of God as we look at the signs of bread and wine and confess with Thomas the Apostle, “My Lord, and my God!” Here, in this prescribed space and time, see God crucified, risen, and keeping his promise to be with us until his return in glory.

Catholics call it transubstantiation, reflecting the philosophical distinction between substance and accident. Rejecting the philosophy, Luther simply and adamantly insisted upon the sheer isness of the is in “This is my body.” Others have wandered into the mists of subjectivity, suggesting in a hundred different ways that it is if you believe or feel or think it is. But there is no Real Presence without bodily presence.

In communing with loved ones who are not with us, we have our feelings, our memories, our visual images. But that is just it: They are our feelings, our memories, our visual images. There is no breaking out of the circle of subjectivity unless we are encountered by the body of the other. The other is embodied, as in incarnate. And so it is with the Totally Other, the infinite within our finite space and time.

Theologians of an orthodox persuasion sometimes say that the Real Presence does not mean physical presence. This is to guard against the debased notion of a cannibalistic consumption of a portion of human flesh and blood. That is indeed a gross distortion of our being encountered by, and receiving body and soul, the living Christ in his humanity and divinity.

Yet I have come across people who are deeply troubled when they hear it said that the Real Presence is not a physical presence. They misunderstand that to mean that his presence is less than physical, when the point is that his presence is more than physical. The physical is part of the finitude of space and time, which is both embraced and transcended in the wonder of God become man. Finitum capax infiniti.

Mary asked, and we ask, “How can this be?” The fourth-century St. Ambrose wrote of the Real Presence: “Could not Christ’s word, which can make from nothing what did not exist, change existing things into what they were not before? It is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature.”

At the crèche and at the Christ Mass, we kneel to adore the human face of God. The Adore Te Devote is attributed to Thomas Aquinas:

Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.

Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived;
How says trusty hearing? That shall be believed;
What God’s Son has told me, take for truth I do;
Truth himself speaks truly or there’s nothing true.

The Kingship Of Jesus Christ Is Good News

Jesus’ reign as ‘King of kings and Lord of lords’ (Rev. 19:16) is an essential aspect of the gospel we believe. He is the God who has come with might to reign for the Lord and satisfy the deepest needs and longings of his people (see Isa. 40:9’10). Throughout redemptive history, the Messiah was revealed as the promised Savior-King who would rescue, govern, and from the throne of David defend the people of God (see 2 Sam. 7:12’13). His reign marks the fulfillment of Israel’s monarchy, the true purpose of every good and legitimate kingship throughout salvation history.

When we confess Jesus as the Christ, we confess that he is that promised king, whose reign means eternal life and peace for the people of God and eternal judgment for the enemies of God. He is called the Christ (the anointed one) in part because he has been ordained, empowered, and accepted by God to reign as the eternal king over the creation and especially over the church. This article seeks to address three aspects of Jesus’ glorious kingship: (1) how Jesus is a king; (2) how Jesus’ kingdom is already and not yet; and (3) how we can participate in Jesus’ kingdom.

How Jesus Is a King:

As with his priesthood, Jesus Christ did not take upon himself the honor of becoming king (see Heb. 5:5). Rather, the Father appointed and declared Jesus to be king. God has ordained, empowered, and accepted him as supreme ruler over all creation, particularly the church. This means that the Lord appointed Jesus to be the king over his people. Although this can be seen in many places throughout Scripture, it was especially revealed at his conception and baptism.

In Luke 1:32, the angel Gabriel announces Jesus’ kingship to the virgin Mary saying, ‘And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom, there will be no end.’ At his baptism, the Holy Spirit visibly descended upon Jesus to publicly anoint him as the Father pronounced the words of coronation over him, ‘You are my beloved Son’ (Mark 1:11). These words fulfill Psalm 2:6-7, which says, ”As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.’ I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you.”

The Lord also empowered Jesus Christ to fulfill his duties as king, some of which include governing, protecting, preserving, enabling the people of God to enjoy the blessings of his kingdom and conquering the enemies of his kingdom. Not only has the Lord ordained and empowered Christ as king over the church and over creation, but he has promised to accept Christ’s labors in that office by granting him supreme authority now and forever. This eternal reign as king is a divine gift given for the glory of God and for the benefit of the church (Eph. 1:21’22).

How Christ’s Kingdom Is Already and Not Yet:

Christ’s reign has an already-and-not-yet aspect to it. Ephesians 1:22 emphasizes the ‘already’ aspect by telling us that ‘God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church.’ God has already appointed Christ as ruler over all things he is king over all right now, and this reign has been established for the benefit of the church. However, there is also a sense in which Christ’s universal kingship has yet to be fully realized.

1 Corinthians 15:25 says that ‘he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. This indicates that in some way, there are enemies whose defeat has not been fully realized. In this case, 1 Corinthians is speaking of death as an enemy whose complete subjection has yet to be fully revealed.

Christ already abolished death through his righteous life, atoning death, and justifying resurrection (1 Tim. 1:10), but the universal effects of this victory are not yet fully seen. Death has already been stripped of its power to permanently hold the people of God in its icy grip, but it has not yet been permanently done away with.

We still weep at the funerals of the saints who have been separated from us through death. But on the last day, Christ’s decisive victory will swallow up death and his reign over it will be fully revealed (1 Cor. 15:54’55).

Death’s effects will be completely subsumed by Christ’s glorious reign of eternal life.

Similarly, the other enemies of the people of God namely, sin and Satan have also been conquered, stripped of their power to do any lasting harm to Christ’s flock. The serpent has been defanged, and through his saving work, Christ has indeed destroyed the works of the devil. He has liberated his people from the bondage of sin, but Christians (through the Spirit) must continue to resist and mortify these already defeated foes. This period of not-yet is the outworking of Christ’s already reign.

Until he returns, King Jesus gathers, justifies, and sanctifies more of his kingdom citizens by the Holy Spirit. He displays his authority through the preservation and protection of his people as their king and, in so doing, is glorified by them. However, God promises that when Christ returns in his kingly glory, not only his own people but every person’s knee will bow in submission and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Phil. 2:10’11).

How We Can Participate in Jesus’ Kingdom:

At his ascension, Jesus announces his kingship to his disciples, telling them of the universal authority that has been granted to him by the Father. It is by this authority that Jesus commands his disciples to spread his kingdom throughout the nations by baptizing and making disciples (Matt. 28:18’20). He tells them that there are three primary ways people participate in the kingdom, ways in which his reign of redemption will come to the ends of the earth.

1. By Faith:

They are to preach the gospel because people participate in the kingdom by faith (Mark 16:15). By faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, we come to belong to King Jesus as his people and to enjoy the blessings of his reign. Faith in Christ means entrusting oneself in loving submission to the kingship of Christ as he presents himself to us in his word. Rather than using sociopolitical or military means to establish his reign, Jesus established his kingship through perfect obedience to the Father, faithfully loving, serving, and giving his life as a ransom for his people.

As the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see the glory of Christ’s reign of redemption, we embrace him and submit to him as our Lord. At present, Jesus exercises his lordship in our lives by the Spirit of Christ through the proclamation of the word and partaking of the sacraments. He uses both to transform our lives in conformity to his will. Even unbelievers submit to Jesus’ universal reign, whether they know it or not! According to Colossians 1:16, ‘all things were created through him and for him.’ But they don’t participate in his reign of redemption unless they repent and believe the gospel.

2. By Obedience:

Jesus tells his disciples not only to teach his commands but also to teach others to obey his commands (Matt. 28:20). Obedience is an essential aspect of participation in the kingdom of Christ.

In Luke 6:46, Jesus asks a crowd, ‘Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?’ According to King Jesus, participation in his kingdom means practical obedience to his commands by continual repentance from sin in submission to his lordship.

The Bible reveals Christ’s commands so that we might obey him. Therefore, we must study and obey Scripture in submission to Jesus’ lordship and teach others to obey for the furtherance of the kingdom. Obedience here assumes the context of faithful participation in the life of the local church. As we are reminded and challenged by the gospel witness of the local church, we spur one another on in obedience and hence greater submission to the lordship of Christ.

3. By the Sacraments:

Baptism marks a person’s entrance into the church, the visible expression of the kingdom of God. Anyone who seeks to participate in the kingdom should bear the visible sign of the kingdom. Baptism is Christ’s mark upon his citizens, which visibly distinguishes them from the world. By faith, it strengthens them in their warfare against sin and Satan by reminding them of their union with King Jesus as one of his people. The Lord’s Supper reminds us of Christ’s public victory over evil, sin, and death at the cross. But it also unites us across ethnic, class, national, and gender lines as citizens of one kingdom under the reign of Christ.

The Eucharist and Our Lady

During his visit to Ireland in August 2018, the Holy Father visited the Shrine of Our Lady of Knock, Queen of Ireland. The apparition at the origin of this place of pilgrimage speaks of Mary as “Woman of the Eucharist.”

On that rainy evening on the August 21, 1879, a bright heavenly vision appeared outside the gable end of the parish church in the small isolated village of Knock, County Mayo, in the west of Ireland.

The Mother of God appeared, flanked by St. Joseph her spouse, and St. John the Evangelist, who was wearing a mitre and holding a book open in his hands. Near them was an altar on which stood the Lamb of God, with a cross at the back of the lamb.

“Around the lamb,” recounts Patrick Hill, one of the witnesses, “I saw angels hovering during the whole time, for the space of one hour and a half or longer.”¹ Our Lady did not speak at all during the apparition. As the same witness relates: “I distinctly beheld the Blessed Virgin Mary, life size, standing about two feet or so above the ground, clothed in white robes which were fastened at the neck. Her hands were raised to the height of the shoulders, as if in prayer, with the palms facing each other.”

This silent apparition is extremely eloquent. It is an icon of the Church: the Eucharistic Body, the Lamb on the altar, is at the centre of the Mystical Body, God’s holy People. The heavenly Church — Our Lady, Saints Joseph and John and the angels — are joined with the pilgrim Church, the group of local parishioners of Knock, in silent adoration of the Saviour of the world in the mystery of his sacrifice.

This beautiful catechesis is profoundly Eucharistic. The Liturgy of the Word (St. John with the book open in his hand) and the Liturgy of the Eucharist (the Lamb on the altar of sacrifice) together form one single event. The angels, saints and the local people — the entire Communion of Saints — are gathered around the altar of sacrifice. Mary’s silent prayer is a model of Eucharistic adoration. The mystery of the Church and the mystery of the Eucharist come together in the person, vocation and mission of Mary.

As Benedict XVI taught: “The Church sees in Mary, ‘Woman of the Eucharist’ . . . her finest icon, and she contemplates Mary as a singular model of the Eucharistic life”.

Active Participation with Mary

A human being can do many important things in the course of a lifetime, achieving ambitious goals and making a lasting impact, and sometimes even taking part in great historical events. Nothing however can remotely compare with the value and reach of a single Mass “in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.”

As Pope Francis taught during his recent catechesis on the Eucharistic celebration: “This is the Mass: to enter this passion, death, resurrection, ascension of Jesus; when we go to Mass it is as if we were going to Calvary itself. . . The Mass is experiencing Calvary.”

Given this reality, in our weekly and daily routine there is nothing more valuable, effective, significant, or meaningful than to take part in the holy Mass. “Here is the Church’s treasure, the heart of the world, the pledge of the fulfilment for which each man and woman, even unconsciously, yearns,” as St. John Paul II proclaimed.

To take part in the Mass with a good disposition is to come to experience at the deepest level of our being, independently of our emotional state at the time, “the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge” (Eph 3:18).

We can never deepen our understanding and love for the Mass enough because God’s love poured out in the sacrifice of Jesus, made present on the altar, is inexhaustible. There are nonetheless many ways to increase our knowledge and love for the greatest of all the sacraments. Among the most powerful ways is to “live” the Lord’s sacrifice in communion of mind, heart, and soul with Mary, the Lord’s Mother, and “Woman of the Eucharist.” As St. John Paul II taught: “Mary can guide us towards this most holy sacrament, because she herself has a profound relationship with it.”

In recent times the Church has repeatedly encouraged all the faithful to take part fully and consciously in the Eucharistic celebration. This active participation consists in fully uniting oneself with the self-giving love of Christ who offers himself for the salvation of the world. Such participation, not to be misconstrued as necessarily performing some physical activity during the celebration, is rather a full, active, and conscious partaking in Christ’s oblation insofar as we freely associate ourselves and all that we are and do with the Lord’s offering to the Father in the Holy Spirit for the salvation of the world. As Benedict XVI clarified:

“It should be made clear that the word ‘participation’ does not refer to mere external activity during the celebration. In fact, the active participation called for by the Council must be understood in more substantial terms, on the basis of a greater awareness of the mystery being celebrated and its relationship to daily life.”

Active participation, therefore, is to make our own “the mind” of Christ Jesus who “humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). Authentic participation in the liturgy is a positive decision and effort of our intellect and will under God’s grace.
Mary was not merely a witness or onlooker at the foot of the Cross. Indeed, “throughout her life at Christ’s side and not only on Calvary, [she] made her own the sacrificial dimension of the Eucharist.”

 Mary is mother of the Victim offered on the Cross and on the altar; she is the mother of the eternal Priest who carries out the sacrifice and she fully associates herself with his offering for the sake of the salvation of all her children and for the entire world. As preeminent member of the Church, Mary also offers the sacrifice of the Mass in union with the whole People of God. As Vatican II teaches: “Suffering with her Son as he died on the Cross, she cooperated in a totally singular way by her obedience, faith, hope, and ardent charity in restoring supernatural life to souls.”

Mary guides and accompanies us as we unite ourselves deeply with Christ’s love-offering on Calvary and in the Eucharist.

This text is merely an attempt to suggest some aspects of the mystery of the relationship between Our Lady and the Sacrament of Love which is the Eucharist. It can be seen that Our Lady relates to the Mystery of the Eucharist in the three dimensions of this Sacrament, of “sacrifice, presence, banquet.”

Sacrifice-Sacrament

As St. John Paul II pointed out in his first encyclical, the Eucharist is “at one and the same time a Sacrifice-Sacrament, a Communion-Sacrament and a Presence-Sacrament.” No one like his Mother can show us how to offer ourselves in union with Jesus, how to receive him with gratitude and joy, and how to adore him with the loving gaze of contemplation.

Before all else the Eucharist is the sacrament of the Passion of Jesus. While “there is no doubt that the most evident dimension of the Eucharist is that it is a meal . . . yet it must not be forgotten that the Eucharistic meal also has a profoundly and primarily sacrificial meaning.”

Our Lady is personally involved in this oblation since she freely and consciously associates herself with Christ’s offering. Her heart, like that of her Son, is pierced (cf. Lk 2:35 and Jn 19:34).

In the words of Benedict XVI, “Mary, present on Calvary beneath the Cross, is also present with the Church and as Mother of the Church in each one of our Eucharistic celebrations. No one better than she, therefore can teach us to understand and live Holy Mass with faith and love, uniting ourselves with Christ’s redeeming sacrifice.”

Presence-Sacrament

The Body and Blood of Jesus Christ which become present on the altar under the appearances or “species” of bread and wine, are the Body and Blood the Lord received from Mary his ever-virgin mother. The Blessed Mother “bore in her womb the Word made flesh” and thus “became in a way a ‘tabernacle’ — the first ‘tabernacle’ in history.”

The Holy Prophet Isaiah had foretold that a virgin would “conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel,” which means “God with us” (Is 7:14, Mt 1:23). This same Saviour is the God who is with us, really, truly, and substantially present in the Eucharist.

The Body offered on the altar of the Cross and made present in every Mass is the Body Christ received from his virgin-mother by the power of the Holy Spirit (cf. Lk 1:35). As Venerable Fulton Sheen has written: “When the Divine Child was conceived, Mary’s humanity gave him hands and feet, eyes and ears, and a body with which to suffer. Just as the petals of a rose after a dew close on the dew as if to absorb its energies, so too, Mary as the Mystical Rose closed upon him whom the Old Testament had described as a dew descending upon the earth.”

Catholics often appeal to Mary: “Show unto us the blessed fruit of your womb.” This prayer can take on a Eucharistic meaning as we ask the one most intimately united to Jesus to help us recognise, love, and adore him in the sacrament of his Real Presence. In fact, true devotion to Our Lady always leads to love for the Eucharist. Time and again the history of the Church has shown that “Mary guides the faithful to the Eucharist.”

Communion-Sacrament

Mary also teaches us how to receive Christ into our body and soul. At the moment of the Annunciation she welcomed the Saviour into her virginal womb.

Our Lady freely accepted her vocation to become the Mother of God, and thus “the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us” (Jn 1:14). She teaches us how to receive the Lord with unconditional love and openness to his will: “Let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). The presence of Christ in the body and soul of Mary increased her holiness. Learning from her, we can seek to welcome all the graces arising from Eucharistic Communion with her divine Son.

St. Josemaría Escrivá (+ 1975), founder of Opus Dei, was a great lover of the Eucharist. As a young boy he was prepared for his first holy Communion by a Piarist priest, Fr Manuel Laborda de la Virgen del Carmen, affectionately known as “Padre Manolé.” To help the young Josemaría prepare to receive our Lord, Padre Manolé taught him this spiritual communion prayer: “I wish Lord to receive you, with the purity, humility and devotion, with which your most holy Mother received you, and with the spirit and fervour of the saints.”

 The prayer is simple and very deep. It expresses the desire to welcome Jesus with the loving dispositions with which his mother Mary embraced him in body and soul. There is no better way to desire to receive Christ.

 The relationship between Mary and the Bread of Life is beautifully expressed by St. Peter Chrysologus, the “Doctor of Homilies” (+ c. 450): “Christ himself is the bread who, sown in the Virgin, raised up in the flesh, kneaded in the Passion, baked in the oven of the tomb, reserved in churches, brought to altars, furnishes the faithful each day with food from heaven.”

The Mass and the Gift of our Mother

There is also a specifically Marian dimension to the Mass. Shortly before he died, the crucified Christ gave Mary his Mother to be the mother also of his followers: “Behold your mother!” (Jn 19:27). It is within the context of his Passion that the Lord gives us his mother to be our mother too.

The Mass is the “memorial” of the Cross. The liturgical action makes present the work of salvation carried out by Jesus in his life, death and resurrection.

 In his encyclical on the Eucharist, St. John Paul II pointed out that “in the ‘memorial’ of Calvary all that Christ accomplished by his passion and death is present. Consequently all that Christ did with regard to his Mother for our sake is also present.

To her he gave the beloved disciple and, in him, each of us: ‘Behold, your Son!’ To each of us he also says: ‘Behold your mother!’ (cf. Jn 19:26–27). Experiencing the memorial of Christ’s death in the Eucharist also means continually receiving this gift. It means accepting – like John – the one who is given to us anew as our Mother.”

To take part in the Mass is to welcome Our Lady once and again as our beloved mother, and devotion to Mary leads us to the Mass. Indeed, “the piety of the Christian people has always very rightly sensed a profound link between devotion to the Blessed Virgin and the worship of the Eucharist.”

This is borne out by the prominence of the Blessed Eucharist in every Marian shrine. Indeed the Eucharist has been called “the source and crown of all Marian piety and spirituality.”

A Mystery to Explore

A great deal more could be said regarding the relationship between the Blessed Mother and the Eucharist. It could be a fruitful theme for study and prayer.

In any event, reflection on the Holy Eucharist from a Marian Perspective can only go to show how Christocentric true Marian devotion is, since the person and vocation of Mary are shown to be inseparable from that of the one and only Saviour. In the light of the Eucharist Mary is seen as the New Eve who collaborates in a unique way with the Redemption carried out by the New Adam, Christ Jesus.

Are Indian Catholic Christans No Different Than Other Indians In The Eyes Of Immigration Officials In North America and The West ??

I have often wondered about this having lived for more than 4 Years In The United States some 20 Years ago.

As Things stand now in Countries Like The United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and The United Kingdom it is difficult to gain entry even if you are an Indian Catholic Christian with trappings of Western Culture and all.

It seems like you are viewed just as any other Indian is viewed.

Indians as Immigrants seem to be despised in all countries I have mentioned above.

Well, They are to blame also.

Many Indians specially those who enter into "Arranged Marriages" tend to abuse the Immigration System in General.

However, When an Indian Catholic Christian who is highly educated and Westernized wants to enter a Country in North America he is viewed with suspicion just as the Average Indian is viewed.

Immigration Officials in North America do not tend to be "Discerning" in any sort of way.

There is a lot of stereotyping that goes on as far as Indians as Potential Immigrants is concerned.

I would like to appeal to Immigration Officials in the United States and Canada in particular to have a "Discerning Mind" when an Educated Indian Catholic Christian applies for an Immigrant Visa.

Educated Indian Catholic Christians should not be grouped with other Indians who are Hindus, Sikhs, Or Moslems.

They need to be viewed differently and treated with some Deference.