Blessed rather .... those who hear ... and obey

Our Lady of the Southern Cross - Paul Newton

      Today's Gospel reading at Mass was taken from Luke 11:27-28

While Jesus was speaking to the people, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him,

"Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!" 

      As I heard these words proclaimed I could picture Jesus sitting among the group of disciples and touched by the spontaneous words of a loving mother in the crowd, a woman like Mary, His Mother. 

      Those words evoked in Jesus very intimate thoughts of His Mother and everything that she had done and been for Him ....  Blessed indeed!! ... like every mother!

      But immediately His memory brought Him the images of Mary He cherished most and He knew best; images of Mary like no other mother, like no other woman or man - Mary the First Disciple, the faithful little one of YHWH, the daughter of His Father, the Jewish woman who taught Him, with words, but much more so with her own life, what to be the Son of God in a human body was like ...

      And thinking of this most treasured image of Mary, Jesus responded to the woman in the crowd:

"Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!"

      This beautiful example of Jesus' love for His Mother speaks also of Jesus priorities so well set in place. The Father is always first. Everything else flows from this first priority and is ordained towards it. Mary lived in this way every day of her life, and this was what Jesus treasured most in her: her faithfulness to the Father, her fidelity to her personal call.

      This is also what Jesus invites and treasures most in everyone of us, our faithfulness and fidelity to our own personal call. We all have a unique role to live out, an irrepeatable image of God to express with our uniqueness. We cannot discern, discover, and live our unique individual call without setting time and dedication in our daily life for prayer and reflection. We need special times and places to get in touch with our own deepest desire, which matches God's Desire for us. We need again prayer and dedication to be able to overcome our busy-ness and distraction, our fears and compulsions, and to respond with our life in action to the stirrings and invitation of Grace towards a fulfilled and genuinely Christian -Christ like- life, the life that can truly make us genuinely joyful and alive even in the midst of difficulties and suffering.


      We can hear the Word of God in the intimacy of our prayer space or, in a privileged way, in the celebration of the Eucharist where we can be fed -daily- with Jesus Himself at the table of the Word and at the Eucharistic table. We may drink sometimes from the prolongation of Jesus' Paschal Sacrifice at the altar of an Adoration Chapel. We can grow in our faith and love for the Word by praying the Rosary at home with our family or while driving to and from some errand or work. We may read the Word from the Book of Nature during a quiet walk among the beauty of the fall season, or from our preferred spiritual author.

      We can always turn to Mary, the model of discipleship that Jesus displays today before us. She is the powerful intercessor and caring mother always ready to help us in our struggles to give birth with deeds and actions those gentle insights that the Spirit of Jesus graces us with when we feel more devoted or even when we are most distracted.

      May she teach us to listen to the Word of God -and to obey it- with the totality of response and commitment that was her joy and Jesus' delight.

     

St. Francis, M. Maria Celeste, and the Inspiration for the Congregations of the Redemptorists

        Mother Maria Celeste received the Inspiration for the foundation of the Order of the Most Holy Savior (a name changed later to the Most Holy Redeemer) on 1729 but she had to wait until 1731 to see it come to life on Pentecost Day, May 13 on that year, when the Sisters started living out the new Rule. On August 6 of the same year 1731, the Feast of the Transfiguration they changed the habit of the Visitation they had been wearing for the new red tunic and blue mantle as revealed to M. Maria Celeste for the new Institute.

         That same eventful year of 1731, M. Maria Celeste received the Inspiration for the foundation of the male branch of the same Institute, that is the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer better known as the Redemptorists. This happened on the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi and under his patronage and example as it was recorded by M. Maria Celeste in her Autobiography:

One day, the vigil of the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the 3rd of October in the year 1731, this Religious who had received the new Rule being in the refectory, her mind was in one moment lifted up to the Lord. Then Jesus showed Himself to her surrounded by the light of glory, accompanied by the seraphic Father Saint Francis and Father Don Alphonso de Liguori. Then the Lord said the her: "This soul [Alphonsus Liguori] is chosen as the head of My Institute. It is he who will be the first superior of the Congregation of men."


The Religious [M.M. Celeste] saw in God this work as if it were already established, and her soul was so filled with joy that she could not take any food. She saw herself surrounded with an interior light, and remained close to the holy Patriarch [St. Francis], who seemed to be transformed into Our Lord Jesus Christ. This lasted all the time of the meal.


       It is worth noticing that M. Maria Celeste pointed out that in her vision Saint Francis "seemed transformed into Our Lord Jesus Christ", which is the specific Grace or charism of the new Institute of the Most Holy Savior/Redeemer she was being called to bring to life. This transformation of herself into Christ was a frequent happening that she repeatedly recorded in her writings, and happened on many occasions but always after receiving Holy Communion, the Sacrament of our Transformation into Jesus Christ.

       But let us continue listening to M. M. Celeste and her connection with St. Francis on his Feast Day involving also (the then future St.) Alphonsus Liguori:

For the moment nothing else was revealed to her, and so this Religious made no accoumt of it, and told no one anything about it.
The next day, the Feast of the holy Patriarch to whom she had a great devotion, she went to Communion much absorbed concerning what had happened to her overnight. Suddenly her soul was illumined by a light of the Lord and she understood that she was to write as the motto of the Institute these words of the Gospel, 

Go and preach to all creatures that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. 

(cfr. Mc 10.16 & Mt 10,7)

Based on these words she should write out the text that the Lord dictated to her in His Name:
The daily and spiritual exercises were the same as those already written in the new Rule [for the Nuns]. Also the habit was to be like that prescribed. 
All the Religious were to live in apostolic poverty like His well-beloved servant whose feast they were keeping that day -who had so closely imitated Him. For this reason, all their worldly goods were to be placed at the feet of the Superior, who would make a common fund of them, called that of the poor, which they would use on missions, and would give alms from it to widows and orphans according to the directions of the Superior.

      It is clear how significant "apostolic poverty" is to the new Institute, both of men -the Missionaries, Brothers and Priests- and women -the Redemptoristine Nuns. This is no surprise given that the Institute is to be rooted in the admirable humiliations of the Word Made Man, with charity and humility as the capstone. A deep spiritual poverty is called forth as well as the visible Franciscan poverty.

      M. Maria Celeste continues explaining this first Inspiration of the Congregation of the Redemptorists:

In their journeys they will go two and two to places not too distant from their dwellings, and they will preach penance.


      And here comes from M M. Celeste's pen something especially close to the heart of this Redemptoristine Diocesan Hermit attesting to how much the call to transforming prayer in solitude is at the heart of our charism for both the Redemptorists and the Redemptoristines:

As to those who are called to the contemplative or eremitical life, they are not to be reproached, for those souls who apply themselves to prayer in solitude convert many more souls than those who are destined to preach.


They will be at least thirteen in each house and they are not to go on mission by their own choice, but by the will and choice of the Superior.


This was the first sketch concerning the Congregation of men that this Religious received from the Lord. She wrote down all that had been said to her and added it to the Rule of the nuns, as it was to form only one with theirs, as will be written in the proper time.
This Religious made a detailed statement to her spiritual father [Don Tomaso Falcoia] of all that had been communicated to her about the new Congregation of men, and of all the other things that had been revealed to her. 


      May the holy Patriarch Saint Francis show his patronage over M. M. Celeste's Double Institute of Women and Men dedicated to bringing the Good News to the poor through the combination of their personal contemplative transformation into Christ as well as through the preaching of the Gospel message to every creature. 


      Saint Francis of Assisi, Pray for us!