Christ The King - Closing of the Year of Faith

On this last Sunday of the Church calendar we celebrate the solemnity of CHRIST, KING OF THE UNIVERSE.

From this humble blog we greet our Lord and King and give thanks for His Kinship of Love, Sacrifice, and Salvation upon us, and we repeat with so many martyrs of the last century:

¡¡VIVA CRISTO REY!!

LONG LIVE CHRIST THE KING!!

Today is also the closing of the YEAR OF FAITH which we have been celebrating since October 2012.

During this special Year we've had a special emphasis on the Creed, the prayer of the Church which summs up our Catholic faith, the faith I profess with Pope Francis and the whole Church

It is especially meaningful the celebration of the Eucharist that Pope Francis held today with all the Patriarchs and leaders of the Churches in full communion with Rome.
During the singing of the Creed, Pope Francis held in his hands a small urn containing the remains of the Apostle Peter, the first Pope, which were exposed to the public for the first time. Here is the video:

I believe in one God, the Father almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,

        the Only Begotten Son of God,

        born of the Father before all ages.

    God from God, Light from Light,

        true God from true God,

    begotten, not made, consubstantial

       with the Father;

        Through him all things were made.

    For us men and for our salvation

        he came down from heaven,

        and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate

        of the Virgin Mary,

        and became man.

    For our sake he was crucified

      under Pontius Pilate,

        he suffered death and was buried,

        and rose again on the third day

        in accordance with the Scriptures.

    He ascended into heaven

        and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

    He will come again in glory

        to judge the living and the dead

        and his kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

        the Lord, the giver of life,

    who proceeds from the Father and the Son,

    who with the Father and the Son

        is adored and glorified,

        who has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one, holy, catholic,

     and apostolic Church.

    I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins

        and I look forward to the resurrection

        of the dead and the life of the world to come.

                          Amen.

The Year of Faith has been a year of incredible GRACE from God not only for the Church but also in my own life.

We've seen the amazing workings of the Holy Spirit in the leading of the Church through the historic and humble resignation of Pope Benedict and the gift of Pope Francis to the Church and the world.

In my own Diocesan Church we've seen also the resignation of our Bishop upon reaching the retirement age, and the appointment of our new Bishop.  Then, we've also had a change of Pastor at my parish.

But above and beyond these external -and important- changes, I've been blessed with a renewal of my own faith and my own vocation and place in the Church.

This might be a good time to reflect, how has the Year Of Faith influenced your own life? How has the Spirit touched (blessed - disturbed) you over the last 13 months?

May we all continue to grow stronger in our Faith, our Hope, and our Love.

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.

     

Mary's Role Deeper than that of Peter

We have heard this week the news of the appointment of Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec as Head of the Congregation for Bishops in Rome. As background for the news release there was an interview he gave in 2003 and was published in the Spanish edition of the magazine 30 Giorni. These are the words spoken by the Cardinal I want to focus on:

The role of Mary is deeper than that of Peter or of the Bishops

Cardinal Ouellet made this statement in the context of ecumenism; but it strikes me as much more urgent to bring to the front this truth in the context of the hierarchy in our days when we see the weakness and failure of an exaggerated relevance of the ministerial priesthood in the Church, and of a primacy of right doctrine over right and holy living of gospel values.

The role of Mary is both unique and irrepeatable as Mother of Christ, but also she is the model and example of true Christian discipleship for everyone, clergy as well as lay people. She is the contemplative par excellence always listening to the Spirit, and the Mediatrix with Christ of all graces. The source of her immense and humble power is not from ecclesial ordination but from her sharing in the highest possible way for a human being in the same life and holiness of God.

And here is the amazing thing: that humble and ultimate power of Mary for bringing grace to the Church and to the world is available to each one of us if we too open our hearts and our lives to the transforming and sanctifying power of the Spirit always at work in making us grow into the likeness of Christ -and Mary. Her total acceptance of and response to the Plan of God for her, and through her for the world is the ultimate road to holiness and the goal of each of our lives on earth.

As important and necessary as the role of the ordained priesthood is in the Church, there is sometimes a tendency to emphasize the ritual aspect of the priesthood, and the channel of authority and tradition over and beyond that of personal holiness and relationship with God in the building up of the life of the Church. It is certainly in the service of the Church that by means of the ordination to the priesthood the person has become an instrument of Christ the Priest so literally that we don't need to guess what is the level of his personal holiness in order to be sure that Christ is really acting through him. But as true as this is, if it is overestimated we can also fall into a magical approach in which the priestly ministry is valued mainly by external performance. This is a permanent temptation because we like to judge and evaluate and we can do that with actions but not with the inner promptings and intentions of the person.

In our days loaded with news of scandals and abuse in the part of the clergy we all need to reflect on the urgency of personal transformation and holiness as means of exercising the powerful common priesthood of all baptized Christians in the building up of the Reign of God.

May Mary, Queen of the Apostles, and Mother of Divine Grace guide us in our journey of discipleship and transformation, as we continue praying also for Pope Benedict, for Cardinal Marc Ouellet, and for all our bishops and priests so that they may always strive to grow in holiness as the first means to faithfully perform their challenging and graced filled ministry in the service of the Church and of the whole world.