Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Temple - Pro Orantibus Day -

Although not recorded in Scripture, today the Church celebrates the Consecration of the Infant Mary to God in the Temple of Jerusalem.

The story is related in some of the apocryphal gospels, and is extensively recorded in The Mystical City of God of the Ven. Maria de Jesus de Agreda (book II ch 1). Here are some excerpts (#421-422):

421. The three years time decreed by the Lord having been completed, Joachim and Anne set out from Nazareth, accompanied by a few of their kindred and bringing with them the true living Ark of the covenant, the most holy Mary, borne on the arms of her mother in order to be deposited in the holy temple of Jerusalem. The beautiful Child, by her fervent and loving aspirations, hastened after the ointments of her Beloved, seeking in the temple Him, whom She bore in her heart...

Thus they pursued their journey from Nazareth to the holy city of Jerusalem, and also the parents of the holy child Mary felt in their hearts great joy and consolation of spirit.

422. They arrived at the holy temple, and the blessed Anne on entering took her Daughter and Mistress by the hand, accompanied and assisted by saint Joachim. All three offered a devout and fervent prayer to the Lord; the parents offering to God their Daughter, and the most holy Child, in profound humility, adoration and worship, offering up Herself...

Having offered their prayers, they rose and betook themselves to the priest. The parents consigned their Child into his hands and he gave them his blessing. Together they conducted Her to the portion of the temple buildings, where many young girls lived to be brought up in retirement and in virtuous habits, until old enough to assume the state of matrimony. It was a place of retirement especially selected for the first-born daughters of the royal tribe of Juda and the sacerdotal tribe of Levi.

On this special Marian feast, the Church celebrates also her contemplatives, the lives consecrated to God in a life of prayer. Thus this is also called "Pro Orantibus Day" -the Day For Those Who Pray-

Pope Francis marked the ocassion by visiting the contemplative monastery of the Camaldolese nuns in Rome, and prayed with them Vespers as well as a time of adoration to the Blessed Sacrament. 

Here is a short video of the visit:

Some references for the Pro Orantibus Day: http://www.cloisteredlife.com/pro-orantibus-day/

Witness to Christ's Risen Life

Today's reading at Mass (Acts 14:19-28) treated us to a matter of fact account of the boldness of Paul the Apostle in the face of persecution. While Paul and Barnabas where at Lystra: 

Some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead.²⁰ But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.

He was left behind as a corpse. This is how badly the stoning went. When the disciples came to pick up the pieces he got up and returned into the city -kind of shaking the dust off as if nothing really had happened. The next day he was in the way again. 

 ²¹ They preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch,

Paul not only did not run away or hide himself after being stoned but returned to the very territory of his attackers, back to Lystra, to Iconium and to Antioch. And we are told this itinerary in successive verses, which means that things happened one after the other; we are not talking about going back years later.

²² strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said. 

I ask myself today, what kind of hardships am I willing and ready to go through in order to remain true to the faith and the Kingdom. Something to ponder and to pray about.

One of the Intercessions of Morning Prayer read this morning: Christ our Savior ... make us witnesses to your risen life. What a wonderful example of this witnessing we have in the passage of St. Paul quoted before. 

Paul's kind of courage in the face of persecution is a clear witness to the power of Jesus' Resurrection. Paul went to the desert for several years after his conversion and in the struggle of fighting his demons he surrendered his very life and being to God and became, truly, a Living Memory of Jesus, and His Apostle. This is the witness to the Risen Christ that, as Christians, we all are invited to give with our lives today too.

In our troubled times we are, again, getting almost daily news of persecutions and martyrdom, whether in India, Egypt, China or in our own countries. In some places churches are being attacked and burned, and Christians martyred. In other places teachers and doctors are removed from their jobs because they teach that abortion is murder or refuse to perform one. We may not be in those situations but maybe can think of a neighbor or a family member who is in need of a hand. 

Like Paul we too need to shake the dust off our comfortable souls and pray in earnest for our own conversion, for the healing of our blindness that prevents us from seeing Jesus in our brothers and sisters, and for the the grace to come so close to Jesus as to truly become witnesses to His risen life. 

Let us pray for each other as we request the intercession of Mary, Help of Christians, to bring to birth in our lives the passion for God that will make us Living Memories of Jesus, the Risen Christ.

Mary, Help of Christians - Our Lady of She Shan

Today, May 24, is the Feast of Our Lady Help of Christians, a well known advocation of Mary that spread especially with the Salesians all over the world.

Mary is venerated under this title in the shrine of She Shan, in Shanghai, China. As we know the Church in China is suffering persecution for their faith. Pope Benedict has requested that this be a Day in which the whole Church unites in prayer with and for the Church in China. As an expression of this great concern he has composed a prayer to Our Lady Help of Christians :

"Virgin Most Holy, Mother of the Incarnate Word and our Mother, venerated in the Shrine of Sheshan under the title 

'Help of Christians,'

the entire Church in China looks to you with devout affection. 

We come before you today to implore your protection. 

Look upon the People of God and, with a mother's care,

 guide them along the paths of truth and love, 

so that they may always be 

a leaven of harmonious coexistence among all citizens.

"When you obediently said 'yes' in the house of Nazareth, 

you allowed God's eternal Son to take flesh in your virginal womb 

and thus to begin in history the work of our redemption. 

You willingly and generously co-operated in that work, 

allowing the sword of pain to pierce your soul, 

until the supreme hour of the Cross, when you kept watch on Calvary, 

standing beside your Son, who died that we might live.

"From that moment, you became, in a new way, 

the Mother of all those who receive your Son Jesus in faith 

and choose to follow in His footsteps by taking up His Cross. 

Mother of hope, in the darkness of Holy Saturday 

you journeyed with unfailing trust towards the dawn of Easter. 

Grant that your children may discern at all times, even those that are darkest, 

the signs of God's loving presence.

"Our Lady of Sheshan, sustain all those in China, 

who, amid their daily trails, continue to believe, to hope, to love. 

May they never be afraid to speak of Jesus to the world, and of the world to Jesus. 

In the statue overlooking the Shrine you lift your Son on high, 

offering him to the world with open arms in a gesture of love. 

Help Catholics always to be credible witnesses to this love, 

ever clinging to the rock of Peter on which the Church is built. 

Mother of China and all Asia, pray for us, now and for ever. 

Amen!"

The shrine at Sheshan, with its “nine peaks above the clouds” is situated about 35 kilometres from Shanghai city. The mountain, according to legend, gets its name from a hermit named She who centuries ago, lived atop the mountain. 
In 1866, the Church in Shanghai built a hexagonal pavilion and placed within it an altar and a statue of Our Lady. Five years later, the Jesuits built a church at the summit of the mountain and dedicated it to Our Lady Help of Christians, opening it in 1873. 
In 1924, the bishops of China consecrated the nation to Our Lady and following the consecration they made a pilgrimage to Sheshan. Work on a basilica began in 1925 and was completed 10 years later. This church was the first basilica in all of the Far East and it became China’s favourite pilgrimage site. 
During the Cultural Revolution the beautiful bronze statue of Our Lady at the pinnacle of the basilica disappeared and other religious symbols, including the altar and the stained glass window were all virtually destroyed. Pilgrimages to the shrine resumed in 1979. A replica of the bronze statue of Mary holding up the Christ Child was finally re-installed on top of the tower in the year 2000. Some 10,000 believers paid for it. 
Every year since then, pilgrims by the thousands have flocked to Sheshan. In 1990, the first pilgrimage of the decade saw 30,000 Catholics coming to Sheshan for Our Lady’s feast. The elderly and the young made the long steep climb from the foothills of the mountain to the summit as a testimony of their love and devotion to Our Lady. 

In our troubled world today let us join in prayer with Mary, Help of Christians, for the Chinese and for all Christians and believers persecuted for their faith.

Silence

The Father uttered 

only one Word

Which was His Son

This Word speaks always 

in eternal silence

And in silence is to be heard 

by the soul.

St. John of the Cross

Today, the feast of St. John of the Cross, was our monthly Day of Adoration at the little chapel near Emmanuel Hermitage.  


We start the Day with an early celebration of the Eucharist which is followed and prolonged by 12 hours of silent prayer before a Host consecrated during mass. People come in and kneel or sit for a few minutes in the silence; most remain for one hour, some for two hours, or even more.  

This prayer time in shared silence is powerful. 

Jesus shows and hides himself to us in the silence of the Host, in a presence so humble and simple that only faith can see Him. 

Each person present in prayerful silence is a witness to their faith, a witness to the Mystery that hosts us in that sacred space, and also a witness to the mystery that we each one are. 

Shared silence is as powerful as it is fragile; it is born when and where there is not only a silent atmosphere but also when everyone present embraces it by giving and receiving simultaneously the gift of prayerful silence in a form of shared intimacy. 

It would take only one person to break the silence of all others present as we see it often happen in our parishes. This is how fragile it is.

Silence has many dimensions and levels, so many that in a way the whole spiritual journey can be considered a journey into deeper and deeper silence.

The first and most obvious level of silence, and the easiest to reach even though not easy, is external silence, which is the absence of words, of music, and of every sound and noise that can be avoided. 

External silence is an avenue that can put us directly in touch with our inner world, which has its own noises and conversations. To bring those inner voices to quiet is the work of a further and much more challenging level of silence that is, actually, as challenging as rewarding because this takes us to the realm of contemplation. 

In the silence of plans, insights, expectations,  concerns, reflections, judgments, guilts, anxieties  ...  we can let go of everything and dwell in Faith, in a wordless, obscure, and paradoxical knowledge that, when we remove the layers that make up our lives, we come face to Face with Mystery in us and around us. And there we know that we don't know, and it's OK.

This encounter with Silence in the sanctuary of our inner silence may seem useless, a waste of life and time (here is again 'judgment' destroying silence) but in Faith we know that it is the most productive idleness if we allow it to be, if we allow Mystery, the Source of everything, to be and pray in us.

We don't create the Silence that dwells in us, but we can create the doorway to it with our inner silence, by letting go of our personal noise. This is the role of some forms of prayer like centering prayer, which is an exercise on befriending silence and quiet in ourselves by not responding to the noises knocking at the door of our inner sanctuary. Centering prayer is not contemplation, but it is a doorway to contemplation. 

Consecrate yourself to the silence of 

Pure Love.

                                    M. Maria Celeste - Dialog IX      

Divine Feeder

Deer have been frequent visitors during our mild Fall season this year, especially at dusk.


A favorite spot for them is the little shrine of Our Lady of Grace on the north side of the Hermitage where, during summer, they feast with the flowers at her feet.

Now that winter has settled spreading a white garment over the landscape, deer have been around again leaving lots of prints in the snow.

In recent days they haven't come anymore to this spot, probably because they have very little to feast on here and they keep moving on searching for food in other places.


A week ago a friend explained to me that deer need salt, and brought a block of salt to be strategically placed by the shrive.









Apparently deer can smell the salt so this blue brick is meant to lure them into the area where a feeder is also waiting for them with nourishing and favorite seeds - all courtesy of the same good friend.

More than a week later the deer have not yet discovered or touched the salt or the feeder.

And yet I've seen deer prints even inside the carport of the Hermitage where they have taken good care of the few seeds fallen from the bird feeder.

This is puzzling because the prints show that they have been as close as three feet from their own feeder without noticing or using it.

This little feeder story makes me reflect on the Divine Feeder that God has set for us as the nourishment for our Journey home.

At the Incarnation, Emmanuel [God-with-us] is put to lie on a manger [feeder] in Bethlehem [House of Bread].

How, when do we come to the Divine manger to feed our deepest hunger?

How do we pray for our daily Bread during this season of Advent when we prepare anew for the Birth of Christ in us and in the world?

The Memorial of Christ death and resurrection, the Eucharist, is made from a piece of ordinary bread.

Christ is always waiting for us as the Bread of Life on the table of the Eucharist.

We can eat Divine Life in holy communion every time we attend mass.

We can feed ourselves through prayer from the Bread gathered in the tabernacle of our churches or exposed for prayer and adoration.

Jesus is there, day and night, waiting for me, for each one of us, calling me by name, expecting and waiting to give His very Self and Life to me.

How come that I am oblivious to the Divine Feeder?

Where do I go to satisfy my hunger? What do I feed myself with?

Rule of Life as a Hermit

Fall season at Emmanuel Hermitage

Another "stand alone page" has been created under the title Rule of Life.

It can be accessed directly in the menu below the heading of this blog.


The post includes the complete text of the initial personal Rule of Life that served this Diocesan Hermit to step into the path of a contemplative solitary, and live it out for five years until first profession of canonical eremitical vows for the Diocese.

There are some comments on specific aspects of the Rule, and the page also touches on the identity as a Redemptoristine Hermitess.

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.

     

Eremitic Life: An Overview

A new "stand alone page" with this title is in the menu under the heading of this blog.

With the help of some pictures I'm publishing a little introduction to the Eremitic Life and the Diocesan Hermit Vocation, which I prepared some time ago as an attempt to present some general aspects of this lifestyle and its connection to a wider tradition.

Novena to Ven. M. Maria Celeste of the Most Holy Savior

O God, 

who bestowed on Mother Maria Celeste 

the grace of a most intimate communion

in the mystery of your beloved Son's 

death and resurrection, 

we beg you

to glorify your handmaid,

to grant us the request we make to you 

through her intercession,

and to teach us to cooperate, as she did,

in the fulfillment of 

your admirable Plan of Redemption.

Grant this

Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

"Glory be to the Father ..." (three times)

"Hail Mary" (once)

Alternate prayer:

O Most Holy Trinity,

I adore You from the depth of my nothingness

and I thank you 

for the gifts and privileges

bestowed on your servant Mother Maria Celeste.

I pray you

to will her glorification even here on earth

and for this, I beg you to grant me,

through her intercession,

that grace which I humbly desire

from your paternal mercy.

Grant this through Christ our Lord.

Amen

"Glory be to the Father ..." (three times)

"Hail Mary" (once)

United to all Redemptoristines throughout the world during these days of preparation for her feast on September 14th, let us pray through the intercession of our Mother Maria Celeste that we may receive a double portion of her spirit in order to become, like her, living portraits of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer in today's world.

The Assumption of Mary -Body and Soul- into Heaven

Coronation of Mary by Diego Velázquez: Spain 1599-1660

The Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven is a glorious feast of the triumph of the Plan of God for humanity.
Mary excels every other human being after her son Jesus the Christ. But her holiness is just the same as the holiness we are called to. It is the holiness of listening to and responding to God's invitation of Grace. It was not easy for her and it is not easy for us. But it is possible with God's grace because "All is possible with God".

Today we rejoice with Mary because in her humility she has become great with the greatness and the holiness of God. But above all we rejoice with her because she is totally one of us, and where she is not only we can be but we are called, urged to be.

I can think of all the Beatitudes of the Gospel welcoming her "home" today, and she herself joining in the praise of God who has done great things in her, Holy is his Name.


In this magnificent feast, with the background of the liturgical texts of Mary's triumph today God granted me the final confirmation of my vocation as a contemplative, as a pray-er and a Diocesan Hermit. My heart sings for joy and rejoices in the Peace of the Lord as well as in the goodness of the local Church community that God has called me to serve with my life of prayer. This is the Day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad.

With a grateful heart I delight especially in greeting Mary with my favorite hymn from the Liturgy of the Hours:

Mary the dawn, Christ the Perfect Day;
Mary the gate, Christ the Heavenly Way!
Mary the root, Christ the Mystic Vine;
Mary the grape, Christ the Sacred Wine!
Mary the wheat, Christ the Living Bread;
Mary the stem, Christ the Rose Blood-red!
Mary the font, Christ the Cleansing Flood;
Mary the cup, Christ the Saving Blood!
Mary the temple, Christ the temple's Lord;
Mary the shrine, Christ the God adored!
Mary the beacon, Christ the Haven's Rest;
Mary the mirror, Christ the Vision Blest!
Mary the mother, Christ the mother's Son
By all things blest while endless ages run. Amen.

Text: Anon., alt. by the Dominican Sisters of Summit, 1972

Ascension of the Lord

After the ordeal of the Passion and death of Jesus, the disciples experienced the incredible shock of a fullness of life they could touch, see, talk to and with. This was called the Resurrection, that is, the same Jesus alive and living yet not the same but rather evasive and transcendent.

The Ascension is a further step into the Mystery. Now Jesus is no longer seen or touched but the learning of the Easter days remains: Jesus, the Christ, is alive and present, near, intimate, he is The Lord.

This new step is somehow familiar territory to the apophatic contemplative who remains like Mary (the Mother of Jesus) and with her praying in the upper room, holding in faith the emptiness of the senses and the ignorance -maybe the overwhelming void- of the mind.

Mary of Nazareth, Mary Mother of Jesus, holds the womb in which new life is being gestated, in which the transition will be possible to a newly born interpretation, understanding, and evidence of God's action and presence.

The Church will be born in Pentecost from the contemplative womb of faith.

The Contemplative Church enters again today in the Cenacle of prayer for a new birth of the Church in this time of history. Let us be the contemplative Church gathered in prayer, together with Mary, the Mother of Jesus.