here’s a picture of the Angel Gabriel holding Baby Jesus while the Blessed Mother tries to rip off Satan’s head
Tuesday of 7th week in Ordinary Time (5/22/18)
St. James asks the question that is on everyone’s mind today: Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? We live in an exceptionally violent culture, full of wars and conflicts. As Christians, we are tasked with seeing even the most difficult of circumstances within the framework of a greater, divine plan. We say with the Psalmist: Throw your cares on the Lord, and he will support you. But then tragedy and misfortune find us, and we experience the violent storm and the tempest.
Christ, who is Truth itself, answered the question for us, speaking to his disciples in the Gospel reading. It is when we collectively and decisively turn away from the will of God - then our world deteriorates. Only when we, both as individuals and as a people, choose the path of love, the path of humility which Christ exemplifies for us, can we truly begin to see that evil, wars, divisions - even death - are never the final word. One must have faith like a child’s and put oneself last of all, serving all.
St. James reminds us what childlike servitude looks like: submit yourselves to God, humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. The world and a consumerist culture tell us otherwise, but a lover of the world is at enmity with God. St. James is echoing the words of Our Savior: If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.
For we know that God gives grace to the humble. To a disciple of Christ, despair and death are battles already won. One must pray to remember that the path to the victory gained for us by Christ is paved with humility.
Maria, Mater Ecclesiae
The Church celebrates the new memorial of Mary, Mother of the Church, for the very first time today. At Mass for the new memorial, the gospel reading from John recalls the moment at the foot of the cross when Jesus, as his final gesture of love for us before His death, gave us His own mother as our own. “Behold your mother,” Christ tells the disciple whom He loved. We believe this beloved disciple to be John - but it is a powerful exercise to imagine oneself as the beloved disciple, as if Christ were speaking to us Himself. Imagine standing next to Mary, looking at Jesus, bloodied, torn, battered and nailed to the cross, and what was on His mind? Looking down at you and saying: “Behold, your mother.”
This was the situation in which John found himself. It is easy to say that it affected him deeply, if we go by what he did next: “from that hour the disciple took her into his home.” If we are a beloved disciple of Jesus, it is important for us to ask ourselves if we have done the same. Did Jesus’ words affect me like they did John? Have I taken Mary into my home? If Christ commanded her to care for me, then surely she does - do I afford her the love befitting such a mother?
Mary has constantly led me to her Son. Like the patient mother she is, she waits for me. Then, when I turn to her, she takes me by the hand and walks me back to this scene on Calvary, and stands with me as we watch our Savior demonstrate the true meaning of love.