Our Lady’s message this month is rich in spiritual teaching. She calls us to “the good.” St. Paul famously wrote: “Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” (Rom 12:21) Our Lady’s teaching is the same. In a culture that is often oppressively dark, negative, sinful, and violent, she exhorts us to “Be carriers of peace and goodness in this world.” This is a call to live in a radically countercultural way that must begin in our deepest interior recesses, at the spiritual headwaters of our thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting. It is not something we can “fake” or project at a superficial level without authenticity, but must be rooted in the heart where peace and goodness find their source in the Source who is God.

 

Our Lady’s message continues: “Pray that God may give you the strength so that hope and pride may always reign in your heart and life because you are God’s children and carriers of His hope to this world that is without joy in the heart, and is without a future, because it does not have its heart open to God who is your salvation.” This one long sentence holds the substance of Our Lady’s teaching, with several important points clearly linked together. First of all, we must have “strength” from God in order for “hope and pride” to always reign in our heart and life. At this point, we may be stopped in our tracks by a perplexing question: How can Our Lady be praising or inviting us to an attitude of “pride”? Isn’t pride the downfall of the human race and the sin that caused Satan to “fall like lightning” from heaven?

 

We must read these words in context. Our Lady says we should pray for strength “so that hope and pride may always reign in your heart and life because you are God’s children and carriers of His hope to this world….” Our “pride” is not the false pride of the egoic lower self, based on grandiose illusions rooted in fear and insecurity. Our pride is the high-minded confidence we should rightfully have as children of God who carry the divine Hope and action into the world through God’s own Indwelling Presence within us—the Holy Spirit animating our souls. St. Paul wrote: “May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe.” (Eph 1:18)

 

Our Lady realizes that our call to the “good” as “carriers of goodness” in the world will be futile, meaningless and impossible if we are mired in a false humility that keeps us convinced of our own worthlessness. This is not true humility at all, but a satanic ruse by which even devout Christians are often diverted from the truth of their royal status as Spirit-filled children of God, and prevented from being lights to the world. Such false humility is the devil’s own “bushel basket” with which we cover and conceal our light, preventing it from shining brightly in the world of darkness. Our Lady calls us to recognize and appreciate our human value, dignity, and self-worth as children of the God who is Love. (This has no connection to some forms of worldly “self-esteem building” that are based on nothing but the vanity of the False Self system or the satanic ego.)

 

Closely connected to the “good” and being “carriers of peace and goodness in this world” is the presence of “joy in the heart.” Our Lady says that this world “is without joy in the heart, and without a future, because it does not have its heart open to God who is your salvation.” Without awareness of the Divine Indwelling presence of God at the center of the human person, we have no ability to feel true joy—only the unending experience of craving safety and security, affection and esteem, power and control, and the temporary “fixes” for these addictive desires that our culture provides, always ending in disappointment and failure to fill the “God-shaped hole” in our heart. Oblivious to what truly satisfies—God alone—we have created a self-destructive world of superficiality that, as Our Lady says, “is without a future.” It is going nowhere, like the dead branches that—disconnected from the life-giving Vine—are good for nothing but to be thrown into the fire. (Mt 3:10, Jn 15:6) But for us, it must be different and we are meant to lead the way out of darkness by blazing a path of light toward higher spiritual consciousness for our brothers and sisters.

 

Some time ago, Our Lady gave a teaching to the Prayer Group in Medjugorje regarding pride, humility, and joy, and the notes taken by Jelena (one of the two locutionists) are illuminating for this month’s message: “Regarding sin, it suffices to give it serious consideration, and soon move ahead and correct the sin. Your humility must be proud or high-minded. Your pride should be humble. If you have received a gift from God, you must be proud, but do not say that it is yours. Say rather that it is God’s.” Our Lady taught:

 

“Dear children, you cannot understand my messages or anything else because you torment yourselves too much. You choke the joy that springs in you. One should not dwell on the analysis of sins too long. Two minutes are enough. One should unburden oneself of this before prayer in order to be able to enter into prayer. You think that you are humble when you say to yourselves, ‘Oh, how wicked I am!’ No, no—it is better to be haughty or proud, for at least one rejoices, than to be depressed, that is, to have no joy at all. Yes, I was humble, but I was never without joy. You are not humble, although you often think that you are. If you reasoned like this: ‘Well, I have made a good progress today. I have overcome this, I have overcome that, joy would be born in you, and the next day you could overcome something else. But you say, ‘Oh, what a fault I have made!’ and you are always hard on yourselves for not having succeeded in anything. This chokes you to such a degree that you cannot amend anything. Therefore, say to yourselves: ‘Today I have rejoiced a bit more.’ Tomorrow you will find more joy in doing something else. But if you keep repeating, ‘I am a failure, I am a failure,’ you will never achieve anything. That is why you have to be proud to some extent. But that is not haughtiness; only you think it is haughtiness. You must be humble in your pride and proud in your humbleness.” This is the “both/and” teaching of Our Strong and Joyful Mother……Mary—Humble and Assumed into Heaven!

 

 

August Musings . . . . . . Visiting Mary’s House in Ephesus, Turkey—Site of Her last years on Earth & her Glorious Assumption into Heaven

 

“Come on-a my house, my house, I’m-a gonna give you candy. Come on-a my house, my house, I’m-a gonna give you an apple and a plum and an apricot or two, ah! Come on-a my house, my house, come on. Come on-a my house, my house-a come on. Come on-a my house, my house, I’m gonna give you figs and dates and grapes and a cake, ah!... Come on-a my house, my house, I’m gonna give you a Christmas tree. Come on-a my house, my house, I’m gonna give you marriage ring and a pomegranate, too, ah!  Come on-a my house, my house-a, come on, Come on-a my house, my house-a come on… Come on-a my house, my house, I’m gonna give you an Easter egg. Come on-a my house, my house, I’m-a gonna give you everything, everything, everything.”

                 – William Saroyan, 1939, sung by Rosemary Clooney (1951) & Bette Midler (2003)

 

I recently had the extraordinary privilege of visiting “Meryem Ana,” the house of Our Blessed Mother Mary near Ephesus, Turkey. Spending a couple of afternoon hours in Mary’s house was a grace and blessing I will never forget.  The House of Mary was discovered in 1891 by two Lazarist priests guided by the writings of the German mystic, Anne-Catherine Emmerich. Her book, The Life of the Virgin Mary, described in detail mystical visions of the house of Ephesus where Our Lady was taken by the Apostle John to live out the final years of her life in relative safety from persecution, while he wrote in exile on the nearby Greek island of Patmos. The site discovered by Fr. Poulin and Fr. Jung on Nightingale Hill matched Anne-Catherine Emmerich’s description precisely: “Mary’s house was the only one built of stone. A little way behind it was the summit of a rocky hill from which one could see over the trees and hills to Ephesus and the sea with its many islands….The district is lonely and unfrequented.” On the day I visited, Mary’s House was filled with a steady stream of her children from all over the world, and from various religious traditions.

 

Pre-Christian Ephesus was famous for one of the seven wonders of the world—the Temple of Artemis (a many-breasted goddess of fertility)—and had been one of the greatest cities of the East. Christian Ephesus was likewise famous for its early-church community that facilitated the evangelization of people all over Asia through the New Testament writings that were drafted there: 1 Corinthians, Philippians, Galatians, the Gospel of John and Letters of St. John. It was one of the most important of the Seven Churches of the Book of Revelation and the recipient of Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. It was significant for the presence of Mary, St. John the Apostle/Evangelist (the Beloved Disciple), St. Paul, St. Mary Magdalen, St. Timothy and other luminaries of the early Church. The famous third ecumenical Council of Ephesus was held there in 431, where the controversial doctrine of “Mary Theotokos” was proclaimed: that the Virgin Mary’s title was indeed “Mother of God.”  The tomb of St. John the Evangelist was reportedly found beneath St. John’s Basilica in Ephesus—the only one of the twelve apostles who died a natural death in old age rather than being martyred.

 

The Lazirist priests of 1891 were led to the ruins of Mary’s house (which was by then a small chapel) by terrible thirst on their expedition. Some local women working tobacco fields pointed them toward a spring of water in a clump of trees across a field called “Panaya Kapulu,” meaning “Gate of the Virgin.” Hidden in the trees near this pure spring was Our Lady’s dwelling place. Long before the priests arrived, the local Christians had for generations venerated this site and held pilgrimage festivals on August 15 to celebrate the Dormition and Assumption of Mary into heaven. In addition to this site, there are 33 other churches in the area dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

 

The attitude of the Popes has been positive since the discovery of Meryem Ana, with Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI actually visiting the shrine and offering Mass there. Pope Benedict XVI, upon his visit there, said, “From here in Ephesus, city blessed by the presence of the Holy Mother, loved and venerated also by Muslims, we raise a special prayer for peace among nations.” In 1896, Pope Leo XIII stripped “Mary’s Tomb” in Jerusalem of all its indulgences, which have now been transferred to the House in Ephesus. There is an outdoor platform near the house with an altar where Mass is celebrated every Sunday. In addition, the Franciscans who care for the shrine offer Mass and pray Lauds and Vespers daily.

 

Meryem Ana (Mother Mary’s House) is a holy site of pilgrimage and prayer for Muslims, too.  When exiting Mary’s Chamber to the right of the main chapel, there is a display of extracts from the Koran that speak of Mary, whose name is mentioned 34 times in the sacred scripture of Islam. The Koran says that she is the only woman not touched by Satan; that she was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus because of a word pronounced by God through the angel Gabriel (Jibral); and that she died and was lifted to a high place with her son Jesus.  Many Muslims come to pray at Mary’s House, bringing their prayer rugs and spending hours in meditation. (I saw some, and our guide said that in general, the Muslim pilgrims show more prayerful devotion to Our Lady than the Christian visitors do.  Sad but probably true.) An association of volunteer Christians and Muslims runs the small gift shop near the outdoor springs, which is the sole support for upkeep of Meryem Ana, along with a box for offerings inside the chapel. Many have claimed cures and healings from drinking the water of the springs at Mary’s House. Upon exiting, there is a small bank with water faucets where one may drink, wash, and fill bottles with this pure spring water that flows beneath the house. Alongside the springs is a rock wall filled with hundreds of thousands of small white paper prayer petitions that pilgrims leave, reminding one of the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem. There is also an outdoor candelarium where one can light candles.

 

My experience at Mary’s House was similar to that in other great Marian shrines of the world, such as Medjugorje, Lourdes, and Fatima: a great feeling of peace and serenity, and the sense of a loving, gentle, compassionate presence enveloping all who walk the shady path to the small, simple, humble stone house, and enter its doors. The curved archways and high windows letting in light create an atmosphere of openness and unconditional acceptance, mercy, hospitality, motherly love and care, and the invitation to receive all the things made possible by Mary’s “yes” —“a Christmas tree, an Easter egg, and everything, everything, everything.” 

 

(To see photos of Mary’s House, please scroll down!)