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Medjugorje
Message: May 25, 2013 Dear children! Today I call you to be strong and resolute in
faith and prayer, until your prayers are so strong so as to open the Heart of
my beloved Son Jesus. Pray, little children, pray without ceasing until your
heart opens to God’s love. I am with you and I intercede for all of you and I
pray for your conversion. Thank you for having responded to my call. |
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Published
by the Marian Center of San Antonio / A Catholic Evangelization Ministry Our Lady’s monthly message was given on the vigil of Trinity Sunday,
when we celebrate the Most Holy Trinity, and her words reflect the great “Law
of Three” upon which the whole universe
is based: Active Force (God
the Father); Passive Force (God the Son); Neutralizing or Reconciling Force (God the Holy Spirit). While this lofty metaphysics is far beyond our ken, we can
identify its three basic strains within Our Lady’s teaching on prayer this month. She begins by calling forth from us the Active or Affirming Force:
“Today I call you to be strong and resolute in faith and prayer, until your prayers are so strong so as to open the Heart of my beloved Son Jesus.” Our Lady is not
cultivating hothouse plants or shrinking violets here, but men and women
filled with a burning zeal for God, aflame with the Holy Spirit,
living a life of action. As St. Paul said, “God did not give us a spirit of
cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.” (2
Tim. 1:7) We are greatly mistaken if we
view Our Lady as only a passive and retiring figure, for she is so much more—a
powerhouse of unyielding faith and mighty prayer. She indicates that we,
too, have the power—by the sheer strength and
forcefulness of our genuine, heartfelt prayer—to “open
the Heart of Jesus.” Our Lord Himself can be affected
by our prayer! This recalls his Gospel parable of the persistent neighbor who
knocks on the door at midnight, asking to borrow bread for a guest. Jesus
says, “I tell
you, if he does not get up to give him the loaves because of their
friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his
persistence. And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door
will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who
seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Lk 11:8-10) The First Trinitarian Force in action! Again, we find an example of this in the Syrophoenician
woman who persisted in asking Jesus to heal her daughter though she was not
one of the “children of Israel” but of “the dogs under the table who eat the
children’s crumbs.” And her strong, forceful faith held sway over him. (Mk 8:26-29) We have been created in the Trinitarian image of God, so that we
are wired to manifest the Active/Affirming Force of being “strong and
resolute in faith and prayer”—to “ask, seek, and knock” by our own initiative—pursuing God in supplication for all our
needs and especially for the gift of Himself: the Divine Presence
indwelling our inmost being. Among other ways, we manifest this Active Force
in private intercessory prayer, in fervent charismatic prayer of praise and
healing, in vigorous liturgical participation, in evangelistic activity or
service, and in daily work and struggle with our sinful habits. Fasting is a powerful adjunct to this “strong and resolute faith” of the Affirming Force of the Trinity. Next, Our Lady calls forth from us the Passive Force: “Pray,
little children, pray without ceasing until your
heart opens to God’s love.” In a letter encouraging the
Thessalonians to show respect, love, peace, support, patience, forgiveness,
hope, purity, and gratitude, St. Paul wrote, “Pray without ceasing” (1
Thess 5:17). He knew
that these Christian virtues he mentions are impossible for us if we are
living without receptive prayer—that is, at our usual False Self or egoic (“fallen”) level of consciousness which is
inherently self-centered and narcissistic. To live from the True Self
or Christ-consciousness within requires that our heart opens, in receptivity, to God’s love. To receive the Divine Indwelling Presence, we must manifest the Passive
Force of total openness and receptivity to God with self-emptying “kenosis,” such as Mary demonstrated at the Annunciation and Calvary, and
Jesus exhibited in the Incarnation as a helpless infant and later, an
executed criminal. This Passive (or Denying) Force is complementary to the Active (Affirming) Force of bold, resolute, strong
affirmation of faith, and equally important and necessary in our
spiritual life, for there is much that we can never generate from
within ourselves due to Original Sin (the human condition) but for which we
must rely upon help from above. In manifesting the Passive Force we imitate the Second Person of
the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ, who said, “The words that I speak to you I do
not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works….The
world must know that I love the Father and that I do just as the Father has
commanded me (Jn 14:10, 31)…Thy will, not mine, be done.” (Lk 22:42) Passive Force or receptivity “denies” the
False Self or ego of “my will”; it is an attitude of submission,
servitude, humility, listening, reverence, obedience, self-emptying and
respect rather than a stance of self-assertion, arrogance or
independence. In prayer, we can manifest it through meditative recitation of
Our Lady’s rosary, consent to God’s Presence and action
within, contemplative
listening for God’s will in the silence
of centering, and encountering God in Lectio Divina, the “sacred reading” of Scripture. Finally, Our Lady reveals the Third, Reconciling Force, beyond
both Active and Passive, which makes our transformation complete: “I
am with you and I intercede for all of you and I pray for your conversion.” Here is the “help from on high” that must be called into play for
anything to work at any level, from the molecular to the galactic, at all
stages of our great universe. The Active Force and the Passive Force together
generate the Third, Neutralizing or Reconciling Force—the
Spirit of Love and Truth—that must be present
for conversion (change,
growth, evolution, development, expansion) to proceed. Before his crucifixion, Jesus told his disciples, “I will ask the Father, and he will
give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth.…The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will
send in my name—will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told
you.” (Jn 14:16,26) Why
isn’t it enough to have only two
forces—Active/Affirming and Passive/ Denying? Why must there be a third
force, making this Duality into a “Trinity”? Jesus tells his grief-stricken apostles: “But I tell you the truth, it is
better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to
you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes he will convict
the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation…the Spirit of
truth will guide you to all truth.” (Jn 15:7-8, 13) The fullness of truth
requires the third, reconciling, neutralizing force to complete the picture
given by the dualistic (yet complementary) polarities of “Active/Affirming”
and “Passive/ Denying.” This metaphysical principle
applies to every aspect of creation. We intuit its reality when we
say, with St. Thomas Aquinas, “the
truth is in the middle” between two opposing,
dualistic sides of any issue. And all the mystics have realized the holistic
vision of truth beyond dualities, reconciled by the “third force” of Spirit.
As Catholic Christians our trinitarian faith must
always lead us beyond the simplistic, polarized dualism of “either-or”s that form the limit of worldly vision, to this loving fullness of truth that is the “Law of Three.” Our Lady’s message ends with her trinitarian
assurance that, beyond what we are called to do “actively” in prayer and receive “passively” in prayer, there is always the third vital
reality that—quite apart from our activity and passivity--Heaven helps us: “I am with you and I
intercede for all of you and I pray for your conversion.” June
Musings: Month of Corpus Christi, the Body and
Blood of Christ June
2: Corpus Christi—Reflecting on the
Gift of the Holy Eucharist Christian worship is
not only a commemoration of past events nor even a specific, inner mystical
experience; rather, it is essentially an encounter with the Risen Lord
who lives in the dimension of God beyond time and space, and yet becomes
really present amidst the community, speaks to us in the Sacred Scriptures,
and breaks the bread of eternal life for us. It is through these signs that we
relive what the disciples experienced, that is, the event of seeing Jesus
and at the same time not recognizing him; of touching his body, a real body
and yet free from earthly bonds. – Pope
Benedict XVI Understanding the
Eucharist as the internalization of God’s love leads to the centrality
of the Eucharist as the basis of catholic life. The truly catholic
personality is one centered around the mystery of
the Eucharist. In receiving the Eucharist each person receives the whole
Christ—head and members—so that the entire body is present in each
member. In this way each person who partakes of the Eucharist is made into an
ecclesial person, and all persons are internal to the very being
of one another. The Eucharist, therefore, signifies that each member
is not external to the other members but rather internally related to the
other members of the body of Christ. Our relationship to Christ is our
relationship to one another. If we say yes to the embrace of the
crucified Christ, then we must be willing to offer that embrace to our
neighbor…whoever he or she might be, for the person we embrace has
already been embraced by Christ….But this eucharistic embrace as an act of
whole-making means letting go and receiving the other into
oneself. It requires death to the old self that refuses
to embrace another and openness to the other as part of
oneself….If the life of Jesus sets the pattern of whole-making…and if
this pattern permeates the mass of creation …then we would have to say that “catholic”
appears wherever there is movement toward overcoming differences and making
wholes. That is, one does not have to be baptized in the Catholic Church
to be a whole-maker….Jesus’ whole-making is self-surrender for a greater
good, and anyone who makes whole by self-surrender for a greater good
is following Jesus, whether or not they are conscious of doing so. –
Sr. Ilia Delio,
OSF At the last ritual
meal which Jesus shared with his friends he threw himself into it with such
passion that he became it. The symbols of bread and wine, common fruits of
the earth and staples of the daily local meals, occasioned both nourishment
and celebration….As he performed the simple ritual that identified his own
people and culture, the bread and table wine became all he felt and all
that he was. What more can we say to those we love than “I give you my
body and all it means about who I am for you”? In this transmission of self,
in a ritual made mystically real by the wholeheartedness of its focused
intensity, the local becomes universal. The event bounded by a
particular moment moves into an eternal present. A sacrament.
After that first last supper the successors of the apostles continued the
transmission. The agape meal was born. In a reciprocal act of love and sharing
of self the communal meal became a replay in real time of that
transmission of self which transfigures time and space. Somehow or other
it later became a source of pride and division, a clinging to a protected
identity, rather than a sharing of self. Jesus gave the bread to Judas. Later we
were told that we had to be in a state of grace to receive it. The intimate
meal became a hierarchical event. The medicine became a placebo for
those who thought they were already healthy. Meditation restores the meaning
of this meal that celebrates what nourishes us. The presence in the food
on the altar is the same as the food of the presence in our heart. The
inner and the outer become one. We are healed because the presence is
real. The meal is the key to the meaning of the Cross. –
Fr. Lawrence Freeman, OSB Whatever else it was
not, it was at least human, this final feast. One hardly knows whether to
laugh or to weep. They were no better and no worse than they had always been, the twelve feasters. They were themselves to the
end. And if there is a kind of black comedy about them, the way the Gospels
paint the scene, there is a kind of battered courage about them, too….God
makes the saints out of fools and sinners because there is nothing much else
to make them out of. God makes our Messiah out of a fiercely gentle
man who spills himself out, his very flesh and blood, as though it is only a
loaf of bread and a cup of sweet red wine that he is spilling. Frail,
fallible, foolish as he knows the disciples to be, Jesus feeds them with
himself. The bread is his flesh, the wine his blood,
and they are all of them to eat and drink him down. They are to take his life
into themselves and come alive with it, to be his hands and feet in a
world where he no longer has hands and feet, to feed his lambs. In
eating the bread and drinking the wine, they are to remember him…not merely
in the sense of letting their minds drift back to him in the dim past but in
the sense of recalling him to the immediate present. In its fullest sense,
remembering is far more than a long backward glance…and the symbol of
bread and wine is far more than symbol.
– Frederick Buechner Getting
to Know Pope Francis . . . in his own words: On the Redemption
of Atheists by the Blood of Christ: [In Mark’s Gospel, the
disciples] complain, ‘If he is not one of us, he cannot do good.
If he is not of our party, he cannot do good.’ The
disciples were a little intolerant, closed off by the idea
of possessing the truth, convinced that ‘those who do not have the truth, cannot do good.’ This was wrong. Jesus
broadens the horizon. The root of this possibility of doing good—that
we all have—is in creation. The Lord created us in His image and
likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good
and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All
of us. ‘But Father, this is not a Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can. The Lord has redeemed all of
us—all of us—with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics.
Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone! We
must meet one another doing good. ‘But I
don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good:
we will meet one another there. – 5/22/13 Homily @Pontifex – Pope Francis on Twitter: We must learn from
Mary, and we must imitate her unconditional readiness to receive Christ in
her life. + +
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+ + June
14: Flag Day Can we wash the pain and
shame and stains from our American flag? May we wash away the stains of Racism….Sexism….Classism….Violence….Crime….Environmental
Destruction.…Blind Patriotism….Imperialism….Militarism…..Deception….Oppression….. Corporate Greed….. Materialism…..Consumerism…..Discrimination…..Economic Injustice …Political Polarization….Devaluing of Life…..Exploitation….Religious Bigotry….
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Mark Your Calendar!
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June 2 |
Corpus Christi Sunday: Feast of the Body and
Blood of Christ Eucharistic Procession from
San Fernando Cathedral to St. Francis di Paola Church: 1 pm (following noon
Mass) |
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7 |
The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus |
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8 |
The Immaculate Heart of Mary |
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12 |
Screening of “The Triumph”
full-length documentary film about Medjugorje;
5:30-6:30 pm; The Quarry Theatre, 255 E. Basse;
$20; online tix at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/6786471519/eac2
; view the trailer at: www.TheTriumph.org
; for more information, contact aguyer07@gmail.com |
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13 |
St. Anthony of Padua, patron saint of San
Antonio |
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16 |
Father’s Day |
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- 19 |
Oblate Summer Institute: “Turning to the Mystics for Guidance in
Contemplative Prayer and Daily Life” with James Finley, PhD, Mirabai Starr, Fr. Ron Rolheiser,
OMI & more presenters; Oblate School of Theology, Whitley Theological
Center, 285 Oblate; $80 registration + meals/lodging if desired; call (210)
341-1366 |
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29 |
PEACE
MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; Rosary at 11:30 am |
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Prayer for Our Shepherds Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior and High Priest, through the
loving hands of your holy Mother Mary, please guide and protect all priests,
bishops, cardinals and Pope Francis, your Vicar on earth. Help them to live
out the dignity of their priestly vocation with all its challenges,
difficulties, temptations, and personal sacrifices, always united to You with
eyes fixed on the cross of
self-emptying love which alone can sustain them. Help them to repair, rebuild and renew Your Church with
courage and humility, united to your Sacred Heart of all-inclusive love, with
a penitential soul and docility to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit for
any changes ordained by Your Divine Will. Give them strength and joy to labor
in Your vineyard for the salvation of souls. In Jesus’ name, amen.
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Copyright, Marian Center of San Antonio. All
rights reserved. No part of this newsletter may be reproduced without
permission. |