In late March of last year, as the pandemic restrictions were just beginning, I recall various people making comments about finding the good in the midst of such challenging circumstances.  Many people commented on how those restrictions made possible more time together as a family.  Those hectic schedules that often defined the lives of families prior to the pandemic were no longer an issue, and families found themselves together in ways they had not before.  Families commented on how they appreciated having the opportunity to have meals together and to spend time doing activities together with the free time that the pandemic had afforded them.

At the same time, our parish families really suffered as we were forced to suspend public masses and indeed all of our gatherings as a family.  We had to settle for virtual community.  It was something, but it was far from sufficient as our sense of being a part of a parish family was strained.  In an attempt to foster some sense of parish family unity, we have used the pages of our Cathedral Weekly to focus on the Sacraments, in parallel with our families involved in our Family of Faith family catechesis program.

With much of our society returning to “normal”, it is my hope that our experiences, particularly with these two types of families, have left an impression upon us.  For our physical families, many of the demanding schedules are returning.  And while there may be some sense of relief in going back to some of those fulfilling experiences, it is my prayer that the time of togetherness during the pandemic has instilled a desire to make time as a family more a part of the new normal moving forward.  Going back to “normal” where our lives are so hectic that we barely meet one another in the family is not out goal, but to create a new experience of family life that values time together in the midst of the lives we live.

As a parish family, it is my hope that our being deprived of being together has instilled a desire in us to place a higher priority on making our parish family an important part of our lives.  Going back to “normal” parish family life as it existed before the pandemic is not our goal here.  As positive as some of our experiences may have been, I think we can all admit that there was a lack of family unity in our parishes.  This is something with which virtually every parish has experienced in recent decades.  We want to move forward with a greater sense of belonging to this family, not just individuals who drop in and drop out, but who gather together joyfully as brothers and sisters united who long to be together as a family of love.

While we use the title Family of Faith for our family catechesis program, I hope we can see it in a broader sense as a phrase that describes our larger parish family.  We are a family of faith, we are a family of hope, and we are a family of love.  As we celebrate the perfect family of love in the Holy Trinity this Sunday, let us pray that our own families and our parish family will move forward renewed in our desire for greater unity in love with and for one another.

Father Alford     

The devil hates marriage. The devil in fact hates all of us because we are made in the image and likeness of God. However, the devil especially hates marriage because marriage is a particularly beautiful reflection of God’s own love for his people, and marriage is the setting for God to create new life in his image. St. Peter tells us, “Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in faith” (1 Peter 5:8-9). When the devil first tempted Eve, his goal was to turn Adam and Eve against each other, which also turned them against God. There is a spiritual battle going on between good and evil, and this battle will continue until the Lord comes again. We need to play our part in this battle by praying for the spiritual protection of our families, and by praying for our young people whom God is calling to the great vocation of marriage. 

There is a prayer for families by Pope Francis that the Knights of Columbus have promoted over the past several years. I hope we can all say this prayer at least one time this week. Going forward, may we all remember to keep families and engaged couples in our prayers. Many of our good people have been called by God to pray for seminarians and priests. Thanks to their prayers, we have been given many vocations to the priesthood, especially in this diocese. However, I believe that God is also calling our prayer warriors to pray for couples who are getting married. Having and forming a family is one of the most concrete ways to leave a spiritual legacy in the world, but it is no small task. 

Pope Saint John Paul II laid the foundation during his pontificate for both a renewal in our seminary formation and in our understanding of the sacrament of marriage. For many years, he taught the world about the theology of the body: how our bodies are an expression of our personhood and of God’s plan for our lives. We are a pilgrim Church on earth, meaning that we have a long way to go before we are perfect. Our seminaries and marriage preparation programs will never be perfect. However, we know that God provides for all of our needs. Let us commit ourselves to praying for our married couples and to supporting them in any way we can. I thank God today for the gift of all of our parish families who are great witnesses to love and generosity through the grace of God. 

Prayer to the Holy Family

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, in you we contemplate the splendor of true love; to you we turn with trust. Holy Family of Nazareth, grant that our families too may be places of communion and prayer, authentic schools of the Gospel and small domestic churches. Holy Family of Nazareth, may families never again experience violence, rejection and division; may all who have been hurt or scandalized find ready comfort and healing. Holy Family of Nazareth, make us once more mindful of the sacredness and inviolability of the family, and its beauty in God’s plan. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, graciously hear our prayer. Amen. 

Prayer composed by Pope Francis and offered on the feast of the Holy Family, Dec. 29, 2013.

May 31^st

These past months, we have watched the saints through the lens of the sacraments, gradually getting to know these exemplars of faith, these icons of living a Christ-ian life, with an eye to what they teach us about the 7 sacraments.  However, for the summer, we will no longer have an overarching theme for each month (until September when we will make it to the third pillar of the Catechism: our life in Christ).  It took me a bit of brainstorming to find some aspect of our faith not covered in the Catechism, but after some thinking on it I would like to take these summer months to examine the lives of the saints each week interwoven with scripture.  Of course, scripture comes up all the time in the Catechism, and we’ll find ourselves especially digging into praying with scripture in year 4 (so after next year), but it does not examine particular passages of scripture, which is what I want to do during these essays over the summer, but, as always, taking the saints as our guides in that endeavor!

For this first week, we remain with our Mother Mary.  The feast of the visitation happens each year on May 31^st, as we conclude the Marian month, and our scripture passage then is an obvious one:

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah,and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the child leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” 

[Luke 1:39-45]

Much of what we might learn from this passage begins with the lovely detail Luke mentions of John’s leaping within Elizabeth’s womb.  From many centuries before, we find the story of Jacob and Esau’s squirming within their mother Rebekah told with the same words.  Bringing her own pregnancy into her conversation with God, the Old Testament matriarch heard these alarming words: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you, shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.” [Genesis 25:23] How different is the cavorting of John!  When Jacob reached maturity, he would make off with Esau’s birthright and blessing, whereas John would boldly, and humbly, proclaim, “He must increase, but I must decrease” [John 3:30].  

Yet if John’s reverence and delight at the coming of Christ offer us an inspiration for our own approaching before the Lord, perhaps another Old Testament character sheds further light on the scene.  We now fast-forward several more centuries and find ourselves watching David as he finally brings the Ark of the Covenant, the throne and promise of God’s presence, into his capital city, Jerusalem.  He asks, standing in the same hill country of Judea outside of Jerusalem, “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?”[2 Samuel 6:9], words that would be echoed by Elizabeth’s “what is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” [Luke 1:43].  “And David”, like John, “danced before the Lord with all his might”, but more than that, “David was belted with a linen ephod^” [2 Samuel 6:14].  David, robed like a priest, dances as his Lord comes to him; John, the son of a priest, does the same.   

But there is more. (When it comes to the Bible, there is always more!)  Elizabeth praises Mary “blessed are you among women”, as we do in every Hail Mary, and these words too come from the heritage of Israel.  Judith is praised in like manor after saving the Israelites from the Assyrian attacker, Holofernes – “O daughter, you are blessed by the Most High God above all women on earth” [Judith 13:18] as was Jael, even further back in Israelite lore, when she assassinated the Canaanite general, Sisera – “Most blessed of women be Jael.” [Judges 5:24]  Now, I can’t leave us standing by Judith holding Holofernes head and Jael showing the dead body of Sisera to the beleaguered Israelites!  We see here, in even stronger words than before, Mary’s role in which she untwists the broken history of Israel.  Just as the leaping of John now shows delight and humility (rather than the deception of Jacob), and just as his celebration is without ulterior motive (unlike David’s brining the Ark into his city), so the high praises of Mary, come not from her conniving in order to save the nation, but her willingness to allow God to fight the true enemies of Israel with His own invasion.  

– Fr. Dominic Rankin reads the Bible every day.  And every day the Holy Spirit takes him down an unexpected road that always carries him one step closer to God.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated.” (1 Cor 13:4)  These words from St. Paul are words we often associate with weddings.  I would say that the vast majority of couples for whom I have witnessed their marriage vows have chosen this reading for the Second Reading of their wedding liturgy.  After all, at the heart of marriage is love, and St. Paul’s words are indeed a beautiful description of this gift of love.

However, I never miss the opportunity to invite the couples to listen more deeply to the type of love that St. Paul is describing.  He is not describing a feeling, which can sometime be how our world looks at love.  And in fact, when a couple no longer “feels” love for the other, they question whether it is worth staying in the marriage.  The love of which St. Paul speaks is the same love that Jesus Himself speaks to us, which we heard in the Gospel two Sundays ago: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (Jn 15:13)  This love (in Greek agape) is a self-sacrificing love for the good of the other.  It is a love that sets aside personal interests and feelings in service of the one who is the object of the action of that love.  

Listen to the words that describe this type of giving love, that it is: “patient, kind, not jealous, not pompous, not inflated, not rude, does not seek its own interests, is not quick tempered, does not brood over injury, does not rejoice over wrongdoings.”  To live this type of love is HARD – in marriage, in family life, in Holy Orders, in everything!  But is it impossible?  No, because the Lord never commands anything that is impossible.  But it only becomes possible when His love is within us through the gift of sanctifying grace.  After all, as St. John tells us: “God is love.” (1 Jn 4:16)  The Lord makes it possible to live this type of love through the Sacrament of Matrimony, which He gave to the Church so that couples could persevere through “sickness and health, in good times and in bad” and so realize the promise that St. Paul mentions at the conclusion of his treatment on love, that “love never fails.” (1 Cor 13:8)  All of the sacraments, in fact, impart this love to aid us in the fulfillment of our duties as Christians.  This agape love, this self-sacrificing love cannot fail because God cannot fail.  If there is a failure, it is never because God’s love has failed, but that we have not let God’s love work in us and through us.

As we celebrate Pentecost Sunday, we are reminded of how powerful God’s love in the gifts of the Holy Spirit can be.  The same Holy Spirit that was able to do so many remarkable things throughout the Acts of the Apostles, and throughout the life of the Church, is available to each of us.  These gifts enable us to live the Christian agape love in any and all of the circumstances of our lives through the sacraments which the Lord gave to His Church to ensure that this love could be lived.  Let us all make that earnest plea: “Come, Holy Spirit” today, asking that our hearts will be more open to letting God’s love work in us and through us in ways that can transform marriages, families, relationships, our parish, the diocese, the Church, and the world!

Father Alford     

For the past several weeks, we have been looking into the great beauty of the sacrament of Matrimony and the many graces that Jesus gives to married couples through this sacrament. However, human sin is still very much a part of our everyday life, and all relationships are affected by sin. This has negative effects on marriages. You may have heard the word “annulment” used in the conversation about Catholics and divorce. My intention with this column is to briefly explain the distinction between a divorce and an annulment and hopefully dispel a few misconceptions. 

It is true that that Catholic Church does not allow for divorce, and this is for a very simple reason: Jesus condemned divorce by his teachings. He said, “I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Matthew 5:32). Moses allowed for divorce in his teachings, but the words of Jesus explain why this is no longer the case: “Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (Matthew 19:8). In the same conversation, Jesus said, “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate” (Matthew 19:6). God is the one who joins a couple together in a sacramental marriage, and human beings have no authority to separate what he has joined. 

A declaration of nullity is not the same thing as a divorce. A declaration of nullity declares that a marriage never took place to begin with. This declaration can be granted for several reasons. A common reason is that the marriage did not take place in the Church. (Read last week’s article for why Catholics must get married in the Church.) Another reason why a Catholic could seek a declaration of nullity from the Church is that one of the spouses on the wedding day was not capable of entering into marriage, or simply lied at the statement of the vows. At the wedding, both the bride and groom promise to be faithful in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, etc. Tragically, some people later find out that their (apparent) spouse had actually lied on the wedding day, because they were having an affair at the time of the marriage. Sometimes, a man or woman is not psychologically capable of entering into a marriage, but this is not discovered until later on. There are priests, psychologists, and laypeople who are trained to help investigate situations like these to determine whether a failed marriage ever took place to begin with. 

There are some situations when Catholics can and should seek a physical separation or even a legal divorce from their spouse. In a case where one of the spouses is abusive, it is best for the physical and spiritual well-being of the spouses that they live separately for a time or permanently. However, a legal divorce does not mean that the sacrament of matrimony never took place. It is possible that even a sacramental marriage can fall apart because of the presence of sin and the choices that people make. Even if a Catholic seeks a legal divorce, the Church still considers that person to be married sacramentally. This is not in itself a reason to stop coming to Church or stop receiving Holy Communion. However, a Catholic is not free to enter another marriage unless a declaration of nullity is granted by the diocese. 

Talking about divorce and annulments is not easy. We do not live in a perfect world, and some marriage situations are admittedly complicated. However, God gives many graces to married couples, and it is worth the time and effort to make sure that the marriages among our parishioners are valid and receiving all the graces that God desires to give them.

Feast Day: 7 weeks after Easter, this year, Sunday, May 23^rd 

Last week we stood with Mary at Jesus’ Ascension, and realized that her motherhood is actually a prefigurement for all of our being/becoming disciples of Christ.  And so we continued talking about the vocation of marriage, and the call within/beyond that to also being a disciple and saint.  The idea seems pretty simple: when you’re in your first few decades of life, figure out if you’re supposed to be a priest (for the guys), religious, or married (or, if worse comes to worse, just find yourself in one of them one day…) and then spend the rest of life figuring out the particular way that you are going to be a saint/disciple within that (pray before work each morning?, volunteer time at the breadline?, go to daily Mass?, read the bible or catechism?)

The image that comes to mind is going to get an ice-cream: first you pick the main flavor (chocolate?, vanilla?, strawberry?), and then you have to choose the mix-ins (peanut-butter?, fudge sauce?, brownies-bits?)  Oh, and the rest of life – kids and work and oil changes and watching movies – is the hamburger you already ate for dinner: it takes up most of the calories of the meal, but then, when we have the chance, we go above and beyond all that natural stuff and go out to Coldstone.

But Mary challenges all of us beyond this cherry-on-top idea of vocation and discipleship.  We already saw that her motherhood and her discipleship were much the same thing: insofar as she was a good mother, she was a good disciple, and insofar as we are good disciples, we will fulfil the vocational-identity we have been given (as husband and father, or as wife and mother), so the two things are far more interwoven than even the best-blended concrete-mixer.  But Our Lady draws us deeper in another way as well, and it is one we discover at Pentecost.  Luke continues his narrative:

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

– Acts 2:1-4

We know Mary is there because she is part of the “all together” that we saw last at the Ascension, but Luke does not mention it.  This allows our imaginations to fill in the details, but it also prompts us to ask how she remains in her vocation as wife and mother?  Mary’s Son has departed for heaven.  Her husband already passed years before.  Now what?  Where do you put the sprinkles if the ice-cream is melted?!

And there in the upper room we realize that our Christian identity goes far deeper than merely the unique commitment+particulars that make up our vocation+discipleship.  Mary is no less a wife and mother here as when she was in the stable at Bethlehem, but now her feminine vocation as wife and mother is shifted towards the Church, which is conceived with her continued cooperation and receptivity to the Father’s will, and is born as the Holy Spirit once more overshadows her, and all members of Christ’s Body.

This is the reality for every one of us too!  Vocation and discipleship are not just parts of our lives, they aren’t just the dessert to top off the meal, they are foundational to our way of being human.  We are either male and female, and so we are all called to be husbands/fathers or wives/mothers.  That is the way God created us from the beginning, and His love – to which our vocation and discipleship is merely a fitting response – is what draws us into life, and through our life, onto a particular path of making that love present in our own way.  Every action we do, every choice we make, every breath we take … all are opportunities to choose love, or not, and if we choose to truly love, then we are on the way of following our vocation, and of being faithful to the particular kind of fatherhood/motherhood that the Good Lord knows will bring us to eternal joy.

– Fr. Dominic Rankin likes to think he has a decent amount of energy and endurance.  He also thinks Ven. Fulton Sheen is right when he remarked: “A woman is capable of more sustained sacrifice than man. Man is more apt to be the hero in one great, passionate outburst of courage. But a woman is heroic through the years, months, and even seconds of daily life, the very repetition of her toils giving them the semblance of commonplace. Not only her days but her nights, not only her mind, but her body, share in the Calvary of Mothering. She, therefore, has a greater understanding of redemption, for she comes closer to death in bringing forth life.

Two weeks ago I mentioned that I will be celebrating my 10^th anniversary as a priest later this month.  Since I was ordained a deacon in 2010, I have kept a record of the various sacraments that I have celebrated.  Since this we are considering the Sacrament of Matrimony this month, I decided to look back at the list of weddings at which I have presided.  To date, I have witnessed the marriage vows of 34 couples (35 by the time I finish this weekend), not necessarily a huge amount for 11 years of ordained ministry, but not insignificant either.

As I looked over the names on the list, I thought of a question that was recently posed to me.  A brother priest asked what part of the wedding ceremony is most memorable.  For me, I am always moved when it comes time for the couple to exchange their vows with one another.  After declaring their intention to enter Matrimony, I say the following words to them:  “Since it is your intention to enter the covenant of Holy Matrimony join your right hands and declare your consent before God and His Church.”  As they join hands and look one another in the eyes, it is a beautiful moment to behold, and I count myself to be so privileged to be closer than anybody else in the church to see this special moment as the two prepare to enter into the one flesh union of Holy Matrimony.

Because they are often nervous, the couples that I have worked with rarely choose to memorize their vows.  They choose to repeat after me as they pronounce their vows to their future spouse.  Once again, it is a great privilege to be so close to the couple at this moment of great intimacy.  It has happened on many occasions that the voice of one or both crack as they are flooded with emotion, an emotion no doubt of great joy.  Then after the vows have been exchanged, the peace that floods their faces is a sight to behold.

When preparing couples for marriage, I like to remind them that this brief moment in the ceremony, not much longer than a minute or two, is what marriage is all about.  Everything else, from the dresses, to the flowers, to the reception, to the guests, and the countless other details that go into the day, pale in comparison to what happens in this sacred moment of the exchange of vows.  At that moment, they stand before one another and before God, asking the Lord for the grace to keep together the bond that is created.  And with God’s grace, it is indeed possible to do so, but the couple must never forget to keep Him at the center of their lives.  The couple is not alone in this, of course.  All of those who are privileged to witness this sacred moment are also reminded of the obligation that we all have to pray for married couples that they might remain rooted in the grace of the sacrament they have received so as to persevere until death do they part.

I therefore invite each of us to call to mind those we know who are married.  Bring them before the Lord and ask Him to bless and strengthen their union.  Whether they have been married 50 years, or less than one year, every couple can benefit from our prayers for them.  Let us also pray in a special way for those couples who are preparing for marriage, that amidst all of the details to attend to in planning their weddings, they will ever keep before their eyes the love of God who has drawn the two of them together, and who alone can guarantee that their marriages will be able to withstand the trials of life and so be a source of joy for the remainder of their lives.

Father Alford     

Although most Catholics are aware of this, I have recently encountered some people who were surprised to hear that Catholics must get married “in the Church.” By this phrase, I do not necessarily mean that Catholics must get married in a church building, but this should happen too. To get married “in the Church” means to get married according to the ritual of the Catholic Church in the presence of one of her ministers, usually a priest or deacon. If a Catholic gets married in a different way, such as at a courthouse, he or she is in fact not married at all according to the laws of the Church. 

So why do Catholics have to get married in the Church? There are several important reasons, although this has not always been the case. As I have said in previous columns, marriage was not invented by Christianity, but it was raised to the level of a sacrament by Jesus. In the time of the early Church, Christians probably did not have a distinct marriage ceremony from other people in their communities. At that time, most people would have taken marriage for granted, and the cultural understanding of marriage would have been that it was lifelong, faithful, and open to children, which is how our nature is built for marriage. However, at a certain point in history, the Church judged that there would be a great spiritual benefit for Catholics to get married in the presence of the Church’s official minister. The Catechism lists four of these reasons in paragraph 1631.

• Sacramental marriage is a liturgical act. It is therefore appropriate that it should be celebrated in the public liturgy of the Church;
• Marriage introduces one into an ecclesial order, and creates rights and duties in the Church between the spouses and towards their children;
• Since marriage is a state of life in the Church, certainty about it is necessary (hence the obligation to have witnesses);
• The public character of the consent protects the “I do” once given and helps the spouses remain faithful to it. 

A sacramental marriage is a union in Christ of the two spouses. With this in mind, it only makes sense to enter into this sacred covenant in the presence of the Church and in the house of God. Some couples would prefer to enter into marriage on an island somewhere as part of a vacation. While this might be fun, it does not reflect a good understanding of what marriage is. Marriage is certainly not just a vacation, and to place the beauty of a beach before the beauty of being in the presence of God is not a correct prioritization. 

There are exceptions to this rule. Catholics can ask for permission from their local bishop to get married outside of the presence of the Church’s minister. Bishops may give this permission for a good reason, such as when a Catholic is marrying a Jewish woman, and her family will not come to a Christian wedding ceremony. As long as there is not a danger of the Catholic losing his faith, a bishop could give permission for him to get married in the Jewish ceremony. While not a sacrament, this marriage is still a natural good and blessed by God. 

Marriage can get complicated and a little messy, as I’m sure we have all witnessed at some point in our lives. Christian marriage is no exception. If you have questions regarding the validity of a marriage, or if you would like help rectifying a complicated situation, contact your local parish or one of the priests at the Cathedral; we would be happy to help. Marriage is a beautiful gift from God, and it is worth the effort to ensure that our married couples are receiving all the graces they can from this great sacrament.

Feast Day: 40 days after Easter, this year, Sunday, May 16^th 

We are contemplating marriage this month, and having given two weeks to St. Joseph, it now seems the right time to turn to turn to his spouse, and Jesus’ mother, Mary.  But, we find ourselves at a particular place in the Church’s liturgical life: the last days leading from Easter to the day of Our Lord’s Ascension and Pentecost, when He fulfils His promise of sending the Holy Spirit upon the Church.  How does Mary fit into this?  And marriage?  

… as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. …Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away; and when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. (Acts 1:9-14)

I include this entire passage because this week I want to invite you to pray through this scene with Mary.  This is the very last time that Mary will be mentioned in Scripture (though St. Paul references Jesus’ birth in Galatians 4:4), but what last example does our Spiritual Mother offer us?  

She is with the apostles and disciples (that would be us!) – begging for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit – and Mary is the perfect person to show what it means to be open and available for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, because that was precisely the gift she received at the annunciation, 30-something years before.  

They are of “one accord” – of one mind, one heart, one mission, one hope; they are united, in communion, with the Lord – but wasn’t Mary the first one to be centered on Christ?  She held Him in her womb for 9 months, and in her heart every minute since, how much she can teach us about unity around, and union with, Jesus?!

They are praying – united in worship of God, and entrusting their lives to Him – and as all the scriptures come into clearer focus, and all the teachings and actions of Jesus begin to set their hearts afire, isn’t it proper that Mary, the one who had so long pondered the Lord’s working in her own life, is there to teach them the ways of trust and surrender?

They are joyful, indefatigable, hopeful, on fire – but Jesus just ascended! – wouldn’t most disciples be discouraged by their master’s disappearance?  Not these disciples, for Christ goes to prepare a place, and promises to remain with them, and once again Mary’s discipleship has preceded the Church’s.  She had already said goodbye to her son as He began His ministry, and then called a new family of disciples around Him, and then took up the cross … and each time she found herself even closer to Her savior and son.

And lastly, we are considering the Ascension, when Jesus takes our humanity with Him up to heaven.  What a glorious transformation, and promise of future transformation for us?!  Mary is the only saint to have been carried aloft to life with God in this complete and bodily sense.  There too, she follows closely after her Son, and shows us the path towards our own bodily resurrection.

In all these ways, Mary knows that discipleship and motherhood are related.  Both the disciple and the mother have to be open to life from on high … or else fail to bear fruit.  Both must be centered, captivated, consumed by love … lest their activities become scattered and meaningless.  Both need a deep, quiet, personal life of prayer … because without relationship the burdens of either life can crush.  Both must find joy in surrendering the life entrusted to them by God … for to grasp that gift is to lose it.  And, both must surrender their bodies to the vocation to which they are called … to give our spirits to God, but not our bodies, is to fail to receive the fullness of His gift for us. 

– Fr. Dominic Rankin prays the rosary every day.  One day stands above all the others as including a profound encounter with God in that devotion.  His spiritual director on the retreat before Theology I invited him to pray each decade imagining Mary, as a young girl, holding his hand and walking him through the mysteries she would live out in the years to come.  Many blessings were found that afternoon allowing her to show me her Son.