Hear And Keep

Those who hear God's Word and who do it are blessed.  Persons who accept what they are called to do in each and every moment are blessed.  We are reminded of these truths in today's Gospel, where we hear that 

It happened that as Jesus was speaking, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said, "Blessed the womb that bore You and the breasts that fed You!"  But He replied, "More blessed still are those who hear The Word of God and keep it!"*  

As Saint Augustine has noted, Our Blessed Mother Mary is blessed moreso because she heard The Word of God and kept it, rather than just because she carried Jesus in Her womb.  Our Blessed Mother Mary assented to the will of God that she would conceive through the power of the Holy Spirit, and bear the Son whom she would name Jesus.  In response to the angel Gabriel informing her that this would come to pass, she declared to the angel Gabriel, "Let it happen to me as you have said."**  Our Blessed Mother Mary heard The Word she was to bear, and welcomed Him into her womb, and, more deeply, into her heart.  She was so blessed because she heard the will of God and acquiesced to it.  

In how she lived her life while she walked on this earth, Our Blessed Mother Mary gave us a hint of the message she would come back to give in her apparitions to Saint Jacinta, Saint Francisco, and Servant of God Lucia.  When she appeared to these peasant children in Fatima, Portugal in 1917, she told them that we are called to pray much and make sacrifices, since many souls go to Hell since they have no one to pray for them.  Later Jesus told Lucia that the sacrifices demanded of each of us are the performance of the duties of our state in life.  

In our lives, we are constantly called to do our duties.  As the author of "The Cloud Of Unknowing" notes, we will be called to account for every fraction of time that has been given to us.  We are always being called to attend to the duty of the present moment, as the Jesuit priest Jean-Pierre de Caussade described.  In every little moment, we can make little sacrifices of love of our neighbor, as Saint Therese of Lisieux demonstrated.  

In each little instant of time, the duty of the present moment calls us to perform little acts of love for our neighbor.  Where each one of us happens to be, there we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves, just as Jesus taught us to do.***  Wherever each of us finds ourselves, there we are to love others and thus do the will of God, just as the situation calls us to do.  

For Our Blessed Mother Mary, in the moment when the angel Gabriel announced to her that she would bear the Son whom she would name Jesus, her duty was to give her consent to bear the Son of God in her womb.  In accepting the duty presented to her, she accepted the Son of God not only into her womb, but also into her heart.  She heard The Word proclaimed to her, that she would bear Jesus, and she accepted This Word and carried The Word out.  She was so blessed since she heard The Word of God and submitted to it.  

Those who obey the will of God are blessed.  People who hear The Word of God, and who do what The Word calls them to do, are blessed.  If you wish to be blessed, do what the state of your life calls you to do.  Amen.  

* Luke 11:27-28 
** Luke 1:31-38 
*** Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14 

Seek Her Intercession

October 13, 1917.  The town of Fatima.  Portugal.  The night before, it had rained torrentially; on October 13, the people there and the ground there were thoroughly soaked.  Seventy thousand people gathered in Fatima on October 13, 1917; they had heard that three little children had seen apparitions of a Lady there that year.  The Lady had promised that a miracle would take place when she appeared there on October 13.  

There, in Fatima, exactly one hundred years ago on this date, before 70,000 people, the sun danced back and forth in the sky, defying cosmic laws.  It fell toward the earth.  When the sun returned to its usual location and remained in its place, all the people there were completely dry, even though just a short time earlier, they had been drenched.  The ground too was dry, even though it had just been saturated.  

On October 13, the Lady identified herself as the Lady of the Rosary.  The three little children were Servant of God Lucia, Saint Jacinta and Saint Francisco.  

In her apparitions to them at Fatima, Our Blessed Mother Mary told them to pray the rosary everyday for world peace and for an end to the first world war.  She explained to them that Jesus wished to establish devotion to her Immaculate Heart.  

As we show devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Our Blessed Mother Mary, we welcome Jesus into our hearts, and thus are returning home to Our Heavenly Father.  When we pray seeking the intercession of Our Blessed Mother Mary, we are asking her to assist us in returning home to God.  She supports us in doing as Jesus told us to do because she loves her Son, because she loves God.  

Our Blessed Mother Mary, who is so kind and sweet and loving, who cares for us so tenderly, helps us to welcome Jesus into our hearts.  Just as she told the servants at the wedding feast in Cana, so she tells us about Jesus, "Do whatever He tells you."*  

If we beg Our Blessed Mother Mary to intercede with her Son Jesus for us, we request what we need to be able to do what Jesus commands us to do.  When we ask Our Blessed Mother Mary to intercede with her Son Jesus for us, we ask her to beseech Him that we may have all we need to do God's will.  Through her Spouse, The Holy Spirit, we are empowered to do the will of God.  Through her assistance, we are given the grace we need to do the will of Our Heavenly Father.  

Let us pour out our hearts to Our Blessed Mother Mary.  Let us implore her to come to our aid.  She loves us so tenderly and sweetly--indeed her will is love, since her will is the will of God, and we know that God is love**--that she will surely love us with great love.  

Knowing that Our Blessed Mother Mary loves us so much, we come to realize that we are tremendously aided in coming home to God, who is love, when we seek her intercession.  If we wish to return home to God, we have a powerful intercessor in Our Blessed Mother Mary to help us draw back to God.  Let us entrust ourselves to the loving care of Our Blessed Mother Mary, consecrate ourselves to her, and, greatly supported by her, thus return home to God.  Amen.  

* John 2:5 
** 1 John 4:8,16 

Blessed With Faith

To have faith is to be blessed.  You are blessed when you have the gift of faith from God, for you are not relying on yourself.  With faith, you become more than yourself.  If you are moved by faith, you trust in God.  As faith lives in you, God breathes in you and speaks through you.  If you have faith, although God has already tremendously blessed you, God gives still more by using your faith to reshape the world.  

Today as we celebrate the Solemnity of the Assumption of The Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven, we are reminded how God rewards those with faith.  In today's Gospel reading, we hear of such faith and how those with faith are so blessed.  There we hear that 

Mary set out
and traveled to the hill country in haste
to a town of Judah,
where she entered the house of Zechariah
and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting,
the infant leaped in her womb,
and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit,
cried out in a loud voice and said,
"Blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears,
the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed are you who believed
that what was spoken to you by the Lord
would be fulfilled."

And Mary said:

"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
and has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children forever."

Mary remained with her about three months
and then returned to her home.*  

Saint Elizabeth said to Our Blessed Mother Mary, "Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled."  Our Blessed Mother Mary believed what the angel Gabriel had told her, that through the power of the Holy Spirit she would conceive and bear The Son who would save His people from their sins.**  She had faith that the promise made to her would be fulfilled.  Our Blessed Mother Mary is so blessed because God gave her a gift of great faith.  

And so Saint Elizabeth said to Our Blessed Mother Mary, "Blessed are you among women."  And so Catholics praying the rosary proclaim to Our Blessed Mother, "Blessed are you among women."  

Catholics pray the rosary because Our Blessed Mother is such an effective intercessor.  We have such an effective advocate in Our Blessed Mother because she prays for us with great faith.  Faith is power.  Through faith, we are empowered to do the will of God.  With faith, we can confidently pray, believing that our petitions according to the will of God will be granted.  Our Blessed Mother desired the will of God, so filled with faith she was.  Our Blessed Mother comes so efficiently to our aid, interceding with her Son Jesus because of her abounding faith.  

We can be considerably comforted to remember the power of faith.  When events in the world appear to go awry, and when circumstances in our personal lives seem amiss, through our faith we can call upon great power in our prayer when we might mistakenly believe we are lost.  When Our Blessed Mother Mary appeared to Saint Francisco, Saint Jacinta and Servant of God Lucia at Fatima in Portugal in 1917, she told them to pray the rosary for world peace.  We can achieve peace through prayer.  Faith brings peace in hearts by leading to dependence on God.  Through the power of faith, prayer can bring peace in the world.  

If we recognize that God has given us a gift by giving us faith, it follows that we are to accept this gift and use it well.  In gratitude to God, we can offer this faith to Him through our prayer.  In response to our prayer, God transforms the world.  When we accept the invitation from God to let Him transform the world through us, we are blessed that He uses us as vessels of change.  Like Our Blessed Mother Mary, if we welcome the gift of faith that God seeks to give us, we too can be instruments of the change God seeks to work in the world.  Let us welcome the gift of faith from God, and so allow the world to be transformed.  Amen.  

* Luke 1:39-56 
** Luke 1:31-35