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Ave Maria

There is a day off coming in the middle of this week. The offices will close as we pause during Advent to celebrate Mary’s Immaculate Conception.

I cannot help but think of my own mother whenever there is a Marian feast. She was not immaculately conceived and the older I get, the more realized how complicated she really was. As dementia takes over and her body fails, I will travel 700 miles or so this week to say goodbye. It will be good to be alone in the car. It will be good to see my sisters. It will be good to hold her hand and thank her for doing the best she could.

Mary taught Jesus how to pray. My mother taught us that God was often subtle. Her daily ritual of “Good night. God bless” was as much of an overt prayer as she offered. Her “be careful,” every time you left the house was as much an admonition as a prayerful plea. She once told me she feared something would happen if she didn’t utter those words before we left the house – especially when we started driving.

Mary taught others to do whatever Jesus told them. My mother had a bit of a different take on that. She ruled by fear and you did whatever she told you or you incurred her wrath. I grew up in a physical household and it’s likely one of the reasons I hardly ever touched my children when disciplining them as toddlers.

Still, my mother was generous to a fault. She spent money she didn’t have on things we wanted but didn’t need. Year after year, she allowed her children to invite youth groups, sororities, fraternities, friends, and families to our house and our giant pool and enormous backyard.

You think more about your own parents when you are a parent and I imagine I will soften my own opinions when the phone call comes and mom is gone. The time since dad died has not been easy and is colored by the dynamics of a family that struggles to love each other and a little sister that makes everything messy.

Today, however, I am torn between the memories of the mother I had and the idealized version of the mother I wanted.

Life is complicated. Love is messy.

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The Visitation

My wife is amazing. Anyone who knows her knows this. I married up in every sense of the word (except height). When she was pregnant with each of our children, I saw her do things that would have us mere men falter: manage the safe release of more than twenty thousand high school students from an arena, facilitate meetings with adults who behave like children, work full time, cook, clean, and wrangle our own children all by herself while I am an ocean away.

Yes, she is amazing. Pregnant or not. Women are amazing. We men should know that, respect that, honor that, and always remember that.

Even with all of this amazing-ness, all of it pales in comparison to what we read about in today’s Gospel. In Luke, chapter one, Mary sets out in haste. Having just learned she will be the mother of her Lord, an unwed mother at that, she thinks not of herself, but of her cousin whom she has learned is now with child. She must go help. There is no choice. She must head out in haste.

Having been to the Holy Land and having made the journey Mary made (in an afternoon, in a van), I am drawn into that story. We celebrate the Annunciation in March, the Visitation in May, and the birth of Christ at Christmas. It fits nicely with our modern-day calendar, but let’s imagine for a moment that it actually lines up with history. Mary receives a visit from the angel, to which she gives hers fiat, her “yes” to God. Then, hearing that Elizabeth, a cousin presumably, is with child, she forgets her own needs and heads out – in haste! For the next sixty or so days, she hikes her way up and down hills, through the valley of villages, across very dry land, traversing rocks, heat, and discomfort as she goes – all so she can be of service to someone else. The short van ride we made in air conditioning took her two months – though my hunch is that she probably would have stopped to help anyone else she saw in need. Still, I haven’t done anything “in haste” in some time and that line reminds us of Mary’s single-mindedness. Elizabeth is first. May is second. It’s clear she was teaching Jesus from the get-go.

Once again, we turn to Ruth Mary Fox and her wonderful poem about this event. Let each of us commit to going “in haste” to someone in need this week. Let us bring Christ to others so they, too, may leap for joy.

Into the hillside country Mary went
Carrying Christ.
And all along the road the Christ she carried
Generously bestowed his grace on those she met.
But she had not meant to tell she carried Christ
She was content to hide his love for her.
But about her glowed such joy that into stony hearts
Love flowed
And even to the unborn John, Christ’s love was sent.

Christ, in the sacrament of love each day, dwells in my soul
A little space.
And then as I walk life’s crowded highways
Jostling men who seldom think of God
To these, I pray, that I may carry Christ
For it may be
Some may not know of him
Except through me.

Have a wonderful week.

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On Praying the Rosary

I miss my dad every night around 7:30 pm.

That’s when we stop everything and pray the Rosary. We started back in March when we hosted Nine Days of Prayer in the diocese. That led to a few nights of Evening Prayer during Holy Week, which lead to the Divine Mercy Novena between Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday. Then, I suggested we do another novena at the beginning of May but the Bishop had a better idea: why not the Rosary every single night in May.

And so here we are.

I log in around 7:15, just after the alarm on my phone goes off, ending whatever yard work or Zoom meeting, or dinner preparation that has been started. I finally got smart for the nightly Rosary and invited anyone who wished to lead to do so. I don’t mind leading, but it’s nice to have others give their voice to the prayers too.

It is a holy interruption in our household and it always makes me miss my father. You see, it was my father who introduced me to Mary.

Dad taught me how to pray and a big part of those prayers was the recitation of the Rosary. We prayed every day on the way to school. We prayed in the living room when my aunt and cousin were killed in house fire. We prayed around the bedside of my brother, Jim, as he lay dying of cancer.  We prayed for peace in times of trouble. We prayed in thanksgiving for good health. We prayed for each other. For others. For ourselves. We prayed. Together. Alone. We prayed.

Dad was introduced to the Rosary by his mother, who made them by hand. She gave dad his first beads – for his First Communion – and then made and gave each of the grandchildren one for that same celebration in each of their lives. I still have mine and am proud to say the beads are nicely worn.

As dad got older and spent his time working in the yard or cleaning the pool, he prayed the Rosary every day, just like he had every day of his life. But he found that the mysteries of the Rosary you and I know did not quite cut it anymore. So he made up his own. He contemplated five miracles. Five saints. Five parables. A few summers before he died, he asked me for new ideas I suggested he think of five priests who had influenced his life and, since so many relatives were women religious, five sisters. He liked that idea.

When dad was dying, we took turns sitting with him, praying the Rosary, asking for peace for him, freedom from pain, and a quick journey home to the Mother he had called “Holy” so many times in prayer.

When he was gone and mom was putting together an outfit for dad, she knew where to find his Rosary: in the pocket of the last pair of pants he had worn. We buried him with one set of beads. I have another, found in his office after the funeral.

So last night as I was sitting in my attic office, looking at my wife across the room, I thought of dad and I prayed. I thought of those drives in the early mornings to school and those times sitting around the living room. Eventually, my thoughts turned to the hours sitting by dad as his life slowed. I prayed and I missed my dad.

We gather each night during May – nearly 200 faithful souls – and we pray for each other, our parents, our children, graduates, those who have died, those who are sick, the unemployed, the underemployed, our leaders, our heroes, our families, ourselves. It is an holy interruption from the anxiety that surrounds us.

Perhaps this week you might dig out your Rosary and pray. Perhaps its in your pocket or purse or backpack. Perhaps it’s been a while since you let the beads slide through your fingers. If so, start slowly. One decade per day, starting today. It will make a difference in your week, I promise.

Think of those who taught you to pray and thank God for their example.

Then close your eyes and open your heart and join me.

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son….”

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Merry (early) Christmas

Merry Christmas a few days early.

This is the week when, for one day, all people, believers and nonbelievers alike, celebrate Christmas far more widely and with far greater joy than any other holiday or holy day.

Is this simply because Christmas is about motherhood, the birth of a child, innocence, and love? After all, these are at the heart of human life. I suppose it’s true that most of us would find it hard to identify with rising from the darkness of the tomb. Maybe that is why Christmas often has broader appeal than Easter. But perhaps there is more, a lot more. Perhaps we are more deeply in touch with an abstract idea we call the Incarnation than we realize. It could be that something deep inside us knows what “the Word made Flesh” really means.

From the moment God breathed God’s life-giving spirit over the darkness of the void and brought creation to life, God spoke to people. Through giants like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Deborah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, the psalmists, God gave us the words of life.

But, on Christmas day, the living Word of God came into the world. Mary gave birth to the Son of God. In this Jesus, God communicated most eloquently with God’s people. In this Jesus, God held children. God met with skeptics and dined with outcasts. In Jesus, God talked, listened. God wept over the dead Lazarus. God touched the leper. God put mud and spittle on the blind man’s eyes and healed him. Through Jesus, God entered the cycle of human life and unswervingly walked its path to the end.

Perhaps Christmas is so touching because God skipped nothing, not the frantic eruption of birth nor the numbing moment of death. God came to be one of us. One of us.

Perhaps the gift-giving of Christmas, the outpouring of love we lavish on one another, echoes the final message this God-Made-Man spoke through human flesh: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12).

Maybe this feast opens the door to some inner cell of our hearts where we imprison the Word that tells us that now we must be the arms of God surrounding the little ones; that we must be God’s voice to speak and God’s ears to listen; that we must weep God’s tears; that we must be God’s healing hands; that we must be Jesus in our times and in our culture. the power of this truth escapes and, at least for a few moments, warms up the coldness of our world.

It is indeed up to the twenty-first century Christians to give birth to Jesus in their own time, their own culture, their own families. This is the heart of faith and life. Each of us is an innkeeper. It is up to us to find room for Jesus.

Deep within us, we know it. We feel it and so we celebrate.

May that wonder and joy of that first Christmas be yours today and always.

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Immaculate Mary

On Sunday the Holy Father placed a wreath at the statue of Our Lady at the Piazza di Spagna in Rome. Placing the wreath is a tradition dating back to Pius XII and the statue has been in place since 1857.

I was there once for this wreath-laying adventure. The streets were so jammed that I climbed onto a windowsill of a nearby building to take a picture. I was much, much lighter than and when those around me saw what I was doing, they all handed me their cameras whilst supporting my legs. I have a really great photo of St. John Paul II looking up and pointing to me in the window. My guess is he was thinking, “Look, Zacchaeus is here.”

This morning’s event is important not for the tradition it upholds, but for the message Pope Francis delivered. The Pope thanked our Immaculate Mother for reminding us that, because of Jesus’ love “we are no longer slaves to sin, but free, free to love, free to love one another, to help one another as brothers and sisters, despite our differences”.

Aside from the above, my other favorite lines are here:

O Mary Immaculate,
we gather around you once again.
The more we move forward in life
the more our gratitude to God increases
for giving as a Mother to us who are sinners,
you, the Immaculate Conception.

And so you remind us that being sinners and being corrupt
is not the same thing: it’s very different.
It is one thing to fall, but then, repenting,
to get up again with the help of God’s mercy.

Your crystal-clear purity calls us back to sincerity,
transparency, simplicity.
How much we need to be liberated
from corruption of heart, which is the greatest danger!

This week, let us dedicate ourselves to our Mother. May she intercede for us, plead for us, and continue to love us unconditionally, like any good mother would do.

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Mary in Luke

Since we celebrate the feast of St. Luke this week and since October is often one of those months (like May) where there is a strong focus on Our Lady, I thought I might combine the two.

Luke gives the fullest account of Mary both as the mother of Jesus and a symbol of humanity. She is a real mother and completely human. She is a Jewish girl who grows to womanhood in the company of a son who is as much a mystery to her as a child can be. Yet she is a woman of extraordinary faith, which is what sets her apart and makes her a model for the rest of us.

Although Luke does not give us a glorified and unrealistic portrait of Mary, neither does he give us an undoctored photograph. What we read in the first three chapters of his gospel, therefore, is not so much a historical account as a theological account. He is speaking not only about individuals but also about exemplary individuals. He is not so much describing particular events as much as he is portraying the universal meaning of those events.

We need to see Mary not just as a person, but also as an example for us all. She is a particular woman, but she is also a model of faith for all women and men. And the events which Luke describes are not simply events in one woman’s life; they portray the eternal meaning of every life of faith.

A few of my favorite Mary stories in Luke:

1:28-29

Rejoice because it is always good news when the Lord speaks to us. Since we’re never sure who is speaking, the angel goes on…

1:30

God is calling her to the way of faith, which is not a way of fear. When the Lord is present, there is no need to fear. When the Lord calls, the only need is to trust. The woman is not to doubt God’s ‘favor’ – in Greek charis or grace. So then this is an experience of grace.

Each of us has a calling. The call comes personally and individually. It speaks to where we are and to what we are capable of. And yet, God doesn’t call the equipped. He equips the called.

1:35-37

Through Mary, Luke is opening up a new realm of possibility for us. He is saying to his readers that the way of faith is the way of unheard-of possibilities. The power of the Spirit is such that even the impossible is possible. Yet it does not happen to everyone. It does not happen automatically. It happens only to those who put their whole trust in the Lord.

1:42-45

Visitation – When Mary receives this word of the Lord, therefore, the woman does not turn in upon herself. Rather she goes out toward others.

1:46-49

In Mary’s hymn of praise, Luke sums us the combined wisdom of the Old Testament and the New Testament alike. Some call it the most succinct and perfect summary of biblical spirituality. The moral development of Israel leads up to this, and the spiritual growth of the Church takes off from this.

But this way of the Lord, this total surrender to the Spirit is a way of suffering. Jesus knew this and he lived it to the utmost. Here at the beginning of Luke’s gospel, the evangelist speaks the same word to every disciple by having it spoken to Mary, the perfect disciple.

8:19-21

Now she waits. Except for one further glimpse of Mary, we don’t see her again until Acts. She does not understand the meaning of this son of hers. Yet she never doubts. She has given over control. She makes no claims on reality or God or others.

For the next 18 years, Mary’s life is uneventful. She waited for the hour to come. She did not force it. She trusted that what God wanted to happen would happen. She needed only to be faithful, for she knew that God is faithful.

Discipleship is often like that. We do everything we think the Lord is calling us to do, but nothing happens. We pray, we read Scripture, but we do not feel any holier or smarter.

Luke’s reminder to all disciples, spoken through his silence about Mary, is this: Waiting in the silence is sometimes exactly what God is asking of us. God needs to do God’s work, but in the end, the work is God’s. God will bring it to fruition, not us.

‘Jesus growing into manhood…’ – while we wait, the Spirit moves and works.

Finally, the time arrives. When Jesus is about 30, he is baptized by John in the Jordan, and he receives the anointing by the Spirit which launches him into his public ministry.

Sometimes Jesus even draws large crowds. Luke’s last mention of Mary happens here.

In Matthew and Mark’s gospel, Jesus contrasts his family with the hearers of the word. In Luke’s interpretation, however, Jesus affirms that his mother and brothers are disciples, that is, they hear God’s word and practice it.

Of all these disciples in the early Church, Mary is the first and foremost. For 30 years she has said her yes to the word of the Lord, long before the others even heard it.

She is also foremost among the disciples because she has endured everything that any disciple could be called by God to endure for the sake of the kingdom. Day after day she said yes to her Lord, even though she did not know where she was being led. She was led to the meaningless of her son’s crucifixion, the absurdity of seeing him murdered by the very people she respected. Yet her faith did not falter and so, three days later, she witnessed the resurrection as well.

Mary has seen it all, from before the beginning until after the end. She is the unique witness to the whole life of Christ in the world, from before its conception in her until its transformation and continuation in the Church. She is the ultimate disciple, giving birth not only to Christ but also to the Church by being at the center of the earliest community.

Mary, Our Queen and Our Mother, Pray for us.

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Our Lady of the Rosary

These thoughts were published a few years ago, but the sentiment is still true today. 

My father was the one who introduced me to Mary. Every day on the way to school, we would pray the Rosary. It is a tradition I came to cherish and have sought to maintain as a parent. Even though the children now take a bus to school, the daily prayers are a practice I try to maintain – in part as a nod to my father and in part because of the power prayer has to focus me on the things that matter most.

But praying can be a challenge. It can be hard to hear above the din. The drive to the office is only a few minutes and I get busy at home or work. The noise around me – or in my own head – distract.

A few years ago, after Maureen was diagnosed with Colon Cancer, we were at a meeting for diocesan leaders that was taking place as part of the National Catholic Youth Conference, which Maureen organizes. In a moment of unscripted sharing, she told those in attendance about her diagnosis and impending surgery.

All of a sudden a woman in the middle of the room interrupted her. “Take it to Our Lady,” she called out and immediately invited all of us to pray the Hail Mary together for Maureen – and each other.

It was a powerful moment. It was a powerful experience. Even today, though the cancer is gone and Maureen’s at full power, it gives me chills. I can still hear that clarion call, “Take it to Our Lady” echoing as though they are instructions for the rest of my life.

This week, I will focus more on prayer. I will go back to the ritual my father taught me and try to stand still before moving forward.

This week, I will take it all – the pain, the ignorance, the cynicism, the joy, the work, the play, the family, the driving, the shopping, and the conversations – all of it – to Our Lady.

And, like my father, I know I will find peace.