IX Mystery: At the Foot of the Cross of Her Son, Mary Becomes our Mother

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.  John 19:25-27

Solidarity despite the pain
There is nothing that makes you more aware of yourself, more self-conscious, than pain. Provoking pain is really one of the best ways to call yourself to attention, even if it is brought on by biting your own lip or digging a fingernail into a nailbed.

Jesus suffered in his body from exhaustion on his way to the cross, from the lack of food and sleep, from the feeling of asphyxiation caused by being nailed to a cross, from the loss of much blood caused by the scourging and the crown of thorns driven into his head, and from the nails that were hammered into his wrists and ankles.

Jesus suffered in his heart because he had been handed over to the high priests and the Romans by one of his own, one who ate, slept and accompanied him everywhere; he suffered because the rest of the disciples had abandoned him, he suffered because the ungrateful people, the same people who had benefited from his miracles and who had previously acclaimed him as ‘Hosanna, the Son of David!’, are now shouting, "Crucify Him!", putting pressure on Pilate to do their will.

He suffered in his soul because God His Father who during his life was so close to Him and to whom he often turned, with whom he communicated before the most important moments and miracles, this omnipresent Father was now distant or Jesus felt this way when he said, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34).

Even though he was suffering this triple forms of pain – in his body, heart, and soul – Jesus still thought more of others than of Himself. Pain absorbs us, makes us focus on ourselves, and we easily forget about others. Think about the times when we suffered a strong pain, like a toothache: it seems that everything and everyone disappears around us, only we exist, only we matter.

Jesus, despite his personal suffering, was able to empathize with his poor mother who, like the widow of Nain, was going to be left alone in the world. And even on the cross without much he could do, he entrusted her to his beloved disciple. He who had already given us everything, who had given himself, now gives us his beloved mother as an inheritance. We inherit so many things from Jesus, even his own mother.

Before Jesus, we were only creatures made in the image and likeness of God; with Jesus we are adopted by God as His children, and as Jesus entrusted his mother to the beloved disciple, to the extent that we too are disciples of Jesus, we are adopted by Mary his mother as her children as well.

The only son of his mother who was already a widow
As we contemplate Mary at the foot of her son's cross, we cannot fail to recall the episode of the widow of Nain who was about to bury her only son, being already a widow and thus alone in the world. This suffering was also destined for Mary and prophesied by Simeon.

"In hunting, love and war, for one pleasure comes one hundred sorrows", or "Those whose objective is to love, will meet suffering on the way ". There is no love without suffering, and Mary's love for God's plan and the only begotten Son of God, also her son, brought her more pain than pleasure, more suffering than joy. And this ultimate suffering was the worst of all...

"I'm not going to bury my son, my son is going to bury me," said a father who hijacked a hospital operating room and forced the doctor to operate on his son because he did not have the money for the lifesaving surgery. There can be no greater psychological pain than to watch one’s child suffer and die, while unable to do anything...

In the natural order of events, first the parents die, then the children. Therefore, to watch a child die goes against the natural order of things disabling the lives of the parents, as they leave this world without being able to leave their inheritance to their child, be it genetic or material.

Mary, our mother in heaven
In Heaven, in Heaven, in Heaven, /One day I will see her, (Mary)/
O pure Virgin, thy tenderness /Comes to soothe my pain; /Day and night shall I sing/ Of the beauty of Mary!

Before the apparitions of Fatima, little Lucia who never missed the rosary with her family or in the church, had as her favourite Marian canticle what is cited above. "To heaven, there shall I see her " referring to Mary; little did she know that she was going to see her here on earth, because to see her in heaven she would still have to wait almost one hundred years.

With my mother I will be /in holy glory one day/Together with the Virgin Mary /in heaven I will triumph.
In heaven, in heaven, with my mother I will be /In heaven, in heaven, with my mother I will be.

This other canticle also shows the affection the Portuguese people have for Mary. The songs before and after the apparitions of Fatima demonstrate how much the Portuguese people love their heavenly Mother.

The second part of the Hail Mary prayer lacks this detail, this affirmation that she is our mother. It should be like this: Holy Mary mother of God and our mother, pray for us, your sinful children, now and at the hour of our death, Amen.

Like Abraham was to the people of Sodom and Moses to God's people, Mary was already our intercessor. Now with much more reason, she intercedes for us because in interceding for us, she is interceding for her children. As Abraham is our father in faith, Mary is our mother in faith; it was her faith, her "fiat", that brought salvation to all of us.

Mary, the feminine face of God
Some Jewish woman once asked another Jewish woman, that happened to be a university professor, who was in her opinion the most famous Jewish woman. And they did not like to hear from the lips of this Jewish professor by ethnicity and religion that, whether they liked it or not, Mary is certainly the most famous Jewess in the world, and I would even say of all humanity, because she is the mother of the incarnate Word, of the only begotten Son of God.

Within our vision of God which will always be somewhat anthropomorphic, if Jesus represents the masculine face of God, then Mary represents the feminine face of God. Our love for Mary reminds us of the times of old, when humanity, still in a primitive state of evolution, understood that God was a mother.

To do justice to those times, Pope John Paul I said that God, more than a Father, is a Mother. In Rembrandt's painting of the prodigal son, we see in fact that the father of the prodigal son has one feminine hand, the one over his son's heart, and the other a masculine hand.

Eve, our progenitor, Mary, our mother
Eve was not our mother, but our progenitor: she only gave birth to us, but she did not educate and raise us. The mother who educates, raises and feeds is called in Ethiopia "Injera enat", that is, the "bread mother" which often does not coincide with the one who gave birth to the child.

During my novitiate, I had as a colleague and student of theology, a young man who called his aunt his mother and his mother his aunt. The one who had given birth to him, he called his aunt, and the one who had raised him as a mother and who was biologically his aunt, he called his mother.

They were two sisters: one had my colleague by accident, but later met the man of her life, who did not accept her son, so her sister, who was not thinking of ever getting married, stayed with him so that the sister who gave birth would be free to start a new life with her fiance.

My colleague had no filial feelings toward his biological mother whom he called aunt, and yet it was she who had given birth to him; he had filial feelings only for the one who had raised him with much love, educated and guided him through life, dedicating herself exclusively to him, because she had never wanted to get married. And yet, at a biological level, she was only his aunt.

In human beings, biology counts for little. We call her Mother Teresa of Calcutta and I suppose no one would dare to deny her the title of mother. However, as we all know, she was never a mother biologically, although she behaved as such to many orphaned children and even adults, who saw in her the mother they never had.
 
The devotion of the Christian people, at least of the Catholics and the Orthodox, to Mary is part of the closeness we have with our own mother on earth. She is closer to us than our father, and often, we make her the intermediary between us and him, because we share more confidence with our mother than with our father.

She is always by our side and accompanies us more than our father. This experience makes the Christian people have a special devotion to Mary and project on her the same experience, the same kind of relationship that they have or had with their mother.

Mary is our mother because, like every mother, she is attentive to the needs of her children, as she was at the wedding in Cana, and she is still visiting us today in Guadalupe, Lourdes, and Fatima. Mary is our mother because she educates us with the gospel of her Son when she tells us, “Do whatever he tells you". Eve was our progenitor; Mary is our mother in heaven who accompanies us in our earthly life until we are united with her in Heaven.

The picture illustrating this text depicts St. Bernard, a great lover of Marian devotion, receiving the maternal milk of the Virgin Mary. An image that shocks our today’s mentality, but which was very much in line with the medieval Marian piety that exalted the breasts of our heavenly mother as that woman in Luke’s Gospel exalted them.

Also known as originated from Saint Bernard is the Marian prayer called the "Memorare" which exalts Mary as mother and, as such, an intercessor for us in Heaven:

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary,
that never was it known that  
anyone who fled to your protection,
implored your help, or sought your intercession,
was left unaided.

Inspired with this confidence,
I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother.
To you do I come.
Before you do I stand,
Sinful and sorrowful.
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
Despise not my petitions,
But in your mercy hear and answer me. Amen.

Conclusion: Eve is our progenitor, Mary is our Mother, for it is she who educates us, giving birth to the Word of God in human form, the role model of humanity: Jesus of Nazareth.

Fr Jorge Amaro, IMC

VIII Mystery: Mary, Disciple and Mother

While he was saying this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’ But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!’  Luke 11:27-28

While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, ‘Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.’ But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ And pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’  Matthew 12:46-50

These two texts should be read in context of each other. In the first, Mary's motherhood is exalted; in the second, it is not demeaned because the two texts say the same thing, that is, Mary's motherhood is a consequence of her discipleship. Mary, before being a mother, was a disciple because she heard the Word of God through Archangel Gabriel and put it into practice by accepting to be the mother of God's only begotten Son. Mary was a mother because she was a disciple and not a disciple because she was a mother.

In a certain sense, Mary is not a mother by any special privilege, but because she was a disciple. "You're blessed because you believed," says her cousin Elizabeth, which means that Mary would not have been blessed if she had not believed. In Mary, as in all of us, it was faith that saved her and the fulfillment of the Word that made her the mother of Jesus.

This same path is offered to all of us by Jesus, that of being intimate with him as he and his mother are with each other. All we have to do is to listen to the Word and put it into practice. For whoever loves me, says Jesus, that is, whoever is or wants to be intimate with me, keeps my commandments (John 14:21).

Listening to the Word without putting it into practice is like building a house or a life on sand (Matthew 7:21-27), and being at the mercy of the winds and tides, time, fashions and situations, being a person without his or her own personality but guided by external factors, like a reed shaken by the wind (Matthew 11:7). And at the end of an inconsequential life to run the risk of the Lord telling them from inside, when they knock at the door of eternity, that he does not know them (Luke 13:27).

Another way of proving that the motherhood, both in Mary and in all of us, is the consequence of discipleship, that is, of hearing the word and putting it into practice, is the fact that Jesus gave his mother into the hands of the beloved disciple, that is, of the preferred disciple, the one who best obeyed his word. This disciple, by being authentic, became also the son of His mother (John 19:25-27).

Texts and contexts
The text that exalts Mary's motherhood is unique in Luke, there is no parallel in either Matthew or Mark. If feminists had to choose a gospel, Luke would certainly be the one chosen, because it places the most attention on the feminine, the one that gives more prominence to women, both in the life of Jesus and in his parables and events.

Both of the above texts, Luke (11:27-28) and Matthew (12:46-50), are preceded by the episode of the soul cleansed of demons that, by not being filled with good works, was later assaulted by other worse demons, thus ending up in a state worse than before.

From this we can conclude that the episode of the soul and demons serves, both for Luke as well as Matthew, as an illustration and proof that in fact the Word of God is either put into practice or is good for nothing for those who only hear it, and the state of their souls may be worse after hearing the Word and not putting it into practice, like that of the rich young man.

Negative spirituality
‘When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but not finding any, it says, “I will return to my house from which I came.” When it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first.’  Luke 11:24-26

The text does not say so, but the woman's words were certainly inspired by the Holy Spirit. To do the woman justice, the text should say "a woman among the people filled with the Holy Spirit exclaimed..." The woman's exclamation took place after Jesus narrates what happens when a person succeeds in eradicating evil from his soul, but does not fill it with good works. The wisdom of Jesus touched the heart of this woman.

This text is unusual, but it alludes to a spirituality that I call negative, that is, of spending all our time and energy fighting evil without doing anything good. The people say, when death comes may it catch us confessed, that is, the important thing is not to have sinned. This spirituality is negative, because the focus is not on doing good, but on avoiding evil, on not sinning.

A person is not good because he avoids evil, but because he does good. Those who avoid evil overcome negativity and bring themselves up to zero; only those who do good take themselves above zero. The rich young man who went to Jesus was a worthy representative of the Old Testament, for since his childhood days he had observed the ten commandments; but when Jesus asked him for just one positive thing, he backed away; avoiding evil is much easier than getting out of one’s comfort zone and doing good.

The priest and the Levite passed by the badly injured man in front of them who had been robbed and beaten by thieves, and who needed help, because their concern was not to do good, but to avoid evil. The evil they were witnessing at that moment had not been caused by them, so it was perfectly moral to pass him by. A life based on avoiding evil leads to a lack of solidarity with one’s neighbour. Since the best defense is the attack, as the proverb says, the best way to fight evil is to do good.

Nature has horror of emptiness
It is a law of physics whose application in the spiritual field we see exemplified in the Gospel text that opens this article. The obsessive compulsion of cleanliness is a psychological illness: there are people who spend their lives washing their hands. Perhaps they can stand before God with clean hands, but God will tell them that their hands are empty...

If we want to remove the air from a glass, we can extract it artificially with a machine to create a vacuum, or we can naturally fill it with wine. That is, if we occupy our time and energies every day in doing good, we have no time left to do evil. In this way, we kill two birds with one stone, we do good and avoid evil. This is what Jesus’ unusual text suggests about an empty soul with no evil inside that if not filled with good, is quickly taken over by evil again.

At Last Judgment, those who are saved are those who helped the Lord in the poor and marginalized, and gave him food to eat, gave him drink, welcomed him when he was a stranger or pilgrim, clothed him when he was naked, and visited him when he was in prison or hospital.

Those who condemned themselves were not the wicked, but those who turned their backs on every opportunity that life gave them to do good, because their concern was to avoid evil (Matthew 25:31-46). They are the bad Samaritans, the ones who passed by when they saw a brother in need, the ones who say that the problem is not of their making.

According to the text about the last judgment in Matthew 25, our confession should no longer be to make an examination of conscience to seek the evil we have done, but to seek the good we have not done. We should even forget the evil we have done and do good deeds, look for opportunities to do good and not to lose the ones that life provides us. It is the sins of omission that lead to condemnation, the opportunities we had to do good and yet did nothing.

The Commandment of Love and the Golden Rule
Jesus replaced the ten commandments which practically only tell us what not to do, with a positive commandment: love God above all things and our neighbour as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39). Saint Augustine best interprets these two commandments in his famous phrase, "Love, and do what you will". What you do for love will never be wrong. Understanding love, of course, as St. Thomas Aquinas defines it, to love is to will the good of the other.

And what you hate, do not do to anyone. Tobit 4:15
‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.’  Matthew 7:12

The golden rule itself exists in all religions, and the Bible formulates it in a rule that we all learn in Sunday school: "Do not do to others what you do not want others do to you”. Minimalism is so ingrained in our psyche, the negative spirituality of avoiding evil without doing good, that our catechists did not teach us Jesus’ golden rule that is written in the positive sense, “Do onto others what you want others do onto you”. Instead, they have taught us the negative rule, the one found in the book of Tobit and which is the Jewish rule, included in the Old Testament.

Conclusion – Mary is the mother of Jesus because she was first a disciple, that is, she heard the Word and put it into practice. If we listen to the Word and put it into practice, we too can enjoy the same intimacy that Jesus and His mother had.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

VII Mystery: The Mediation of Mary at the Wedding in Cana of Galilee

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’  John 2:1-5

In St. John’s Gospel, at the end of the previous chapter, Jesus said to Nathaniel, “You will see greater things than this” (John 1:50). The wedding which the following chapter tells us took place in Cana of Galilee, the very town Nathaniel lived. At normal weddings, it was customary to serve the worst wine at the end, when the guests are inebriated, but at this wedding, which is also a symbol of the wedding in which God the Father marries his Son to humanity (Luke 14:15-24), the best wine was served last.

Jesus described Nathanael as "an Israelite in whom there is no deceit" (John 1:47). Therefore, we can conclude that, in this text, Nathanael represents the Jewish people at its best. For this people, who is also compared to the Lord's Vineyard (Psalm 79), the best is yet to come; therefore, the last wine is Jesus himself, the new wine for which we must have new wineskins, that is, new and open minds to be able to contain and hold the power of a spirit-filled wine.

There were six stone jars filled with water; and at Jesus' command, all the water turned into wine. According to the Jews, seven is the perfect and complete number; while six is the incomplete and imperfect number.  So, the six stone water jars represent all the imperfections of the Jewish law. Jesus came to put an end to the imperfection of the law and to put in its place the new wine of the gospel of his grace. Jesus transformed the imperfection of the law into the perfection of grace.

The amount of wine was astronomical: 680 liters in total. At no wedding on this planet could such quantity be drunk in full; what John means is that the grace that comes in Jesus and through Jesus is enough to reach everyone in the entire world for all times and still have leftovers, because it is limitless like God himself. ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly’ (John 10:10).

The mother of Jesus and his cousins were invited to this wedding. Jesus probably invited his disciples as well. At this wedding, Jesus goes from being the son of Mary to being the Lord, the master of his disciples. It is a farewell wedding in which Jesus embarks on his public life and cuts the umbilical cord that binds him to his family. Later on, as we know, these two groups, the relatives of the Lord and the Lord’s disciples, are not going to get along until the matter is settled at the Council of Jerusalem, presided over not by Peter but by James the Lesser, a cousin of the Lord.

"They have no wine"
Mary, the mother of the Lord, after she visited her cousin Elizabeth, continues to visit her people in Fatima, Guadalupe and Lourdes, in addition to so many other places, because she is the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). She is a good observer, like God the Father, of the needs of others (Exodus 3:7) and, like God the Father, she sympathizes with the poor and the afflicted.

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear. Isaiah 25:6

In those days, as in all times, running out of wine at a wedding was a real disaster. Wine has a place at a wedding, just like meat. Good food without wine is not so appetizing. It would be a dishonor to the bride and the groom, and a bad omen, if the wine ran out without the guests being satiated. Mary foresaw all this and turned to her son to take care of the situation. He is the savior, not her; he is the one who can do something, remedy the situation, save the reputation of the bride and the groom, not her.

Mary is the mediatrix of the principal Grace which is God’s entry into the world, because through her and incarnated in her, she proved, in this episode of the wedding in Cana, to be the mediatrix of all graces, small or great. Everything Mary asks of her son, he grants. Mary is our intercessor in heaven, she observes what we lack and reports them back to her son.

The Vineyard of the Lord which represents the house of Israel (Psalm 79) has already given what it had to give; it no longer produces fruit. God who sends successive prophets in search of fruits on the vine, do not find them, so finally He sends his son, and the vinedressers have the audacity to kill him outside the vineyard (Mark 12:1-12). In the Bible, wine generally means joy. Here are some of the many texts that testify to this:

They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again.  Jeremiah 31:12

You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth, and wine to gladden the human heart, oil to make the face shine, and bread to strengthen the human heart.  Psalms 104:14-15

Then the trees said to the vine, “You come and reign over us.” But the vine said to them, “Shall I stop producing my wine that cheers gods and mortals, and go to sway over the trees?”  Judges 9:12-13

Feasts are made for laughter; wine gladdens life…  Ecclesiastes 10:19

Gladness and joy have been taken away from the fruitful land of Moab; I have stopped the wine from the wine presses; no one treads them with shouts of joy… Jeremiah 48:33

I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.  Matthew 26:29

Mary is the humble daughter of Zion, the virgin who gave birth to the new wine, God with us, she is the hope of Israel, a new shoot from a dry vine that no longer produces fruits to make wine. From her will gush a wine that is the salvation and healing of humanity. In her and through her, the vine will produce again and there will be joy not only for Israel, but for the whole world.

"Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?"
Mary is a mother who cuts the umbilical cord with her son, and instead of keeping him to herself, she launches him into life even before the thought that his time has come had taken hold in his mind. This reminds me of swallows that push their young out of the nest because the time has come for them to fly away so they can migrate to warmer lands before the winter comes.

Young swallows do not fly off from the ground; hence their first flight out of the nest, if it goes wrong, could also be their last. Mary runs this risk with Jesus, of sending him off too soon. But she too was assisted by the Holy Spirit, so she acted with boldness and determination.

Jesus' initial reluctance to perform the miracle is pedagogical, as in the case of the Syrian-Phoenician woman. What this means is that even if Jesus does not want or it is not in his plans to help us, if we make the request through his Blessed Mother, he will not refuse it because now it is not only our request but also hers. She on our behalf puts all her weight, all her value, all her importance and power of influence into this request, so that Jesus cannot refuse it.

The excuse that Jesus used that the lack of wine did not concern them is in fact the excuse of every bad Samaritan. Mary makes the problems of others her own, she is empathic. Many people see the needs of others and like the priests in the parable of the Good Samaritan, they just pass by it because they think that the problem is not theirs. Today I am the one with a need, tomorrow it could you; therefore, what you want others do for you, you do for others: this is Jesus’ positive version of the golden rule (Matthew 7:12).

“My hour has not yet come”
Jesus sees his life as a mission: he has no spare time, for him time is short, he has no hobbies nor time to kill. It is in this sense that we should understand this sentence, his mission has not yet begun, he is still in the preparation phase. Luke describes Jesus’ life as being on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; and on this pilgrimage, all places and events point to the final hour of his death and redemption of humanity. Jesus always seems to have a full agenda and everything is properly organized, controlled and calculated:

‘Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’ And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.  Mark 1:38-39

He said to them, ‘Go and tell that fox for me, “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.”  Luke 13:32-33

"Do whatever he tells you"
Jesus' response to his mother's appeal was doubly negative; the first shaking of the head to indicate that the problem was neither his nor hers, and the second, to say that even if he could and wanted to do something, his time had not yet come.

Great is Mary’s faith, like that of the Syrian-Phoenician woman in the Gospel (Matthew 15:21-28) who is not discouraged by Jesus’ rejection and continues to believe that he can and will heal her daughter. Mary also turns a deaf ear to Jesus' negative words and is so sure that he will do something to solve the problem, remedy the situation, that she immediately tells the servants to make themselves available to her son, to immediately do whatever he orders them to do.

It is as if Mary is telling us that each thing we ask of her, "consider done whatever you have just asked of me", even before mentioning the matter to her Son, because she knows that a good son never refuses his mother's request. On the other hand, our dear mother in Heaven does not bother her son about everything, but only when it comes to a serious problem; and that problem at the wedding in Cana was serious indeed.

We can interpret this Gospel literally – the lack of wine at a wedding – or interpret it metaphorically, that is, humanity without the new wine that is Jesus has no joy in living, it lives depressed and without meaning; and depression, as we know, can lead to suicide.

Doing Jesus' will is in fact the attitude of a true disciple; more than that, it is the condition "sine qua non" of whether or not we are disciples of Jesus: Matthew 23:3 – Luke 11:28 – Matthew 6:1 – John 13:17 – Matthew 7:23 - John 3:21 – Matthew 7:21-24 – Matthew 28:18-20 – Luke 11:28.

Jesus’ food was to do the Father’s will (John 4:34). A true disciple of Jesus can have no other food but to listen to the Word, digest it (Jeremiah 15:16) and make it come to life, that is, to incarnate it in each and every act, to the point of becoming another Christ on earth and thus continuing his work of salvation.

Conclusion: As an ambassador, Mary informs her Son of men’s needs: "They have no wine..."; and informs men of what they need to do to have those needs met, that is: "Do whatever he tells you...".

Fr. Jorge Amaro IMC

VI Mystery: The Sacred Family, a Triangle of Love and Harmony - Part II

After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished; and his mother said to him, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.’  Luke 2:46-48

They observe without judging
It seems that Jesus' parents were already well versed in the norms of the nonviolent communication, because they did not judge, criticize or punish Jesus for his behavior. They simply observed their son’s behavior and passed this observation unto him. In passing their observation to Jesus, they did so assertively, not aggressively, taking care to assume responsibility for their feeling of distress, without accusing Jesus of being the cause of this affliction.

They do not intend to have the last word
He said to them, ‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father’s house?’ But they did not understand what he said to them.  Luke 2:49-50

During our childhood, it was always our parents who had the last word in the family. The same is not true in the Holy Family of Nazareth. In this episode, it is Jesus who has the last word; the ignorance and the lack of understanding of Jesus' parents about his life and ministry did not make them violent or make them insist that they are always right.

As St. Paul says, he did not use his privileges, humbling himself to death, even death on a cross
Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom ad in years, and in divine and human favour. Luke 2:51-52

Jesus must have been a child prodigy, like so many in our world. Excelling in many things that certainly caused his parents and neighbours to marvel. However, in addition to all the talents Jesus possessed, an attitude of humility was inherent in his person that made him comply obediently with his parents’ demands.

Joseph the Dreamer
Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet (Hosea 11:1), ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’  Matthew 2:13- 15

Joseph transcended his own ego and heard God’s word which he promptly obeyed and set out for Egypt to save his son's life. The Holy Family knows what it is like to be persecuted politically, and they know what it is like to be political refugees and immigrants in a country that was not their own. They were fleeing from genocide which is something that has always happened and still happens in our world. And the worst genocide of our time is abortion. The human being is the only animal that intentionally kills its own offspring.

Herod the Great thought it was justifiable in the eyes of his subjects to kill so many innocent children for fear that one of these little innocents would steal his throne. Leaders like this have always filled and still fill the world: people who fall in love with the power they have amassed and have no plan of ever letting it go, capable of anything in order to keep it within their grasp.

When each family member sets aside his or her own personal projects, like Joseph did, to obey the common project that is always the one that God inspires in our hearts and souls, then all family members find happiness and self-realization. Herod only loved Herod and his own ambitions; and this led him to even murder his own children.

Joseph is always at the service of his family, so the family comes first. Herod puts his projects first and his family last; we have many examples of great politicians who have troubled delinquent children because their families are dysfunctional since the parents who, like Herod, always put their projects first. The children of the famous, unlike their parents, are rarely famous...

Many parents, in their jobs, work overtime because their boss makes them think that they are indispensable: the parents gladly accept this, since this means more income for the family. They say that they do not want their children to lack anything, but, in reality, their children lack the most important thing: the parents’ presence and love, for which there is no substitute. The fallacy is that if the worker dies or gets sick, the boss quickly replaces him or her with another. It is in the family, as a father or a mother, that the worker is truly irreplaceable.

What Jesus’ relatives think of him
When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’  Mark 3:21

A mother who has kept silent all her life and held in her heart all the things that she did not understand with regard to her son’s life and ministry, is not going to have an attitude like that described to us by the evangelist St. Mark. It was the other relatives, the cousins of Jesus, one of them probably James who was later the leader of the first Christian community in Jerusalem, it was these relatives of Jesus, not his own mother, who were antagonistic to his ministry. It was these same relatives who would later enter into conflict with Jesus' disciples.

In a monarchy, the person who succeeds the king is a relative of the king, if he does not have any legitimate children. The leader of the Christian community was not Peter, as we might have thought by the order of the Master, but rather Jesus' cousin, James the Lesser. We see this clearly at the Council of Jerusalem, when they debated as to whether or not to force Christians who were not Jews to respect the Jewish laws. Peter inspires the decision, but it is James who decides, for it is he who has the last word.

The conflict between Jesus' relatives and Jesus' disciples could have happened in the Church as it did with the Muslims where a great conflict still exists between the Shiites who descended from the prophet through Fatima, his favorite daughter, and the Sunnis who descended from the prophet’s first disciples.

Jesus made it very clear that true disciples, that is, the ones who hear his word and put it into practice are his mother, brothers and sisters (Luke 8:21).

And so that not a shadow of doubt remains, on the cross Jesus called John, the beloved disciple, the son of his own mother, and he called his own mother the mother of his favorite disciple (John 19:26).

The Mother of Jesus and our mother
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. John 19:26-27

The Gospels present a Jesus who is sometimes distant and showing little regard for his mother. However, the proof that this is not true is here. Even at the height of his suffering on the cross, Jesus does not forget his mother, he does not forget that, like the widow of Nain to whom he gave back the life of her son, his mother was a widow, and was witnessing the death of her only son and preparing to be alone in the world.

The grandmother, with her trembling hands, one day accidentally dropped a fine porcelain China plate belonging to her daughter, at whose home she lived. The daughter became furious with her own mother and ordered her son to go and buy a plastic plate from which she was to eat from then on. The boy looked at his mother with an air of disapproval and refused to do her bidding. However, he eventually had to obey her and off he went. Upon returning home, he set two plastic plates on the table. The irritated mother asked him why did he buy two plastic plates when she had told him to buy only one. "The other," said the young man, "is for you when you're old like grandma."

Parents provide for their children in their childhood and children should provide for their parents in their old age. But this is not always the case in this world where what counts is being a consumer and a producer. When you cannot be one or the other, you are made to think that you have no place in this society.

Conclusion – Just as Jesus is for us, as individuals, the Way, the Truth and the Life, his family, the Holy Family, is also for us, as members of a family, a model of family life to imitate.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

VI Mystery: The Sacred Family, a Triangle of Love and Harmony

God is one and triune, yet no mystery of the Holy Rosary contemplates this reality that Jesus of Nazareth, who came from a heavenly family consisting of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, as the only begotten Son of God the Father, was born into an earthly family, had human parents with whom he lived in perfect love and harmony, growing in wisdom and grace as the Scripture tells us, like any boy of his time.

Normative for Christians is not only Jesus as an individual person, the Way, the Truth and the Life, but since the human person has a social dimension, Jesus’ social and family life, his family consisting of his mother and adoptive human father, is also normative for us, for there is no human life outside the family.

God is one and triune, the human being created in the image and likeness of God is also, naturally, one and triune. Father-Mother-Child, there is no human life beyond this triangle. Every human being is a father or a mother or a child. We are, at the same time, an individual and a social being, because we are each a whole, as an individual being, and a part as a member of a human family.

Each of the three human categories, father-mother-son/daughter, implies the existence of the other two. That is, no man is a father without a wife and a child, just as no woman is a mother without a husband and a child; lastly, a child of a single mother must have a father. The existence of one implies the existence of the other two. Jesus says of marriage, "The two will become one flesh", precisely when the two are one and are engaged in the conjugal or sexual act, they become three. That's why the human being is at the same time one and triune.

Mother without umbilical cord
Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travellers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him.  Luke 2:41-45

Mother hen, a terrible future mother-in-law
A father, even if he is the child’s biological father, is always an adoptive father because it is the mother who conceives in her body and nurtures the child for 9 months, and then for two years at her breast. At birth, the child only recognizes the mother and even recognizes her by her smell; the father is introduced to him later. And when this happens, the child and father look at each other like two strangers and, if the child is male, even as two rivals later on.

Unlike motherhood, fatherhood lacks the physical experience, as it only occurs at the microscopic cellular level and outside the man’s body. Therefore, St. Joseph, who was the adoptive father to Jesus, can perfectly be the model of fatherhood and the patron saint of all fathers, biological or otherwise. At the end of the day, God the Father in Heaven is also our adoptive Father, for He has only one Son who is begotten while we are creatures adopted by God the Father, by the merits of Jesus Christ who became our older brother.

Being a father or being a mother has its advantages and drawbacks. The fact that the father is adoptive, there is always a distance between him and the child, because fatherhood does not take place at the physical level. Motherhood, on the other hand, takes place at this level, so that a mother always finds it difficult to see her child as a separate entity from herself, and many never manage to cut the umbilical cord, always seeing the child not as a distinct person, but as an extension of herself.

I like jokes a lot, and yet I have never heard a joke against fathers-in-law; all the jokes of this nature target mothers-in-law. A mother hen has the tendency to be a terrible mother-in-law, always trying to interfere in her son's life even when he is already married and has formed a family.

The verse quoted above denotes that Mary and Joseph gave their son a lot of freedom, to the point that they went days without seeing him. We can conclude that Mary was not a mother hen, but a mother who knew her place and saw her son as a distinct person and not as an extension of herself.

The goal of a child's education is to make him free, independent and autonomous. In other words, a father and a mother should aim to make themselves obsolete and unnecessary when their children reach adulthood, maturity and autonomy. To love as St. Thomas Aquinas said is to want the good of the other as the other sees it, and not as we see it.

It is true that a father wants his child to succeed where he himself could not, but that should not prevent the child from choosing his life because he is the one who will live it. I have known many parents who did all kinds of blackmail to prevent their children from following their vocation, especially their religious vocation, despite being deeply religious themselves.

The family and the values of liberty - equality - fraternity
Liberty – is the value on which the life of the human person is based, as an independent and autonomous being. Without liberty there is no human life; in order to realize as a human person, an individual must be free, not dependent on anything or anyone. Free from external constraints, but also free from internal constraints such as addictions.... Therefore, there are two types of freedom: external and internal.

Equality – is the value on which the life of the individual who lives in society is based. No individual is an island, because every individual is born from a relationship of two individuals, a father and a mother. Therefore, every individual is and always will be part of a family, a clan, a tribe, a country...

Fraternity – a quark is the union of several gluons; several quarks form a proton which is one of the three elements of an atom. Gluten is a protein that makes a cereal like wheat look like glue after it is kneaded. I fear that gluten intolerance will start to be equally proportional to individualism in society and as a consequence, the love that makes all humans brothers and sisters will disappear.

Family, the only school of life
Like a human being, family is the result of millions of years of evolution. In evolution, reptiles generally do not need a family, they are born from eggs; while birds and mammals need a family for a few months. In the evolution of species, the closer an animal is to human, the more time coexisting in a family it will need before it can be free, independent and autonomous.

A human being is the living being that needs the most time coexisting in a family; so, the family is the only place where human life can exist. The family is the "habitat" of human life, as the sea is for whales and sharks, the South Pole is for penguins, the North Pole is for polar bears and the savannah is for lions. Since a human being is not born in the adult state, like some living beings, without the family there is no human life.

Human beings are not born, they are made. A child at birth has all the potentials to become a human person. However, these potentials must be cultivated within a family, by the parents and older siblings. Everything in a human being is learned, like walking upright, speaking, loving, most of the things in human life are learned, there is very little that is innate.

A child without contact with people would never learn to walk or talk, as the myth of Tarzan suggests; if a child were raised by chimpanzees, he would be a hairless chimpanzee; if he were raised by a she-wolf, he would be a wolf for all intents and purposes, with a human appearance only.

It takes many years of study to train a doctor, an engineer or an architect; and since the world needs more good parents than these professions, How come there is not even a weekend course to learn how to be a parent?

Education is "aerial" and continuous
"Son you are, father you shall be, as you do so you shall find."

Unlike other schools, where there are lesson periods and break periods, in the school of life, of the family, there are no vacations. All family moments and situations are educational, for better or for worse. Education is "aerial" and continuous; in the school of life, the child is always in the classroom.

Because education is "aerial", the family is a school where children learn not from what they are told, but from what they see; it is the seedbed where growth can be controlled and guided. Making a baby is easy, the difficulty is to turn a child into an authentic human being. It's one thing to be a biological parent, it is another to be a father or a mother.

In the family we learn the main attitudes by which we will live; therefore, parents should keep in mind that a child imitates more readily than learns. A child who sees his drunken father beating his mother, swearing obscenities, engaging in immature, immoral and illegal behaviors, will most likely reproduce these same behaviors in his adult life.  

We all remember phrases from our parents that have shaped our lives, some positive, some negative. "He who sows winds reaps storms”, "sow love, and you shall reap love; sow hatred and hatred will be what you will reap", "a child is like a field, he will only produce what is sown in him", or "the son of a fish knows how to swim". No one gives what he does not have; a father cannot pass on to his child what he does not have. The son of a scoundrel will be a scoundrel, just as the son of a thief will be a thief.

Educating a child is an immense responsibility in itself, towards the child and the society. The world improves not so much by revolutions, but by conversions, when men become better; it is our contribution to the world. How many parents take their task lightly? A father should seek to pass on to his child his virtues and not his flaws. If your sons and daughters are like you or worse than you, what is the meaning of your life?

"As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined "
For children, the family is like a greenhouse, since children are not yet ready to live in the open world; in the greenhouse, we can control their growth, the temperature, the humidity, the pest control, etc.

The world outside the family is an inhospitable place, for which the family prepares us, strengthens or weakens us. The school and the street, good or bad, are the same for everyone: there are bullies, there are drugs, there are potential crimes, and those who succumb to them are those who do not have a strong and meaningful family where love, harmony and peace rule.

In addition to being a greenhouse, the family is also a hospital where adolescents, young people and even adult children recover from the wounds that society inflicts on them. They spend their convalescence within the family, until they can return to society, strengthened and with lessons learned.

"An Englishman's home is his castle". This is a very interesting expression about the dedication that parents should have to the sacred space that is the family. Today, there are many enemies of the family, even the government itself can be an enemy of the family. Parents should not only beware of the enemies from outside: TV, internet, mobile phone or computer can be today like a real Trojan horse that boycotts education and the values that parents want to transmit.

Unconditional love
As the habitat and school of human life, the attitude, the most important value to learn is unconditional love. Only in the family we are loved unconditionally, therefore only in the family can we learn to love unconditionally. Only those who are loved unconditionally by their parents and siblings learn to love unconditionally.

Love is unconditional or it is not love. Family is the only place where you are loved without conditions, whether you are good or bad, beautiful or ugly, intelligent or stupid. God loves unconditionally, but anyone who is not loved unconditionally by his parents will hardly discover the unconditionality of God's love. Many Christians think that they must be good to be loved by God. Whoever does not learn to love unconditionally can never live fully and be authentically and genuinely human.

I knew a young woman who, as a child, received hugs and kisses from her parents only when she excelled in school. She learned to confuse love with success in school that later turned into professional success. Today, as an adult, she is very successful professionally, but not so successful in her love life, in which she is unhappy. There is nothing more important than love. Those who do not love have never lived, because to live is to love.

Conclusion – The myth of Tarzan reveals to us that, in human life, very little is innate, almost everything is learned within the family which is an irreplaceable school of life.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

V Mystery: The Prophecy of Simeon about Mary and Her Son - Part II

Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too. Luke 2:34-35

There are many interpretations of this sword, some too spiritual or theological. I prefer to see in this prophecy the pure human suffering of Mary. "In war, hunting and love, you suffer a thousand pains for one pleasure". So it was for Mary: Jesus gave her more pain than joy, from conception to his death and resurrection.

The birth, life and death of Jesus were for Mary a continuous passion of pain and suffering. It all started on the day when it was no longer possible for her to hide and explain her pregnancy.

Jesus’ Christmas, Mary’s Passion
On her return from the visit to her cousin Elizabeth, which lasted several months, Mary appeared pregnant. What could she say? How could she explain what really happened? Becoming pregnant by the work and grace of the Holy Spirit was unprecedented, it was a unique event in the history of mankind; it had never happened before and would never happen again. The Messiah, whom the people of Israel awaited and are still waiting, was expected to come in the usual natural way from the house of David.

Jesus' Christmas was Mary’s Passover or Passion. The Passion of the Lord was also Mary's Passion. Even today, in a society that is not puritanical or sexist, a sex scandal delights the mouths of many people. It seems that our self-esteem grows when we see other people’s sink. There is nothing more degrading and stigmatizing than a sex scandal: everyone points the finger at you, and you live without honour or a good name, it is like dying in life.

"If you throw enough mud, some will stick" says a Spanish proverb; cast doubt on someone in areas of sexual behaviour and that person's bad reputation will accompany him or her to the grave. It may even turn out to be a lie, it doesn’t matter, the public will always be in doubt, they will cling to the first report as being true and any denial as being a lie. These scandals open television news and make the front page of newspapers, while the denials appear as a lost square inside the newspaper that no one reads.

Physical death by stoning also came very close... Mary was considered an adulteress because she was betrothed to Joseph, and although they did not yet live together, for the purposes of the law they were considered married. Such a relationship was no longer separable except through a divorce. We know well what was the punishment for adulteresses... (John 8: 1-11) they were stoned to death.

What used to happen in Israel on a regular basis is still happening in some Muslim countries today, where Sharia law applies; there are videos on certain Internet sites that document these sad facts even in the 21st century.

Already many, thirsty for blood, had stones ready in their hands, waiting for Joseph, the one offended, to cast the first one. Throwing the first stone was a right of the offended party. Throwing the first stone was, at the same time, a declaration of the verdict by the injured person and the first act of execution of the sentence that the bloodthirsty hypocrites gladly carried out.

For Jesus, in the episode of the woman caught in adultery (John 8: 1-11), the right to cast the first stone, that is, to judge and pass the death sentence, is not the right of the injured nor of the one who has the authority by delegation or election, but of the one who has the moral authority, that is, the one without sin.

Jesus does not believe in retributive justice, because it is just a legalized revenge, it is the old “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" justice. Jesus believes in restorative justice, the kind that God practices, because he does not want the death of the sinner, but that he converts and lives. (Ezekiel 18:23-32)

Jesus, the Son of Mary
Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart (Luke 2:19), suffering in silence, not being able to defend herself from the slander... The suffering lasted her entire life, as is natural in this type of cases.

Here and elsewhere in the gospel, this stigma comes through; for example, in one of the arguments that Jesus has with the Pharisees in John’s Gospel. At one point they say, "We are not illegitimate children" (John 8:41) with the unspoken "like you are" implied.

‘Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?’ Mark 6:3

In a patriarchal society, no one is known as his mother's son, that is, no one is known by reference to his mother, but by reference to his father. Let us remember that Jesus, when he addressed Peter in a personal way to ask him if he loves Him, he calls Peter by his family name, by reference to Peter's father and not his mother: "Simon (Peter), son of John... (John 21:15-19).

The evangelist Mark, despite being a Hebrew from Jerusalem, writes his Gospel in Rome for the Romans and he does not go about it half-heartedly: he relates the truth as it is. Jesus is called by reference to his mother, not his father. Even if the father is already dead, a Hebrew would never be called by reference to his mother; if people did that then it was because Jesus was, for those of his time, the son of an unknown father, to the shame of his mother and Himself.

Matthew, in his Gospel written for the Jews, corrects and says, "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?” (Matthew 13:55-56). Luke, in his Gospel, also mentions the episode of the Lord's visit to his hometown, but out of respect for the Lord he does not copy Mark, but he also does not tell a lie like Matthew, as he omits what Jesus’ countrymen called him.

Mary and the widow of Nain
Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her. ‘Do not weep.’ Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’ Luke 7:11-14

It is one of the few miracles that Jesus did without being asked, and without inquiring about the faith of the person who will be graced with the miracle. Jesus' great capacity for empathy makes him understand that the suffering of this poor widow was so great that she could not bear to speak to anyone. We see in this Gospel Luke's empathy in the way he describes the scene. He concentrates the maximum suffering with the minimum words:

“…a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow…” There is no greater suffering than that of a mother who loses one of her children, for it goes against the nature of life. Children are expected to bury their parents and not the other way around. A mother who is willing to die for her child, to have to watch the child die without being able to do anything, is the worse type of psychological suffering.

Within this context, this woman's suffering is further aggravated by the fact that she is already a widow and that he was her only child. He was her only surety to stay alive in that society, because women in those days could not live alone since they could not own property. Therefore, her only son was also her guarantee of life.

Jesus gives the boy his life back... I have always seen in this episode a personal projection of Jesus; Jesus saw in the widow of Nain his own mother, who would soon also bury her only son, since she, Mary, was already widowed.

Conclusion: For the sake of her son, Mary's entire life was a continuous passion and death. It all started on the day she could no longer hide or explain her pregnancy. There is no slander in the world worse than the one Mary suffered her entire life.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

V Mystery: The Prophecy of Simeon about Mary and her Son - Part I

And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him.  Luke 2:33

Great surprises awaited Mary at the presentation of her son in the temple. Several times the gospel says that Mary kept everything in her heart. When it came to her son, Mary did not understand many things. She walked her entire life in the faith that everything would turn out well, even when she saw that everyone was turning against him and against her. Her son never ceased to amaze and astonish her, from his conception to his death and resurrection. Mary did not understand all of it, but she accepted it all silently, and faithfully followed her son, near or far.

The presentation of her son in the Temple must have left both a bitter and a sweet taste in Mary’s mouth. The joy of Simeon and Anna, who had so patiently waited for this moment to see the liberator with their own eyes, must have brought joy to Mary's heart as well. The ambiguity of Simeon's prophecy, who presented himself as someone who had good and bad news, must have caused much perplexity and pain in Mary’s heart which, according to Simeon, would be pierced by a sword.

Jesus of Nazareth shook Israel and the world
Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’  Luke 2:34-35

Jesus of Nazareth entered human history like a meteorite striking the ocean, making concentric circles that are felt first where it impacts and then far to the ends of the earth. The strongest impact was felt in Israel two thousand years ago, but his influence spread in time and space in such a way that it is still felt today and will be felt until the end of time, for he himself has said: ‘I am with you always, to the end of the age’. (Matthew 28:20)

Such was the impact of Jesus on the world that he divided the history of mankind into two eras. Before Christ (AC) and After Christ (AD), the Year of Grace of the Lord... Christ is therefore the center of human history, because everything that happens in this world is referenced as happening before Christ or after Christ. Annoyed with this, the agnostics and atheists in the Western world have replaced AC with "before the common era" and AD with "common era".

However, if someone in the spirit of wanting to know, like children in the days when they question everything and bombard adults with questions, the people of the "common era" will have to explain what this "common era" is and why it is common, and when it began. If they are honest, which is not always the case these days, they will have to mention Christ’s name. The "common era" has Christ’s birth as its starting point. It is therefore not arbitrary or unconventional like the Fahrenheit scale for measuring temperature.

Jesus: cause of downfall or a stumbling block for many in Israel
‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.  And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.’  Matthew 11:4-6

The Greek word "scandal" means stumbling block. Jesus' words are harsh against the scandalous, but He himself admitted that he scandalized many people in a good way. Many were unable to digest and absorb many of his ideas; even when they were backed by many wondrous deeds. Against facts there are no arguments, the people say. However, the Jews in Jesus' time found arguments even against facts, like when they said that Jesus was casting out demons by the power of Satan. Indeed, "there are none more blind than the one who doesn’t want to see”.

He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God...  John 1:11-12
 
It is not God who judges man, but it is man who judges himself. His judgment is his reaction to Jesus Christ. If when confronted with Jesus his response is positive, he has faith and accepts His love, then he is saved and enters the kingdom of heaven. If, however, he remains still and coldly indifferent, or even actively hostile, then he is condemned, because he has condemned himself.  

With regard to Jesus of Nazareth, one cannot assume a neutral position. Either we have faith in Him and surrender to Him or we are at war with Him. For many, pride will prevent them from choosing the surrender that will lead them to victory.

Those who believe in him are not condemned, but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.  John 3:18

In Jesus' time, the Pharisees, the high priests, the rich, the abusers of power, the exploiters of the poor, stumbled upon the stone that is Jesus and thought that by removing the stone from the path, as they did by killing Jesus, they would be freed of Him. But this did not happen, for the same Jesus, in the person of his followers, became a pebble in their shoes to bother them eternally. Once he came into the world, he came to stay.

Jesus: cause of emergence, stepping stone and cornerstone for many in Israel
This Jesus is “the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.”  Acts 4:11

Christ, true God and true man, is the way from God to men and from men to God. In the Bible, Jericho represents sin, so the man who fell into the hands of robbers came down from Jerusalem to Jericho, he fell from grace into sin. Jesus visits Jericho and heals Zacchaeus as he enters the city, and as he leaves, he heals the blind man Bartimaeus who joined the great multitude that was going up with Him to salvation and grace toward heavenly Jerusalem.

The Way, the Truth and the Life, Christ is the role model, the paradigm of human life. Christ, in his words, deeds and personal behavior, is normative, for he embodies 100% humanity. Whoever wants to be authentically and genuinely human, he is to compare himself to Christ and to no other. What is human is Christian, what is Christian is human, because a human ethics that is different from Christian morality does not exist.

Whoever is not with me, is against me
‘Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Do not stop him, for whoever is not against you is for you.’ Luke 9: 49-50

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me, scatters. Matthew 12: 30

These two texts seem to be at odds with each other; however, if we look from the context in which Jesus says these two opposing sentences, we will be able understand. Jesus says elsewhere that he has other sheep that are not of this fold, so it is possible that people outside the Church also do good, the so-called Anonymous Christians. Those who, by other ways and without being of our group, contribute to the building of the kingdom of God are Christians even without knowing why their attitudes are Christian or human.

The second statement is made in the context that no one goes to the Father except through me (John 14:6-14). That is, since Christ is the measure of the human and the divine, only those who resemble Him are saved, because, as he says next, whoever does not gather with me scatters, disperses, for there is no other with whom to gather. There is no equally valid alternative to Christ.

Not peace, but the sword
‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me…’  Matthew 10:34-37

Love divides what was united and unites what was divided. We take as an example the classic love story of Romeo and Juliet. The families of these two lovers were visceral enemies, at war with each other. Before they met, each of the lovers lived in peace, harmony and love with their respective families.

When the spark of love arose between the two, division and discord also arose in their respective families because of the union of what was once divided. The same happens in families where some of their members decide to follow Jesus and others do not. It is in this sense that Jesus, the Prince of Peace, unwittingly, instead of bringing peace brings war and discord into the very families where before Him, love and harmony once reigned.

God's curse?
‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, on the day of judgement it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades. For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that on the day of judgement it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you.’  Matthew 11:21-24

The curse of God is an anthropomorphism, that is, a way of understanding God in human terms. God is incapable of cursing; God only knows how to bless. To curse is to turn one’s back on God's blessing. Jesus did many miracles in Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, for they were great cities in Jesus' time. Today only archaeological remains of these cities exist. In contrast, Nazareth and Bethlehem were small and tiny cities then, but today they are great cities.

"He who does not remember God, misses out". In his address to the people after leaving Egypt, Moses placed before the people the blessing and the curse. The blessing for those who accept God and follow his commandments, and the curse ipso facto for those who do not follow God's designs. The blessing comes from God, the curse results from the rejection of the blessing, not from God’s punishment because God does not punish.

‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you, desolate.’  Matthew 23:37-38

Jesus weeps in anger, pity, and helplessness over the ruin that was about to fall upon Jerusalem. A ruin caused by the city's own residents who could not recognize in Jesus the Messiah expected by the nations. The political and military messianism of the Jews brought them ruin, from the invasion of the Roman hosts, the destruction of the city and the temple, and the dispersion throughout the rest of the world for centuries, until the emergence of the state of Israel in 1948, by the pity and mercy of the Christian powers that won the war.

Conclusion: Christ being the measure of what is authentically and genuinely human, one cannot be neutral and indifferent to Him; indifference is already, in itself, a rejection.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

IV Mystery: Mary Gives Birth to Jesus, God With Us - Part II

Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”?  John 14:8-9

Begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father
God has only one Son who, as the Creed says, is begotten not made. If the Creed were to speak about us, it would say that we are made, not begotten. (God) destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will… Ephesians 1:5

All men and women are creatures of God and through Jesus Christ, redeemed at the price of his blood, we are made adopted children of God. United by the same human nature, dignity is due to all human beings, without distinction of ethnicity, without exception period.

And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ – if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.  Romans 8: 17 – According to the Roman law which is fundamentally the law used throughout the world, the adopted child has the same rights to inheritance as the biological child.

Jesus calls God Father, but only within the inner circle of the apostles and never outside of it. What this means is that the divine fatherhood is available only to those who accept Jesus as son of God and as brother, our elder brother, for it is only through Christ, the only begotten son of God, that we are adopted children.

The Messianic Feast
Christmas is the feast that unites mankind with God; it is the feast that unites earth with heaven. The incarnation is a marriage between the Only Begotten Son of God and humanity, and Christmas is a wedding feast that celebrates this indivisible and everlasting union. A marriage is a union of two destinies into one destiny. At Christmas, God the Father marries his Son to Humanity, that is, he unites the nature of the second person of the Holy Trinity to Human Nature.

The union of two natures into one person took place in Mary’s womb. She is, with every right, the Mother of the child to be born, because she not only lent her womb but also contributed her genetic material. God, by the work and grace of the Holy Spirit, is the Father of both the second person of the Holy Trinity and the one incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus of Nazareth who was born in Bethlehem is the result of this union, this inseparable and indivisible union of the two natures: human and divine. God became the son of Man, the only title that Jesus gives himself, so that Man, who is a creature of God, might also become a child of God.

Jesus' time among us corresponds to the messianic banquet prophesied many centuries before by Isaiah 25, and declared by Jesus in one of his parables in Matthew 22:1-14. Because it is the time of the messianic banquet, it is a fact that Jesus' public life began with a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee and ended at the Eucharistic banquet on Holy Thursday in Jerusalem, in which He was the food. Between these two banquets, Jesus participated in many others with his disciples and many of his sayings were delivered in the context of a meal.

Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.’  Matthew 9:14-15

Because it is the time of Jesus among us, the time of the messianic banquet, his disciples, that is, the bridegroom's friends, should not fast, but should celebrate. It is a time for feasting, a time of celebration, not a time for penitence or sadness.

In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. John 14:2-3

The days of fasting will come when the Bridegroom returns to the Father’s house, taking with Him our human nature redeemed in his person and by his person, sitting at the right hand of the Father.

And the Word became man and dwelt among us
After leaving his family at the Church for the Rooster Mass, a Canadian farmer returned home, fleeing from the incoming snowstorm. His wife’s insistence that he attend the Mass with the family had fallen on deaf ears. For him, the incarnation of God made no sense. As he slept in the warmth of the fireplace, he was startled by the clash of geese at the door and windows. Driven by the storm from their migratory trajectory to the South, they were completely disoriented and bewildered.

Moved with compassion, he opened the gates of the large barn and began to run, squawking, whistling, shouting and hooting for them to take shelter in the barn until the storm has passed. However, the geese flew in circles, without understanding the meaning of the open barn and the dramatic gestures of the desperate farmer (who had not even convinced them with the breadcrumbs scattered in the direction of the barn). 

Defeated in his attempt to save the poor creatures, he sighed, "Ah, if only I were a goose! If only I could speak their language!" Upon hearing his own lament, he recalled the question he had asked his wife: "Why would God want to become a man?" And, unintentionally, he muttered the answer: "To save him!" ... And it was Christmas.

There have always been people with special sensitivity to communicate with God. In biblical tradition, prophets were the catalysts of God's designs for the people and of the people's petitions to God. Communication, however, was not without difficulties: just as in the field of telecommunications, there were many "interference". The prophet's personality and character, defects and prejudices, filtered the message, which did not reach the recipient as it had left the sender. On the other hand, these prophets often understood that Heaven was closed and God was shrouded in silence.

These prophets never truly managed to establish a bridge of communication between the divine and the human. This is because the Word of God, being transmitted by them (men with their personal characteristics and inserted in a certain sociocultural context), ended up being influenced by many mediating variables (personality, prejudices, stereotypes, social patterns), thus losing the meaning of the original message. 

There is gold in the river sand, but not all river sand is gold. Hence, we need to sift through the sand to find the gold nuggets. The Word of God is also in the Bible, but not everything in the Bible is God's word. Since the Bible is the encounter of God as He is with Man, there is in the Bible much that is human, many anthropomorphisms, that is, examples of how to understand God in the way of man, even though in this same Bible it says, "my thoughts are not your thoughts, says the Lord" ... 

In sifting through the Bible to find the word of God, we have to identify the personality of the author of the book in question, his beliefs, prejudices, stereotypes, social patterns, etc. to find the Ipsissima Dei Verbum. 

Because of all this, it was necessary that God incarnates to speak directly to man without interference and, more than speaking, to demonstrate with his life and works how human beings should live in order to regain the likeness of God that was lost with Adam and Eve. 

Opportunity to regain the likeness of God
It was for this reason that the Word of God became Man so that Man might become Son of God. Saint Irenaeus of Lyon

Since Christianity is the religion with the most followers, and Christmas is the most popular public holiday in the Christian world, we can easily conclude that Christmas is the most celebrated holiday of all the holidays celebrated on this planet. It is undoubtedly the one that brings together more people worldwide, not just in the Western society.

Jesus of Nazareth is the way by which God comes to us to speak in our ears, to speak to our hearts on an equal footing, not from above to below, but from brother to brother, from man to man. The creator makes himself a creature to speak from within the human nature; to speak with authority, as the men of Jesus' time have noticed, because he spoke and he did, because he spoke and he fulfilled, because he spoke and things happened.

As truly man, Christ is our opportunity to regain the likeness we had with God before the sin of Adam and Eve. Whoever wants to be authentically and genuinely human measures himself to Christ, because He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, He is the model, the prototype, the paradigm of humanity. No one in the entire history of mankind has more humanity concentrated within himself than Jesus. 

John 15:16 – You did not choose me – As they say in theology, ours is not a religion, because it is not the effort that man makes to reach God, but rather it is a revelation, because it is God who first comes to us, and reveals himself to us. This is why Jesus can say to the apostle Philip, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father". 

1 John 4:10 – In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Love is repaid with love, says the people; our love for God is a response to divine love, the only answer, for there is no other. Therefore, because the initiative comes from God, ours is not a religion but a revelation.

Jesus: the way by which men go to God
No one comes to the Father except through me.  John 14:6

If Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Son of God, He is the only way by which God has come to us. For this reason, there can be no other way by which man can go to God. It would make no sense for one to be the way by which God comes to us, and another to be the way by which man goes to God. All paths are round trips, so if God came to us through Christ, then through the same Christ we will go to God.

The purpose of God’s incarnation can be read in Jesus’ entrance into and exit from the city of Jericho. Jericho is the oldest city in the world, at 8 000 years old, and is also curiously the lowest city on earth, at 500 meters below sea level. Because of these two characteristics, in the Bible Jericho represents the world in sin. This is even suggested in the parable of the Good Samaritan; the man who was assaulted by thieves and evildoers, came down from Jerusalem to Jericho, that is, he went from grace down to sin.

Jesus enters Jericho, that is, he enters the sinful world and goes to stay in the house of Zacchaeus, that is, of a sinner. Jesus stayed in the sinful world, called sinners to himself, lived with them, ate with them, and treated them with the dignity of children of God (Luke 19:1-2). When he left Jericho, a great crowd followed him on the way up from sin to grace in Jerusalem (Mark 10:46-52). Thus the reason of the incarnation was fulfilled: God, through Christ, came into the world so that the world, by the same Christ, might come to God.

Conclusion: Through Christ God came to men, through Christ men go to God. Whoever lives in Christ, is authentically human like Christ, because He is the only reference and paradigm of humanity.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

IV Mystery: Mary gives birth to Jesus, God with us - Part 1

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest. (...) ‘Come,’ my heart says, ‘seek his face!’ Your face, Lord, do I seek.  Psalm 22:2; 27:8

Religion and Revelation
The people of Israel were never satisfied with this communication, so deficient, and lived in a continuous restlessness. Religion, from the Latin "religare", means relationship with God and with one’s neighbour. Ever since the human being gained self-awareness, he believed in the possible existence of a superior being, transcendent to everything and everyone, because He is the Creator of everything and everyone. At all times and in all places, man has sought to communicate with this superior being, God, in order to obtain his blessing.

Cell phone, television and radio waves cross our space and we don't hear or see them, but we know they exist because when we have the right instruments, we can capture these waves. In a similar way, God also sought to communicate with man, and man with God. But this communication is also not accessible to everyone, one needs to have a special sensitivity to enter into this communication.

‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.’  John 3:17-18

Christianity is not a religion, because it does not represent only man's effort or attempt to reach God. On the contrary, Christianity is a revelation because it is God who seeks man and reveals Himself to him. As Jesus says in the Gospel, you did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. (John 15:16)

At Christmas, we celebrate the great truth, that God is not wrapped in silence, but in cloths and laid in a manger. With the birth of Jesus, God breaks the silence, eliminates the distance, and undoes the inaccessibility. Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, at our side, a travelling companion throughout our lives, as he was with the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

Son of God versus last prophet
Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.  Hebrews 1:1-2

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways, summarizes all religions; however, in relation to Christianity, this occupies only the Old Testament of the Bible. Unlike all other religions that talk about prophets sent by God, Christianity no longer presents a prophet, but God himself who comes to us, Emmanuel.

Islam accepts as valid the Jewish religious tradition described in the Old Testament which they also consider their own. Therefore, to the Muslims, Mohammed is the last of the prophets that God sent into the world, Jesus being the second last.

If mankind survives another 10,000 or 20,000 years, what sense does it make that the last prophet came in the year 524? The world and humanity have changed more since the year 524 than in all the millions of years before; why were the prophets sent with frequent succession prior to 524, and then after 524, they suddenly stopped coming and were no longer needed?

In the case of Christianity, even if humanity survives until the year 20,000, it still makes sense that the revelation took place in year zero. As the author of the letter to the Hebrews explains, "the one sent" is no longer a prophet, but God himself who came to live among us.

There is a qualitative leap here; prophets bring messages for a time, while the word of God is eternal for all times and all places, because God does not need to speak twice. On the other hand, Christ is not only a spoken word, he is a lived word and one lives only once.

What is the meaning of the last prophet then? Is it because Islam has a more refined doctrine and an ascending path where we have already reached the summit? But the peak shows a closer association to Christianity rather than Islam, with a much more humane and humanizing narrative, such as love of enemies. Islam in its practice and doctrine even resembles the Old Testament more than the New, when we think that Muslim women are still being stoned today when Christ was already against it in his day.

Islam is in itself violent by nature, because it is not about loving God who loved us first, it is not "love is repaid with love"; God in Islam is the Lord of the Old Testament who commands submission. As a matter of fact, Islam means submission, one submits to God, one does not love God who no longer calls us servants, but friends. In fact, the historical way Islam expanded was not through missionary work or catechesis, but by armed force and submission or by trade.

Christmas, feast of the Father
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.’ John 3:16

Since the Church has reserved the Sunday after Pentecost to celebrate the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, the union and communion of the three divine persons, it is fitting that she should have a solemnity for each of the three divine persons. Seeing that Pentecost is clearly the celebration of God the Holy Spirit, I wanted to see in the other two, Easter and Christmas, the celebrations of the Father and the Son, but I ran into the problem that both Christmas and Easter seem to be celebrations of the Son, leaving the Father without His own feast day.

It doesn’t seem right that two feast days were allocated to the Son and none to the Father, so I thought which one to give to the Father and by what criteria; it could be Easter, because Jesus dies doing the will of the Father (Luke 22:42) or it could be Christmas, by the fact that Jesus himself says in his dialogue with Nicodemus: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…’ (John 3:16-21).

To solve this dilemma, I turned to grammar and what it tells me about active and passive voice. At Easter, it seems that Jesus is the one who directs the action when he says, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18). At Easter, Jesus is the main actor, no one has greater love than he who lays down his life for his friends (John 15:13). There is no doubt then that Easter is the feast of the Son, because He is the protagonist.

The same is no longer the case for Christmas, Jesus is not the protagonist of Christmas, because grammatically he is a passive person, Jesus is not giving birth, he is born. Because of this, I have never liked the formulation of the third Joyful mystery which in all languages says "we contemplate the birth of Jesus". As if Jesus had fallen from heaven by parachute or as if He himself had caused his own birth. This mystery should say: "In the third Joyful mystery, we contemplate Mary giving birth to Jesus".

Christmas has two great protagonists, one divine and the other human. God the Father is the divine protagonist and Mary is the human protagonist. The action begins in God the Father who sends his only begotten Son into the world. Although there is no order of importance between the Father and the Son, from a grammatical and human point of view, it is more important the one who sends than the one who is sent; the one who sends causes the action, the one who is sent suffers the action.

Mary, the human protagonist, is not passive, she is also active; she represents all mankind that says "Yes" to God's plan. A free "Yes" because it was said with much thought and without any coercion from God who proposed it; a "Yes" that, being freely given, could have been a "No". Just as important is the one who sends as the one who receives. If a King sends a messenger to another King, the latter is free to receive or not receive the sent messenger.

The Character of Santa Claus
"Jesus is the reason for the season" (Protestant churches' Christmas slogan)
Jesus is not the reason for the Christmas season, the Father is. On this feast, Jesus is born: the verbs that refer to Jesus in this season come in the passive voice. Christmas, as an encounter between God and humanity, has a human protagonist, a mother, Mary, who received Jesus in her womb and contributed for it with her genetic material; and it has a divine Father, God.  

In another time, I too used to criticize the importance that the civil society gives to the mythical figure of Santa Claus. Today, I understand that it is one of those cases of the "voice of the people, the voice of God". Santa Claus represents God the Father who sent his Son into the world. He is a venerable old man who does not hide his age or tries to look younger, and overflows with kindness by giving gifts to children, caressing them and sitting them on his lap. In everyone’s imagination, God the Father is always represented as an old man with white hair and beard. Santa Claus coincides with this collective imagery.

His suit is red like that of a bishop because, historically, Santa Claus is associated with Bishop Saint Nicholas, which is why he is called Santa Claus in English or just Santa. He lives in the North Pole, a place away from everything and everyone, in a white region, in a pure world that appeals to the collective imagery of how Heaven is conceptualized, God’s home.  

He visits us during the night, because it is said that nighttime is a time of salvation. He is never seen, but speaks through his works which are translated into the graces and gifts that we, as children and his children, ask of him. Being able to enter through windows or doors, he always enters through the chimney because he flies from place to place, he comes from above and enters through the only part of the house that is always open and on watch, signalling that we must always be in prayer, open to the Most High, looking upwards from where help comes to us.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’ (…) The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. Luke 2:13-14, 20

Conclusion: Christmas, because it is the feast of God the Father, was celebrated in Heaven by the angels saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest’, and on earth by the shepherds who returned from Bethlehem glorifying and praising God.

                                            Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC