XII Mystery - Coronation of Mary as queen of heaven and earth

A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.  Revelation 12:1

In his Apostolic Exhortation "Marialis Cultus", Pope Paul VI wrote that the Solemnity of the Assumption is joyfully prolonged in the celebration of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which occurs seven days later. A mother of a king is a queen, the queen mother. It was not an inherited kingship as the son of a king is a king, it was a hard-won queenship, a queenship that hurts.

It was a crown of glory preceded by a crown of thorns, or the prophetic sword of much suffering referred to by old Simeon that Mary had to go through for the sake of her son. Mary's queenship is therefore a queenship by merit, something akin to a Nobel Prize for her good service to humanity.

St. Paul, in one of his letters, talks about athletes who sacrifice themselves with strict diet and exercise only to win a crown that withers. If this happens to them, how much more will it happen to us if we want to win, like Mary, an eternal crown of glory. We must accept and endure the sufferings that come our way.

Mary and the Empress St. Helena
In thinking about what is said in this text, because there is no historical basis for the things we understand to happen in Heaven, I thought of another woman who, like Mary, achieved great heights despite starting very low, and who also like Mary, lived 100% at the service of her son. This is empress St. Helena who lived at the service of her son.

Saint Helena was not born to any noble family in Rome, she was born in Asia Minor and, as her name implies, she was not Roman, but Greek. She married the Roman emperor Constantius Chlorus who went on a military campaign in Asia Minor. Her son is Constantine I who became Roman emperor in York, England, in 306. He conferred on his mother the title of empress. Later, she converted to Christianity, as did her son because of the great influence she had on him.

In her last years of life, she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. At that time Jerusalem was still called Aelia Capitolina, after the troops of Emperor Titus destroyed it. In place of the Holy Sepulchre and Golgotha, they had built a temple to the goddess Venus.

Helena had this temple destroyed and, in its place, built the great Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on the very site where she found the true Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Helena built many other churches, which were later destroyed by the Muslim occupation. The only two that remain standing, and which were the main ones, are the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Many images of St. Helena represent her embracing the cross, the same cross at the foot of which Mary wept for the death of her Son. As Mary rejoiced at the Resurrection of her Son and the end of her suffering, Helena represents the end of the suffering of her son's disciples who, until her and her son Constantine made Christianity the state religion, had suffered Roman persecution and the martyrdom of being eaten by beasts in Roman arenas. Helena is the first Christian empress or queen; Mary is the Queen of queens, the Queen of heaven and earth.

Queen Mother
Salve rainha, Salve rainha, Senhora minha mãe de Jesus (Portuguese Marian Canticle)

Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae, vita dulcedo et spes nostra salve. Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevae.
Ad te suspiramus gementes et flentes, in hac lacrimarum valle. Eja ergo advocata nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte. Et Jesum benedictum fructum ventris tui nobis post hoc exsilium ostende. O clemens, o pia, o dulcis Virgo Maria. (Hail Holy Queen in Latin)

In my student days in England, the Queen Mother of the late Queen Elizabeth II was still living. The Queen Mother was a person much loved by the people. She too was a queen, not because she reigned, but because her husband had been a king. She had the title of queen consort and, at that time, Queen Mother of Elizabeth II.

Mary is the Queen Mother because she is the mother of Christ who is the King of the Universe. The Mother of Christ, head of the Church which is his mystical body, is seated at the right of her Son as the queen adorned in gold of Ophir from Psalm 45:9.

Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae (Hail Queen, Mother of Mercy) – Mary is queen because she is the mother of Jesus, and our queen because she is our spiritual mother, a merciful mother like God the Father. A mother who because she is the flesh of our flesh, totally human, is a bridge to her Son. A "Pontifex maximus" to access her Son because she, like Empress Helena, knows how to access the heart of her Son and obtain from Him, for us, all the graces we need, just as she already did at Cana apparently with his initial opposition.

Queen of angels, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, all the saints, and of peace, as the litany says in her praise. Mary is above all the queen of our hearts where she reigns with her beloved Son.

The Queen Mother in Israel
…at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.  Psalms 45:9

In the biblical episode about King Solomon’s ascension to the throne, we notice the king's reverence for his mother Bathsheba, when she went to visit him as the 1st book of Kings, chapter 2, verse 19, says:

So Bathsheba went to King Solomon, to speak to him on behalf of Adonijah. The king rose to meet her, and bowed down to her; then he sat on his throne, and had a throne brought for the king’s mother, and she sat on his right. 1 Kings 2:19

This attitude of Solomon immediately refers to Psalm 45 quoted above. The Hebrews kept this tradition until the Babylonian exile, when they no longer had kings. From that time onward, one begins to expect the coming of David’s new son, the Messiah. According to tradition, Mary is also from the tribe of Judah, like Joseph, that is, she also belongs by birth to the royal family.

In fact, Angel Gabriel already greeted Mary with the salutation of ‘Hail’, a greeting used for the emperors of Rome. She was destined to be the queen of heaven and earth, so she was already queen of heaven and earth when she accepted to be the mother of God’s only begotten Son, the King of the Universe.

At that very moment, when she conceived the king, she became queen. On the other hand, by being conceived without original sin, Mary was already born predestined to be queen. Mary's immaculate conception makes the blue blood of humanity, created by God without original sin, to flow through her veins. By being conceived without original sin she was already conceived as queen.

‘You are the glory of Jerusalem… you are the great pride of our nation!... you have done great good to Israel, and God is well pleased with it. May the Almighty Lord bless you for ever!’  Judith 15:10

Conclusion – Mary is Queen of Heaven and Earth because she is the mother of Christ, King of the Universe. Her coronation is something akin to a Nobel Prize for her services rendered for the salvation of mankind.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

XI Mystery: The Dormition and Assumption of Mary

"My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generation will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name…’  Luke 1:47-55

Just as Mary initiated Jesus into this world and took him everywhere when he was small and launched him into public life before his time at the wedding in Cana, so now it is Jesus who takes her to Heaven in a glorious body like His own and introduces her to His world where He is Lord of the Universe.

The exaltation of the humble servant of Zion
All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.  Matthew 23:12 – The Assumption of Mary is the exaltation of the humble that the gospel speaks of, and in this case, it is of a humble servant of Zion whom the Lord had already set his eyes on before her birth, thus making her conception immaculate.

With humility she endured the vexation of finding herself pregnant without being able to explain the origin of her pregnancy; with humility she endured her son's sufferings when he began to encounter opposition from the leaders of Israel; with humility and abasement she endured his death; now, by merit she is exalted and ascends to Heaven to be always with the One she begot, the firstborn Son of God.

Assumption and Dormition are the same thing. The East celebrates it more as Dormition, while the West more as Assumption. In my homeland, it is celebrated more as Dormition. Since I was a child, my village has celebrated Dormition with a skiff or coffin where Our Lady is found lying inside. On August 15th, this skiff is placed where the coffin of the dead is usually placed for the funeral Mass. Thus, the Mass of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven is like a funeral Mass with the body present.

History of the dogma of the Assumption
By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.  Munificentissimus Deus, Pius XII November 1, 1950

The declaration of the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body, and soul, into Heaven is quite recent. However, this and all other dogmas have a long history of almost 2000 years of theological reflection, popular piety, and spirituality, and in some cases, even heavenly confirmation, as with the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in the Lourdes apparitions.

The first allusion to Mary's passage from this world into Heaven took place in the 4th century; in 377, Epiphanius of Salamis stated that no one knew whether Mary had died. The oldest account is the so-called "The Book of Mary's Rest", of which there is only an Ethiopic Coptic translation, understood to be from the 4th century, although it may well have been from the 3rd century.

Our Lady’s Assumption into Heaven also appears in the book "De Transitu Virginis", a work attributed to St. Melito of Sardis in late 5th century. This book tells us that the Apostles came carried on white clouds, each from the city where he was at the time, to watch the Dormition of Mary. This story is continued centuries later, with an appendix according to which Thomas, as usual, did not attend this funeral of Our Lady, and when he arrived later, they had the tomb opened, which they found was empty.

Where this Assumption or Dormition took place is not known, some say in Jerusalem, others say in Ephesus where, according to tradition, Mary lived the last years of her life with St. John, in the well-known "House of Mary" that is still there today and is open to visitors.

With her Assumption into Heaven, Mary fulfills what St. Irenaeus said: God became man so that man might become God. This is how the dream of Eve, who wanted to be God, is fulfilled. Mary became like God by being a mother. Through obedience, being part of God's intimate family is open to all of us: "my mother and my brothers are those who hear my Word and put it into practice".

Assumption as union with God
"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you," St. Augustine.

We are in the world, but we are not of the world. This subtle difference in the meaning of the verb to be is expressed in Portuguese by two different verbs. We are (estar) in the world, but we are (ser) from Heaven, we are from God, from where we came and to where we will return. The best way to be in the world then is to live detached, and we only achieve this way of being in the world if we set our priorities right, that is, if God is the one we love the most, both in theory and in practice.

I will always remember my experience of crossing the fast-flowing rivers in Ethiopia: one should not look at the water that is flowing very fast, but rather look at the riverbank that is not moving. The first time I had to cross one of these great rivers, I started looking at the water and started becoming nauseous, dazed and in danger of being swept away by the current. Upon seeing this, the young men accompanying me shouted, "Abba, don't look at the water, but look at the riverbank."

This can be a metaphor for our life. Let our eyes be fixed not on what moves which is temporal and fleeting, but on what does not move, that is, on God who does not change and is eternal, so that we are not carried away by the current of the present, so that we will not let ourselves be inebriated by current pleasure nor despair by current pain. We will only cross the river of life well if we keep our eyes fixed on God in Heaven. If not, we will be swept away by the current, whatever the trend, fashion, power, wealth, the things of the world.

In search of his own identity, a salt doll traveled thousands of kilometers across a desert, until he finally reached the sea. Fascinated by the strange, moving mass, completely different from anything he had ever seen, he asked:
-Who are you?
 With a smile, the sea replied:
-I am the sea.
-But what is the sea? asked the doll.
-Come, touch me and you will find out.
The salt doll put his foot in the water and immediately it disappeared.
-What did you do? he asked, startled.
-To know me, you must give yourself to me, replied to the sea.
Then the salt doll went deeper into the sea and, before a wave completely covered him, he said with a sigh:
-I finally know who I am. Tony De Mello

If we want to get to know God already here in this life, we must get involved. We cannot know God without getting involved. It cannot be a cold knowledge in which we do not get ourselves involved, as if we were doing that oxygen experiment with algae and sun where we with our knowledge are only observing and recording.

In this case, we are not directly involved, but with God, if we are to know Him, we must love Him. The same thing happens when we begin to know a person who is a stranger to us: little by little we begin to like that person not least because knowledge between people and about people is affective; and so, it is with God. Only affective knowledge is effective, that is, it is real and has effect.

Assumption as Levitation
An interesting experience to have in New York, if we visit the NASA museum, is the experience of weightlessness: it is like flying, over there even French fries and water droplets can fly. Flying has always been the dream of every human being; in fact, it seems to be a frequent recurring dream of many of us. I personally dream often that I am flying.

The Assumption is a spiritual experience that is felt by those who detach themselves from the things and affections of this world. The saints levitated because their ties to this earth were few. Saint Teresa of Avila said, "I live without living in me, and I expect a life so high, that I die because I do not die..." Assumption is like levitation, when we let go of what binds us to this world, the affections for temporal goods and even for people.

The mystery of the Incarnation and the emancipation of women
If a particular rat poison is potent, that is, if its effect, the death of the rat is too close to the cause, that is, the ingestion of the poison, then other rats easily associate the death of a mate with the poison and the poison is never touched again. Hence the best poison for mice is an anticoagulant, death only happens if the mouse is wounded in an accident or fights another mate; in this way, the cause is far from the effect so the mouse cannot make the association.  

In the early days of humanity, when our intelligence did not surpass that of a mouse today, men still did not know where babies came from, because the effect, that is, birth was separated from the cause, that is, the sexual act, for too long, nine months.

At this time the woman, and only she, was the future and hope of the human species, she brought forth new beings into the world. As the result, the first deity to be worshipped was a goddess: the goddess of earth and female fertility. Earth is still today a feminine term in almost all languages. It was also the woman who invented agriculture. Because the woman was regarded as the origin of life, god was conceived in feminine form at that time.

When the connection between coitus and the birth of a baby was established, the woman gradually lost all social prestige. To the principle of the female deity was added the male consort. Over time, the male consort expelled the goddess from heaven, and he was left to rule alone. The woman is now only the ground that the man works on and dominates, God sends the rain like the man sows the semen, the whole new being is contained in the man’s semen, the woman is only the receptacle.

In this new concept of God, Yahweh is the king and the lord, and the kings at that time did not have a queen, but a harem of concubines. The woman was then treated like the earth in agriculture, "Be fruitful and multiply, rule the earth...” and the woman disappeared from the social scene and from the heaven inhabited by a king, almighty and loner God. The woman was the last to be created and the first to sin.

Christianity is an emancipating factor for women. Let us see, in non-Christian societies women are debased and mistreated. Even today, in Africa, the woman is the one who works, the man does nothing; the woman is sold, forced to marry at the age of 15 to middle-aged men. In Japan, she serves as a dish in restaurants, even today. In Asia, it is in the Philippines that women are most emancipated. Muslims circumcise the woman so that she never has sexual pleasure.

The Annunciation was the beginning of this emancipation of women. God, to come into the world, needed a woman, not a man. And it was not only the womb that He used; it was also the ovum. With Mary's life, the woman returned to Heaven in Assumption, as the mother of God’s only begotten Son.

No man was born without original sin, only her; God did not need the man's sperm, but the woman's egg. Mary points to the feminine face of God, just as Jesus of Nazareth, her Son, points to the masculine face of God.

Conclusion – The Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven is the logical outcome of Mary’s life on earth. Conceived without original sin, she gave birth to the author of life, becoming the mother of God. Mary brings Jesus into the world, and Jesus brings his mother into Heaven.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

X Mystery: Mary, Mother of the Church at Pentecost

When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James, son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.  Acts 1:13-14

The Church or the Kingdom of God?
"Jesus announced the coming of the Kingdom of God, but what came was the Church." -- Alfred Loisy (1857-1940)

There is a discontinuity between Jesus of Nazareth and the Church; in fact, whereas the word "Ekklesia" appears only twice in the gospels, and only in the Gospel of St. Matthew, (16:18) and (18:1), in two very debatable texts, the expression Kingdom of God, or Kingdom of Heaven as Matthew prefers, appears 127 times.

There is, therefore, a striking contrast in the New Testament between the word CHURCH, which appears 112 times and almost only in the Acts of the Apostles and the Letters, and the word KINGDOM which appears 162 times, and of these, only 35 times in the book of Acts and in the Letters while the remaining 127 times are found in the gospels. This demonstrates how important the Kingdom of God was for Jesus and how of little importance this same Kingdom was for the nascent Church founded by Christ.

The Church, as the mystical body of Christ, can have no other purpose than to continue the work of Christ. Therefore, the purpose of its existence is not to implant itself in every corner of this earth, but to take the Good News of the Kingdom to every corner of the earth.

The main objective is not to produce more and more Christians, to increase the number of its members, but rather to unite all men and women of good will, whether they are from other religions, or atheists or agnostics, so that together they work towards the building of a better world, a more just and fraternal society, where justice, peace, harmony and love reign among all peoples. If this had been the true objective of the Church from the very beginning, as it was of its founder, there would have been no fundamentalism such as the Inquisition, nor holy wars such as the ones driven by the Crusades.

The Church, the leaven of the Kingdom of God
The Church is the way that Christ prepared to be with us in the here and now, in all the "here(s)" and "now(s)" of human history. Christ could have only one human life, but his Word is eternal for all times and all cultures; He himself was not only the Way, the Truth and the Life for the people of his time, but also for the whole human race till the end of time; for this to be so, he had to leave someone to continue his work.

It makes no sense for the eternal Word of God to become incarnate, that is, the only begotten son of God to acquire human nature, the creator to become a creature, just to save those who lived during his time on earth.

It is true that the word Church, as we have said, appears only twice or even just once in all the gospels, but the fact that Jesus chose, from the very beginning, his own collaborators for the work of the Kingdom shows that Jesus wanted to leave a structure that could and would continue his work. Already in his lifetime, Jesus sent his disciples to cities and towns where He himself thought to go, (Luke 10:1), and then sent them out into the whole world (Mark 16:15-18).

The proof that these disciples of his would be his representatives on earth is the fact that he equipped them with the same powers and faculties that he had, (Matthew 21:21; John 14:12). In this last text from John, Jesus also tells the reasons why he passes all his powers and faculties to his disciples: "because I going to the Father".

Furthermore, although he was leaving, he also assured his disciples that he would be with them until the end of time (Matthew 28:20). In fact, when Saul was persecuting Christians, Jesus did not ask him "why do you persecute my disciples?", but rather, "why do you persecute me?" (Acts 9:4). Finally, in his priestly prayer, Jesus prays not only for his disciples, but also for those who would believe in his testimony (John 17:20).

The Church does not exist for itself nor should it preach itself, because its Master and founder did not preach himself: the Church exists for the Mission, that is, to continue the work of its founder and the purpose of the Mission which is the Kingdom. The Church is what we are, it is our identity, the Kingdom is our mission, what we do. The Church is the yeast that leavens the world until the world becomes the Kingdom of God.

Mary and the Kingdom of God
He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.  Luke 1:51-53

Almost all the images of Mary, represented both in statues and paintings, show a woman reserved in words and actions, humble and even submissive, serene, peaceful and sad... they do not reflect this facet of Mary, the Mary of the Magnificat, or at least the part of the Magnificat that I quoted above.

Whenever I read, recite or meditate on this part of the Magnificat, the image of Mary that comes to mind is that of the bare-chested woman waving the flag of the republic in her hand, at the command post, leading the people in the French Revolution. This image does more justice to the content of the prayer of the Magnificat.

It does not seem plausible that the woman in the images representing Mary could have said that God is going to overthrow the powerful from their thrones, and that he will take from the rich and give to the poor. But whoever said this seems to be truly the mother of the one who did just that: Jesus of Nazareth. "De tal palo tal astilla" says a Castilian proverb, "Offspring of fish knows how to swim" says its Portuguese counterpart, or in English “Like father like son” which in this case is more appropriate to say “Like mother like son”. Mary seems to announce in these sentences the kingdom that was to come with her son; a kingdom of Justice and Peace.

Ecclesiae Mater
"Mother of the Church, that is to say of all Christian people, the faithful as well as the pastors, who call her the most loving Mother" and established that "the Mother of God should be further honoured and invoked by the entire Christian people by this tenderest of titles".  Paul VI on 21 November 1964 at the end of the Second Vatican Council

Mary is the mother of the Church because she is the mother of each and every one of her son's disciples (John 19:25-27). Since each of her son's disciples is "ipso facto" a member of the Church as well, therefore Mary is the mother of the Church.

Mary is the mother of the Church because she is the mother of its founder, because as a disciple of her son, she followed in his footsteps along with other women, and did not abandon the company of his disciples after the death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven of her son.

Christ is the head of his mystical body which is the Church; and the birth of the Head is also the birth of the Body, which indicates that Mary is, at the same time, the mother of Christ, the Son of God, and the mother of all the members of his mystical Body, that is, the Church. Mary's divine motherhood did not end with the birth of Jesus; she was throughout her life on earth, and now in Heaven, intimately united to the redemptive work of her son.

Mary is the mother of the Church because as she assisted in the birth of her son, she also assisted in the birth of the Church, for she, like the other female disciples of Jesus, was with her son's male disciples on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended upon them in the form of tongues of fire.

More than mother of the Church, she is "Mater ed Magistral" ("Mother and Teacher", the title of John XXIII’s encyclical) because she was already a teacher in the things of the Holy Spirit, she had already conceived by the work and grace of the third person of the Holy Trinity, so she more than anyone else could instruct the apostles on how to prepare themselves to receive Him. More than mother, she was a catechist, as she prepared the apostles to receive Confirmation. We can say that she was the Godmother at the Confirmation of each of her son's disciples.

Conclusion: Mary is the mother of the Church because she is the mother of the one who founded it, and by the will of the son expressed from the top of the cross, she is the mother of each of his disciples, members of the Church, who together form the mystical body of Christ. If Mary is the mother of Christ, the head of the mystical body that is the Church, then she is also the mother of the body.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

 

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