Why is JPII a saint?

Happy feast of the Annunciation!

"... [A]fter the Our Father, the Hail Mary is the most beautiful of all prayers. It is the perfect compliment the most high God paid to Mary through his archangel in order to win her heart. So powerful was the effect of the greeting upon her, on account of its hidden delights, that despite her great humility, she gave her consent to the incarnation of the Word." -- St. Louis de Montfort

The theology of Mary Poppins

This is quite brilliant. I haven't had the opportunity to read it all (it is massive!) but the "Vestal Morons" blog has an interesting look at the movie "Mary Poppins" from a Catholic perspective. Ever thought of Mary Poppins as a symbol of the Blessed Mother? Bert as St. Joseph? "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down" as a treatise on grace and suffering?

Well, read away!

It makes me want to watch "Mary Poppins" again, which I haven't done in a very long time.

The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

"We should not be surprised that she is spoken of as a thought by God before the world was made. When Whistler painted the picture of his mother, did he not have the image of her in his mind before he ever gathered his colors on his palette? If you could have preexisted your mother (not artistically, but really), would you not have made her the most perfect woman that ever lived -— one so beautiful she would have been the sweet envy of all women, and one so gentle and so merciful that all other mothers would have sought to imitate her virtues? Why, then, should we think that God would do otherwise? When Whistler was complimented on the portrait of his mother, he said, "You know how it is; one tries to make one's Mummy just as nice as he can." When God became Man, He too, I believe, would make His Mother as nice as He could -— and that would make her a perfect Mother." -- Archbishop Fulton Sheen in "The World's First Love"

Our Lady of Sorrows

Yesterday was the Exaltation of the Cross. Today is Our Lady of Sorrows. It is certainly not accidental that they are back-to-back.

In his encyclical, "Redemptoris Mater," John Paul II portrays with aching emotion the journey of faith Mary undertook.

"At the foot of the Cross Mary shares through faith in the shocking mystery of this self- emptying. This is perhaps the deepest "kenosis" of faith in human history. Through faith the Mother shares in the death of her Son, in his redeeming death; but in contrast with the faith of the disciples who fled, hers was far more enlightened. On Golgotha, Jesus through the Cross definitively confirmed that he was the "sign of contradiction" foretold by Simeon. At the same time, there were also fulfilled on Golgotha the words which Simeon had addressed to Mary: "and a sword will pierce through your own soul also."

Yes, truly "blessed is she who believed"! These words, spoken by Elizabeth after the Annunciation, here at the foot of the Cross seem to re-echo with supreme eloquence, and the power contained within them becomes something penetrating. From the Cross, that is to say from the very heart of the mystery of Redemption, there radiates and spreads out the prospect of that blessing of faith It goes right hack to "the beginning." and as a sharing in the sacrifice of Christ-the new Adam-it becomes in a certain sense the counterpoise to the disobedience and disbelief embodied in the sin of our first parents. Thus teach the Fathers of the Church and especially St. Irenaeus, quoted by the Constitution Lumen Gentium: "The knot of Eve's disobedience was untied by Mary's obedience; what the virgin Eve bound through her unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosened by her faith." In the light of this comparison with Eve, the Fathers of the Church-as the Council also says-call Mary the "mother of the liing" and often speak of "death through Eve, life through Mary."

In the expression "Blessed is she who believed," we can therefore rightly find a kind of "key" which unlocks for us the innermost reality of Mary, whom the angel hailed as "full of grace." If as "full of grace" she has been eternally present in the mystery of Christ, through faith she became a sharer in that mystery in every extension of her earthly journey. She "advanced in her pilgrimage of faith" and at the same time, in a discreet yet direct and effective way, she made present to humanity the mystery of Christ. And she still continues to do so. Through the mystery of Christ, she too is present within mankind. Thus through the mystery of the Son the mystery of the Mother is also made clear."

May Our Lady of Sorrows stand at the cross with us, as we grow in obedience of faith to her Son.

Quote book

"Every woman who wants to fulfill her destiny must look to Mary as the ideal." -- St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Happy feast day of St. Gianna!

St. Gianna Beretta Molla is a favorite of mine, and we celebrate her feast day today. She was a wife and mother, and in a real sense a martyr for life. She gave her life so that her unborn child would be able to live. It is well worth reading her story and saying a prayer for her intercession.

This picture, by the way, is one that I took of her grave when I visited her small town of Mesero in 2006.

And in honor of the day, St. Gianna's prayer of consecration to Mary -- "O Mary, into your maternal hands I place myself and I abandon myself completely, sure of obtaining whatever I ask of you. I trust in you because you are the sweet Mother, I confide in you because you are the Mother of Jesus. In this trust I place myself, sure of being heard in everything; with this trust in my heart I greet you 'my Mother, my trust,' I devote myself entirely to you, begging you to remember that I am yours, that I belong to you; keep me and defend me, O sweet Mary, and in every instant of my life, present me to your Son, Jesus."

Happy TOB Day!

Lest there be any confusion, I just coined the phrase, "TOB Day" three seconds ago. It's not official. It's not a Church-recognized feast. It's not going to show up on your calendar. But doesn't it seem like an appropriate day to reflect on many of the key concepts of Theology of the Body? Just to name a few:

• "Through the fact that the Word of God became flesh, the body entered theology -- that is, the science that has divinity for its object -- I would say, through the main door" (TOB 23:3). The Annunciation is the day we celebrate Mary's yes to the Incarnation.


• Adam and Eve chose to grasp at happiness instead of receiving everything from the hands of their loving Father. Mary, on the other hand, opened her hands to receive all that God had for her. We see this concretely in her "fiat" at the Annunciation. Mary is saying yes to God and saying yes for all of us. She opens a space that allows our own response to God's incredible love. Theology of the Body shows us the greatness of our call to receive ourselves made in God's image and likeness, rather than following the example of Adam and Eve to grasp.


• The Annunciation shows us the spousal and fruitful dimensions of celibacy for the Kingdom. Mary's gift of self was spousal -- a gift to another -- and fruitful -- a gift that brought life for the world.

We have a lot to learn from our Blessed Mother about how to live Theology of the Body in our daily lives. She is a gift to the world.

Today is a wonderful day to reflect on the words of Archbishop Fulton Sheen in "The World's First Love." You can read an excerpt here, but I'd also like to highlight this paragraph:

Every man who pursues a maid, every maid who yearns to be courted, every bond of friendship in the universe, seeks a love that is not just her love or his love but something that overflows both her and him that is called "our love." Everyone is in love with an ideal love, a love that is so far beyond sex that sex is forgotten. We all love something more than we love. When that overflow ceases, love stops. As the poet puts it: "I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more." That ideal love we see beyond all creature-love, to which we instinctively turn when flesh-love fails, is the same ideal that God had in His Heart from all eternity—the Lady whom He calls "Mother." She is the one whom every man loves when he loves a woman—whether he knows it or not. She is what every woman wants to be when she looks at herself. She is the woman whom every man marries in ideal when he takes a spouse; she is hidden as an ideal in the discontent of every woman with the carnal aggressiveness of man; she is the secret desire every woman has to be honored and fostered; she is the way every woman wants to command respect and love because of the beauty of her goodness of body and soul. And this blueprint love, whom God loved before the world was made, this Dream Woman before women were, is the one of whom every heart can say in its depth of depths: "She is the woman I love!"

Quote book -- Happy Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God!

"She is the one whom every man loves when he loves a woman -- whether he knows it or not. She is what every woman wants to be when she looks at herself. She is the woman whom every man marries in ideal when he takes a spouse; she is hidden as an ideal in the discontent of every woman with the carnal aggressiveness of man; she is the secret desire every woman has to be honored and fostered; she is the way every woman wants to command respect and love because of the beauty of her goodness of body and soul. And this blueprint love, whom God loved before the world was made, this Dream Woman before women were, is the one of whom every heart can say in its depth of depths: 'She is the woman I love!'" -- Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Happy Solemnity!

It's the Feast of the Immaculate Conception today. In honor of the occasion, here is a quote from Pope Benedict XVI from last year's Immaculate Conception day Mass:

"Mary Immaculate helps us rediscover and defend what is inside people, because in her there is perfect transparency of soul and body. She is purity in person in the sense that the spirit, soul and body are fully coherent in her and with God’s will. Our Lady teaches us to open up to God’s action and to look at others as he does, starting with the heart, to look upon them with mercy, love, infinite tenderness, especially those who are lonely, scorned or exploited. '[W]here sins increased, grace overflows all the more.'"