Mark 10:45

Tag: Church

  • Viva, Cristo Rey: Blessed Miguel Pro

    Daniel 1:1-6, 8-20; Luke 21:1-4

    In biblical studies, as in life, things aren’t always what they seem. For example, some books of the bible seem like history; they mention real historical people and places and the situations they describe seem real enough. However, clues such as language and historical inaccuracies show that the author had another purpose in mind; he is speaking symbolically.

    Thus it is with the book of Daniel. Scholars tell us that the symbolism running through its stories points to two particularly strong themes: The ability of the Jews to thrive in a Gentile world and the importance of remaining true to the traditions of the faith.

    Both themes appear in Daniel and the gospel according to Luke. By successfully bargaining with the Gentile authorities about their diet, four young Hebrew men were able to remain true to their religious identity. Not only that, when the king discovered that their wisdom and understanding far surpassed that of his own people, these men, who it seemed were the conquered, were in fact conquerors.

    These themes also run through the ministry of Blessed Miguel Pro. Born in Mexico, Pro was sent abroad as a seminarian and ordained a Jesuit priest in Belgium in 1925. Finding that he could not thrive abroad due to stomach ailments that nearly killed him, Father was returned to Mexico, despite the great persecution of Catholics currently underway.

    This might seem like the worst thing for an ailing priest, but things aren’t always what they seem. In fact, his ministry to the people of Mexico restored Father’s health. Like Christ and the saints, his food was to do the will of the One who sent him, and he greatly delighted in doing God’s will right under the authorities’ noses. A master of disguise, Father was never what he seemed. He ministered in prisons posing as a policeman; in posh neighborhoods dressed as a rich man; in slums dressed as a beggar. Hiding in plain sight, he taught, gave Communion, said Mass, absolved sins, confirmed the faithful, and prayed over the dead. Father Miguel Pro, like the widow in the gospel, seemed to have almost nothing, but in reality had everything, and freely gave it. He who seemed to be conquered was the conqueror.

    miguel proEventually, Father was caught, imprisoned on a false charge and on the morning of November 23rd 1927 faced a firing squad. Even here, he was a conqueror. Before the cameras and all assembled, he forgave and blessed his persecutors, held out his arms in the shape of the cross and shouted “Viva, Cristo Rey (Long live Christ, the King)!” With that, Father Miguel Pro died.

    The government published a photograph of his execution, believing that it would frighten Catholics into submission. Once again, things were not what they seemed. Father Pro, arms outstretched like a cross, displayed such Christ-like strength, such fearlessness in the face of unjust persecution, that the photograph and Father’s last words became the symbols around which Catholics rallied to resist the repression even more strongly. This was not a photograph of the conquered but of the conqueror. Ironically, the government quickly banned their own photograph.

    Like the young men in the first chapter of Daniel, Blessed Miguel Pro thrived in a hostile environment because he remained faithful to his calling and his religious heritage. While our culture and our authorities are not as openly hostile as was Mexico in the early 20th century, there is constant and perhaps growing pressure to minimize the voice of Christ and his Church in the public arena. While the times may seem bleak, remember: Things are not always what they seem. Let us imitate Blessed Miguel Pro by being in the culture but not of it; by ministering in whatever way we can to preserve and build on the good that has come before. Finally, let us remember that, in the end, we bow to only one authority – that of the Triune God.

    Viva Cristo Rey. Long live Christ the King.

    Blessed Miguel Pro, pray for us.

  • Mother and Disciple: The Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

    Zechariah 2:14-17; Matthew 12:46-50

    We may hear today’s gospel and wonder how any son could treat his mother like that, let alone the Son of God. Hearing that his mother is outside he doesn’t stop speaking and invite her in; rather, he uses her appearance to make the point that everyone who does the will of God is his mother. Shouldn’t Mary be insulted?

    No. She is doubly honored.

    First, remember that this is not just any son; this is Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God. Engaged in the mission for which he was sent, the salvation of souls, he was speaking about radical fidelity to the will of God. Faith binds us to Christ and to each other with a love born not in the blood of kinship but in his own precious blood. If his teaching shocked people, so be it. His point was not about Mary’s faithfulness, it was about ours.

    Indeed, faithfulness is her first honor. As St. Augustine said, Mary conceived her Son in faith before she conceived him in her womb. We think of her as his mother and rightly so for it was by her fiat that he came into the world, but we must also remember that she was his first and best disciple. Mary is the only person to appear in the gospels from before his conception until the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

    It may seem ironic that from the faithful dwelling of her motherhood Mary invited him in yet he, her Son, refused to return the favor. But again Mary loved him as both mother and disciple. As mother she might feel the sting of his words as he broadened “family” from the ties of blood to those of faith, but as disciple she knew and lived their truth. Despite whatever personal pain the truth may cause it is always the source of joy, for joy is happiness in pursuit of the good and Mary lived her life in hope of attaining the greatest good: Eternal union in heaven with God who is love.

    Love is the second honor of Mary. Only through love do we live life to the full and this necessarily includes all the joys and sorrows that go with it. We might think that in his mercy Christ would spare his own mother the pain of suffering but actually the opposite is true: He loved her too much to deprive her of it. What kind of love knows no sorrow, feels no pain, and never suffers? Rightly is Mary the Mother of Sorrows for in her great love she suffered many times over, from the mystical sword that pierced her heart to her Son’s burial in the tomb. Yet as Scripture reminds us, love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:7) and is as deep as death (Song of Songs 8:6); Mary’s love for Jesus could not be broken by any boundary of space or time, but did reach perfection in his love for her: her own glorious Assumption.

    stained-glass-4506616_640The two themes of fidelity and love are interwoven in the feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The presentation of oneself to God is an act of great faith and deep love. Whether Mary demonstrated her faith and love in a formal consecration to God in the Temple as described in the ancient non-biblical documents is irrelevant. Every day of Mary’s life was a presentation, a self-offering, an abandonment to the divine will made possible by the movement of grace within her. Long before he dwelled within her womb, indeed from the moment of her immaculate conception, our Lord dwelled within her soul and bestowed upon it the fullness of grace, his very life. By her response to that grace, Mary most truly defines what it means to be a Temple of the Holy Spirit.

    What does all this mean for us? It means that as Mary has done so we are invited to do. St. Paul said, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? … Therefore, glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:20). May we never forget that every time we receive Holy Communion we present ourselves to God in an act of faith and love like Mary his handmaid, that we too may glorify God in our bodies.

    Blessed Mother intercede for us, that like you we may be among those to whom Christ says, “whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Matthew 12:50).

  • The Miracle of the Nuns: Saturday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time

    Wisdom 18:14-16; 19:6-9; Luke 18:1-8

    In November 1950, three nuns found themselves in the Arctic Circle, in a Russian gulag (or prison camp) named Vorkuta. Found guilty of proclaiming the gospel of Christ, they were assigned to work in a plant there that made bricks.

    The first verses of today’s reading from the book of Wisdom come from Chapter 18, which recalls another prison camp, where Hebrew slaves made bricks for their Egyptian masters. Yet, as the reading says, the Lord, a fierce warrior, bore into the doomed land the sharp sword of his inexorable decree, filling every place with death.

    No one saw Vorkuta as doomed, and death already filled it; more prisoners died there than in Auschwitz. Further, no one had mistaken the nuns for fierce warriors, but perhaps they knew a different art of war. All the camp’s commandant knew was that these nuns were troublesome. They refused to work, claiming that anything they did to support Communism was tantamount to working for the anti-Christ.

    Dead nuns make good martyrs but poor slaves, so the commandant did not want them killed; he wanted them to change their minds. After various ghastly tortures failed, he had an idea; if he couldn’t change their minds, then perhaps the Arctic winter would. He commanded that the nuns be brought outside every day for 8 hours and forced to watch the other women work.

    The first day, the guards led them to the top of the windy hill below which the women worked. In the bitter cold, the nuns knelt and prayed. The next day, their gloves and hats were taken away; again, the nuns knelt and prayed. The third day, their scarves were removed; just as before, the guards returned after 8 hours to find them once again kneeling in prayer. Not only were the nuns very much alive, they had no trace of frostbite at all. Word spread throughout the entire camp about the miracle of the nuns. The next day, the guards refused to take them out again and the commandant ordered them to be left alone; these nuns had some sort of power over which he had no control. They never worked a day of their sentence. Awhile later, in 1953, the entire camp followed suit. Their refusal to work led to the gulag of Vorkuta being declared a failure. The myth of Soviet invincibility suffered a blow from which it would never recover.

    No one reported that a cloud had overshadowed the gulag; then again, perhaps no one asked the nuns. Like the Hebrew slaves long before them, the nuns were preserved unharmed, sheltered by the hand of the One to whom they prayed. Like the Egyptians before them, the Soviets could only stand by helplessly and behold the stupendous wonders of God.

    In the gospel, Jesus exhorts us to pray always without becoming weary. Even as unjust a judge as the commandant of Vorkuta was powerless when confronted with the faith of the three little nuns who understood the power of persistent prayer.

    winter-1565442_640.jpgPersistence in prayer does not test God’s patience or change his mind; rather, it tests our faith and changes our attitude. Through his life and the Scriptures he has given the world, Jesus has told us that God loves each of us with a love beyond our understanding and knows our needs before we ask. That being so, God wants our prayer to consistently express the trust we have in him and his providence; that is the faith that Christ wants to find upon his return.

    We will have reached perfection in prayer when it expresses the same total abandonment to God as that of Jesus when he prayed: “Father, not my will, but Thy will be done.”