Month: December 2020

I was recently part of a six-week journal group among mothers of my local parish. During our final session, I can recall two occurrences in particular that stood out to me. The first was that each of us were to identify another woman in our lives who has made a difference to us. Perhaps someone we view as a strong woman, or as an inspiration or a role model. Someone who had helped us learn more about who we are deep inside ourselves. Most others chose a friend of a similar age, but I struggled to identify someone.

At the close of the meeting, the group leader spoke about a memory of her father. Her father would regularly teach her that, when standing at the gates of Heaven, God will ask us three basic questions.

Did you know me? 

Did you love me? 

Who did you bring? 

Our group leader spoke of how she hoped to bring each of us with her. I was so moved. To this day, I constantly struggle with the fear of being rejected or of not being good enough. And yet, for someone who barely knew me, I knew that I was loved.

In the same model, Mary encompasses for us the values of humility, courage, and above all, love of God. She epitomizes what it is to be committed to God. “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.” With those words, the course of history would be changed forever. If ever I needed a female friend, who better than Mary to share with? Through her gift of self and sacrifices, she is the pinnacle of what it is to be a mother.

And when reviewing the questions my group leader posed to us, Did you know me? Did you love me? Who did you bring?,  it is by reflecting on Mary’s life that I can grow closer to the love of God. By having quiet time reflecting on prayers to my Mother, I grow in my understanding of Her beloved Son, Jesus Christ. I pray to become more humble and recall she is always by my side. Through Mary, I grow to know Christ and love Him. Through her Fiat, may we be inspired to bring countless souls on Judgment Day, when God asks us to show how we displayed our love for Him in this precious gift of life he has bestowed to us, both physical life, and spiritual life through that of His glorious son, Jesus Christ.

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Today is Nathalie’s birthday so I would be remiss if I didn’t wish her a Happy Birthday up front. And it is fitting because today’s Gospel passage is all about birth. It’s the announcement of a very important birthday and the power of God.

Think about this passage and compare it to the announcement of Jesus. You have Mary and you have Zechariah. One is a priest and one is a simple girl from a small town. But the responses could not be more different. Mary immediately asks how this all can be because she has not been with a man. She does not doubt God is going to make it happen, but just wonders how it will take place.

Zechariah on the other hand, doubts that God can actually do it. Because of his lack of faith his mouth is sealed. Two beautiful stories about God working in the natural world to bring about his plan. Two different subjects. Two different responses.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the difference between faith and reason. Of course these two are connected in our Catholic faith, but they are not equal. They are in fact, very different. Faith is an assent of the will to those things we cannot know, but which have been revealed. Reason is using our intellect to learn about the things we can know.

So when you think of it this way, faith is not unreasonable like many presume, but instead it is super-reasonable. That is to say, reason gets us to a certain point and faith takes us beyond.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it beautifully by saying, “In faith, the human intellect and will cooperate with divine grace: ‘Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.’” CCC 155

This is the message we see in the Gospel today. We can reason all we want about how a woman cannot get pregnant after menopause or how someone cannot conceive if they have not had relations with another. But at the end of the day, faith went beyond that which we could know. God revealed a seemingly impossible plan by reason standards, and our characters had to have faith that what was said would come to pass.

We now have historical accounts of what came to pass, proving that faith was not blind assent to an untruth, but it confirmed truth beyond anything we could do ourselves. In both stories, the tipping point is faith. In our story, the tipping point is faith. Do we believe? No, but do we really believe? If God spoke to us today and told us something would happen that would be impossible to reason through, would we trust? Does our understanding supersede faith or do we allow our faith to go beyond the confines of reason alone?

Let’s all pray to have faith as Mary did when she said, “Let it be done unto me according to your word.” From all of us here at Rodzinka Ministry, God Bless!

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Each year the Church presents this genealogy of Jesus, which we can easily skim over when reading because the names do not hold much meaning for us. But this genealogy is significant because it establishes the historical fact of Christ, and his entry into a very human line of very real and imperfect people. Even the great poet, King David (the Hebrew letters of whose name (דוד) add up to the number fourteen, establishing the structure of Jesus’ genealogy as three sets of fourteen generations), was a great sinner.

And yet, this is how God comes to us, entering into human history, into a human family, into human time, in human flesh. “What tremendous dignity God acknowledges mankind to possess when he reveals to it a mystery that has been contained within the very fiber and flesh of generation after generation! God reveals to man not only the being of God: God reveals man to himself in all his hidden possibilities… Who could have suspected humanity’s hidden talent to be able to bear God, not as a cup bears water or as the hand bears a weight, but in the most intimate, physiological sense possible: as a mother bears her child, with everything that implies for the interpenetration of two beings?” (Leiva-Merikakis, Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word)

In the Incarnation, we come face to face with the Mysterious Fact that we, too, are caught up in a biological and spiritual genealogy, each with the possibility and responsibility of bearing God’s Presence within us and among us, for others.

Today we also begin the “O Antiphons,” recited for the next seven days before the Magnificat during Vespers of the Liturgy of the Hours, and as the Alleluia Antiphon before the Gospel at Mass. These antiphons have been chanted since the early centuries of the Church, each one highlighting a title for the Messiah found in the prophecy of Isaiah. Most people recognize these antiphons from the popular Advent hymn, O come, O come, Emmanuel. We express our longing and pray and beseech the Messiah to come to us, invoking imagery from the Old Testament that has helped us understand our relationship with God for thousands of years. Each year, we acknowledge this patrimony and beseech the Lord to come to us anew. These supplications are reminders of preparation for the Parousia – the final Coming of Christ in glory –  the long-range focus of our Christmas preparations.

If, on Christmas Eve, we look back and start at the last title in the O Antiphons and take the first letter of each one (Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia) the Latin words ERO CRAS are formed, meaning “Tomorrow, I will come.” The monks arranged these antiphons with definite purpose!

Maybe you can recite the day’s antiphon before Grace at dinner each night. Maybe you can explore even more deeply the ancient meanings at prayer. Because praying with the Church is a way to grow in holiness!

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