Wait, wait, wait....I'm gonna go crazy if I have to wait much longer! Being up in KC while everyone else has been gone for two weeks...working at a place that makes me crazy when I'd rather be at home Christmas shopping with my mom and sister and talking skiing strategies with my brother...blegh. Waiting is torturous. It's also hard. There is literally nothing I can do to make time skip to Friday December 23rd at 2pm, when I get to point the nose of my little car toward Wichita, KS. It stinks that 2 weeks of my break have been spent waiting...especially because I'm wishing this time away.
Amidst all this frustration and boredom with a little loneliness mixed in, I think of Mary. Poor girl. All she could do after the Angel Gabriel's visit was wait. She simply had to trust that the child growing inside her was the miracle she was promised. She had to trust that God (through Joseph) would take care of her as they were slandered and gossiped about by their neighbors. If I think about it, it may not have been until the shepherds came proclaiming their praise and confirming the news she heard from the Angel, that her "waiting" was over. 9 months of waiting. While pregnant. What have I got to complain about? I've got two weeks and no baby. No lost reputation in the eyes of my neighbors.
So, instead of wishing my time away, I'll wait with Mary, as She prepares to bring us the Savior of the World, the Prince of Peace, the newborn King of Kings. Yep. I'll wait with Her.
Merry Christmas!
Grace to you, and peace.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!
I got to daily Mass today only to realize that it was a Marian feast day! Hooray....I love Marian feast days...especially when I get on Facebook and realize that many of my friends are as excited as I am...
Not many people know this, but Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of my favorite apparitions for so many reasons:
1) The way cool story of Juan Diego, and Mary's direct intervention on the part of the Mexican people, barely ten years after the Aztec empire had been conquered, and the Spanish were trying to enforce Catholicism on them. Because of her appearance to poor Juan Diego (who was probably terrified at the prospect of appealing to the Bishop at Her request!), Mexico's people were no longer so disenchanted; they established an identity separate from the Spanish, and benefitted from the justice Mary sought for them.
2) When Mary appeared to Juan Diego, she had dark skin and dark eyes, was dressed in a common Aztec garment, and spoke in their native tongue. She claims all people as Her children!
3) Because of this, there is a cultural devotion to Our Lady that goes beyond religious affiliation. Even those of Hispanic ethnicity who may not be Catholic commonly show devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
4) The miraculous scientific findings about Juan Diego's tilma with the image. They are SOOO COOL. I only can explicitly, accurately remember two...but there are so many more. For example, the "paint" used in the depiction of the image is unlike any man-made paint that exists. And my favorite: Human eyes are unique from other animals' in that the pupil reflects what the eye is looking at. When the pupils of the image on the tilma were magnified, the shadowy figures in them exactly mirrored the positions of the people in the room where Juan Diego first revealed his cloak of roses (which do not normally grow in December!). CRAZY COOL!
5) Our Lady of Guadalupe is patronness of the Americas, which is appropriate as Father Curran pointed out today, because we are nations that have both extreme wealth and extreme poverty, and Our Lady stands as a proponent of justice for the poor.
6) And finally, I'm a big fan of Our Lady of Guadalupe because She is also patronness of the unborn, and a huge intercessor for the pro-life cause. Naturally, my passion in being pro-life has drawn me to this specific apparition of Her.
Pro-life patronage segues into the main point of my post....Mass. Today, the first reading was from the book of Revelation. I am very familiar with the passage about the Woman who covers the sun with twelve stars above Her head. She's pregnant and laboring to give birth right? So awesome, because that is what Mary's important for...giving the world it's Savior...yada yada yada...
But one little detail I've never had memorized was the description of the dragon.
"...it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems. It's tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth." ~Revelation 12:3-4
I don't know how many people know this, but the general statistic is that 1 out of every 3 pregnancies in America is terminated by abortion. Think about it. 1/3 of the generation conceived since Roe vs. Wade was legalized in 1973 was never born. A third of the stars in Mary's sky, a third of Her children, are silenced by the red dragon of abortion. Evil waits to attack those who are most innocent, most defenseless in our society. And the book of Revelation says it all. God knows. So does Mary.
I know that if you skip to the end of the good Book, you find out that Good wins, right? But what can we do in the meantime, to fight for those precious stars, those precious children of Mary?
Grace to you, and peace.
Not many people know this, but Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of my favorite apparitions for so many reasons:
1) The way cool story of Juan Diego, and Mary's direct intervention on the part of the Mexican people, barely ten years after the Aztec empire had been conquered, and the Spanish were trying to enforce Catholicism on them. Because of her appearance to poor Juan Diego (who was probably terrified at the prospect of appealing to the Bishop at Her request!), Mexico's people were no longer so disenchanted; they established an identity separate from the Spanish, and benefitted from the justice Mary sought for them.
2) When Mary appeared to Juan Diego, she had dark skin and dark eyes, was dressed in a common Aztec garment, and spoke in their native tongue. She claims all people as Her children!
3) Because of this, there is a cultural devotion to Our Lady that goes beyond religious affiliation. Even those of Hispanic ethnicity who may not be Catholic commonly show devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
4) The miraculous scientific findings about Juan Diego's tilma with the image. They are SOOO COOL. I only can explicitly, accurately remember two...but there are so many more. For example, the "paint" used in the depiction of the image is unlike any man-made paint that exists. And my favorite: Human eyes are unique from other animals' in that the pupil reflects what the eye is looking at. When the pupils of the image on the tilma were magnified, the shadowy figures in them exactly mirrored the positions of the people in the room where Juan Diego first revealed his cloak of roses (which do not normally grow in December!). CRAZY COOL!
5) Our Lady of Guadalupe is patronness of the Americas, which is appropriate as Father Curran pointed out today, because we are nations that have both extreme wealth and extreme poverty, and Our Lady stands as a proponent of justice for the poor.
6) And finally, I'm a big fan of Our Lady of Guadalupe because She is also patronness of the unborn, and a huge intercessor for the pro-life cause. Naturally, my passion in being pro-life has drawn me to this specific apparition of Her.
Pro-life patronage segues into the main point of my post....Mass. Today, the first reading was from the book of Revelation. I am very familiar with the passage about the Woman who covers the sun with twelve stars above Her head. She's pregnant and laboring to give birth right? So awesome, because that is what Mary's important for...giving the world it's Savior...yada yada yada...
But one little detail I've never had memorized was the description of the dragon.
"...it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems. It's tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth." ~Revelation 12:3-4
I don't know how many people know this, but the general statistic is that 1 out of every 3 pregnancies in America is terminated by abortion. Think about it. 1/3 of the generation conceived since Roe vs. Wade was legalized in 1973 was never born. A third of the stars in Mary's sky, a third of Her children, are silenced by the red dragon of abortion. Evil waits to attack those who are most innocent, most defenseless in our society. And the book of Revelation says it all. God knows. So does Mary.
I know that if you skip to the end of the good Book, you find out that Good wins, right? But what can we do in the meantime, to fight for those precious stars, those precious children of Mary?
Grace to you, and peace.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
"You can't get there from here."
Fr. Curran started off an excellent homily this evening with this common expression, often referring to finding directions to a new destination. His point was that the statement is incorrect. Its more like..."you can't get there alone." And it makes sense. There are some places I could try driving to based on my own intuition and some simple direction from others...but unless I were a local Kansas Citian, I could not find it unless i had a navigator in the car with me (...ok, lets be real. There are lots of places like this.)
Fr. Curran's point though, was that, in a spiritual sense, the statement doesn't make sense either. And I totally agree.
"You can't get there from here" implies that we have the capacity to get anywhere on our own, spiritually. And, it also says that there are places from which we can never get away, places from which we can never leave to find holiness or joy or peace. It implies that there might be sins that are too big to be forgiven, or that it is impossible to be a certain amount of holy in this world (if holiness were quantifiable). All these statements are sooooo wrong.
Like Father said, "You can't get there alone."
"Behold, I am with you always until the end of the age." ~Matthew 28:20
And God does not mean for us to be alone. He is always with us. He sent His Spirit to be among us, the Church (Acts 2). He has been guiding us from the beginning.
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you...have no fear before them, because I am with you to deliver you..." ~Jeremiah 2:5-8
And in this season of Advent, He is promising to enter our own humanity.
"'Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,' which means 'GOD IS WITH US.' ~Matthew 1:23
For goodness' sake, Jesus' name means He is with us! How cool is that?
It was a kickin' homily.
Just sayin'. The president of our university rocks.
Take courage, when you feel that you can't get there alone. "You cannot go where God is not already, waiting for you."
Grace to you, and peace.
Fr. Curran's point though, was that, in a spiritual sense, the statement doesn't make sense either. And I totally agree.
"You can't get there from here" implies that we have the capacity to get anywhere on our own, spiritually. And, it also says that there are places from which we can never get away, places from which we can never leave to find holiness or joy or peace. It implies that there might be sins that are too big to be forgiven, or that it is impossible to be a certain amount of holy in this world (if holiness were quantifiable). All these statements are sooooo wrong.
Like Father said, "You can't get there alone."
"Behold, I am with you always until the end of the age." ~Matthew 28:20
And God does not mean for us to be alone. He is always with us. He sent His Spirit to be among us, the Church (Acts 2). He has been guiding us from the beginning.
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you...have no fear before them, because I am with you to deliver you..." ~Jeremiah 2:5-8
And in this season of Advent, He is promising to enter our own humanity.
"'Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,' which means 'GOD IS WITH US.' ~Matthew 1:23
For goodness' sake, Jesus' name means He is with us! How cool is that?
It was a kickin' homily.
Just sayin'. The president of our university rocks.
Take courage, when you feel that you can't get there alone. "You cannot go where God is not already, waiting for you."
Grace to you, and peace.
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