FIRST JOYFUL MYSTERY: THE ANNUNCIATION TO MARY

The ANNUNCIATION of the INCARNATION of our SAVIOUR to the BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

When I went looking for an image of the Annunciation (25 March)   I saw this and thought ‘how apt’.  Sr. Lucia of Fatima to whom the Blessed Mother of God appeared in 1917 wanted the Holy Father to declare the Rosary a liturgical prayer.  This image of the Annunciation is from the Royal Doors of an Orthodox Church (I don’t know where) and with this image I want you to see the Rosary as a liturgical prayer, a prayer that not only links us to Mary Dei Genetrix, the Theotokos, the Mother of God but through, and with her with her Son and the work He has done for us.  The Rosary is partly a meditation on the life our Saviour in the company of His greatest disciple, His mother.  Yet because it is this it is also a meditation on what is done to us and for us in the Church’s worship, her Liturgy.

As the feast of the Annunciation is March 25^th it is right in the middle of Lent that we are given a moment to celebrate and rejoice! The sombre joy of Lent gives way to the glorious joy of the moment of Mary's 'fiat' and the Incarnation of the Word. Gabriel tells her she is 'full of grace'. Literally he says Chaire kecharitomene 'Grace to you who are full of grace' or 'blessed are you who are full of blessings'. 'Rejoice' the Church cries out at Easter and here in the midst of Lent the Church causes Gabriel's voice to speak to us from the Gospel, 'Rejoice!' Rejoice? Rejoice because Mary is to be the New Eve who brings forth from her pure flesh the New Adam, the Revelation of the Father and the Salvation of Man. Rejoice because the Spirit hovers over her as over a New Creation and descends on her so that the Word and Image of the Father can take flesh, so that the Eternal Pentecost of Man's union with God can come. Rejoice that the King of Heaven and Earth, of the whole Universe, is taking flesh in the womb of a country girl from lowly Nazareth.

Does God gamble I wonder? What if Mary had said 'no'? Such a Luciferian response would have doomed and damned mankind. She did not, of course, but her humble 'yes' was a 'yes' not just to the Word and Image of the Father but to all that would be through Him. Her 'yes' was a 'yes' to the Passion and the Cross, the 'sword that would pierce her heart', to the Resurrection, and to us. The Annunciation is a celebration our conception too, our conception in Christ. We celebrate the moment when a country girl was asked by the Father, through the agency of the Archangel Gabriel, to be the Mother of God, to be a key part of His astounding plan.

No wonder Gabriel seems to hold slightly back in the icon above by a Constantinopolitan master. His right hand is extended but the fingers which form the monogram of the name Jesus Christ are hidden – for although He has told Mary the NAME of the Saviour the world does not yet know. His staff shows his authority; this comes from the Father. Mary looks out at us. In her hands she holds the wool from which, tradition says, she wove the seamless garment of Christ. It symbolizes her weaving a body for the Word from her own flesh. She looks at us. 'Well?' she seems to ask 'What should I say?' Say 'yes' O Mother! Say 'yes' and save us. Say 'Yes' and set us free. Say 'YES' to us so that we who are dead in sin might live forever in the Light. "Behold! I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to thy word". "And the WORD was made flesh".

Our Father...

God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. Hail Mary

The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you." Hail Mary

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. Hail Mary

But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. Hail Mary

You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. Hail Mary

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." Hail Mary

"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" Hail Mary

The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Hail Mary

So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God." Hail Mary

"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her. Hail Mary

Glory be to the Father

Text of Gospel is from the New International Version

THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS

On this feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus I offer you this photo of a picture in our house. It's a print framed behind glass and dedicated to the memory of Edward J. Balfe of Hartford, Conn(Connecticut?).

The Heart of our Lord is not actually shining like that in the pciture but is painted a pale pink. The flash just happened to catch the image there and it seemed so apt that I used this shot.  It's a powerful image and better than most of the Sacred Heart images one sees around.  Most of them are insipid or effeminate.  This, like the best Greek icons of the Pantocrator, speaks not just of love and mercy but of power and conscious intent.  He is not going to give up on His plan for our salvation.  He will not turn back or be cheated of His beloved.  This is the face of God Incarnate not by accident but for the salvation of Man.

It reminds me of the story my mother tells of her father Barney Clarke who would pray to no one but the Sacred Heart.  "If I want anything," he would say, "I ask the man Himself."  He died on a Friday while a votive Mass to the Sacred Heart was being offered for him.  A sign, I take it, that our Lord answered him.

A MEDITATION ON A VIDEO BY MICHAEL VORIS

The zealous and impressive Mr. Voris of RealCatholicTV is in Ireland these days and he had this video on YouTube:



Working in a secondary school I was not surprised except by the number who actually admitted to going to Mass.  What was surprising were the reactions on the net.  People referred to Ireland's faithful past and missionary efforts, to her contribution to the Church.  We Irish tend to forget that.  Still there seemed more than a little romanticism about Ireland.  Ireland has no Leprechauns.  It is a modern country embedded in Western Civilization with all the problems that go along with that. 

There are two major temptations that face Irish Catholics trying to live their faith and contribute to our society.  First there is the temptation to embrace all that the secular world proposes as good, to abandon or modify our faith and our tradition so as to fit in and not stand out.  The second is to retreat into an idealized past where we all believed the same and the country was full of 'saints and scholars'  (a complement paid to the nation as it was over 1000 years ago).  There are real dangers to us: the pressure to legalize abortion, gay marriage and adoptions, the decline of the Liturgy and the widening gap between the spirituality (or 'spiritualities') of the average Christian and their experience, knowledge and understanding of the teaching of the Church. 

Someone asked me on Fr. Z's comment's box what I thought role moralism played in modern Ireland.  I don't know.  Moralism, I think, is the reduction of faith to action and of action to the following and implementation of rules.  When one's worldview is of 'rules' to be implemented, balanced and 'dodged' at times and one believes these to be of Divine origin it is world shaking to have that dismantled practically over night.  For Centuries the Church seemed to tell the people 'these are the rules - follow them and you'll be alright'.  Then after Vatican II they simply seemed to dump the whole lot.  That's the impression the people (and much of the Clergy) got.  "All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born." (Yeats, Easter 1916) and indeed it was presented as revolutionary to and by  some even as the majority were told that nothing had really changed at all.   

I remember my surprise at hearing from my Father how he liked the old Mass and that it's removal had left him without a sense of encountering God.  What is amazing is not that the Irish are abandoning their faith but that they held onto it for so long after the Council.  This was not the Council's fault but those who implemented it, who interpreted it, who sold one version of the Council that has no roots in the actual Council itself.

Quite simply, as has been done it seems throughout the Western Church, those who dissented from the Faith, teaching and Tradition of the Church have been allowed to do so with impunity.  Programs for the faith-formation of the young that are woefully ineffective and probably harmful were implemented and continue to this day without effective Episcopal oversight.  The clergy and people of the Church are largely ignorant of the Faith and its discipline.   We have allowed belief in the Real Presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament to wane (surely communion in the hand while standing has had a part to play in this?) until He is received as if He were only a biscuit.  I have heard from lay people of the Blessed Sacrament picked up from the ground outside the Church where it has dropped or spat.  This should have alarm bells ringing throughout the Church in Ireland but it seems not. 

Perhaps the International Eucharistic Conference will stimulate something but I am not hopeful.  I have no faith in big meetings.  I can misquote St. Gregory Nazianzen himself that nothing good every came from a meeting of bishops and he was talking of an Ecumenical Council (Constantinople II. see his Epistle 130 - To Procopium).  I am being cynical.  The real change will be made on the ground, in the hearts of individuals through adoration of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament and devotion to the Blessed Virgin.  as Our Lady said at Fatima: "In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph."

THE WORK AT HAND

Since we decided to build a new friary (and refurbish the original 1820 house) rather than bring up the old building to modern standards the library has had to be stored and now moved to its new location in what was our refectory (dining room).

As librarian that job is mine. All 67 boxes of books plus a few others that now destined for the new library. There is a problem though. We do not have enough shelf space. Yes the builders put in book cases but not enough. So we have contracted a local guy to put them in where there used to be a store room off the 'ref'. While awaiting that the library sits in stasis. Over half of the books are on shelves but the reset remain in their boxes. Even what is on the shelves is only loosely sorted. All that awaits the completion of the shelves when I can decide what goes where.  Of course then there is the problem of how to catalogue a friary library.

Below are the photos to illustrate my point:

The 'ref' in the old house

The library undergoing a clean out.

One library stored.

The Library was stored in one of the rooms of the old, now demolished, wing.

The new library, in the old 'ref'', under reassembly.

Capuchins organize Flash Mob Adoration

I've been busy with school but I've also gotten lazy. I think too I let myself get dragged down by events around me. A fellow friar quoted the Blessed Virgin's assurance at Fatima "In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph." For me as for him this gives me hope and perspective.

To start there's this:



It was at Catherine of Sienna Institute website. According to the website:

The Capuchin Friars, Brs Mark, Prins & John, return to Preston after 467 years, following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539, to take responsibility for the Catholic Chaplaincy at the University of central Lancashire. The new Chaplaincy is on the site of the Leper Hospital of St. Mary Magdalen, founded c.1177. In about 1525 the hospital was transferred to the Franciscan Friars who left at the Dissolution in 1539.

I know I've met Prins but I'm not sure if I've met the others. They are our neighbouring province and perhaps one day we may have to be one province unless vocations seriously pick up on both sides of 'the water'.

Fair play to them for this innovative way of evangelization. I'm not sure about the method of transporting the Blessed Sacrament but it seemed to make an impact. Well done.

A WEEK IN REVIEW

What a week of highs and lows. Wednesday our under-19's basketball team won the national final 51-39. They came back 'like kings', as one of our staff put it, full of justifiable pride. Classrooms emptied to welcome them back with cheers and applause.
That was the high.

Friday was the anniversary of Nicole Kelly's death. She was knocked down crossing the road last year. From Thursday afternoon her friends were obviously upset (though, of course, it had been building up unseen). Friday some of them were unable to even sit for long in a class. Nicole is dearly and bitterly missed. At 1.00 pm the family had organized a Mass in the Blanchardstown Oratory. I was unable to go but a huge number of students were. It was as if she had just died. As if it were only the day before. That was the low.

In addition my Dell laptop crashed, black screen no response, nothing. A search on the internet, from a school computer, suggested that the problem was irreversible. Worse the photos of much of the Sixth year from when they were entering were on the laptop in preparation for their graduation. So a double disaster.

The laptop is now in a shop to see what can be recovered. Thanks to the generosity of my guardian I was able to go and buy a new machine. Under advice I have therefore converted to Mac. No more blue screens and crashes I hope! so I guess that's a high to end the week.

DAVID QUINN: DICTATORSHIP OF RELATIVISM

This is an excellent and enlightening talk by David Quinn of the Iona Institute (and, alas, ex-editor of the Irish Catholic). Looks like we have a rough ride ahead of us.