Holy Land 2012 – A Journey w/Jesus & Mary
I’m excited to announce that I have partnered with friends Fr. Mike Gaitley (author & director of the Association of the Marian Helpers) and uber-evangelist Kelly Wahlquist (Assistant Director of the Evangelization and Development Office for Parish Evangelization for the Association) to co-lead a special Marian-focused Holy Land Pilgrimage this September 5-14th, 2012.
Fr. Mike’s two books (Consoling the Heart of Jesus and 33 Days to Morning Glory) have been life-changing for me , so I am especially excited for him to share his spiritual insights in the Holy Land, and Kelly is one of the most passionate Catholic women and evangelists I know. We will enjoy daily Mass with Fr. Mike, pray the Rosary at the locations of the Mysteries, and I’ll be opening up the Scriptures “on location” spanning from Caesarea Philippi in the north to the fortress of Masada in the south, and all the significant cities in between including Capernaum, Caesarea Maritime, Cana, Nazareth, Ein Kherem, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and more.
The pilgrimage will also help support the awesome work of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception who spread devotion to Divine Mercy around the world. Our pilgrimage will begin at JFK, so we can reach out to as many people nationally as possible. Space is limited, so prayerfully consider signing up soon.
See the flyer below for details and itinerary. Please don’t hesitate to contact me through the contact page on the website with additional questions you may have, and consider sharing this with friends and family members who may be interested in joining us!
Click -> PILGRIMAGE FLYER
Consecration means Transformation
On the Feast of the Annunciation this Monday, over 1,000 people across the U.S. will be consecrating themselves to the Blessed Mother using the new curriculum from Hearts Afire Parish Programs based on Fr. Michael Gaitley’s latest book “33 Days to Morning Glory.” You can learn more about it here www.allheartsafire.org . I am excited to be part of this new initiative and re-consecrating myself to our Lady again (you can never say “Yes” to Jesus through Mary too often). I made my first consecration back in 1999, and “33 Days to Morning Glory” has re-invigorated my passion and understanding about this very important spiritual act. I see it echoed in so much of what we do in our Catholic lives and liturgy.
Coffee, Prayer & Fulton Sheen
I am a big fan of the Servant of God Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, one of the 20th century’s most cogent and successful communicators on both the Gospel and the human condition. He further endears himself to me by what he say about prayer and coffee. The context is his excellent little book “The Priest is Not His Own,” and the chapter is on “How to Make the Holy Hour.” After encouraging the priest to make a Holy Hour of prayer BEFORE his morning Mass, the good Archbishop advises an early cup of the dark brew. Continuing, he asserts:
Joseph was filled with promise and power, not aged and infirm- Fulton Sheen
”But when one searches for the reasons why Christian art should have pictured Joseph as aged, we discover that it was in order to better safeguard the virginity of Mary. Somehow, the assumption had crept in that senility was a better protector of virginity than adolescence. Art thus unconsciously made Joseph a spouse chaste and pure by age rather than virtue…To make Joseph appear pure only because his flesh had aged is like glorifying a mountain stream that has dried. The Church will not ordain a man to the priesthood who has not his vital powers. She wants men who have something to tame, rather than those who are tame because they have no energy to be wild. It should be no different with God.
…Joseph was probably a young man, strong, virile, athletic, handsome, chaste, and disciplined; the kind of man one sees sometimes shepherding sheep, or piloting a plane, or working at a carpenter’s bench. Instead of being a man incapable of love, he must have been on fire with love….Instead, then, of being dried fruit to be served on the table of the king, he was rather a blossom filled with promise and power. He was not in the evening of life, but in its morning, bubbling over with energy, strength, and controlled passion.” - Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Read MoreWith Empty Hands and Trusting Hearts
Yesterday, I mentioned that Lent, Marian Consecration, and the Sacrament of Baptism (all under the direction of God, the Holy Spirit) have as their aim: the formation of the Christian into an image of Christ to the world. As I reflected more deeply today on St. Louis de Montfort’s invitation to give EVERYTHING TO MARY so that “we’ll have to appear before God with empty hands” (Gaitley, pg. 39), I realized that Marian consecration is intimately connected to the Beatitudes. Beatitude means “blessing” and she is, after all, most blessed among women.
The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) are the crown of the Sermon on the Mount and the pathways to the Kingdom of Christ. They are a series of eight snapshots of Christ, and because we are called to “put on Christ” (Rom. 13:14; Gal. 3:27), they become the goal of every Christian. The Beatitudes have an inner logic and connectedness that we can’t explore in detail here, but the first, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Mt. 5:3) is the foundation of the seven that follow. Being “poor in spirit” doesn’t mean “down in the mouth,” humiliated or groveling through life. It is synonymous with the humble-hearted (Prov. 29:23). Mary possessed this characteristic of Christ as proclaimed in her Magnificat, “All generations will call me blessed,” she says, for he has “exalted the lowly” (Luke 1:46-55).
As we begin to grow in Christ, we soon realize that we are completely bankrupt apart from God. We acknowledge that we lack both the power and resources to save ourselves, and anything we do possess was first His gift to us. That’s the starting point of real and sustained spiritual growth. One of my spiritual directors, Fr. Raymond Gawronski, SJ gave me a helpful visual aid for this. He has on his prayer table a simple wooden bowl like those used by Buddhist monks in Asia. They carry it into the streets and villages each day asking for others to fill it (think “give us this day our daily bread”). He taught me that this is how we must begin our prayer, extending our begging bowl to God, admitting before Him that we are empty with nothing to give. It is only when we are empty that God can fill us, that is why we are BLESSED if we understand this fundamental reality! (see also, Phil. 2:5-8). It helps us hold loosely to the things of this world, and ”makes us free, supple, and flexible beneath the action of the Holy Spirit, who is the Master of true love.” (Servais Pinkaers, Living the Beatitudes, pg. 44).
The BLESSED Virgin Mary, as the Mother of the Beatitudes, understands this, and lovingly draws us into this foundational spiritual principle, so that Christ may be fully formed and matured in us. She asks us to turn over everything to her, so in turn, her Son Jesus can fill us to the brim with his Life! AND she takes what we give her and makes it better, more pure and more powerful. What an exchange! St. Paul said it so well in 1 Corinthians 3:21, “Left with nothing, we can possess everything”
Come Holy Spirit, living in Mary…Help me be generous in giving all that I have to Mary.
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