Mary’s Sacrifice: When Nothing Is Too Much
This week a Gospel was about Mary of Bethany anointing the feet of Jesus. I love this outrageous gesture that expressed a wholehearted love. Mary, her sister Martha, and her brother Lazarus were Jesus’s best friends. He enjoyed their company and no doubt saw his visits to their home as a welcome respite.
We first meet Mary at her home, curled up at the feet of Jesus, drinking in his every word. She assumed the position of a disciple, and Jesus praises her for her rapt attention to him. (Her sister though who is too busy and worried about the meal does not win his approval.)
Next the unthinkable happens. Lazarus dies and is imprisoned in his tomb four long days before Jesus responds to his sisters’ plea for help. When Jesus arrives outside the village, Martha goes out to meet him, but Mary stays at home. I can’t help but think she is miffed at him for not coming right away and hurt. In fact, when he asks for her, and she finally leaves the house and goes to him, she rebukes Jesus. You know how this ends. Jesus astounds everyone by calling Lazarus back from the dead.
With this miracle, Mary’s love for Jesus is magnified. No wonder she sacrifices her precious, expensive ointment to honor him. It was worth a year’s wages. But she “wastes” it by pouring it over his feet so it ran onto the floor. Sure, she could have used the perfume to anoint her own body. Or as Judas pointed out, she could have sold it. But Mary preferred to perform an extravagant act of love. As of that weren’t enough, she used her long hair as a towel to wipe Jesus’s feet.
The perfume’s fragrance filled the house, delighting everyone there. Mary’s story has come down to us, prompting us to love Jesus as she did. Our love will have an impact on others whether we realize it or not.
This reminds me of St. Cardinal John Henry Newman’s prayer:
Dear Jesus, help me to spread your fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly
that my life may only be a radiance of yours.
Shine through me, and be so in me
that every soul I come in contact with
may feel your presence in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus!
Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine,
so to shine as to be a light to others;
The light, O Jesus, will be all from you; none of it will be mine;
it will be you, shining on others through me.
Let me thus praise you the way you love best, by shining on those around me.
Let me preach you without preaching, not by words but by my example,
by the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do,
the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to you.
Six days after Mary’s bold, unabashed demonstration, Jesus performs his own astonishing act of love and washed and dried the apostles’ dusty feet—the customary job of a slave.
The very next day, Jesus pours out his precious blood in the greatest act of love ever. . . for us. Certainly Mary of Bethany was one of the weeping women who followed him to Calvary and stood faithfully near his cross.
This Holy Week
Now we are in the holiest week of the year. Hopefully we have demonstrated love for Jesus during Lent not by perfume, but by extra prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. During the Triduum, we will trace the steps of Jesus as he endures his passion and death and try to realize the depth of love he showed. The week will culminate not in a resuscitation like Lazarus experienced, but a resurrection with a new and glorious life. The love of Jesus for us is such that he took on flesh and blood like us and gave his life so that we could be with him forever.
This fact is so astounding that we will spend 50 whole days celebrating it during the Easter Season. And forever in heaven if we live right.
My “Perfume”
When I was applying to the Sisters of Notre Dame, the Mother Superior interviewed me. She asked, “Why do you want to be a Sister?” My answer then was because God had done so much for me, I wanted to give him the most I could…myself. I know how Mary of Bethany felt.
Yes, when it comes to doing something for God, nothing is ever too much. . . . Also, nothing is ever enough!
No matter who you are and what you do, you can always offer your life to God as a sacrifice to show your love. You can do this every day by the Morning Offering Prayer and every time you participate in the Eucharist. Imagine yourself on the paten. Remember, God says, “You are precious in my eyes.” (Isaiah 43:4)
May you have a blessed Holy Week and a joyous Easter Season—all fifty days!
Here is a sweet new Easter hymn sung by children all in white:
• What is your favorite day of the Easter Triduum?
• What customs do you practice during these days?
St. Joseph, Second Greatest Saint, a Foster Father
In a humorous video on Facebook, a man lamented that St. Patrick’s feast was celebrated in grand style, while the Solemnity of St. Joseph two days later was observed quietly. This subdued celebration reflects the personality of the foster father of Jesus. The Gospels report not one word that he spoke. (By the way, the greatest saint is not St. Patrick, but Joseph’s wife, Mary.)
Joseph was the right partner for the most powerful woman on earth. Theirs was a match made in heaven. This humble carpenter (or construction worker) in the hick town of Nazareth had the reputation of being just and upright. God chose him, then, for a special honor and privilege. Joseph was entrusted with rearing the Son of God and being a companion to holy Mary. He was responsible for supporting and protecting them. Joseph taught Jesus the Jewish faith, his trade, and how to be a man.
I like the painting above because the artist depicts Joseph as a handsome, virile guy. Other paintings make him an old man, presumably to protect Mary’s virginity. The lily Joseph holds and his white heart in this modern painting by Giovanni Gasbarro symbolize his purity.
For canonization, a person must have exhibited heroic virtue. In this, Joseph excelled. He had obedience, courage, and ultimate trust in God. His unique vocation was challenging, but he fulfilled it admirably, as the Gospel shows.
His Marriage
While looking forward to wedding Mary, Joseph was shocked to learn that this sweet young girl was pregnant, and he wasn’t the father. Imagine the turmoil in his mind and his anguish: What man in Nazareth won her affection? Was she raped? What do I do now? To protect Mary from being stoned to death (the penalty for his supposedly unfaithful bride), Joseph decided to settle the matter privately by breaking off their engagement. Divine intervention prevented this. In a dream God told Joseph to marry his intended after all. God revealed that the child was the savior, conceived miraculously by the Holy Spirit. Luckily, Joseph believed his astounding dream.
Soon after that, Joseph’s beloved wife left for three months to care for a relative. That is a long time to be separated from a loved one.
The Census
When Mary was nine months pregnant, Joseph had to take her to Bethlehem in obedience to the government call for a census—a journey of at least ninety miles on foot. He was responsible for her care. To his chagrin, in town he could locate no lodging except for a crude animal shelter. There Jesus was born.
The Escape
In a dream Joseph learned that Herod was determined to kill Mary’s baby as a rival to his throne. Immediately Joseph heeded the warning, and the little family traveled to Egypt. There as a refugee, Joseph found work and made a home among strangers in a foreign land.
The Presentation
When the couple took Jesus to the temple to consecrate him to the Lord, Simeon prophesied a dire future for Joseph’s wife and her child. That must have saddened and shaken Joseph.
Loss of Jesus
Jesus was missing in Jerusalem for three long days. As any parent would be, Joseph was distraught, anxious, and probably tortured with guilt. Many times in his life he didn’t understand what was happening or why, but he was faithful.
Joseph’s Patronage
In addition to carrying out a key role in salvation history, Joseph has other tasks. It’s assumed that he died before Jesus left home. In that case Mary and Jesus were at his deathbed. This gave rise to the practice of praying to Joseph for a happy death. In 1870, the foster father of Jesus was named the patron of the Universal Church, the Mystical Body of Jesus. And naturally St. Joseph is the patron of workers and has a feast by that name on May 1.
Aptly, in Italy St. Joseph’s feast on March 19 is also Father’s Day.
St. Joseph Traditions
• On St. Joseph’s feast, March 19, some people set up a St. Joseph Table. This is covered with bread and other food that is distributed to the poor.
• People trying to sell their house may pray to St. Joseph and bury a statue of him in the lawn. (Some say upside down.) When they have success, they give the statue a place of honor in their new home.
• When a favor is wanted, some people turn St. Joseph’s statue to face the wall until it’s granted.
• Prayers to St. Joseph are the Litany of St. Joseph, novenas to him, a seven Sundays devotion, a consecration, a thirty-day prayer, and a St. Joseph Rosary.
• It’s possible to make a pilgrimage to St. Joseph Oratory in Montreal. This structure, the largest church in Canada, was begun by St. André Bassett, who had a great devotion to St. Joseph. He struggled in school and at jobs, but he had the gift of healing! St. André is one of my favorite saints. A relative of one of our Sisters was cured by him. He began raising funds for a building in honor of St. Joseph by cutting students’ hair for a nickel! You can find out more about him and the Oratory on Wikipedia.
• The following prayer is to be prayed nine days. Allegedly it dates from the year 50 and has never been known to fail:
O St. Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the throne of God, I place in you all my interest and desires. O St. Joseph, do assist me by your powerful intercession, and obtain for me from your divine Son all spiritual blessings, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So that, having engaged here below your heavenly power, I may offer my thanksgiving and homage to the most loving of Fathers. O St. Joseph, I never weary of contemplating you, and Jesus asleep in your arms; I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart. Press Him close in my name and kiss His fine head for me and ask Him to return the kiss when I draw my dying breath. St. Joseph, patron of departing souls, pray for me. Amen.
• Something our pope does . . .
I remember a bishop telling the story of his mother setting out the Nativity scene each Christmas. Every year there wouldn’t be enough room for all the figures. So she would put the St. Joseph statue back in the box and say, “Joseph will understand.” That says a lot about this unassuming saint.
Thank goodness St. Joseph is now mentioned in the canon of the Mass. It only took two thousand years! Pope John XXIII inserted the name of St. Joseph into the first Eucharistic Prayer in 1962. Then in 2013, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments had it inserted into Eucharistic Prayers II, III, and IV.
Here is a gem of a song called “The Carol of Joseph.” It captures Joseph’s feelings and his wife’s in a moving, striking way.
• What role does St. Joseph play in your spiritual life?
• Have you ever been to St. Joseph’s Oratory?
In Praise of Life
As I grow older, I’m valuing the gift of life more and more. As Ferris Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” This echoes Psalm 90: “Our life is over like a sigh. Our span is seventy years or eighty for those who are strong….Make us know the shortness of our life that we may gain wisdom of heart.”
The Hubble telescope that NASA gave us an awesome view of the galaxy Andromeda, the one closest to us. It makes you dizzy. Each dot is a star, many bigger than our sun. And there are billions of them. Beyond Andromeda there are zillions of other galaxies. And here we are on tiny planet Earth, just a blue and green speck in the gigantic universe. But so far Earth is the only orb that holds life. It’s a miracle!
Reflect with me a few minutes about what your life means. From all eternity God planned to create you. Then at a certain time and place he loved you into being. A certain woman and a certain man met, came together and gave you a set of genes unlike any other person’s. You are unique. And you are marvelous. Your eyes blink about 28,00 times a day to keep them lubricated and clean. Right now your stomach is digesting a meal. Put your hand over your heart. It beats more than 100,000 times a day, sending oxygen to cells to keep you alive. And all these things go on without your thinking about them.
Because you have life, you can thrill to music—all kinds, run with wind blowing through your hair, play basketball, dance, swim, eat pizza, play the guitar, and read others’ thoughts in books or on iPads. Because you have life, you can know the satisfaction of mastering algebra and Spanish (well maybe) and learning how to cook and to build a house. You can create things: a new recipe, a song, a computer program, or art. You can imagine, remember, solve problems, and make decisions.
Because you are alive, the whole world is your playground. You are free to explore it and gaze at wonders like the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, and star-studded night skies. You can be astonished by exquisite flowers and enjoy animals like your pet.
You also have spiritual life and the divine life we call grace. This makes you godlike. You are God’s child with a destiny of living forever.
Do you know what life’s greatest blessing is? Love—the whole spectrum of it. You can know the love of God and the love of parents, spouse, children, family, and friends. You can also experience the intoxicating joy of loving others.
Incredibly God gave us tremendous power over these wonderful lives of ours. We can live them fully. St. Irenaeus said, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” This means using all of our talents and all of our days to the utmost. We can re-gift our lives by presenting them to God. As Saint Mother Teresa urged, “Make your lives something beautiful for God.”
On the other hand, we also have power to waste our lives, ruin them, even destroy them. Doing this is like laughing in our Creator’s face.
Jesus said he came that we might have life and have it abundantly. He passed his baton to his followers, us. You are called to carry on the mission of Jesus, to bring others life, abundant life. You are called to see that people’s lives are not snuffed out before they leave the womb, that refugees have a safe place to live, that the homeless find food and shelter, that the imprisoned are humanely treated, that the elderly are respected and cared for, and that all people, no matter what their race, religion, or sex, are treated equally.
What does live spell backwards? Evil. When we do not promote life, our own and others’ lives, we promote evil. If we are not life bringers, we are death dealers. We spoil God’s creation that he made good. Promoting life is a form of loving. Isn’t that Jesus’s commandment? “Love one another as I have loved you.” Protecting and nurturing life, loving, is being holy, being like God, because God is love.
Here are three suggestions for living fully:
• Learn something new. Tap a hidden talent: take up crocheting, learn how to play the tuba, teach yourself Chinese.
• Foster life in others in some way. Help in a soup kitchen, participate in a protest march, or just smile at someone.
• Plug into the source of all life, God, through prayer. Increase your prayer time by at least five minutes a day. Let God speak to you through his word in Scripture, pray a set prayer like a decade of the rosary, or just rest in God’s presence.
Your life is in your hands. So what will you do with your one wild and precious life? The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, the counselor dwelling within you, will help you make the right decisions.
Here is a modern song extolling life:
• What do you value most about your life?
• How have you enriched the lives of other people?
A Jesus Who Laughs
Since Jesus is true man, he must have had a funny bone. The gospels don’t record times when Jesus laughed, grinned, or even smiled. Still, it’s easy to think of his joy in certain situations.
– As a baby, he must have laughed, as babies do, when Joseph tossed him in the air or as Mary tickled him.
– Playing games with the other boys in Nazareth, he must have laughed.
Jesus must have smiled . . .
– at the servants’ amazed faces when they discovered wine in the water jars
– when he blessed the children after the apostles tried to chase them away
– as he returned Jairus’s daughter to him
– when he noticed Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree
– when the leper came back to thank him
– after he rose and surprised Mary Magdalene
Jesus was not above playing a prank on Peter. He had this fisherman find the payment for their taxes in fish.
Speaking of fish, I love Jesus’s joyful reaction in the Chosen series when miraculously hundreds of fish are flopping around in the apostles’ boats. (If you haven’t seen these movies, give yourself a treat and look them up!)
Like any effective speaker, Jesus used humor when he preached. Can you visualize a camel going through the eye of a needle—especially if it had two humps? Or can you picture a log in your eye? The Pharisees straining out a gnat but swallowing a camel? A burning oil lamp placed under a bed?
Jesus’s rural audience must have roared at the silly farmer who strewed precious seed on paths, rocks, and thorn bushes. And the idea that seeds would produce a hundredfold was outrageous.
Jesus teased James and John by calling them Sons of Thunder.
God’s Sense of Humor
We, who have a sense of humor, are made in God’s image. It follows then that God has a sense of humor. God’s humor is obvious when you consider some of his creations: a giraffe, a hippopotamus, a platypus, a kangaroo, and a two-year-old.
In the Old Testament we see God making Sarah, an old woman, pregnant. Then there was the time the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant and set it across from their god Dagon. The next morning, Dagon had fallen face down. The Philistines propped him up again. But the next day he was face down again, and his arms were broken off. Also there was the day a boy killed a giant with a slingshot.
I’m sure that sometimes God orchestrates things in your life that are downright funny.
Our Sense of Humor
Clearly humor is a godlike quality. You can show it in many ways like . . .
– telling jokes
– playing a prank
– telling a funny story about yourself
– sending a humorous greeting card
– watching a comedy series or a funny movie
– reading a joke book or cartoons
Here are a couple cartoons for you:
Some saints were known for the humor. Most outstanding is St. Philip Neri, who acted like a clown. St. Lawrence is another one. While being roasted to death on a gridiron, supposedly he said, “Turn me over. I’m done on this side.” And as St. Thomas More was being beheaded, he moved his beard aside away from the ax’s blow and quipped, “This hasn’t offended the king.”
Laugh freely and heartily. Enjoy a good belly laugh. It’s good for the health of our body and our soul. Laughter is contagious. Making others laugh is a work of mercy. Bishop Anthony Pilla once said we ought to practice “the diaconate of humor.”
On YouTube there are videos that teach yoga laughter. Here is one of them…
• Look for funny things that happen in the course of a day. What made you laugh recently?
God’s Forgiveness & Our Mercy
This week on Wednesday evening all churches in the Cleveland Diocese will be open for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, a Lenten tradition. No matter how sinful, a person can experience the mercy of God. During Holy Week we will ponder the climax of God’s mercy: washing everyone clean by the blood of his Son.
Years ago, wearing my black habit, I sat on a window ledge in Chicago, waiting for a bus when an elderly gentleman sat beside me. He introduced himself as Herbert and told me he was a former gangster who had been at the Valentine’s Day massacre. “But as a kid, I went to Catholic school,” he said. When the bus arrived, and I was about to deposit my fare, Herbert pushed my hand away and said, “I’m paying for you.” He sat beside me on the bus and asked if I had eaten. I said I had, even though my meal was a faint memory. At Herbert’s stop, as he walked down the aisle, he turned back and said, “Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison”! (Greek for “Lord, have mercy.”)
Herbert was proving that he did go to Catholic school. I’d like to think that this was his heartfelt prayer, considering his past life. If so, he was like the crooked tax collector in the parable, who could only pray in all humility, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” This man trusted in God’s mercy. And Jesus assures us that he would be made right in God’s eyes and exalted, not the self-righteous Pharisee.
Looking back over our lives, we see things we are ashamed of: bad choices, mistakes, and yes, sins. We wish we could delete them from our life story. But there they are—permanent. God knows our weakness. He knows our sins and loves us anyway. God’s mercy is greater than our sins, it is infinite. Theologians say that mercy is God’s most stupendous quality—not his omnipotence, omniscience, or other perfections.
Jesus is the incarnation of mercy. You might say his middle name is mercy. Consider people Jesus forgave: The man by the pool who was sick for 38 years, the paralytic brought on a stretcher, the woman caught in adultery, Zacchaeus, the good thief, the apostles who deserted him. Jesus told parables about God’s mercy: the lost sheep, the lost coin, the prodigal son.
The Hebrew word for mercy, is rahamim. It comes from rehem, which means a mother’s womb. God’s mercy then has a maternal warmth about it. It is unconditional, intimate, and flows from a nurturing love, symbolized by a mother’s womb. We are safe with God. He regards us the way a mother regards her infant. With tenderness. A mother can always make excuses for her child.
Our Call to Forgive
We are to let mercy flow onto others. We are to be the face of God’s compassionate love. Jesus repeated this lesson relentlessly.
• “Be merciful as your heavenly Father.”
• “Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”
• “Pray… forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
• Forgive 7 x 70 (unlimited times).
• He gave the radical instruction: “Love your enemies. Do good to those who persecute you.”
• Jesus said, “If you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24).
When we are harmed, our first instinct, our gut reaction, is to retaliate. Eye for an eye. Watching movies, we want the bad guys punished. Christians however look at things differently. They forgive from the heart. They let it go and do not punish.
The world was amazed when Pope John Paul forgave his would-be assassin. In an Amish community in PA a man shot 10 girls, killing 5. Then himself. The Amish visited his widow, went to his funeral, and raised money for his family. Someone commented “Because they hold no grudges, they can concentrate on their own healing.”
“Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die from it.” We need super grace to forgive. Especially to forgive those who don’t ask for forgiveness.
The Works of Mercy
Last week there was an uproar in Geauga Country. A man had successfully opened a rescue home for men. He and my community hoped to open one for women on our property. At an open meeting, some people opposed the home so loudly and rudely that sadly the proposal was withdrawn. I can imagine Jesus shaking his head in disappointment.
Jesus spelled out how to be merciful to the needy in the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. The corporal ones come from the parable about the judgment at the end of the world. The king will say to the sheep on his right: “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you…for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then to the goats who did not do these things he says, “Depart from me into the eternal fire.”
Here are people who showed mercy:
• McDonald’s employee helps elderly disabled man with his food.
• Heart surgeon calms weeping 2-year-old girl before heart operation.
• Entire neighborhood secretly learns sign language to surprise deaf neighbor.
• Turkish bride and groom spend their wedding day feeding 4,000 refugees.
• Mom adopts all four of her best friend’s daughters after she died of brain cancer.
• The young guy was struggling with his tie when the older gentleman without hesitation gave him a step-by-step tutorial.
• Man has heart attack while moving lawn; firefighters finish mowing lawn after saving him.
A Brief Prayer for Mercy
An old prayer you might adopt as a Lenten practice is the “Jesus Prayer”:
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”
This prayer is a mantra, which means we pray it over and over. A mantra is a simple way to pray. Some people like to pray the first half of the Jesus Prayer as they inhale and then the second half as they exhale.
An unusual song about God’s mercy:
• When has someone forgiven you? How did it feel?
• What act(s) of mercy can you perform during Lent?
