11 December 2012 Mary’s Faith Two blind men shouted, “Son of David, take pity on us”. Our Lord asks: “Do you believe I can do this?” At their reply, “Yes Lord”, he cures them with the words: “According to your faith, be it done to you.” (Mt 9:27-31) Similarly, he restores the sight of another man in Jericho: “Go your way, your faith has made you whole. Immediately regaining his sight, he followed him.” (Mk 10:52) He assures the dead girl’s father -- “Do not fear; only believe and she shall be well.” (Lk 8:50) Some moments earlier he has cured a woman who, for twelve years, suffered from an internal hemorrhage. She touched the fringe of his cloak from behind. “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace.” To the Canaanite he said: “Woman, great is thy faith.” (Lk 8:48) Later, “Be it done to you as you desire” (Mt 15:28). “All things are possible to him who believes” (Mk 9:23), to the father of the boy mad with a dumb spirit. In all simplicity the apostles open their hearts and minds to Our Lord. Their faith often falls short of what they see and hear. They ask Jesus one day: “Increase our faith.” Our Lord replies, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this sycamore tree, ‘Be rooted up and be planted in the sea’, and it would obey you” (Lk 17:6). With eyes fixed on God, we fear nothing. Faith protects our whole life; makes us achieve far beyond our scanty powers. We must defend this greatest treasure against all threats. “So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before My Father in heaven.” (Mt 10:32) What a wonderful promise to inspire us to an apostolic life! We ought to follow always Our Lady’s example. Her whole life was grounded on faith; but especially in this season of Advent -- a time of waiting, of sure hope, before the Messiah is born. Imagine her faith in the trying moments before his birth. St Joseph knocked on many doors. She heard many refusals. The flight into Egypt; God fleeing to a foreign land! Consider too Mary’s trust every single day of those thirty years when Jesus lived in Nazareth, when there were no miraculous signs of her son’s divinity; nothing but simple and ordinary work. Ponder Mary’s faith on Calvary. “She stood by the cross united with her son; endured bitter grief with her only child; shared with a mother’s heart in his sacrifice by a loving consent to the offering of the victim who had taken birth from her.” (cf Second Vatican Council, “Lumen Gentium”, 58) Mary lives with her eyes fixed on God. She asks for complete trust in Jesus. Foremost, she desires to see us, some day, in heaven beside her Son. “O God through the child born of the Blessed Virgin you revealed to the world the splendour of your glory. Help us to preserve in full our faith in the great mystery of the Incarnation, that it may forever be the center of our lives.” (“Prayer”, Mass for 19 December) Ref: Cf F Fernandez, “In Conversation with God”, 1:41-7 ‘Virgin most faithful. Pray for us.’ Mary is our Life To understand why the holy Church makes us call Mary our life, we must know that as the soul gives life to the body so does divine grace give life to the soul; for a soul without grace has the name of being alive, but is in truth dead, as it was said of one in the Apocalypse, “Thou hast the name of being alive, and thou art dead” (Apoc. iii, 1). Mary, then, in obtaining this grace for sinners by her intercession, thus restores them to life. To have recourse to Mary is the same thing as to find the grace of God. “He that shall find me shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord. Listen”, exclaims St Bonaventure on these words, “listen, all you who desire the kingdom of God; honor the most blessed Virgin Mary and you will find life and eternal salvation” (“Psalt. B. V. ps.” 48). Hence, St Bernard was right in exhorting us “to seek grace, and to seek it by Mary” (“De Aquaed.”); ie, if we have had the misfortune to lose the grace of God, we should seek to recover it, but we should do so through Mary. Ref: St Alphonsus Liguori, “The Blessed Virgin Mary”, pp50-51 On the Divine Attributes Simplicity, immensity and omnipresence of God The infinite perfection of God eludes the idea of form or composition, from which the angels, the simplest of created beings, are not excluded. God is a spirit, infinitely pure and simple, despite His immensity and various attributes. These perfections and attributes are divided and distinguished. Otherwise we could neither conceive nor express them. In reality the power, justice, wisdom and mercy of God are one -- the infinite, unchangeable, and eternal Being whose relations with creation are only those of cause to effect, of the Creator to the creature. These things are infinitely above our feeble comprehension. Nevertheless, they are the teachings of faith. Although God in His essence is absolutely simple, he is also immense and illimitable. “Heaven and the heavens of heaven cannot contain Thee.” He is, therefore, everywhere present. He is with us in prayer, in temptation, in sorrow, in each and every action. His goodness preserves, His wisdom guides, and His power directs us. Anywhere we go, He is there. “In Him we live and move and are”, says St Paul, just as a fish exists, lives, and dies in the water that surrounds and sustains it. “As often as I breathe I converse with God”, said a holy Father of the Desert. Ref: Cf “Practical Meditations” by a Father of the Society of Jesus, 1964, pp783-5 Defeat 190 “If I were a leper my mother would kiss me. She would kiss my wounds without fear or hesitation. “Well then, what would the Blessed Virgin Mary do? When we feel we are like lepers, all full of sores, we have to cry out: Mother! And the protection of our Mother will be like a kiss upon our wounds, which will then be healed.” 214 “Trust fully in God and have a greater desire each day never to run away from him.” Ref: Cf St Josemaria Escrivá, “The Forge” • Our Lady of the Angels, in the forest Livry, four leagues from Paris. Three merchants of Anjou having been ill-treated in 1212 in this forest, by robbers who tied them to trees, intending to leave them there to die, had recourse to the Blessed Virgin, who immediately sent to them three angels to restore them to liberty. After this miracle, several more were wrought, which made this chapel very celebrated. — Registers of the Abbey of Livry. (“Catholic Gems or Treasures of the Church” Historical Calendar; www.bethlehemobserver.com) • Our Lady of the Angels. Forest of Livry, near Paris 1212. (www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/calendar/index.html); (maryfest.htm / www.starharbor.com/santiago/m_feasts.html); (www/divinewill.org/feastsofourlady.html); (www.iskandar.com/ourlady/ourladyfeasts.html) • “Notre-dame des Anges” (Our Lady of the Angels). Forest of Livry, near Paris.1212. Cathedral in Los Angeles. Monastery in Alabama. Chapel in France. ... (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm) • Mary, Queen of Angels. (http://mariedenazareth.com)