Category Archives: Mary

Theotokos

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Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.

Now this solemnity/feast is one that causes so much hubub, so often! And really, that kind of baffles me….because this title, it just makes so much sense. Try being a pregnant woman, with ALL that entails and then decide if you’re entitled to be called the mother of that little baby, or not. Try giving birth, nursing, wiping, swaddling, hugging, smooching, smelling that little amazing being……see if you know in your bones that this has changed who you are, ontologically. Go, ahead, I’ll wait…….. See? Right. Exactly. Kerfuffle soothed. For me anyhow. She bore Christ, brought him to us. And, she raised loved nurtured fed rocked taught him. She wiped his nose, kissed scratches, rubbed his head and rolled her eyes sometimes, I betcha. He was a boy, too. Hers. She’s the mom. I’m a mom, I can totally relate. Except for the whole sinless, divine child angle…….Still…..

It’s a big feast. It’s Mary, Mother of God! I love her, this solemnity, this IS cause for celebration.

And…for those of you who just need to tease out the objections, read below:

Mary, Mother of God

by Father William Saunders

I was visiting an inner-city Church one day and in the vestibule some graffiti was written on the wall which said, “Catholics, God has no mother,” obviously referring to Mary’s title as “Mother of God.” How does one respond to such an objection? — A reader in Springfield

As Catholics, we firmly believe in the incarnation of our Lord: Mary conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Lk 1:26-38 and Mt 1:18-25) Through her, Jesus Christ–second person of the Holy Trinity, one-in-being (consubstantial) with the Father, and true God from true God–entered this world, taking on human flesh and a human soul. Jesus is true God and true man. In His person are united both a divine nature and a human nature.

Mary did not create the divine person of Jesus, who existed with the Father from all eternity. “In fact, the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit, who truly became her Son according to the flesh, was none other than the Father’s eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Hence the Church confesses that Mary is truly ‘Mother of God’ (Theotokos)” (CCC, No. 495). As St. John wrote, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we have seen His glory: The glory of an only Son coming from the Father filled with enduring love” (Jn 1:14).

For this reason, sometime in the early history of the Church, our Blessed Mother was given the title “Mother of God.” St. John Chrysostom (d. 407), for example, composed in his Eucharistic Prayer for the Mass an anthem in honor of her: “It is truly just to proclaim you blessed, O Mother of God, who are most blessed, all pure and Mother of our God. We magnify you who are more honorable than the Cherubim and incomparably more glorious than the Seraphim. You who, without losing your virginity, gave birth to the Word of God. You who are truly the Mother of God.”

However, objection to the title “Mother of God” arose in the fifth century, due to confusion concerning the mystery of the incarnation. Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople (428-431), incited a major controversy. He stated that Mary gave birth to Jesus Christ, a regular human person, period. To this human person was united the person of the Word of God (the divine Jesus). This union of two persons–the human Christ and the divine Word– was “sublime and unique” but merely accidental. The divine person dwelt in the human person “as in a temple.” Following his own reasoning, Nestorius asserted that the human Jesus died on the cross, not the divine Jesus. As such, Mary is not “Mother of God,” but simply “Mother of Christ”–the human Jesus. Sound confusing? It is, but the result is the splitting of Christ into two persons and the denial of the incarnation.

St. Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria (d. 440) refuted Nestorius, asserting, “It was not that an ordinary man was born first of the Holy Virgin, on whom afterwards the Word descended; what we say is that, being united with the flesh from the womb, (the Word) has undergone birth in the flesh, making the birth in the flesh His own…” This statement affirms the belief asserted in the first paragraph.

On June 22, 431, the Council of Ephesus convened to settle this argument. The Council declared, “If anyone does not confess that the Emmanuel is truly God and therefore that the holy Virgin is the Mother of God (Theotokos) (since she begot according to the flesh the Word of God made flesh), anathema sit.” Therefore, the Council officially recognized that Jesus is one person, with two natures–human and divine–united in a true union. Second, Ephesus affirmed that our Blessed Mother can rightfully be called the Mother of God. Mary is not Mother of God, the Father, or Mother of God, the Holy Spirit; rather, she is Mother of God, the Son–Jesus Christ. The Council of Ephesus declared Nestorius a heretic, and the Emperor Theodosius ordered him deposed and exiled. (Interestingly, a small Nestorian Church still exists in Iraq, Iran and Syria.)

The incarnation is indeed a profound mystery. The Church uses very precise–albeit philosophical–language to prevent confusion and error. Nevertheless, as we celebrate Christmas, we must ponder this great mystery of how our divine Savior entered this world, taking on our human flesh, to free us from sin. We must also ponder and emulate the great example of our Blessed Mother, who said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to Thy word.” May we turn to her always as our own Mother, pleading, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

Fr. Saunders is president of Notre Dame Institute and associate pastor of Queen of Apostles Parish, both in Alexandria.

Joyous solemnity

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It’s a high feast day, a solemnity. It’s the Feast of the Immaculate Conception!

It’s a very big feast and a happy great day. I’m happy for it! I love Mary and I love this feast. So, don’t forget your Blessed Mother today, she’s a gift to us all. I’m so grateful.

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God gave her his help from the dawning of her days; the Most High has made his dwelling place a holy temple

For the month of May: Mind your Mom…

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Happy May! Thank goodness, it’s May!  Now, for us Catholics, May is the month of honoring Mary as the Mother of God, indeed, as our  mother too.  It’s the month for remembering we have a role model and someone who really “gets it.”

As we all should, it’s the month to tell your mom you love her and to just give her a break and treat each other well.  So, to that end, we have the annual video put out by the May Feelings folks, drawn from the witness of Pope John Paul II and his encouragement to youth the world over to go out and be a light in this world.

We are all so connected, more than we realize, even with the pervasive reach of social media.  We need each other, it’s our greatest gift: connection, caring.  Mind your mom:

Saying Yes, Annunciation

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Painting by Henry Tanner

It’s the Solemnity of the Annunciation. This is the day the church celebrates the feast of the Annunciation: the Archangel Gabriel coming to Mary and the most important “yes” ever in history. Fiat. “Yes, I will.” Her consent to become the Mother of God. Read more if you like here.

As an adoptive mom, and a mom of biological kids, I trembled (with that adrenaline rush of shocked thrill and joy, but also with the ‘bigness’ of it all) each time we were presented with a child, or even when the child was “announced.” I cannot imagine how she must have trembled. And yet, she said “let it be done.” It is an awesome and fearsome responsibility, to care for a child and give them what they need – this gift from God.

Now you all know that this feast just resonates with me.  For me.
Really, I could and probably should, meditate on this feast, these images for a long time, oh…for the rest of my days.

Because this feast is all about the letting go.  It’s about the letting go, in blind faith…the kind of faith I can only dream of, reach toward, and pray for a glimmer.  It’s about a kind of trust I can only gape at and wonder.

That kind of faith, that kind of willingness to “let go” and accept challenging, don’t know the road ahead but I’ll keep on and do my best without whining endlessly and relentlessly nagging questioning sort of faith just astounds me.  Humbles me.  Blows my mind.  Still.  Ever.

But she did.
Mary was a girl, a mere girl.  Not old, with decades of life to measure the probability of it turning out ok in the end, or to compare to another girl she heard of in the same spot.  She had no measuring stick but faith.  And she was able to hold her breath, think about it for a moment (Because she was not programmed like a robot, she could have said ‘no,’….Indeed, we are taught that all of creation held it’s breath.)…and say, “fiat.”
Fiat.  Yes.  “I say yes.”
Ok.
I’ll do it.  “Thy will be done, not mine.”

On this special day I pray for the willingness and ability to be able to say the same.

Presenting

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It’s the Feast of the Presentation today! Also known as Candlemass.

Oh my.  This day, this feast has such resonance for me, this year.  I’m not sure I can even write it; not fully or well enough.  It’s almost, almost, a little kick in my chest at the same time as a soft smile.

Rembrandt: "Simeon with the Christ Child"

But……this feast is when we remember, liturgically in our Catholic church, but also in our prayers and hearts, how Mary took her son, her baby, to the temple.  She was dutifully fulfilling her obligation, as all good Jewish moms did, to present her baby boy to the temple elders. Little did she know what prophecy she was gonna run smack into.  Little did she know she’d run into Simeon, Anna, and their words.  And I’m guessing she was just gobsmacked by it all.  I would’a been.  I would have been really rattled.  But, then again, I’m just me.  I’m figuring she was held up by a waterfall of grace and maybe a few guardian angels to keep her on her feet and find her breath.

There is so much to this event, this feast.  Go, read.

But this is where it gets a little personal.  Because, this year, I’ve spent, well, the past  year, mulling over this entire concept: presenting.  Presenting my son to the Lord.  Because that’s what I did.  I know, I know, ya’ll will shout at me and say, um, “HE chose this, not you.”  “I KNOW Mary, and you Ma’am, are NO Mary.” “I know Jesus, and I know your son Chris, and he is not Jesus.”  I know.  Shhh.  Stop shouting and pointing.  I’m NOT saying that.

What I’m saying is that I, a regular old mom, literally took my son, my firstborn, and presented him back to the the Lord.  I hugged him tight.  I shook hands with the other priests and novices and hugged them as I choked back tears and yet they welled behind  my sunglasses.  I watched his father hoist his few chosen possessions out of our car and into waiting helping  hands.  I stood aside as I watched him, getting edgy, wait to hug his dad, me.  I watched him  hug his dad goodbye.

The tears overflowed, I bowed my head.  I hugged him tight, kissed him, crossed his forehead, again.  Pressed my cheek to his and then gave him a weak smile as his dad and I grabbed hands and turned to go; letting him go.  I felt that pierce of my heart.  Even as I felt that swell of love too, knowing that he was going to God and to answer his call.

I let him go.  That’s what presenting is, isn’t it? In many ways, I think so.  You present and let go. You don’t present something and wrap it up tight and keep it hidden away. You present it and let go.  Open your hands.  Let go.  We miss him so.  Some days more than others.  But it’s also a great joy to see him happy and taking on a whole new mantle, add a layer to who he is and who he is becoming.  But, my hands are open now; having presented him, I love him, but let go.

So.  It’s a gift this feast.  For me, I can unwrap this gift in a new and fuller and more meaningful poignant way than ever before.  Even more so than last year, when I knew, I knew, this presentation was approaching.  Now I have done it.  I am not Mary.  My son is just my boy, my dear son, now a man.  But.  Just as any family can model in a tiny fractionated shadowy way the truths in our faith and life, so to can my messy family in our teeny way.  So, today, I get a gift of remembering that other mothers, so many, have given their child back to God.  The Blessed Mother did it, not only because it was prophesied …. but perhaps so we could have the courage to do so as well.

Today I am grateful for this feast.  It means so much.  To us all, yes.  But, oh, so much, to me.

Immaculate…what a concept

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Saint Anne conceiving the Virgin Mary
Douai, Musée de la Chartreuse
 Oh, it’s a big feast today!  It’s one of those feasts: an uber Catholic one. It’s the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day of obligation. It’s actually a Solemnity, which means it has even more import…so it’s a biggie!

 This is one of the big Marian feasts, and one that often gives many folks some consternation (from a scratch on the head to fits).  For a good explanation of it all, go here (and scroll down for all those, “What’s up with that” “How can that be?” kind of responses).  I can’t give you a great theological treatise on it.  It took brilliant theologians from the east and west to determine this one over the centuries, but they did because we are human. And our inquiring minds want to know, and puzzle and ponder.  So those who have gone before us prayed and debated and concluded.  I can say that it only makes sense to my puny brain.

Pierro de Cosimo, “The Immaculate Conception and Six Saints”
For a long time, I thought that the “immaculate conception”referred to Mary’s conception of Jesus, you know, with the descent of the Holy Spirit and Gabriel and all…clean, tidy, right?
But no, it’s actually about Mary and her being preserved from the stain of original sin.
Confusing, a little, huh?
Well, this is how it parses out in my old mom brain: God himself is all love and of course, without sin.  God came to us in his son, Christ, who was also without sin (being God and all).  Since all purity and all love cannot coexist with the stain of sin, how could Christ come to us as a man, without first having a pure ‘vessel’, if you will?  Well, he couldn’t, that would not correspond with the natural/divine order.  Growing in utero is, utterly, coexisting.  So, if God cannot coexist with sin, then a human mom to be would have to be found, sinless.  And thus, since God is beyond time, he prepared Mary, {from her conception of course}, to be without sin.  Because God knew, outside of time, that Mary would be the perfect (literally and figuratively) mom for Jesus.

Now, I think that’s cool!  It makes perfect sense to me and really is one of those ‘clap your hands, I get it” kind of moments.  Yeah, it’s uber Catholic.  But hey, I love being Catholic because (well, so many reasons) its cool and rich and takes my breath away.  And of course,  I love feasts….so it’s a good day!

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us!

**Disclaimer: yes, you saw most of this last  year.  But it’s advent and I need to be frugal w/ my net time.  So instead of wracking my puny brain to find another way to say this. I’m gonna go with what I said.  Because I meant it then and still do. Thanks for understanding…

Exhale

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I do it.

I pray the rosary, every day.

  • It’s a breath
  • a balm,
  • a comfort,
  • a fixture,
  • an exercise,
  • a respite,
  • a gift,
  • a present,
  • a journey,
  • an attachment tool,
  • a joy,
  • a mediation,
  • a love,
  • an exhale.
Today is the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.
I think, sometimes, people who get all worked up about the rosary forget that we are ASKING FOR PRAYERS, not worshipping.  Just like we ask each other, our friends, our pastors, the clerk at the market….. And they forget that Mary prayed too.  Better than anyone else, ever.  And still does.  For us.  And she’s the  mom.  Christ’s mom! And he’s the perfect son.  And what does a perfect son do? He listens to his mother!  And if he knows better, and can’t do what is asked, he gently explains….. So, I’m just saying, those prayers are worth much.  And regardless of that factor, the rosary is a meditative time that makes any day better and deeper..and so too, me.
Happy Feast Day!
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

About Those Beads….

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Oh boy, what beads? I love beads! Always have!

I want to talk about the most special set of beads I know or have seen, ever.

These beads are beads from my husband, made for and given to his son.  These beads, they are special ones indeed.

Yup, you guessed it, this post is another in my series on my son’s entry into religious life.  As you all surely know, my Chris is now living this year as a Novice with the Dominican Eastern Province of St. Joseph.  He now goes by the name of Brother Peter Joseph – a whole ‘nother post coming on that one.  {I need to get a sidebar for my posts that are in the ‘mini-series mode’…it would make my life a bit simpler, at the very least. Hmm, site maintenance on my to-do list…}  There is still so much to talk about with this new step in my son’s life.  So much change and so much adjusting going on, for him, for us, for the family as a whole.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s almost all good.  But it’s, well, it’s a lot of adjusting and transition too.

Anyhow, THIS post, this post is about those beads.

When Chris was getting ready to go to the Novitiate, he was given a list of things to bring. (I’ve decided to use Chris when talking about prenovitiate time and Bro Peter Joseph when talking about the time after he took his new name…keeps my head from spinning.  Hope this helps you keep up too.)    It was a VERY short list.  It was the basics, really, because that’s all he really needs. Heck, it’s all any of us really need, right? Right.  But, it was the usual stuff: a set of work clothes and exercise clothes, underwear, socks, tennis shoes, black shoes, limited personal toiletries, a breviary, bible, etc.  Then, there were two “habit specific” items: a 1.5 -2″ black belt and a 15 decade rosary.  That’s it.  That was the list of must bring items, with any additional items strongly discouraged.  Vow of poverty, simple life, and all… These list items were things he already possessed, except the belt (oddly enough) and the rosary.  The belt was an easy get, of course.  The rosary..well, it could have been an easy get.  A quick drive down to St Mary’s bookstore, where they have a lovely selection of rosaries of all types and stripes….

But, in thinking of it, this rosary was kind of special.  It needed, ideally, to be one that can last.  Stand the test of time flying and fingers praying.  Stand the test of wearing, day in and day out, through the bumps and knocks of any given task, however mundane: dishes, serving, laundry, singing, praying, studying, and so on. So this rosary needed to be durable, but also have a good feel.  Not flashy, but not cheap and breakable and something to worry over.   No surprise then, that Tom, Coffedoc, the dad…he had the idea to make one.

Now, permit me an aside: we parents were keenly feeling this move approaching.  But you already know that.  And, as parents are wont to do, world over, we wanted to send something with our boy/young man/beloved son.  I had even made him a small painting of St. Dominic, in case he could bring such a thing for his room.   Chris said he couldn’t take it with him.  Ouch.  But. Ok.  We couldn’t give him money – vow of poverty and all.  We couldn’t give him lovely THINGS – vow. poverty. simplicity.  No  cashmere socks, ha! No fancy watch.  We couldn’t give him electronics – vow. poverty. simplicity.  You get the idea.  I know, I know, it was desperation of the departure taking it’s toll. Foolishly or not, we had the very strong urge to give him a part of ourselves…somehow.    Even though of course, he was and IS a part of ourselves, built in, and that travels with him no matter where he goes.  Still.  The urge was there.  Thus, when Tom hit on the idea to make the rosary, Chris kindly said, ok.  It was a kindness, he was unsure if it was a good idea or if there was time.  But he knew, we all knew, that if it could be done in time, it would be.  So he said, “Ok, Dad, that’d be great.”

Thus began a kind of lovely intense time leading up to the departure for the novitiate.  Chris and Tom spent a lot of time together…looking for the crucifix, selecting the right one.  Finding a crucifix prayed over by another Dominican, a sister from years ago, worn just right and with the heft of time and prayer.  Simple, lovely.  They pondered what made a good feel to a rosary, the materials used to string it: wire, links, string…what would be best, lasting, have a good feel.  What size beads, what material, what heft, what feel?  It sounds like a lot of fussing, but it wasn’t fussing, it was a joint project and it was time together, talking, evaluating, hanging out.   Chris didn’t want it too precious, needed to pull back his father’s natural urge to find the most amazing special coolest ever parts of this or that….remind dad again of the simple life he is thinking of, being possibly called to.  Nudge, pull, push…listen, understand.  Both of them.

Finally, the parts were in.  All materials needed to be and ended up the simplest, not expensive, but strong.  The crucifix and centerpiece found and arrived, agreed that they were “just right.”  The beads arrived, wooden black beads, just right.  The cord to string it all, finally, located and brought home (harder than it would seem, that one).  The length determined, adjusted, fixed.  The knots practiced, tried, adjusted.  Different knots for between the beads, then the decades. Special knots for the crucifix and the centerpiece; complicated beautiful and secure.  Thus, finally, the actual making of this special rosary could begin.  This sweet dad, he stayed up into the wee hours many nights, he knotted and he pulled and measured and tested, knotted, reknotted, redid it to perfection.  Almost.  Tom would point out, here, “No, not perfect.”

But it was perfect. It IS perfect.  The entire process was pure gift of himself.  To his son.  It makes me cry to type it, it means so much to each of them, but so too, to me.  The hours put it, a prayer over each bead, each knot, for his boy.  Each time our son, now Brother Peter Joseph, prays that rosary (which is daily) his fingers slip across the same beads and knots that his father too held in prayer and love.  He carries that, all that, tied to his belt with him, at all times.  That very rosary stays hooked on his belt and habit.

Thus, my son, carries a huge piece of his father’s heart and love with him, always.

And  yes, of course, he does anyhow.  With or without that particular rosary.  We know that. He knows that.  But, those beads.  Those deep brown black beads…. They are a tangible touchable reminder, for him and for us…that we are linked through prayer and beyond time.  That particular rosary – I can say because I only watched the whole deal, I have no personal glory here – it is stunning.  It is simple.  It is beautiful.  Not only because my husband can tie knots like nobody’s business, not only because he is a master craftsman.  But because that rosary is the tangible embodiment of a father’s deepest love and prayers for his son and entrustment to our Blessed Mother through those seemingly simple brown beads.

Now, Brother Peter Joseph, receiving the habit and with it, the beads

So, yeah, it’s about the beads…in so many ways, they are kinda special.

For Every Mom; Lady of Sorrows

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drawing by Kate Kollwitz, 1903
Today is the day we remember Our Lady of Sorrows.
Oh, there is so much to this one…
As a mom, this resonates with me.
Ok, maybe as an older mom it resonates.
As a mom of sons who’ve gone to college, who has just sobbed goodbye to them…
as a mom who has given her son back to God, as he discerns the call to religious life…
as a mom of kids who come from hard places and  have endured hardship and trauma…
as a mom who has held other mom’s babies and children across the world in dark hot smelly orphanages, waving flies off their face as I feel their damp bottoms but also their arms clinging to my neck, or see them lying limp in my arms just gazing out – disconnected…
as a mom of kids who have struggled with different needs, some of them very hard and/or intense…
as a mom of kids who’ve gone through life-threatening events and as a mom who has sat vigil bedside in the PICU….
gosh as a mom who has lain awake countless nights worrying over  her kids…
over things big or small….
As a friend to moms who have lost children…
as a friend to moms who’s kids have been in the PICU, or hospital too….
as a friend to moms who have had kids go through the hardest scariest time in their lives and/or those of their parents…
goodness, as a mom who WATCHES THE NEWS, for pity’s sake…
….this memorial is for me.  A mom.  Any Mom.  This memorial is for us.
Because this Blessed Mother, she is us. 
She is every mom.
She is the mom giving  her portion of food for her hungry child.
She is the mom sitting bedside by her sick child.
She is the mom who weeps sending her child off, to work, to college, to a new life in a new country.
She is the mom who wishes she could hurt so her child doesn’t have to.
She is the mom who carries them, bodily, but also in mind and heart….all day, every day, all night, every night.
She is the mama.
She is us.
She gets it.
And she helps us carry it all….all those things that no one but a mom can fathom, truly…well, she does.
As I wept and wept a few weeks (the dropoff)  ago, worried over my son, him moving out and having to say goodbye to him in a new place that didn’t feel like home, at all, to him or to me…my other son said this: “Our Lady of Sorrows mom….the litany, it will help.“  I nodded.  It was all I could do.
So…with that, I give you this, it helped me then, and it is a reminder that she is not just the remote Mother of God.
She is everywoman.
Every mom.  Us.

Lord, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.
God, the Father of heaven,
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, .
God the Holy Ghost,
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.
Holy Virgin of virgins, pray for us
Mother of the Crucified, pray for us
Sorrowful Mother, pray for us
Mournful Mother, pray for us
Sighing Mother, pray for us
Afflicted Mother, pray for us
Foresaken Mother, pray for us
Desolate Mother, pray for us
Mother most sad, pray for us
Mother set around with anguish, pray for us
Mother overwhelmed by grief, pray for us
Mother transfixed by a sword, pray for us
Mother crucified in thy heart, pray for us
Mother bereaved of thy Son, pray for us
Sighing Dove, pray for us
Mother of Dolors, pray for us
Fount of tears, pray for us
Sea of bitterness, pray for us
Field of tribulation, pray for us
Mass of suffering, pray for us
Mirror of patience, pray for us
Rock of constancy, pray for us
Remedy in perplexity, pray for us
Joy of the afflicted, pray for us
Ark of the desolate, pray for us
Refuge of the abandoned,pray for us
Shiled of the oppressed, pray for us
Conqueror of the incredulous, pray for us
Solace of the wretched, pray for us
Medicine of the sick, pray for us
Help of the faint, pray for us
Strength of the weak, pray for us
Protectress of those who fight, pray for us
Haven of the shipwrecked, pray for us
Calmer of tempests, pray for us
Companion of the sorrowful, pray for us
Retreat of those who groan, pray for us
Terror of the treacherous, pray for us
Standard-bearer of the Martyrs, pray for us
Treasure of the Faithful, pray for us
Light of Confessors, pray for us
Pearl of Virgins, pray for us
Comfort of Widows, pray for us
Joy of all Saints, pray for us
Queen of thy Servants,pray for us
Holy Mary, who alone art unexampled, pray for us

Pray for us, most Sorrowful Virgin, That we may be made worthy
of the promises of Christ.

**Full disclosure:  I wrote this last year.  But I feel just the same…so, I’m reposting. 

>May. Month to pray.

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>And now it is May!

It is a month to pray the rosary; to start if you haven’t ever done it and wondered about it. 
To learn a bit more about it if you don’t understand it (no it’s not deifying Mary, it’s asking for prayers). It’s a month of springtime and beauty, and I have found such comfort and grace in this prayer of contemplation.
This video above is from last year and is about praying for our dedicated priests.  Most of the priests in this world are good holy men, who give their lives in service and prayer, for us.  They can certainly use some of our prayers, right back.
Think about it.
It’s easier than it looks and it’s May!
All the hip folks are doing it!
Happy May!

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>Announcing.

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 Painting by John Collier.

 Announcing: Putting out a message: Annunciation: Hey there, listen up….

See, it’s all the same thing, essentially.
Today is the Solemnity of the Annunciation.
Now you all know that this feast just resonates with me.  For me.
I wrote about some of the obvious reasons, here, last year.  
{I’m working a little bit from last year here as well….adding my current thoughts to the ones that still hold.}
Really, I could and probably should, meditate on this feast, these images for a long time, oh…for the rest of my days.  Maybe I’d be a better person.  Surely, I’d be a better mom. Surely my faith would grow.

Because this feast is all about the letting go. 
It’s about the letting go, in blind faith…the kind of faith I can only dream of, reach toward, and pray for a glimmer.
That kind of faith, that kind of willingness to “let go” and accept challenging-don’t-know-the-road-ahead-but-I’ll-keep-on-and-do-my-best-without-whining-endlessly-and-relentlessly-nagging-questioning sort of faith just astounds me.  

Humbles me.  
Blows my mind.  Still.  Ever. 

But she did. 
Mary was a girl, a mere girl.  Not old, with decades of life to measure the probability of it turning out ok in the end, or to compare to another girl she heard of in the same spot.  She had no measuring stick but faith.  And she was able to hold her breath, think about it for a moment (Because she was not programmed like a robot, she could have said ‘no,’….Indeed, we are taught that all of creation held it’s breath.)…and say, “fiat.”
Fiat.
Ok.
I’ll do it.  “Thy will be done, not mine.”

 Painting by Henry Tanner.

Ok, right there, there it is again.  That hard stone to trip over; the one that lands me flat on my face, every time.  “Your will be done, not mine.” “Your will.”  “I’ll go with it.”
Simple, right?
Seems so.
Should be.
But no.  Oh my, no. Not at all.

And she was surely scared, and unsure, and didn’t understand, and thought it’s impossible, c’mon.  But, somehow, her heart of hearts, her very soul twinged and twanged and she knew.  She KNEW, that this was the real deal – the realest deal.  And so she bowed her head.  She said “ok.” “Yes.” Maybe one of the most beautiful words in language, top ranks for sure:
“Fiat.”

And so, ever still, I look to her as an example of  how to do it right.
I look to her for inspiration that it can really be ok even when it seems impossible and  you just don’t know how to move ahead and you’re stepping into the dark without a light to read this new map you’ve been given.

 One of our referral pics, he was so small!

I look to this feast as a reminder and connection to my own Gabriel, my Gabriel Tariku… and how scary that was and how amazing that unknown can be.

I look to this feast, that fiat, and remember that we all get the chance, again and again, to say “Fiat.”

I see another young girl who has done that, again and again.
And who does so, every day as she navigates a new huge world, full of wonders and hard confusing things both, struggles to learn and adapt and grieve and heal and grow and reclaim joy all at the same time.
And I know she says “fiat.”
I think she whispers it, but oh, I know she does say it, again and again.
And she is a little mini annunciation for me, every day.
Will I carry her? Will I love her? Will I teach her? Will I let her teach me?
I know she says “Fiat.”
And so, so do I.  

I watch my son as he works through big decisions and changes.
He desires to say “fiat,” indeed,  he is saying so but it is so big that it takes prayer and a heart ready to be cracked open to the unknown.

He will navigate a whole new world and yet one that is already so much home to him, perhaps.
And so on this special feast day, I whisper ever more prayers for him as well.
This process, his process and his changes, bring about my own, new and daily fiat too.  Stupidly so, as this one is not mine to whisper and yet, it is.   Because if I do so too, then it helps him in whatever way he is to go.  To know that I am giving him to his yes too, no holding back.

This”fiat stuff”…it’s a big blind breathtaking step.  Every time.
And THAT is why we celebrate it with a big feast.
Because it’s a celebration of faith and love.
And deep breaths: fear into faith into joy. 
Every time.

Happy Feast of the Annunciation!

Hail Mary, full of grace
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women
and blessed
is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, mother of God
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death. Amen
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>Mother of God!

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Happy New Year!



Sounds simple, a no brainer right?
Doh….Mary gave birth to Jesus.  Yup. We’re n the midst of the whole Christmas season, surrounded by nativity scenes, Mary pregnant on the donkey, Baby Jesus in the manger….that’s the quintessential “mom” scene.
This IS one of the uber Catholic solemnities….one of the ones that cause some division.  But in my humble opinion, that division is not justified; it’s a tempest in a teapot (to use momspeak).  So, why the big deal…”Mary, Mother of God?”

Well that term took some theological argument discussion.  Ages ago, literally.  Way, way, before the “Big split (into the whole Protestant/Catholic deal).” Even way before any real divide between Eastern and Western Christianity.   Because it speaks to Jesus and his Divinity and while it seems obvious, it wasn’t so much…and you know, folks like things really pinned down officially and academically.  Hence, long ago – 431 AD – they even held a council of the bishops of the world, those who had received the faith, entrusted to them, on down in succession from the Apostles, to officially pin this all down.  Because someone was teaching that Jesus wasn’t divine from the moment of his conception or even birth, but taught that he was elevated to divinity later.   Was Jesus divine from the moment of his conception, or was he born only human?  Did Mary give birth to a human person or a divine person?  Was Mary, or was she not, in that sense, “Mother of God?”  Can we even speak those words?  Well, God chose and prepared her for Himself, from all the women of all time, to be the bearer of His Son.  And while the first person of the Trinity, God the Father is the sole source of Jesus’ divinity, from “in the beginning”, and Mary the sole source of his humanity, by the power of the Holy Spirit these two natures are inseparably, indivisibly, united in the one person Jesus Christ from the moment of His conception — thus declared the great council of Ephesus.  And as God’s Son is Divine and not only human, well, then Mary properly IS to be called the Mother of God. 

The precise title “Mother of God” goes back even further, at least to the third or fourth century. In the Greek form Theotokos (God-bearer), it became the touchstone of the Church’s teaching about the Incarnation. The Council of Ephesus in 431 insisted that the holy Fathers were right in calling the holy virgin Theotokos.



Really, it just remains kind of mind blowing to me.  Mary had the choice to say, “Um, nope, not doing this, too hard, too strange…really?  Mother of God?  I don’t get it….let me think about it.”  But she didn’t.  She said “Yes.” “Fiat.”  And thus the world began to be brought back into the proper order and we were all given the best present ever.

        “Long lay the world, in sin and error pining,

               ’til He appeared, and the soul felt it’s worth”


So today I am looking at icons.  Because today, on the last day of Christmas, we celebrate the mother, the Theotokos, the “Mother of God.”  And really, icons are about the only way to begin to wrap your mind around all this.  Because who can imagine God, really?  You can’t. I can’t — not really as He is.  And as soon as you think you are…well,  you’ve fallen into presumption now, haven’t you?  So, icons are perfect for today.  They function as “little windows into heaven.”  Icons (Ikonos — Images, in Greek) are images of the true Ikon, the one who images the Father, the one who shows us the Father, the face of God, that he revealed to the world “in the fullness of time” born of a woman, of a pure and holy virgin.  Whom He loves more deeply, more perfectly than any other son loves his mother, and whom “all generations shall call blessed”.

They are not meant to be realistic or have realistic lifelike perspective.  They represent what we cannot fully see with just our own eyes and senses; they image the world beyond the veil, the divine, the eternal.  And so today I want to look at these icons and ponder them.  Ponder what it means for her to be the Mother of God, the Theotokos…what faith and trust it took to say ‘fiat’, ‘be it done unto me according to thy word.’  To contemplate the fullness of it all and take maybe one or two(or the multitude that I need) lessons from it.  

Today ends the Octave of Christmas.  The new year is launched.  It is set in motion with a remembrance of the greatest faith and hope and love.  We step into the new year on the right foot, so to speak.  Today we celebrate mom, Mary.  I like that so much.  And, it’s really no coincidence that it’s also the World Day of Peace.  Because we mom’s, we are all about peace: the seeking, the getting, the craving, the searching, the making of peace.
Peace almost always begins with the mom.

Thus, we need today’s World Day of Peace and New Year to coincide with the Solemnity of the Mother of God.  It’s a big job, a big day.  We need the the biggest hope and love of the best mother….because she brings us her Son.  


Happy New Year!
Happy Feast day!
Wishing us all a peaceful day and new year to come!
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>Dia de Fiesta: Guadalupe!!!

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It’s the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!
Being from the southwest, growing up in Arizona specifically, I have a special fondness for Our Lady of Guadalupe. And you know, I just like most everything about this feast day and Our Lady of Guadalupe.  I love the Mexican culture, the food to celebrate, the miracles, the roses, the prayers, the colors, the music, the textiles.  What’s not to love?

The short version of Our Lady of Guadalupe is, of course, that she appeared to St. Juan Diego on his way to Mass.  She asked for a church to be built on the spot.  She asked him to ask the Bishop.  He agreed, the Bishop didn’t want to believe him.  So he kind of griped to Mary, saying that he couldn’t get the Bishop to listen and he wanted a sign..  She told Juan to gather flowers from Tepeyac Hill, (ones that weren’t indigenous and it was winter) and so he gathered the roses (that had miraculously bloomed in the winter snow) up in his cloak.  When he got to the Bishop, he spilled the roses out in the office and on his tilma (A type of cloak) was the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe!  Full wikipedia version here.

This is one of those times where once again, we see the universality of the Church.  Mary is not only our mother if you are of white european ancestry, but of course, she is mother to us all – the world over.  And in Mexico, today, you can see the festival celebrating her, complete with all the local cultural trimmings.

Coffeedoc and I went to Mexico City on his fortieth birthday, to go see the tilma for ourselves.  And you know, there was a time when part of me just kind of took the ‘folklore’ appreciation route with Our Lady of Guadalupe.  My folklore background would kick in and I’d get caught up in all the sensual aspects: the colors, textures, foods, fiestas…the layers and layers that are part of any long historical memorial.


But, going to Mexico City, to the Basilica’s – the old and the new – well, it’s one of those things.  You go.  You see the pilgrims who have traveled there ON THEIR KNEES.  




You see the thousands and thousands of milagros pinned up (Small metal tokens of thanksgiving left behind for answered prayers).  And you see the tilma.  



You stand in front of the tilma, and scour it with your own eyes.  You pray. And it’s like C.S. Lewis says, to paraphrase: you either believe, or you think they are all lying (Or it’s a big scam), or that they are crazy.  

Well, I don’t think they are all lying and I don’t think that it’s a scam.  I think Our Lady of Guadalupe has made a huge difference in so many lives.  And I don’t think they are all crazy either.  Especially not after being there.  But I didn’t really ever ascribe to that one either.  I believe.  I believe Our Lady of Guadalupe is another manifestation of Our Blessed Mother.  And that like any mom, she will go to where her children are and where they need her.  And so she did.  

“A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet,
and on her head a crown of twelve stars”
Revelation 12:1 (Entrance Antiphon for Our Lady of Guadalupe)

  

Ave María (Hail Mary)

Dios te salve, María. Llena eres de gracia: El Señor es contigo.

Bendita tú eres entre todas las mujeres. Y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre: Jesús.

Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores,
ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte. Amén.

*portions of this from  last year, it’s Advent, and finals….Our Lady of Guadalupe won’t mind, I hope you won’t either. And yes, I’m just that lazy efficient these days*

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>Immaculata

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Saint Anne conceiving the Virgin Mary
Douai, Musée de la Chartreuse

Oh, it’s a big feast today!  It’s one of those feasts: an uber Catholic one.
It’s the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day of obligation.

It’s actually a Solemnity, which means it has even more import…so it’s a biggie!

This is one of the big Marian feasts, and one that often gives many folks some consternation (from a scratch on the head to fits).  For a good explanation of it all, go here (and scroll down for all those, “What’s up with that” “How can that be?” kind of responses).  I can’t give you a great theological treatise on it.  It took brilliant theologians from the east and west to determine this one over the centuries, but they did because we are human. And our inquiring minds want to know, and puzzle and ponder.  So those who have gone before us prayed and debated and concluded.  I can say that it only makes sense to my puny brain.

Pierro de Cosimo, “The Immaculate Conception and Six Saints”

For a long time, I thought that the “immaculate conception” referred to Mary’s conception of Jesus, you know, with the descent of the Holy Spirit and Gabriel and all…clean, tidy, right?  

But no, it’s actually about Mary and her being preserved from the stain of original sin. 
Confusing, a little, huh?  
Well, this is how it parses out in my old mom brain: God himself is all love and of course, without sin.  God came to us in his son, Christ, who was also without sin (being God and all).  Since all purity and all love cannot coexist with the stain of sin, how could Christ come to us as a man, without first having a pure ‘vessel’, if you will?  Well, he couldn’t, that would not correspond with the natural/divine order.  Growing in utero is, utterly, coexisting.  So, if God cannot coexist with sin, then a human mom to be would have to be found, sinless.  And thus, since God is beyond time, he prepared Mary, {from her conception of course}, to be without sin.  Because God knew, outside of time, that Mary would be the perfect (literally and figuratively) mom for Jesus.

Now, I think that’s cool!  It makes perfect sense to me and really is one of those ‘clap your hands, I get it” kind of moments.  Yeah, it’s uber Catholic.  But hey, I love being Catholic because (well, so many reasons) its cool and rich and takes my breath away.  And of course,  I love feasts….so it’s a good day!

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us!

**Disclaimer: yes, you saw most of this last  year.  But it’s advent and I need to be frugal w/ my net time.  So instead of wracking my puny brain to find another way to say this. I’m gonna go with what I said.  Because I meant it then and still do. Thanks for understanding…**
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>For any mom

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drawing by Kate Kollwitz, 1903
Today is the day we remember Our Lady of Sorrows.
Oh, there is so much to this one…
As a mom, this resonates with me.  
Ok, maybe as an older mom it resonates.
As a mom of sons who’ve gone to college, who has just sobbed goodbye to them…
as a mom of kids who come from hard places and  have endured hardship and trauma…
as a mom who has held other mom’s babies and children across the world in dark hot smelly orphanages, waving flies off their face as I feel their damp bottoms but also their arms clinging to my neck, or see them lying limp in my arms just gazing out – disconnected…
as a mom of kids who have struggled with different needs, some of them very hard and/or intense…
as a mom of kids who’ve gone through life-threatening events and as a mom who has sat vigil bedside in the PICU….
gosh as a mom who has lain awake countless nights worrying over  her kids…
over things big or small….
As a friend to moms who have lost children…
as a friend to moms who’s kids have been in the PICU, or hospital too….
as a friend to moms who have had kids go through the hardest scariest time in their lives and/or those of their parents…
goodness, as a mom who WATCHES THE NEWS, for pity’s sake…
….this memorial is for us.  
Because this Blessed Mother, she is us.  
She is every mom.  
She is the mom giving  her portion of food for her hungry child.
She is the mom sitting bedside by her sick child.
She is the mom who weeps sending her child off, to work, to college, to a new life in a new country.
She is the mom who wishes she could hurt so her child doesn’t have to.
She is the mom who carries them, bodily, but also in mind and heart….all day, every day, all night, every night. 
She is the mama.
She is us.  
She gets it.  
And she helps us carry it all….all those things that no one but a mom can fathom, truly…well, she does.  
As I wept and wept a few weeks ago, worried over my son, him moving out and having to say goodbye to him in a new place that didn’t feel like home, at all, to him or to me…my other son said this: “Our Lady of Sorrows mom….the litany, it will help.”  I said, “She didn’t send her son to college!” (I know, I’m a selfish idiot)  He smiled and said “Yuh, she watched him be crucified.”  
So…with that, I give you this, it helped me then, and it is a reminder that she is not just the remote Mother of God.  
She is everywoman.  
Everymom.  Us.
 Litany of Our Lady Of Seven Sorrows 
By Pope Pius VII
Leader Response
Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.
God, the Father of heaven, Have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, Have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit, Have mercy on us.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us.
Holy Virgin of virgins, Pray for us.
Mother of the Crucified, Pray for us.
Sorrowful Mother Pray for us.
Mournful Mother Pray for us.
Sighing Mother Pray for us.
Afflicted Mother Pray for us.
Foresaken Mother Pray for us.
Desolate Mother Pray for us.
Mother most sad Pray for us.
Mother set around with anguish Pray for us.
Mother overwhelmed by grief Pray for us.
Mother transfixed by a sword Pray for us.
Mother crucified in thy heart Pray for us.
Mother bereaved of thy Son Pray for us.
Sighing Dove Pray for us.
Mother of Dolors Pray for us.
Fount of tears Pray for us.
Sea of bitterness Pray for us.
Field of tribulation Pray for us.
Mass of suffering Pray for us.
Mirror of patience Pray for us.
Rock of constancy Pray for us.
Remedy in perplexity Pray for us.
Joy of the afflicted Pray for us.
Ark of the desolate Pray for us.
Refuge of the abandoned Pray for us.
Shield of the oppressed Pray for us.
Conqueror of the incredulous Pray for us.
Solace of the wretched Pray for us.
Medicine of the sick Pray for us.
Help of the faint Pray for us.
Strength of the weak Pray for us.
Protectress of those who fight Pray for us.
Haven of the shipwrecked Pray for us.
Calmer of tempests Pray for us.
Companion of the sorrowful Pray for us.
Retreat of those who groan Pray for us.
Terror of the treacherous Pray for us.
Standard-bearer of the Martyrs Pray for us.
Treasure of the Faithful Pray for us.
Light of Confessors Pray for us.
Pearl of Virgins Pray for us.
Comfort of Widows Pray for us.
Joy of all Saints Pray for us.
Queen of thy Servants Pray for us.
Holy Mary, who alone art unexampled Pray for us.
Pray for us, most Sorrowful Virgin, That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us pray.

O God, in whose Passion,
According to the prophecy of Simeon,
A sword of grief pierced through
The most sweet soul
Of Thy glorious Blessed Virgin Mother Mary:
Grant that we, who celebrate
The memory of her Seven Sorrows,
May obtain the happy effect of Thy Passion,
Who lives and reigns world without end.
Amen.
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>Holy Cake!

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It’s the feast of the Nativity of Mary! 

Today is the day we celebrate and remember the nativity of our Blessed Mother, Mary. The birth of the Theotokos, Mother of God. I know some have questions or issues with this whole concept…but I am all about loving our Blessed Mother, and all about celebrating birthdays, so I can run with it! Go here for a quick bit on it as well.

I am so grateful for her and for her birthday that we will celebrate with flowers for her and maybe even a yummy dessert….Because living the liturgical year is fun and cool and gives much needed texture, rhythm, and depth to the warp and woof of our lives.

And here is a lovely prayer for the day:  from the Liturgy of the Hours: 

Father of Mercy, give your people help and strength from heaven.
The birth of the Virgin Mary’s son
was the dawn of our salvation.
May this celebration of her birthday
bring us closer to lasting peace.
Grant this through Our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever. Amen.

— the Liturgy of the Hours


Birth of Virgin Mary to St. Anne in Santa Maria Novella, Florence.  By Domenico Ghirlandio


So, this is a bit rambly…but well, think of your Mother today…your Blessed Mother and maybe say a prayer of thanksgiving for her. Because like all of us moms, she loves us even when we don’t love her nearly well enough back….and, yes, in case you’re wondering, we will have cake!

Happy Birthday Mary!

“Nativitas tua genitrix virgo gaudium annunziavit universo mundo”

(Thy birth, O Virgin and Mother of God, brings joy to all the world).


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>Holy Mama! It’s May!

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So, it’s May! You know what that means…not only that we can all jump for joy that the crazy stormy April is finished, but that spring has sprung and it’s a new start and it’s a beautiful new month, new season, new start.  May is also, in Catholic life, a month devoted to Mary. By which I mean, it’s all about the mama.
 

No, not only all about me (which of course, it always is!) but even more so, May is all about our Blessed Mom, Mary.  She is the one that I look to this month, today in a bit of needy plea (it’s been a tough week), to give me example of how to do all this mom stuff right.  I look to her to see how to really love, to model humility for me (stop laughing, I know I know, better than anyone  how desperately I need that one), to model kindness and patience and just, baseline, real, love.

Joss van Cleve, Madonna and Child (see even baby Jesus was awfully busy!)

You know that it gets all tangled up too, that love stuff. It gets knotted up in needs and wants and crises and pushing and pulling of all sorts: worldly, culturally, friendly, husbandly (Is that a word? It is today).  My dear pal Sonja writs eloquently on this very thing here, today, in honor of today’s feast of St. Joseph the worker.  Go, read.  It’s so worth it.  (Sorry St. Joseph, not trying to slight you, but Sonja does a much better write up.)

But this month we honor Mary.  It’s her month.  Because May brings new growth, literally, all around us.  So too, does Mary.  Without her fiat, her humble acceptance of a surprising radical challenge to love, we wouldn’t even have a chance to know the truest Love.  She is the spring of our faith, our hearts and their growth too.  She tends and nurtures our hearts through her prayers so that we can grow and bloom and come closer to the truest Love, her Son.  She is “everymom,” it’s too easy to forget that, that while she is unique and selected particularly to be the earthly mom of Christ himself, she is also us, in the trenches, mom to this beautiful hard hurting but glorious world.

After this past week, I figure I am at the baby sprout stage of loving.  I could easily have been mistaken for a weed, oh, even this morning.  So, I am looking to Mary, my Blessed Mother, and asking for her prayers to humble my stubborn selfish self, to grow my ability to love, and to pray me into a bloom of some sort, someday.

In the meantime, I hope to get back to a steady consistent daily rosary (lost too often in the shuffle of some insane days) this month, and to pay more attention to the best mom and mom-model I know:  Mary. 

“The mood of springtime informs the church’s interior; nature’s
blossoming, the warm air of May evenings, human gladness in
a world that is renewing itself — all these things enter in.
Veneration of Mary has its place in this very particular
atmosphere, for she, the Virgin, shows us faith under its
youthful aspect, as God’s new beginning in a world that has
grown old. In her we see the Christian life set forth as a youth-
fulness of the heart, as beauty and a waiting readiness for
what is to come.”
–– Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Seek That Which is Above
(Ignatius, 1986), pp. 95-96.
{quote h/t wff.org}
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>Annunciation

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 Painting by John Collier.

It’s the Solemnity of the Annunciation.
Now you all know that this feast just resonates with me.  For me.
I wrote about some of the obvious reasons, here, last year. 
Really, I could and probably should, meditate on this feast, these images for a long time, oh…for the rest of my days.  Maybe I’d be a better person.  Surely, I’d be a better mom. Surely my faith would grow.

Because this feast is all about the letting go. 
It’s about the letting go, in blind faith…the kind of faith I can only dream of, reach toward, and pray for a glimmer. 
That kind of faith, that kind of willingness to “let go” and accept challenging, don’t know the road ahead but I’ll keep on and do my best without whining endlessly and relentlessly nagging questioning sort of faith just astounds me.  Humbles me.  Blows my mind.  Still.  Ever. 

But she did. 
Mary was a girl, a mere girl.  Not old, with decades of life to measure the probability of it turning out ok in the end, or to compare to another girl she heard of in the same spot.  She had no measuring stick but faith.  And she was able to hold her breath, think about it for a moment (Because she was not programmed like a robot, she could have said ‘no,’….Indeed, we are taught that all of creation held it’s breath.)…and say, “fiat.”
Fiat.
Ok.
I’ll do it.  “Thy will be done, not mine.”

 Painting by Henry Tanner.

Ok, right there, there it is again.  That hard stone to trip over; the one that lands me flat on my face, every time.  “Your will be done, not mine.” “Your will.”  “I’ll go with it.”
Simple, right?
Seems so. 
Should be.
But no.  Oh my, no. Not at all.

And she was surely scared, and unsure, and didn’t understand, and thought it’s impossible, c’mon.  But, somehow, her heart of hearts, her very soul twinged and twanged and she knew.  She KNEW, that this was the real deal – the realest deal.  And so she bowed her head.  She said “ok.” “Yes.” Maybe one of the most beautiful words in language, top ranks for sure:
“Fiat.”

And so, ever still, I look to her as an example of  how to do it right.
I look to her for inspiration that it can really be ok even when it seems impossible and  you just don’t know how to move ahead and you’re stepping into the dark without a light to read this new map you’ve been given.

 One of our referral pics, he was so small!

I look to this feast as a reminder and connection to my own Gabriel, my Gabriel Tariku… and how scary that was and how amazing that unknown can be.

I look to this feast, that fiat, and remember that we all get the chance, again and again, to say “Fiat.”

I see another young girl who has done that, again and again. 
And who does so, every day as she navigates a new huge world, full of wonders and hard confusing things both, struggles to learn and adapt and grieve and heal and grow and reclaim joy all at the same time. 
And I know she says “fiat.”
I think she whispers it, but oh, I know she does say it, again and again. 
And she is a little mini annunciation for me, every day. 
Will I carry her? Will I love her? Will I teach her? Will I let her teach me?
I know she says “Fiat.”
And so, so do I.  

Happy Feast of the Annunciation!

Hail Mary, full of grace
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women
and blessed
is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, mother of God
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death. Amen
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>Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

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Happy New Year!

Sounds simple, a no brainer right?
Doh….Mary gave birth to Jesus.  Yup. We’re n the midst of the whole Christmas season, surrounded by nativity scenes, Mary pregnant on the donkey, Baby Jesus in the manger….that’s the quintessential “mom” scene.
This IS one of the uber Catholic solemnities….one of the ones that cause some division.  But in my humble opinion, that division is not justified; it’s a tempest in a teapot (to use momspeak).  So, why the big deal…”Mary, Mother of God?”

Well that term took some theological argument discussion.  Ages ago, literally.  Way, way, before the “Big split (into the whole Protestant/Catholic deal).” Even way before any real divide between Eastern and Western Christianity.   Because it speaks to Jesus and his Divinity and while it seems obvious, it wasn’t so much…and you know, folks like things really pinned down officially and academically.  Hence, long ago – 431 AD – they even held a council of the bishops of the world, those who had received the faith, entrusted to them, on down in succession from the Apostles, to officially pin this all down.  Because someone was teaching that Jesus wasn’t divine from the moment of his conception or even birth, but taught that he was elevated to divinity later.   Was Jesus divine from the moment of his conception, or was he born only human?  Did Mary give birth to a human person or a divine person?  Was Mary, or was she not, in that sense, “Mother of God?”  Can we even speak those words?  Well, God chose and prepared her for Himself, from all the women of all time, to be the bearer of His Son.  And while the first person of the Trinity, God the Father is the sole source of Jesus’ divinity, from “in the beginning”, and Mary the sole source of his humanity, by the power of the Holy Spirit these two natures are inseparably, indivisibly, united in the one person Jesus Christ from the moment of His conception — thus declared the great council of Ephesus.  And as God’s Son is Divine and not only human, well, then Mary properly IS to be called the Mother of God.

The precise title “Mother of God” goes back even further, at least to the third or fourth century. In the Greek form Theotokos (God-bearer), it became the touchstone of the Church’s teaching about the Incarnation. The Council of Ephesus in 431 insisted that the holy Fathers were right in calling the holy virgin Theotokos.

Really, it just remains kind of mind blowing to me.  Mary had the choice to say, “Um, nope, not doing this, too hard, too strange…really?  Mother of God?  I don’t get it….let me think about it.”  But she didn’t.  She said “Yes.” “Fiat.”  And thus the world began to be brought back into the proper order and we were all given the best present ever.

        “Long lay the world, in sin and error pining,
               ’til He appeared, and the soul felt it’s worth”

So today I am looking at icons.  Because today, on the last day of Christmas, we celebrate the mother, the Theotokos, the “Mother of God.”  And really, icons are about the only way to begin to wrap your mind around all this.  Because who can imagine God, really?  You can’t. I can’t — not really as He is.  And as soon as you think you are…well,  you’ve fallen into presumption now, haven’t you?  So, icons are perfect for today.  They function as “little windows into heaven.”  Icons (Ikonos — Images, in Greek) are images of the true Ikon, the one who images the Father, the one who shows us the Father, the face of God, that he revealed to the world “in the fullness of time” born of a woman, of a pure and holy virgin.  Whom He loves more deeply, more perfectly than any other son loves his mother, and whom “all generations shall call blessed”.

They are not meant to be realistic or have realistic lifelike perspective.  They represent what we cannot fully see with just our own eyes and senses; they image the world beyond the veil, the divine, the eternal.  And so today I want to look at these icons and ponder them.  Ponder what it means for her to be the Mother of God, the Theotokos…what faith and trust it took to say ‘fiat’, ‘be it done unto me according to thy word.’  To contemplate the fullness of it all and take maybe one or two (or the multitude that I need) lessons from it. 

Today ends the Octave of Christmas.  The new year is launched.  It is set in motion with a remembrance of the greatest faith and hope and love.  We step into the new year on the right foot, so to speak.  Today we celebrate mom, Mary.  I like that so much.  And, it’s really no coincidence that it’s also the World Day of Peace.  Because we mom’s, we are all about peace: the seeking, the getting, the craving, the searching, the making of peace.
Peace almost always begins with the mom.

Thus, we need today’s World Day of Peace and New Year to coincide with the Solemnity of the Mother of God.  It’s a big job, a big day.  We need the the biggest hope and love of the best mother….because she brings us her Son. 

Happy New Year!
Happy Feast day!
Wishing us all a peaceful day and new year to come!
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>Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!

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It’s the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!
Being from the southwest, growing up in Arizona specifically, I have a special fondness for Our Lady of Guadalupe. And you know, I just like most everything about this feast day and Our Lady of Guadalupe.  I love the Mexican culture, the food to celebrate, the miracles, the roses, the prayers, the colors, the music, the textiles.  What’s not to love?

The short version of Our Lady of Guadalupe is, of course, that she appeared to St. Juan Diego on his way to Mass.  She asked for a church to be built on the spot.  She asked him to ask the Bishop.  He agreed, the Bishop didn’t want to believe him.  So he kind of griped to Mary, saying that he couldn’t get the Bishop to listen and he wanted a sign..  She told Juan to gather flowers from Tepeyac Hill, (ones that weren’t indigenous and it was winter) and so he gathered the roses (that had miraculously bloomed in the winter snow) up in his cloak.  When he got to the Bishop, he spilled the roses out in the office and on his tilma (A type of cloak) was the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe!  Full wikipedia version here.

This is one of those times where once again, we see the universality of the Church.  Mary is not only our mother if you are of white european ancestry, but of course, she is mother to us all – the world over.  And in Mexico, today, you can see the festival celebrating her, complete with all the local cultural trimmings.

Coffeedoc and I went to Mexico City on his fortieth birthday, to go see the tilma for ourselves.  And you know, there was a time when part of me just kind of took the ‘folklore’ appreciation route with Our Lady of Guadalupe.  My folklore background would kick in and I’d get caught up in all the sensual aspects: the colors, textures, foods, fiestas…the layers and layers that are part of any long historical memorial.

 But, going to Mexico City, to the Basilica’s – the old and the new – well, it’s one of those things.  You go.  You see the pilgrims who have traveled there ON THEIR KNEES.  You see the thousands and thousands of milagros pinned up (Small metal tokens of thanksgiving left behind for answered prayers).  And you see the tilma.  You stand in front of the tilma, and scour it with your own eyes.  You pray. And it’s like C.S. Lewis says, to paraphrase: you either believe, or you think they are all lying (Or it’s a big scam), or that they are crazy. 

Well, I don’t think they are all lying and I don’t think that it’s a scam.  I think Our Lady of Guadalupe has made a huge difference in so many lives.  And I don’t think they are all crazy either.  Especially not after being there.  But I didn’t really ever ascribe to that one either.  I believe.  I believe Our Lady of Guadalupe is another manifestation of Our Blessed Mother.  And that like any mom, she will go to where her children are and where they need her.  And so she did. 

“A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet,
and on her head a crown of twelve stars”
Revelation 12:1 (Entrance Antiphon for Our Lady of Guadalupe)

  I recently helped Miss M, my 5th grader, learn this for a Spanish quiz at school, we prayed a spanish rosary.  So, in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe:

Ave María (Hail Mary)
Dios te salve, María. Llena eres de gracia: El Señor es contigo.
Bendita tú eres entre todas las mujeres. Y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre: Jesús.
Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores,
ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte. Amén.

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>Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

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Saint Anne conceiving the Virgin Mary
Douai, Musée de la Chartreuse

Oh, it’s a big feast today!  It’s one of those feasts: an uber Catholic one.
It’s the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day of obligation.

One of the big Marian feasts, and one that often gives many folks some consternation (from a scratch on the head to fits).  For a good explanation of it all, go here (and scroll down for all those, “What’s up with that” “How can that be?” kind of responses).  I can’t give you a great theological treatise on it.  It took brilliant theologians from the east and west to determine this one over the centuries, but they did because we are human. And our inquiring minds want to know, and puzzle and ponder.  So those who have gone before us prayed and debated and concluded.  I can say that it only makes sense to my puny brain.

For a long time, I thought that the “immaculate conception” referred to Mary’s conception of Jesus, you know, with the descent of the Holy Spirit and Gabriel and all…clean, tidy, right?  But no, it’s actually about Mary and her being preserved from the stain of original sin.  Confusing, a little, huh?  Well, this is how it parses out in my old mom brain: God himself is all love and of course, without sin.  God came to us in his son, Christ, who was also without sin (being God and all).  Since all purity and all love cannot coexist with the stain of sin, how could Christ come to us as a man, without first having a pure ‘vessel’, if you will?  Well, he couldn’t, that would not correspond with the natural/divine order.  Growing in utero is, utterly, coexisting.  So, if God cannot coexist with sin, then a human mom to be would have to be found, sinless.  And thus, since God is beyond time, he prepared Mary, {from her conception of course}, to be without sin.  Because God knew, outside of time, that Mary would be the perfect (literally and figuratively) mom for Jesus.

Now, I think that’s cool!  It makes perfect sense to me and really is one of those ‘clap your hands, I get it” kind of moments.  Yeah, it’s uber Catholic.  But hey, I love being Catholic because (well, so many reasons) its cool and rich and takes my breath away.  And of course,  I love feasts….so it’s a good day!

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us!

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>Our Lady of Sorrows

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Today is the day we remember Our Lady of Sorrows.

Let me say just this: As a mom, this tears me up. No matter the denomination…moms will understand this concept of the sorrowful mother. She is every mother….

Drawing by Kate Kollwitz, Woman with dead child, 1903

So, as I cannot begin to sufficiently address this day and all that could be said,
I will let this most famous hymn do it instead.

Stabat Mater:

At the cross her station keeping,
Mary stood in sorrow weeping
When her Son was crucified.

While she waited in her anguish,
Seeing Christ in torment languish,
Bitter sorrow pierced her heart.

With what pain and desolation,
With what noble resignation,
Mary watched her dying Son.

Ever-patient in her yearning
Though her tear-filled eyes were burning,
Mary gazed upon her Son.

Who, that sorrow contemplating,
On that passion meditating,
Would not share the Virgin’s grief?

Christ she saw, for our salvation,
Scourged with cruel acclamation,
Bruised and beaten by the rod.

Christ she saw with life-blood failing,
All her anguish unavailing,
Saw him breathe his very last.

Mary, fount of love’s devotion,
Let me share with true emotion
All the sorrow you endured.

Virgin, ever interceding,
Hear me in my fervent pleading:
Fire me with your love of Christ.

Mother, may this prayer be granted:
That Christ’s love may be implanted
In the depths of my poor soul.

At the cross, your sorrow sharing,
All your grief and torment bearing,
Let me stand and mourn with you.

Fairest maid of all creation,
Queen of hope and consolation,
Let me feel your grief sublime.

Virgin, in your love befriend me,
At the Judgment Day defend me.
Help me by your constant prayer.

Savior, when my life shall leave me,
Through your mother’s prayers
receive me
With the fruits of victory.

Virgin of all virgins blest!
Listen to my fond request:
Let me share your grief divine

Let me, to my latest breath,
In my body bear the death
Of your dying Son divine.

Wounded with His every wound,
Steep my soul till it has swooned
In His very Blood away.

Be to me, O Virgin, nigh,
Lest in flames I burn and die,
In His awe-full judgment day.

Savior, when my life shall leave me,
Through your mother’s prayers
receive me
With the fruits of victory.

While my body here decays
May my soul your goodness praise,
Safe in heaven eternally. Amen Alleluia

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.
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>The Assumption

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>Icon of the Assumption

Today is the Solemnity of the Assumption.

And solemnity doesn’t mean, necessarily, somber and morose…rather it can mean big time, important. Meaning, it’s a holy day of obligation, go to Mass. And while this is one of the “biggie” (Yes, I spent my summers in the seventies on the beach, we used that term, so what?) solemnities in the Catholic calendar, I don’t have the energy to give you all the scholarly apologetics behind it all (go see the link above for a start).

As an aside, however, Coffeedoc pointed out that today was the feast of the Assumption to Marta – Ethiopian Orthodox celebrate this feast in a big way and it is called “Filsata Mariam” – and she jumped up and down with excitement. So it’s a big deal even in the the other ancient Christian faith traditions.

Ethiopian Orthodox Marian icon.

Suffice it to say that this Solemnity is totally cool and has so many threads connecting it all that it blows my mind with a grin. And that, as so much of life is, it’s one of the Mysteries. That’s mystery with a capital “M;” theologically speaking. By which I mean, if I really could understand it through and through, well, I would be be both presumptuous AND wrong. Because some of the mysteries that make life and faith so rich, are not for my puny mind to dissect.

So, that all disclaimed, ahem, I give you my personal gloss on this feast day (My blog, massively opinionated, you knew it was coming.):
Mary was a mother who loved with perfect love (unlike myself). Her son was a perfect son, who also loved with a perfect love. Now, if I, with my very imperfect love can love my sons SO much that it can make me cry and mope when they leave for their very fun new exciting lives in college (Next week, I”m just saying.) once again……then how much more so did Mary ache to see her son leave this earth and his time with her in such a grisly unbearable event? And how much did she miss him, achingly miss him, all those years? And therefore, at the end of her life, when she was able to be reunited with her boy, her Son….just think of the joy, the unbridled radiating shimmery JOY, of that reunion! And in this feast, we believe that they were reunited in Heaven.

Frankly, I simply love everything about this. I mean, just having my boy come back home after a few months at college makes me want to whoop, jump for joy, run down the stairs and hug him tight, not let go, feed him pie and just look at him. It makes me ridiculously happy. So, this feast is a promise of that to me, that reunion, that that kind of love between mom and son (or, ok, kids, but hey, let me run this out), doesn’t just die out…it is eternal. And that is the best promise of all and that is nothing but cool.

So, there, moms….that’s something to smile about.
Happy Solemnity of the Assumption!

Detail of painting of Assumption, by Titian

Magnificat (Luke 1:36-55)

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour;
he has looked with favour on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed;
the Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his name.
He has mercy on those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm
and has scattered the proud in their conceit,
Casting down the mighty from their thrones
and lifting up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.
He has come to the aid of his servant Israel,
to remember his promise of mercy,
The promise made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and his children for ever.
Amen.

Lodovico Caracci, The Assumption of the Virgin, about 1586-7
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>I do, too. Every day.

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May is the month of Mary, and the rosary.
I would challenge you to try it if you don’t already.

It’s probably the best thing I do every day, even when I don’t do the best one ever.
Doing this makes every day just a little better, on all levels. Period.
So. Yeah.
I pray the rosary.

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>Feast Day: Our Lady of the Rosary

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Madonna of the Rosary, by Lorenzo Lotto 1539

Today is the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Yup, another Catholic feast day. But this one devoted to our Blessed Mother and a particular and wonderful Catholic devotion and prayer: the rosary.

{I know, more Catholic stuff, I warned you: ’tis the season! And if you are thinking “hey I thought this was an Ethiopian adoption blog! What gives?” Well, it is, but read the header, it’s also about life in this family as a mom of a pile of kids, which means, Catholic, food, family, adoption, travel, Ethiopia, kids, whining, venting, opinions, links, drivel, and cool stuff…..the whole package.}

Now, the rosary can be a really confusing devotion and set of prayers, especially if you’re not Catholic or if you’ve not practiced it. It takes time to learn. It seems all complicated but it’s not.

Basically, it is a serious of meditations on the life of Christ. Yes, you’re saying “Ave Maria’s” (or the “Hail Mary” prayer) for much of it, but at the same time you are saying those words of the prayer you are invited into meditation on a ‘mystery’ of the rosary, or a particular scene or even in Christ’s life. If you make through an entire full rosary, all twenty decades, you have pretty much just walked through the gospel in your mind. How cool is that?

Now, I have to admit, my praying of the rosary is erratic. I get busy, I get tired, I get lazy. Too much so to make myself stop and take the 20 minutes it takes to pray the rosary. Sheesh. But, I love the rosary. I love the prayers, the calm that comes with praying it, the storytelling aspect of it, the results, the feel, the sound – all of it. But, as with anything regular, there is a discipline to doing it daily or regularly. And I’m not always so great at steady discipline (check out my utter lack of running of late: talk about NO discipline!). But all I can say is that when I do pray the rosary regularly and often, I see benefits. I see our family doing better, I feel myself calmer and more capable of coping with the harried life we live, the mundane irritations and feel my teeny weeny well of patience be a slight bit fuller.

The rosary is not mindless babble; it is often accused of this. Now, to someone who doesn’t understand the fullness of the rosary or what it really is or how it’s done, it could seem so. At it’s worst, it is a distracted attempt at turning our mind to Christ, through His mother and her pointing out scenes from His life. And heck, that’s not so bad: A- for even trying, right? At it’s best, it can be a transcendent prayer. It can not only change our hearts, I really believe it can change others and the world, just a bit. But every bit counts.

So, don’t short change this prayer. And of course, NEVER short change or underestimate our Blessed Mother. If she gave this prayer to the world and hears it, and I believe she does…well, great things can happen. I’ve seen them and so have many others. It’s an oldie but one of the very best prayers and devotions. It’s not a requirement as a Catholic, you don’t have to do this. But, oh, always, I am glad I did!

Happy Feast Day!
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

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>Happy Birthday Mary!

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>It’s the feast of the Nativity of Mary! Happy Birthday Mary!

Today is the day we celebrate and remember the nativity of our Blessed Mother, Mary. The birth of the Theotokos, Mother of God. I know some have questions or issues with this whole concept…but I am all about loving our Blessed Mother, and all about celebrating birthdays, so I can run with it! Go to the ever interesting Anchoress for a good read on this feast and why it’s so good to ponder….also here for a quick bit on it as well.

I am so grateful for her and for her birthday that we will celebrate with flowers for her and maybe even a yummy dessert….Because living the liturgical year is fun and cool and gives much needed texture, rhythm, and depth to the warp and woof of our lives.

And here is a lovely prayer for the day: shamelessly nabbed from Deacon’s Bench, but from the Liturgy of the Hours:

Father of Mercy, give your people help and strength from heaven.
The birth of the Virgin Mary’s son
was the dawn of our salvation.
May this celebration of her birthday
bring us closer to lasting peace.
Grant this through Our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever. Amen.

— the Liturgy of the Hours

Lastly, dear sweet holy Father Luckas promised to offer Mass today, on this feast, for a special intention for us. And for that, and for the intercessory prayers, I am so humbly and deeply grateful. And just in case you want to know HOW much that Mass offering is worth to us, this treasure of a book explains it well.
So, this is a bit rambly…but well, think of your Mother today…your Blessed Mother and maybe say a prayer of thanksgiving for her. Because like all of us moms, she loves us even when we don’t love her nearly well enough back….

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>Assumption

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Mary’s house in Ephesus, where she is believed to have lived out her days.

It’s the feast of the Assumption of Mary!

I know, another uber Catholic post and event. Still, fascinating and cool for us and if you want to know more, go read here. I love this one!

This is one of those Marian Catholic things that makes some folks a bit nuts. But really, it all makes sense. It is traced back to the apostles themselves:

At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, when bishops from throughout the Mediterranean world gathered in Constantinople, Emperor Marcian asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem to bring the relics of Mary to Constantinople to be enshrined in the capitol. The patriarch explained to the emperor that there were no relics of Mary in Jerusalem, that “Mary had died in the presence of the apostles; but her tomb, when opened later . . . was found empty and so the apostles concluded that the body was taken up into heaven.”
In the eighth century, St. John Damascene was known for giving sermons at the holy places in Jerusalem. At the Tomb of Mary, he expressed the belief of the Church on the meaning of the feast: “Although the body was duly buried, it did not remain in the state of death, neither was it dissolved by decay. . . . You were transferred to your heavenly home, O Lady, Queen and Mother of God in truth.” from Catholic Culture.org


Again, it makes sense to me and to me, it’s beautiful.

“The Assumption completes God’s work in her since it was not fitting that the flesh that had given life to God himself should ever undergo corruption. The Assumption is God’s crowning of His work as Mary ends her earthly life and enters eternity. The feast turns our eyes in that direction, where we will follow when our earthly life is over.” From Catholic Culture.org

When I think of and meditate on this mystery, this feast, I always can’t help but think of Mary and her close relationship to her Son. A love from two pure souls, not smudged up by selfish hurts or striving, pure true love.

And, because it’s always about me, I think of me and my son(s). I am about to, again, take my eldest up to school, to move him back out of the house. And I am already starting to leak tears here and there. And it will make me cry when we have to begin our drive home again, without him. I will try not to bend over in pain and sob (not in front of him on campus, ok?). But I will grieve him going. I will be happy for him to be there, but it makes me cry to let him go.

And then, I remember, when he comes back on break or I go to visit him, the electric JOY that makes the world light up and a grin break across my face and dance to my feet. And that, that feeling, that reunion is what I think about, finally, every time, on this day.
Because no matter how old the mom is or how old the son…..that feeling surely cannot change, it hasn’t yet.

The sheer undiluted JOY that must be had at THIS reunion – when Mary is lifted to heaven, after being physically separated for so long from her only dearest Son, and His for her. Think of that glee, those grins…I don’t imagine a static statue of elegant repose and small appropriate smile on their faces. I hear and see whoops of laughter and hugs and glee and tears and grins and kisses. The best reunion of all. Glorious.

So, does the Assumption make sense? Oh yeah, to a mom, I think it makes Perfect sense. And it is a happy glorious feast!painting by Botticini
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