A Lesson of the Visitation

Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit,
cried out in a loud voice and said,
"Most blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb..."

Fr. Paul Murray, O.P.
When Mary was greeted in this way by her elderly cousin Elizabeth, she at once sang her Magnificat. That great song of joy and self-knowledge in God."My soul glorifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in the Lord God, my Saviour!"Mary was not able to respond in this way when she was greeted by the angel Gabriel. No- what in the end occasioned her joy were words spoken to her by Elizabeth, her elderly relative, very simple and very humble words of delighted recognition."Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!"


There is here, if I am not mistaken, an important but unexpected lesson. Sometimes we might be inclined to think that, without the confirmation of some interior vision or some deep experience in prayer, we cannot hope to know the joy of God's love for us. 

But Mary's experience at the Visitation reminds us that such a deep and joyful realization can be the result of a simple good deed or act of generosity done to someone in need. Again and again, to our astonishment, we discover that it is in the poor, in those who need our help, that the Lord is waiting to fill us with the knowledge, the joyful knowledge that we are loved. And this knowledge is knowledge that heals. 

If we, who know ourselves to be wounded in some way, make an effort to help others who are suffering, if we "share our bread with the hungry"and try to"shelter the homeless poor" or make a visit to someone in need like Mary, then according to the prophet Isaiah, not only will we experience enlightenment of some kind, but"our wound will quickly be healed over"(Is 58:6-8). And why? Because in those who are most in need of help we will meet Christ: "Whatever you do to one of these, the least of my brothers/sisters, you do to me."  - The Magnificat

Pentecost- - 2012

The Descent of the Holy Spirit Upon the Apostles

  …when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.

Today we celebrate the birthday of the Church with all the apostles and disciples who received the Holy Spirit on the Jewish feast of Pentecost, or Shavu’ot.  Remember how our Easter Season began with the lighting of the Paschal flame and we sang the praises of the Easter Candle, a symbol of Christ’s light and power over death. On that Easter Vigil night it was us who lighted candles and held them as a sign that we bear the light of Christ in our hearts. Today we celebrate God lighting us with a fire that burns without consuming. Let us surrender to the power and goodness of the Holy Spirit who desires to fill us with Divine gifts.

Pope Benedict reflecting St. Augustine's thoughts on the Holy Spirit

  Saint Augustine’s experience of the love of God present in the Church led him to three particular insights about the Holy Spirit as the bond of unity within the Blessed Trinity: unity as communion, unity as abiding love, and unity as giving and gift. These three insights help explain how the Spirit works. In a world where both individuals and communities often suffer from an absence of unity or cohesion, these insights help us remain attuned to the Spirit and to extend and clarify the scope of our witness.
        Augustine noted that the two words “Holy “ and “Spirit” refer to what is divine about God; in other words, what is shared by the Father and the Son – their communion. So, if the distinguishing characteristic of the Hoy Spirit is to be what is shared by the Father and the Son, Augustine concluded that the Spirit’s particular quality is unity. It is a unity of lived communion: a unity of persons in a relationship of constant fibbing, the Father and the Son giving themselves to each other….True unity could never be founded upon relationships which deny the equal dignity of other persons. Nor is unity simply the sum total of the groups through which we sometimes attempt to “define” ourselves. In fact, only in the life of communion is unity sustained and human identity fulfilled: we recognize the common need for God, we respond to the unifying presence of the Holy Spirit, and we give ourselves to one another in service.
        Augustine’s second insight [is that of] the Holy Spirit as abiding love. Reflecting on the lasting nature of love – “whoever abides in love remains in God and God in him” – he wondered: is it love or the Holy Spirit which grants the abiding? This is the conclusion he reaches: “The Holy Spirit makes us remain in God and God in us; yet it is love that effects this. The Spirit therefore is God as love!”…God share himself as love in the Holy Spirit…Love is the sing of the presence of the Holy Spirit! Ideas or voices which lack love – even if they seem sophisticated or knowledgeable – cannot be “of the Spirit.” Furthermore, love has a particular trait: far from being indulgent or fickle, it has a task or purpose to fulfill: to abide. By its nature love is enduring. Again we catch a further glimpse of how much the Holy Spirit offers our world: love which dispels uncertainty; love which overcome the fear of betrayal; love which carries eternity within; the true love which draws us into a unity that abides!
        The third insight: the Holy Spirit as gift. The Spirit is “God’s gift” (Jn 4:10) the internal spring (cf. Jn 4:14), who truly satisfies our deepest thirst and leads us to the Father. From this observation Augustine concludes that God sharing himself with us as gift is the Holy Spirit…Again we catch a glimpse of the Trinity at work: the Holy Spirit is God eternally giving himself; like a never-ending spring he pours forth nothing less than himself…We begin to understand why the quest for novelty leaves us unsatisfied and wanting. Are we not looking for an eternal gift? The Spring that will never run dry?...
        Inspired by the insights of Saint Augustine: let unifying love be your measure; abiding love your challenge; self-giving love your mission! 
                                                                                  -  Pope Benedict XVI

Saint Philip Neri & Jeffry Leonard Morris Hendrix, Pray for us

Today, May 26 is the feast day of Saint Philip Neri.  For me this feast day will bring to mind wonderful remembrances of my friend Jeff who always said prayers to St. Neri.

Link Here to view Jeff's last blog post on our saint of the day - be sure to read all the links Jeff posted!

Here is a short biography I found on the saint.

And let me add the following comment on St Philip as well a quote from the saint in honor of Jeff.

St. Philip Neri has often been called the patron saint of joy for the deep and very human and humble spirit of joy that characterized his life. Here is a brief description of this quality of his from Meriol Trevor’s, Apostle of Rome:

“Cardinal Newman said Philip’s mission was not to evangelize but to restore…He converted Christians to Christianity–a mission ever necessary and imperative in Rome of that time. What he did was done without any means of power. He never held an important office [and] wrote no books. He was in no sense a popular preacher or leader…his work was done by personal influence alone…Philip had the lovable qualities of sympathy and honesty, shrewdness and humor. He never denounced; he made contact with affection. He rarely commanded; he preferred to elicit cooperation. He hated coercion, hated pretense and pretension. He loved spontaneity. He disliked solemnity and made fun of the dignified. His lightness of heart and sense of humor shocked some earnest people, much to his delight. For he liked to be taken for a fool.”

The following is from The Magnificat:

Words of St Philip Neri from: If God Be With Us: The Maxims of St. Philip Neri

St. Peter and the other apostles and apostolical men, seeing the Son of God born in poverty, and then living so absolutely without anything, that He had not where to lay His Head, and contemplating Him dead and naked on a cross, stripped themselves also of all things, and took the road of the evangelical counsels.

Nothing unites the soul to God more closely, or breeds contempt of the world sooner, than being harassed and distressed.

In this life there is no purgatory; it is either hell or paradise; for to him who serves God truly, every trouble and infirmity turns into consolations, and through all kinds of trouble he has a paradise within himself even in this world: and he who does not serve God truly, and gives himself up to sensuality, has one hell in this world, and another in the next.

To get good from reading the Lives of the Saints, and other spiritual books, we ought not to read out of curiosity, or skimmingly, but with pauses; and when we feel ourselves warmed, we ought not to pass on, but to stop and follow up the spirit which is stirring in us, and when we feel it no longer then to pursue our reading.

To begin and end well, devotion to our Blessed Lady, the Mother of God, is nothing less than indispensable.

We have no time to go to sleep here, for Paradise was not made for cowards.

We must have confidence in God, who is what He always has been, and we must not be disheartened because things turn out contrary to us.

Jeff, pray for us!

Re-imagining Life - the difference between the 'Yes' and the 'No'

Nowadays there is a growing tendency to think of mysticism as a kind of Irish stew, made out of scrap-ends of Buddha, Muhammad, Tolstoy and Einstein, to believe that if we can only manage to sit still with the sole of our foot flat on our stomach and respect fleas, we shall reach perfections.

No, it is a mistake, the sacramental life which is indeed to the only true mysticism, the only pure contemplation, is the life that our Lady lived. It consisted in her daily self-giving of her life to make Christ's life, to give him birth, to give birth to him in all human beings. It was, and is, the life of sacramental love, the love which says and means: "I want to give you the marrow of my bones, every cell of my body, the pulsing of my blood. It is not enough to be with you, to look at you, I must be in you, must be you. I want to be your food, your flesh and blood, yourself. I give you my body and I give it in every split second of every moment that I live, awake or asleep, in all that I do, in my words, in my work, in eating, laughing, weeping, in sorrow and in joy, that you may have my life and have it abundantly." That is what our Lady's life said to our Lord Christ, that is what its tremendous littleness means. That is reality.

And she gave back to him the sort of love he had first given to her, for it is indeed her true son who says to all of us "Take this all of you, this is my body, this is my blood." That is our Lady, that is our Lord, that is reality, that is love.

Caryll Houselander in Lift Up Your Hearts

Houselander was writing in the earlier part of this past century.  Looking over the landscape today and seeing the 'fruit' from all of our dabbling around in Irish stew 'mysticism' we see nothing more than a scarier branch of nihilism - where truth is skepticism coupled with reduction, a rejection of faith and everything coming from it. Pope Benedict XVI recently lamented that God has "become the great Unknown and Jesus is simply an important (if that) figure of the past." 

In re-imagining life let us ponder once more what Caryll Houselander wrote above and what Pope Benedict XVI talked about in his article: personal conversion is the first step to true mysticism where you stop appropriating for yourself and allow another to dress you and lead you. (John 21:18).

Meaning of Christ's Ascension

The Magnificat blesses us with 2 great meditations: First is this quote from "Dogma and Preaching" by Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI):

“What, then, is the meaning of Christ’s ‘ascension into heaven’? It expresses our belief that in Christ human nature, the humanity in which we all share, has entered into the inner life of God in a new and hitherto unheard-of way. It means that man has found an everlasting place in God. Heaven is not a place beyond the stars; rather, it is something much greater, something that requires far more audacity to assert: heaven means that man now has a place in God.”

Meditation of the Day

The Ascension contains the great mystery of why Jesus must visibly leave his disciples, thus creating a physical void in their midst.  What they most greatly love – their risen Master – can no longer be seen, heard, or touched.  Before departing “to heaven” (the place from which power will come), he blesses them with the hands that show the wounds of the cross.  As blood had poured out of them forty days before, now light and blessing pour from them as Jesus’ final, visible deed on this earth.  This event marks a major turning point in the story of Jesus’ relationship with mankind, because this blessing is as if Jesus were saying to them: “I leave for heaven so that your own hands may now become my hands, your deeds my deeds, your heart my heart”.  How else can we explain their great joy in returning to Jerusalem?


The promise of the Holy Spirit and the blessing by Jesus’ hands have communicated the certainty to them that, even in leaving them visibly, he is not abandoning them but rather making room interiorly for them to be what they have seen him to be – by now having the same Father as he and the same Spirit animating their lives.  They must now themselves become what they have learned to admire and love.

In other words, Jesus now ceases to be but one person in one physical body among many in the world so that the Church corporately and in every individual member can become the presence of his Body on earth.  Jesus disappears as single individual in order to fill the whole world with his presence.  From now on, those who want to see Jesus, the Messiah, will have to look to the Church and her members – for better or for worse.

- Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, now known as Brother Simeon, is a Cistercian Monk of Saint Joseph's Abbey, Spencer, MA. He is author of Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, a three-volume commentary on Matthew's Gospel. (This meditation was taken from The Magnificat Vol 2 no 8)

"Because I know the Psalm, but he knows the Shepherd."

There’s an old story about a priest was celebrating his 50th Anniversary of Ordination.  For this occasion he had invited his personal friend, Richard Burton, to come and recite his favorite Psalm 23.  Richard Burton agreed to do this on the condition that the priest would also recite it after him.  At the appointed time, Richard Burton stood and proclaimed the popular psalm with such oratorical mastery the congregation immediately applauded.  And then this humble pastor stood up and began to recite, from heart, this beloved Psalm.  After he had finished his not nearly so professional recitation, the congregation was in awe, and some moved to tears.  Someone in the front pew with Richard Burton leaned over and asked him, "Why did people loudly applaud you and yet were silently moved by the pastor?"  Burton replied, "Because I know the Psalm, but he knows the Shepherd."

...becoming himself totally prayer

A selection from The Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul by Thomas of Celano 

When Francis was praying in the woods or solitary places, he would fill the forest with groans, water the places with tears, strike his breast with his hand, and, as if finding a more secret hiding place, he often conversed out loud with his Lord.  There he replied to the Judge, there he entreated the Father;  there he conversed with the Friend, there he played with the Bridegroom.  Indeed, in order to make all the marrow of his heart a holocaust in manifold ways, he would place before his eyes the One who is manifold and supremely simple.  He would often ruminate inwardly with unmoving lips, and, drawing outward things inward, he raised his spirit to the heights.  Thus he would direct all his attention and affection toward the one thing he asked of the Lord, not so much praying, as becoming himself totally prayer.  

The Way, the Truth, the Life - Fr Dalmazio Mongillo, OP

I have read this over and over and each time it grows on me. See what you think.

MEDITATION OF THE DAY

In Jesus Christ one comes to see that not every way of existing is life. Life becomes authentic when creatures begin to love as he loved (cf Jn 13: 34); life grows when it becomes gift; it develops when it is shared. There is only one way to penetrate it, and that is to live in Christ the mystery of his existence; to live as he lived, without resisting what he feeds us as branches of his vine (cf Jn 15: 1ff) and sheep of his flock (cf Jn 10: 1ff). We know life in living it and we live life in sharing it. Those who do not thwart this stimulus come to discern the way to support it, and collaborate in leading others to live together their own joyful experience (ch 1 Jn 1: 1-5).

To become, to be a Christian, means to live God's life in Jesus Christ, and to live it together, sharing it with all God's children. To live as a Christian and to live in "koinonia" are synonymous. We cannot become Christians by ourselves, apart from Jesus Christ and the family of those who live in him and of him. The Christian life is a journey in communion with others in Jesus Christ. It is born in communion with other believers; it grows and develops with the growth of communion among believers. It enters into crisis when it languishes and becomes asphyxiated; it cannot be obtained by "spontaneous generation"; nor is it cultivated in vitro.

Meditating on this, there comes to mind the link between the elements with which Jesus identified himself: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life: (Jn 14: 6): He is the way to "life," the truth about life and the way; he is the life that sustains our journey towards the fullness of truth (cf Jn 16: 13). Jesus not only gives life, he makes us become a source of life (cf Jn 7: 38). He leads us to recognize and consolidate the bonds of communion with those who live in him. He strengthens us to overcome the conflicts which hold back or compromise the growth of life, the knowledge of the truth, the discernment of the way. Those who share the hope in which they are saved, journey together; they recognize that they are vivified in the same wellspring, called to share the same happiness.
- Father P. Dalmazio Mongillo, O.P.
Father Mongillo (+2005) was an Italian Dominican priest and a moral theologian.

Journals of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, 1984-1997

From The Magnificat May 2012.