Items filtered by date: Thursday, 20 July 2017

No One Else but Jesus
(Feast of the Transfiguration: Daniel 7:9-14; 2 Peter 1:16-19; Matthew 17:1-9)
Over the main entrance to the Basilica on the Holy Mountain of La Salette is a stained-glass representation of the Transfiguration of Jesus. As you step outside, the site of the Apparition our Our Lady is directly in front of you.
The visual comparison is obvious. On a ‘holy mountain,’ Jesus’ face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. The Blessed Virgin at La Salette was first seen in a globe of blinding light, and she herself was all light. In both cases we seem to be dealing with what St. Paul calls the glorious, spiritual body (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:43-44).

Jesus chose three witnesses. Mary chose two. St. Peter emphasizes that he and his companions were eyewitnesses of the ‘majesty’ of Jesus. Maximin and Mélanie were eyewitnesses of a ‘Beautiful Lady.’
Then there are the words. In the Gospel they come from the cloud: “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” This left Peter, James and John ‘very much afraid.’ Jesus then tells them not to be afraid. Since the children were terrified at seeing the globe of light, Mary first told them to come closer without fear.

The most essential point in common between the two ‘high mountains,’ however, is the Beloved Son. He is the fulfillment of Daniel’s vision of “One like a Son of man, who received dominion, glory, and kingship; all peoples, nations, and languages serve him.”
Mary mentions her Son several times, and twice reproaches her people with the abuse of his name. In other words, they do not serve him; they do not respect his dominion, glory and kingship.
It was after the Transfiguration that Jesus began his last journey to Jerusalem. As he approached that beloved city, he wept, saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace.” He then predicted the calamities that would befall her, “because you did not recognize the time of your visitation” (Luke 19:41-44).

If those who call themselves Christian fail to recognize and welcome Christ, the consequences are devastating. But conversion is always possible.
And so, Mary directs us to her Son and, like the voice from the cloud, invites us to ‘listen to him.’

Published in MISSION (EN)

The Question of Prayer
(Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: 1 Kings 3:5-12; Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 13:44-52)
It is fairly common for people devoted to Our Lady of La Salette to say an Our Father and a Hail Mary because that is what Mary told Mélanie and Maximin to do. Her exact words, however, were: “Ah, my children, you should say your prayers well, at night and in the morning, even if you say only an Our Father and a Hail Mary when you can't do better. When you can do better, say more.”
That’s an important distinction. This is not an encouragement to settle for the minimum, which in ordinary circumstances could not be qualified as “praying well.”
Nor is it just a question of time. Solomon’s prayer is a excellent example. After acknowledging (in the omitted verse 6) God’s goodness to his father David and to himself, he then asks not for what anyone in his position might want, but for what he knows he will need to govern well his—and God’s—people. He has prayed well, and the Lord responds accordingly.

Discernment is essential when we come before God to ask for something. There is nothing wrong with wanting something for ourselves, but prayer must never be selfish. St. Paul writes, “We know that all things work for good for those who love God,” so we can place unfailing trust in him to meet our needs even as we pray for the needs of others. The important thing is to pray for what is… well… important!
Think of the treasure in the field, or the pearl of great price. Part of “selling all we have in order to buy it” is the willingness to place all we have and all we are in God’s hands, at God’s service.

Consider the magnificent prayer of St. Ignatius:
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all I have and call my own.
You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.
Think of that the next time you ponder the Beautiful Lady’s question: “Do you say your prayers well, my children?”

Published in MISSION (EN)

Interesting Possibilities
(Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: Wisdom 12:13-19; Romans 8:26-27; Matthew 13:24-43)
Today’s readings are a veritable treasure trove of La Salette connections.
In Wisdom: God has care of all; he has not condemned unjustly; he is master of might, but judges with clemency; he has given his children the possibility of repentance.
Mary asked the children, “Do you say your prayers well?” They did not; but they had never been to catechism and had not learned to pray properly. Paul writes to the Romans, “We do not know how to pray as we ought.” The Spirit, therefore, takes over, as it were, and God reads what is in our hearts.

The Gospel speaks not only of seeds—a recurring image in the parables that we find also in the Message of La Salette—but of God’s patience with us. There comes, however, a time of harvest; patience then comes to an end. Our Lady speaks not only of ruined harvests past and future, but of the arm of her Son. Jesus also uses a frightful image: the weeds will be cast into the fire. But this is followed by a wonderful image: “Then shall the righteous shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father,” while the Beautiful Lady evokes a vision of heaps of wheat and self-sown potatoes.

The parables of the mustard seed and the measure of yeast have nothing fearsome about them. The seed and yeast just take their natural course to grow and expand. This is what is the Kingdom of heaven is like.
Jesus came to lead his people into that Kingdom, “an eternal and universal kingdom, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace” (Preface for the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe).
The Blessed Virgin came to La Salette to lead her people back into that Kingdom. They had not followed the natural course of faith; that seed, instead of growing, had withered; that yeast had somehow lost its power to permeate their lives.
But all is not lost. “The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness.” The unrighteous can be restored to righteousness. It is almost as though the weeds can be transformed to wheat, impossible in nature, but eminently possible by grace.

Published in MISSION (EN)

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