Mary wishes us to work towards our conversion

Transcription

1 n th Macrh 2011 Mary wishes us to work towards our conversion Monthly message The holy time of Lent is the most propitious time for our conversion, to let Christian life be reborn in us, or let the seed of grace placed in our hearts with holy baptism sprout. Just as nature is reborn during spring, so we too are called to experience the spring of the Spirit, guided and encouraged by Mary Help of Christians, in order to give glory to God and to give witness to our brothers and sisters of the joy and grace of our new life. The Word of God resonates powerfully: To those who repent he offers to come back and comforts those who have lost hope. Come back to the Lord and reject sin, pray in front of Him and reduce the number of obstacles. Turn to the Most High and run away from injustice : as a matter of fact he will lead you from darkness to the light of salvation. You must strongly hate what he abhors. In hell who will praise the Most High? A dead soul cannot praise the Lord, as only those whose soul is alive and healthy praise the Lord. How great is the Lord s mercy and his forgiveness for all those who convert to Him! (Sir. 17,24-29). Sometimes we act in a very strange way: we want to live in peace with God without renouncing our sinful habits. We want to have God as a friend but we don t want to turn our back to what draws us away from Him. We cannot serve two masters: if we want to serve God and love Him with all our hearts, we must hate the only thing he really abhors, which is sin. How good it would do us if we started to really feel this kind of hatred without worrying about what we leave behind! In short, the path for Lent, in which we are invited to contemplate the Mystery of the Cross, is to conform to Christ s death. (Phil 3,10), in order for a deep conversion to occur in our life and to let ourselves be transformed by the Holy Spirit, just like Saint Paul did on his way to Damascus; to resolutely live our existence according to God s will, to free ourselves from our selfishness, overcoming our instinct of dominating over others and opening ourselves up to Christ s love. Lent is the most favourable time to acknowledge our weakness, to welcome the renewing grace of the Sacrament of Penance through an honest review of our life, and to resolutely walk towards Christ The path to conversion towards Easter leads us to rediscover the importance of our Baptism. During this time of Lent let us welcome anew the Grace which God bestowed on us at that moment, so that it may shed light on and guide all our actions. We are called to experience the meaning of this Sacrament every day, in order to follow Christ in an ever more authentic and generous way. During this journey of ours we entrust ourselves to the Virgin Mary, who generated God s Word in faith and in the flesh, in order to immerse ourselves in the death and resurrection of her Son Jesus just like she did, and thereby to gain eternal life. (Benedict XVI Message for Lent 2011). I wish to conclude this message by inviting all our groups to experience the 24th of the month as a powerful moment of spiritual communion on the part of the whole Association, by enhancing in particular the importance of moments of prayer, in order to ask Mary s help all together, for the Church and for the whole world. In particular, this year we wish to pray in order to be granted holy vocations. Finally, on behalf of the whole Association I wish to express a heartfelt thank you to all the editors and translators who work for ADMAonline and our Association s website. A special thank you goes to Fr Rafael Casasnovas SDB from Barcelona (Spain) who, due to heath problems, will no longer be our translator from Spanish. May Mary bless and reward all those who, in different ways, spread her devotion throughout the world. Fr Pierluigi Cameroni SDB Promoter of Spiritual Activities

2 Let us pray to Mary Help of Christians Towards Czestochowa 7. Mary is the Redeemer s Co-operator (Fr Roberto Carelli) The act of entrusting ourselves to Mary has its origin at the foot of the cross. It is part of Redemption: «At the moment of his passing away on the cross, Christ entrusted himself into Your hands and handed us all over as children to the Virgin Mary. (Post-com. Entrusting ourselves to Mary). Rather than an act of devotion, it a theological act before anything else: before being a Christian gesture, it is Christ s gesture. This gesture marks a climax, it is a testament of love, a precious legacy, a personal gift: the gift of himself and of the Mother. We entrust ourselves to the Mother because Jesus himself on behalf of John, entrusted her to us and entrusted us to her. We must take her into our homes as the most precious thing we possess, because she was the most precious of Jesus possessions which he has handed over to us. This is how the Church prays: We praise you and we bless you for the eternal bond of love which began at the foot of the cross, between the disciples and the Virgin Mary, as your Son s supreme testament. He hands her over to them as a Mother; they receive her as the precious legacy from the hands of the Teacher. Throughout the centuries, she has been known as the mother of believers, and the faithfuls run to her as to a secure shelter. In her adoptive children, Mary loves and recognises her Son: by obeying Mary s calls they keep the Lord s words. (Preface Entrustment to Mary). This is how it all happened according to John s testimony. Jesus was alone. They had all betrayed him. Only Mary and John remained. At the time of him being handed over, Jesus handed them over to each other. Together they will keep the Lord s memory, one apostolically, the other one maternally, exchanging their respective gifts: Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother s sister, Mary of Clèofa and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother: Woman, here is your son. Then he said to the disciple: Here is your mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her into his own home. After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfil the scripture), I am thirsty. A jar full of vinegar was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop, and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said: It is finished. Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Since it was the day of Preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left of the cross during the Sabbath, especially because that Sabbath day was a day of great solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and their bodies removed. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out. ( John 19,25-34) At that moment, the Father handed over his Son, and the Son handed himself and his Spirit over. At the same moment, the Mother hands over her Son, and the Son hands us over his Mother, along with himself. By sacrificing himself in obedience to the father, the Son hands mankind back to God s paternity. In the same way, by allowing her Son s sacrifice and by obeying her call, Mary extends her maternity to all mankind. From that moment onwards, she is no longer only the Lord s Mother, but also our Mother. From this the new humanity is born: Jesus death is the birth of the Church! The Church is born from the gift of the Blood and Water, and from the Mother s gift. Through these gifts and these presences, the Church, (holy God s People,) is born as the Body of Christ and as the Lord s Bride, as an instrument of salvation for the whole mankind, and as the mother of mankind in the order of grace. It should then be said that these forms of entrustment are the final destination of a an extremely costly and demanding journey of faith, both for the Son and for the Mother, which leads both to that maturity which is the basis of their authority, and which allows believers to grow in love: as a matter of fact, the Son «learnt about obedience through what he suffered» (Hebrews 5,8) and Mary perfected her yes by following the Lord right under the cross. On the foundation of obedience to the Son, the Mother s journey of faith becomes exemplary and normative for the whole Church. The council explains it by using simple and solemn words: The blessed Virgin s faith increased as she kept her union with her Son up to the Cross, where she stood without divine guidance, (John 19,25), suffering deeply with her Only Son and uniting herself with his sacrifice, lovingly and willingly, to the immolation of the victim she had herself generated; and finally, she was given by Jesus as a mother to his disciple with these words: Woman, here is your son. (LG 58). Don Bosco wrote a splendid page about Mary s presence at the cross. The Lord s bloody sacrifice and the Mother s spiritual holocaust are presented as the testimony of God s love in terms of the fruitfulness of crucified love, two Christian secrets which can only been understood in the light of the faith, and which become fruitful only in relation 2

3 to love. Mary s compassion is seen by don Bosco as the theological foundation of the Marian title Help of Christians, and as the most effective encouragement to entrust ourselves to her: The most splendid proof that Mary is the Help of Christians is to be found on mount Calvary. While Jesus hung agonizing on the cross, Mary, overcoming natural weakness, assisted him with unbelievable strength. It seemed as if nothing more remained for Jesus to be done to show us how much he loved us. Mary, says saint Bernardino from Siena, with her loving cooperation to the ministry of Redemption, truly generated us to life and grace on Calvary; we were all born from Mary s sorrow as much as from our eternal Father s love and His Son s sufferings. In those precious moments Mary became our Mother By becoming our mother on mount Calvary, she not only gained the title of help of Christians but she acquired the right and the duty to teach. We therefore have the sacred right to call for Mary s help. This right was consecrated by Jesus word and guaranteed by Mary s maternal tenderness. 1. THE SON S PASSION AND THE MOTHER S COMPASSION The Church was born out of the Son s passion and out of the Mother s compassion. Jesus and Mary are there, they do not run away, the don t try to avoid it. It is the Son s hour, and it is also the Mother s hour. (John 1,25). It is the hour for which Jesus prepared himself and to which Mary was lead: it shows the profound meaning of the Incarnation of the Word, and the ultimate meaning of the yes uttered by his Maidservant. Balthasar writes: The terrible duty of love is to agree with death, Mary s bloodless martyrdom gives birth to the Church. It is the mater dolorosa s fruitfulness, the fruitfulness of the woman in labour from Revelations. The screams of labour coincide with the Mother s silent scream of death at the moment of her Son s death. But such a scream of death is nothing but the radical consequence of Mary s consent in Nazareth, which gave God a free hand. Such a consent was already mortal, whether Mary suspected it or not. As a matter of fact, it was an unconditional consent (who can set limits to God?), which therefore included the extreme, the act of dying and killing: such an event was accepted because it was according to His word. Entrusting oneself to Mary therefore means having as a Mother the one who, before being a help for Christians was a help to Christ. It means understanding the mystery of the origin of the Church, its nuptial and maternal dimension. It means learning to feel with the Church and as a Church, it means considering the Church as the community in which we live and come to maturity in love to its most extreme consequences. Since its origin, the Church has always interpreted the scene at the Cross as the redemption of creation. We see the new Adam who redeems the first Adam through his obedience and dedication, and we see also the new Eve, who redeems the first Eve through her obedience and acceptance. We see the solitude of the New Adam and the readiness and consideration of the New Eve. New nuptials and new fruitfulness take place which redeem man and woman s natural love and fruitfulness, and places them at the service of God s love and of his fruitfulness, the one that does not generate death but rather life alone. The crucial point, which fills the believers heart with emotion and gratitude, is that the Redeemer and the Redeemer s Mother save us because of their love and obedience but through suffering and death: the price of our redemption is the Son s dereliction and the Mother s desolation. Everything is transfigured. Adam s death, which is the loss of life is redeemed by the death of the New Adam, which is the gift of life. Death caused by Eve s sin is overcome by the New Eve s spiritual death: Mary becomes the Church-Bride, the fruit and help of Christ- Groom, not by holding him but by sacrificing him; and she becomes the Church-Mother, the mother of the living, not by generating the Son but by losing him, not giving birth to him but by watching him fall in the darkness of death. The intertwining between love and sorrow becomes and exchange of life and death, sterility and fruitfulness, the most intense and fruitful of all. If becoming a father and a mother in the order of creation demands a contribution of hard work and suffering, the pain which went through the Son s heart was immense, and immense was the pain which went through the Mother s soul. The inconceivable suffering they endure (inconceivable because they are totally innocent), totally had no part 3

4 in that legacy of suffering, evil and death which belongs to the human condition and to sinners: the impact with evil is for them extremely violent, it is the kind of pain which strikes the body, penetrates the soul, touches even the spirit, meaning its vocation and mission, and it cannot be avoided or lessened. No one has suffered for our salvation more than Jesus, and no one has suffered more than Mary for our sake! From this heartfelt suffering born out of love comes immeasurable fruitfulness: the Virgin Mary who, without labour pains gave birth to the divine Son, suffered unbearably for our regeneration. For this mystery of love and suffering, together with the angels and the saints, we sing without end the hymn of your glory! (Pref. Maria at the foot of the cross, II). At Calvary Mary becomes Bride and Mother because Jesus associates her to his sufferings, whose aim is to love mankind until the end of time, taking upon himself even our rejection. At that moment Mary expands her maternity and becomes her Son s bride : in order to make her a co-operator to his work, the Son allows her to take a share of his darkest moment! As a matter of fact, just like the Father hands over his Son, so the Son hands over his Mother; just like the Son feels forsaken by the Father, so the Mother feels forsaken by her Son; just like the Son offers himself up for mankind which crucifies Him, so Mary will offer her maternal care to mankind who have killed her Son. At the Golgotha we witness a wonderful marriage and wonderful fruitfulness characterised by virginity and sacrifice: Jesus and Mary, united in the same sacrifice, are united at the moment of separation! In this world marked by sin, every Christian and for every vocation will have to learn that the light of faith has its darkness. It will become clear that when love wishes to be perfect, then sacrifice will be great as well; than when the gift of oneself is authentic, one looses control of it; that just like there is an interval between the time in which the seed falls to the ground and the fruit ripens, (John 12,24), just like there is holy Saturday between the Friday of Passion and the Sunday of Resurrection (Matthew 20,19) so it is with every gift of love: between the hard work following the sowing and the joy of the harvest there will always be a time of trial and passion, or even of silence and darkness. (Psalm 125,6). 2. THE MOTHER S PAIN AND HER FRUITFULNESS Just as we have a Redeemer who can sympathise with our frailties because he took our suffering upon Himself (Hebrews 4,15), so we have a Mother who shares in all our trials, and teaches us to carry our burden. The Mother to whom we entrust ourselves is 100% reliable, because she gained experience through her painful sharing in her Son s sufferings, sufferings whose aim was to grant us salvation, to give us back our life of grace, to acquire spiritual graces. For this reason it is sweet and necessary to entrust ourselves to Her! Pope John s Paul II s words in this respect are beautiful, as he explains the act of entrustment to Mary and presents the Mother not as an ideal and anonymous point of reference, but as a Mother who knows us personally and treats us in a unique way, and is able to gain all her children s trust. What is essential about maternity is that it refers to the person. Maternity makes it so that there is always a unique relationship between two people: between the mother and her son and between the son and his mother. Even when a woman has many children, her personal relationship with each child characterises maternity in its essence. As a matter of fact, each child is generated in a unique way, and this is true for both the mother and the son. Each child is surrounded in the same way by that maternal love on which his formation and the coming to maturity of humanity depend. We could say that maternity in the order of grace fulfils the analogy that in the order of nature characterises the relationship between the mother and her son The Redeemer entrusts Mary to John in the same way he entrusts John to Mary. At the foot of the cross that special act of entrustment between man and the Mother of Christ, which throughout the history of the Church has taken various forms, begins And because Mary was handed over as a Mother to him personally, this shows (indirectly), what the intimate relationship between a mother and son implies: this can be summed up by the word entrustment. Entrustment is the answer to a person s love, and in particular to the love of a mother. The Marian dimension of the life of a disciple of Christ expresses itself in a special way precisely through such an act of entrustment to the Mother of God, which began with the Redeemer s will on the Golgotha. By entrusting themselves to Mary as children, like the apostle John Christians welcome the Mother of Christ among their belongings, and they introduce her in their spiritual life, in their human and Christian I : He took her with him (RM 45). If we keep in mind how the act of entrustment to Mary has its origin at the foot of the Cross, then the need to entrust ourselves to her becomes even greater. No mother can console us in our trials better than she can, no one else can teach us to carry our cross every day, encourage us to have faith even when we don t understand or see the results, guide us to the summits of holiness, where sorrow is accepted, offered and transfigured in love, where we understand its value for our salvation, and we experience the mysterious unity between the Cross and Glory. 4

5 FOR PRAYER AND FOR LIFE I contemplate Mary s desolation at the foot of the Cross: I imagine her pain as a Mother, her extreme love as she said yes to her Son s sacrifice, her readiness to welcome John as a son, the beginning of her ecclesial and universal maternity. How do I face the mystery of the cross? In a vital or in a intellectual way? In an abstract or in a concrete way? Do I manage by myself or do I ask for Mary s help? Can I face life s trials with humility, dignity and strength or do I rebel, get irritated, complain and get easily discouraged? Can I embrace my cross or do I avoid it? Do I understand that love has its needs, its laws, its price and that in this world there is no love without pain? Do we offer prayers and sacrifices for those who are suffering in body, in soul and in spirit? Do we entrust to Mary all those who are far away from God, those who deceive themselves because of overconfident or those who are tempted to despair, those who are insensitive to God s loving call or those who resent such a call? Do we entrust to the Mother all those whose faith is facing great tests, who face great hardships in spreading the Gospel, who suffer persecution because of their faith? May Mary grant them consolation and comfort and may she grant them a little of that patience and strength, just like she had at the foot of her Son s Cross. IMPORTANT NOTICE: By the end of March the time registrations to the Congress will close. Website: For specific information write to pcameroni@sdb.org Per offerte a favore dell ADMA Primaria di Torino-Valdocco è possibile effettuare un versamento 1. sul Conto Corrente Postale n intestato a: ADMA Associazione di Maria Ausiliatrice, Via Maria Ausiliatrice 32, TORINO. 2.tramite Bonifico Bancario intestato a: ADMA Associazione di Maria Ausiliatrice, Via Maria Ausiliatrice 32, TORINO Poste Italiane IBAN IT63d Per Bonifico bancario dall estero intestare a: ADMA Associazione di Maria Ausiliatrice, Via Maria Ausiliatrice 32, TORINO Poste Italiane IBAN IT63d BIC BPPIITRRXXX (da non utilizzare in caso di Postagiro internazionale tramite circuito Eurogiro). The paper can be read at the following site: and here: For every comunication you can contact the following adress: pcameroni@sdb.org 5

6 Blessed ALEXANDRINA MARIA DA COSTA ( ) The fruitfulness of cetera tolle One Holy Saturday, in a district called Calvary in the town of Balasar (Portugal), marked for ever the life of this extraordinary woman who shines out among the greatest mystics in the history of the Church of our day. That day Alexandrina, her sister Deolinda and a girl apprentice are intent on their sewing when they realise that three men are trying to enter their room. Although the doors are closed the three succeed in forcing the doors and getting inside. To safeguard her threatened purity and her dignity as a woman and a daughter of God, Alexandrina does not hesitate to throw herself out of the window from a height of four metres. The consequences are terrible, even though not immediate. It is 14 April 1925 when Alexandrina takes to her bed never to leave it again for the remaining thirty years of her life. Until 1928 she never ceases to ask the Lord, through the intercession of Our Lady for the grace of a cure, promising that if she were cured she would become a missionary. But, as soon as she realises that suffering is her vocation, she embraces it promptly: Our Lady has obtained for me an even greater grace. Firsts resignation, then complete conformity to the will of God, and finally the desire to suffer. The first mystical phenomena belong to this period when Alexandrina begins a life of great union with Jesus in the Tabernacle, by means of Mary Most Holy. One day when she was alone this thought came spontaneously to her: Jesus you are a prisoner in the tabernacle and by your will I in my bed. We shall keep each other company. From then on her first mission begins: to be the Tabernacle lamp. She spends her nights as though on pilgrimage from one tabernacle to another. In every Mass she offers herself to the Eternal Father as a victim for sinners, with Jesus and according to his intentions. Her love for suffering grows ever stronger, as gradually she feels her vocation of victim become more clear. She makes a vow to always do the more perfect thing. Starting from 1935, with the Jesuit Father Mariano Pinho, her first spiritual director, she is the messenger of Jesus to the Holy Father so that the world threatened by the second world war and defending itself against atheism, be consecrated to the Virgin Mother. As I asked St. Margaret Mary for the consecration of the world to my Divine Heart, so I ask you that it be consecrated to the Heart of my most holy Mother. The sign given by the Lord to underline the divine origin of this request is his Passion re-lived in Alexandrina from Friday 3 October 1938 until 24 March 1942, in other words 182 times. Alexandrina, overcoming her usual state of paralysis, gets out of bed, and with movements and gestures accompanied by atrocious pains, reproduces the different moments of the Via Crucis, for three hours and a half. To love, to suffer, to make reparation is the programme the Lord points out to her. After Pius XII consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in Alexandrina the Passion of Jesus ceased in visible form, but continued interiorly for the whole of her life. In Holy Week of the same year, 1942, she begins a total fast which will continue until her death which occurred on 13 October Her life is a living eucharistic miracle. Jesus tells her:... I shall see to it that you live only by Me, to show to the world what the value of the Eucharist is, and what my life is in souls: light and salvation for the human race. In 1944 her new spiritual director, the Salesian Fr Umberto Pasquale, enrols her in the Union of Salesian Cooperators and she has her Cooperator s diploma put in a place where I can always keep it in view, so as to collaborate with her pain and with her prayers in the salvation of souls, especially of the young. On 12 September the same year Fr Umberto enrols her in the Association of Mary Help of Christians. In spite of her sufferings, she continues to take an interest in and to spend herself on behalf of the poor, for the spiritual welfare of the parishioners and of many other people who have recourse to her. On 13 October 1955, the anniversary of the last apparition of Our Lady at Fatima, she is heard crying out: I am happy because I am going to heaven. On her tomb these words, which she chose herself, can be read: Sinners, if the ashes of my body can be useful in saving you, draw near, walk on them, trample them underfoot until they disappear. But do not sin any more; do not offend our Jesus any more!. It is a summary of her life spent solely in saving souls. In Oporto in the afternoon of 15 October the flower sellers have no more white roses: they have all been sold. A floral tribute to Alexandrina, who had been the white rose of Jesus. 6

7 Family Chronicle TORONTO CANADÀ Our Toronto group of the Mary Help of Christians Association has had a blessed and holy 2010 as we continue our journey of spiritual growth, healing and understanding to ultimately act and love as Jesus so beautifully taught us. We continue to meet each month and have two retreats a year to renew and fill our spirits. Our meetings consist of the recitation of the rosary, a period of spiritual formation on the human, Christian, Marian or Salesian level, and a scripture and faith sharing period. Our spiritual director, Fr. Joseph Occhio, SDB concludes our meetings with the Blessing of Mary, Help of Christians. This year we decided to begin our meetings with a prayer specific to our group, imploring our Mother s help and blessings. We would like to share it with you. ADMA Prayer Thank you Father for our time together to grow in love and praise, Blessed Mother, teach us to bring the love of Jesus to everyone we meet, Lead us to surrender more fully to Him, And to be His instruments here on earth. Bless and guide the ADMA and our families, Bring us healing and conversion, Grant us new members and the grace to honor our life promise to you, Protect and deliver us from all evil, Direct and sanctify us on the path God has chosen for us. Amen. On January 25, 2011 we renewed our solemn promise during the celebration of mass in honour of the conversion of St. Paul and celebrated with a reception afterwards. It was a beautiful time of unity and joy as we all recited our life-time commitment and solemn promise to our Blessed Mother. We did not have any new members making their promise this year but we now have another new member who we expect will be taking her promise in January I have included some pictures of our celebration for you to enjoy. God bless Fr. Occhio and give him strength to continue as our spiritual director. He is a true inspiration and blessing to our group. His spiritual insight and faith are a guiding force in our faith formation. We pray that he may have the energy and strength to continue his work with all the ministries he is involved in. I pray that Our Blessed Mother continue to watch over us, protect us and guide us and that we continue to grow in strength and numbers so that we may spread true devotion and love of Mary Help of Christians. (Margaret Pupulin - Coordinator, ADMA Toronto) 7

8 CHILE THE CHURCH OF CONCEPCIÓN, NOW THE SHRINE OF MARY HELP OF CHRISTIANS Shortly before being chosen as the Pastor of Santiago, monsignor Ricardo Ezzati SDB, as the archbishop of Concepción, promulgated the decree by the archdioceses tank to which the Church belonging to the Salesian school Irarrázaval has finally been declared to be a Shrine, and is entitled to Mary Help of Christians under the name of Help of Christians. The news was made public on the 31st January. As a sign, during the Mass two ADMA representatives brought to the altar the official document signed by monsignor Ezzati. As the document states: The aim of the setting up of this church is to promote the devotion to Mary Help of Christians and to allow men and women who come here, (and young people in particular), to meet her Divine Son, the Redeemer of mankind. Among the various reasons pointed out in the decree is above all the devotion to Mary Help of Christians which many devotees professed following the arrival of the Salesians in Concepción, in ADMA group Sarria Caracas (Venezuela) SAN JUAN (ARGENTINA) On the last 4th February 2011 ADMA s new local Council was elected in San Juan, according to the current Rule. We entrust ourselves to the Virgin Mary Help of Christians for God s people, in order to fulfil the task which has been given to us. 8