The following is a rewrite of an opinion piece written by Friar Bob Showers OFM Conv. for the other Conventual Franciscan friars of Our Lady of Consolation Province, originally pubished May 2018. Friar Bob offers the piece again here because he believes it is still relevant.


In the spring of 2018, Friar Wilfrid Logsdon handed me an article from the May 14, 2018 issue of America magazine, suggesting that it was one of the more important articles he’s read this year so far. I must agree, and would suggest the article to others:

Aaron Pidel SJ, “Revisiting the Dictatorship of Relativism: Did Benedict XVI predict the rise of Trump and fake news?”, America Magazine, May 14, 2018, pp. 26f.

Link to online version: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2018/04/16/did-benedict-xvi-predict-rise-trump-and-fake-news

The common wisdom among Catholic commentators is that the young Joseph Ratzinger was a progressive theologian who took a hard right turn after the student riots of 1968, becoming the exemplar of authoritarian rigidity. Pidel suggests that this picture is inadequate. “Ratzinger was ‘woke’ not by the student riots of 1968 but by the Nazi riots of 1933.”

A consistent criterion for judging a theological statement can be found in Ratzinger’s writings from “Salvation Outside the Church” (1965) through “Truth and Tolerance” (2003), namely:

would a Catholic, whose faith is built on such and such a principle, be less or more able to withstand the temptation of fascist populism?
 
Pidel claims that, for Joseph Ratzinger, the magical thinking of fascist populism is the greatest temptation of the postmodern world, whether the anti-truth siren is named Nicolás Maduro or Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán or the supposedly Catholic “Radio Maria”, the absolute dictatorship of the unbridled right to buy guns or the absolute dictatorship of the unbridled right to free abortion. All of these extreme positions, whether on the right or on the left, are built on Michel Foucault’s interpretation of the Nietzschean doctrine of a human will without foundation. Foucault taught that the difference between the true and the fake rests entirely on social convention, so that the very claim that there is an objective truth is merely an attempt by the powerful to keep their power. “All distinctions are acts of violence.”

 
This thinking became anchored in U.S. law in the 1992 Supreme Court case “Planned Parenthood vs. Casey”. The court ruled that requiring spousal notification prior to an abortion posed an undue burden on the woman’s freedom. How? The court wrote, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe”. Denial of the existence of objective truth thus became part of American law. This principle has been cited in other court cases and other pieces of legislation since.
 
Pope Benedict argued that we can come back from the abyss of relativism’s dictatorship, just as we did in 1945. We must simply embrace freedom’s need for truth. We can return to what Ratzinger calls “reality-based thinking”. “Freedom is linked to a yardstick, the yardstick of reality. Freedom to destroy oneself or to destroy another is not freedom but a diabolical parody. Human freedom is a shared freedom, freedom in a coexistence of other freedoms, which are mutually limiting and mutually supportive. Freedom must be measured according to what I am, what we are, otherwise it abolishes itself.” (p. 30)

The Jesuit professor Aaron Pidel goes through many of Jos. Ratzinger’s writings as well as a good series of American political essays of the last three years. To Pidel’s selection, I would also add one of my favorite Ratzinger books:
 
Jürgen Habermas & Joseph Ratzinger. The Dialectics of Secularization. On Reason and Religion. English version: Ignatius Press 2006.

Here is a quote:
 
“This is why it is important for every society to overcome any suspicion that is cast on the law and its regulations, for it is only in this way that arbitrariness can be excluded and freedom can be experienced as a freedom shared in common with others. Freedom without law is anarchy and, hence, the destruction of freedom.”
 
Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal. The Dialectics of Secularization (Kindle Locations 372-374). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.

Here is the text of Fr. Bob's homily on the night of December 12, 2021.

Pueblo querido,
 
Me tomo la libertad de tomar prestado un sermón del Papa Francisco, porque creo que da muy buenos sermones.
 
El Papa Francisco dice que la Fiesta de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe deja clara la diferencia entre la solidaridad global y el globalismo frío.
 
La solidaridad global es la creencia de que Dios creó a todos los seres humanos en todo el mundo. Por tanto, todos somos hermanos y hermanas. Debemos cuidarnos los unos a los otros, así como debemos cuidar la tierra.
 
El globalismo es una ideología de los ricos y poderosos que dice que todas las personas en la tierra deben comprar los mismos productos, usar la misma moda, pensar los mismos pensamientos y, sobre todo, adorar el dinero.
 
La solidaridad global conduce a la fertilidad.
El globalismo conduce a la esterilidad.
 

 
El Evangelio – Luc. 1:39-47, que acaba de ser proclamado – nos regala el gran cantico de María:
 

Mi alma glorifica al Señor,
 y mi espíritu se llena de júbilo en Dios mi Salvador,
porque se ha dignado fijarse en su humilde sierva.
 

Es un hermoso canto de esperanza y victoria, pero María canta este canto como respuesta a otro canto, el cantico de Isabel. Isabel canta:
 

¿Quién soy yo para que la madre de mi Señor venga a visitarme?
¿Quién soy yo?
 

El cántico de Isabel es un canto melancólico que conjuga esperanza y tristeza, fe y duda.
 
Isabel no tiene hijos. La gente le llama: “La mujer estéril.” La gente consideraba la esterilidad como un castigo divino por el pecado, por su propio pecado o el del esposo.
 
La esterilidad era un signo de vergüenza llevado en la propia carne porque hizo que Isabel se sintiera  culpable de un pecado que no cometió. La hizo sentirse como nadie, poca cosa al no estar a la altura de lo que se esperaba de ella.
 
Así podemos vislumbrarlo en el indiecito Juan Diego cuando le dice a María,
 

«yo en verdad no valgo nada,
soy mecapal,
soy cacaxtle,
soy cola,
soy ala,
sometido a hombros y a cargo ajeno,
no es mi paradero ni mi paso allá donde te dignas enviarme».
 

 
Así también este sentimiento puede estar en nuestras comunidades de hoy:

• indígenas y afroamericanas, que, en muchas ocasiones, no son tratadas con dignidad e igualdad de condiciones;
• en muchas mujeres, que son excluidas en razón de su sexo, raza o situación socioeconómica;
• en jóvenes, que reciben una educación de baja calidad y no tienen oportunidades de progresar en sus estudios ni de entrar en el mercado del trabajo para desarrollarse y constituir una familia;
• en muchos pobres, desempleados, migrantes, desplazados, campesinos sin tierra, inmigrantes sin documentos, quienes buscan sobrevivir en la economía informal;
• en niños y niñas sometidos a la prostitución infantil, ligada muchas veces al turismo sexual.

 
Pero – ahora llega la buena noticia del Evangelio:
 
Por intercesión de María, Isabel, la mujer estéril, se convierte en Isabel la mujer fecunda-asombrada.
 
Es ella la primera en reconocer y bendecir a María. Es ella la que en la vejez experimentó en su propia vida, en su carne, el cumplimiento de la promesa hecha por Dios.
 
En Santa Isabel, entendemos que el sueño de Dios no es -- ni será -- la esterilidad ni estigmatizar o llenar de vergüenza a sus hijos, sino hacer brotar en ellos y de ellos un canto de bendición.
 
Nunca es la voluntad de Dios que cualquier persona, a quien Él creó, sea rechazada por quién o qué es. Esta es la promesa de María a Isabel.

 
Y de igual manera lo vemos en Juan Diego. Fue precisamente él, y no otro, quien lleva en su tilma la imagen de la Virgen: la Virgen de piel morena y rostro mestizo, sostenida por un ángel con alas de quetzal, pelícano y guacamayo; la madre capaz de tomar los rasgos de sus hijos para hacerlos sentir parte de su bendición.
 
A esto se le llama dialéctica.
A esto se le llama elección.

La elección es entre fertilidad o esterilidad, entre bendición o maldición, entre solidaridad global o globalismo frío.

 
Queridos hermanas y hermanos, en medio de esta dialéctica miremos la riqueza y la diversidad cultural
de nuestros pueblos de América Latina.
 
El Papa Francisco dice que el pueblo hispano tiene un llamado especial para ayudar a todas las gentes del mundo a elegir sabiamente, a elegir la solidaridad global y no el globalismo estéril.
 
Somos invitados no sólo a cultivar -- sino también a defender valientemente -- de todo intento homogeneizador que termina imponiendo — bajo slogans atrayentes — una única manera de pensar, de ser, de sentir, de vivir, que termina haciendo inválido o estéril todo lo heredado de nuestros mayores; que termina haciendo sentir, especialmente a nuestros jóvenes, poca cosa por pertenecer a tal o cual cultura.

 
En definitiva, nuestra fecundidad nos exige defender a nuestros pueblos de una nueva colonización ideológica que cancela la riqueza de nuestro patrimonio cultural.
 
La Madre de Dios es figura de la Iglesia Católica y de ella queremos aprender a ser Iglesia con rostro mestizo,

• con rostro indígena,
• rostro afroamericano,
• rostro campesino,
• rostro cola, ala, cacaxtle.
• Rostro pobre,
• de desempleado,
• de niño y niña,
• anciano y joven

para que nadie se sienta estéril ni infecundo, para que nadie se sienta avergonzado o poca cosa.
 
Sino, al contrario, para que cada uno al igual que Isabel y Juan Diego pueda sentirse portador de una promesa, de una esperanza y pueda decir desde sus entrañas:
 

«¡Padre! ¡Dios mío y mi todo!»

 
desde el misterio de esa filiación que, sin cancelar los rasgos de cada uno, nos universaliza constituyéndonos pueblo.
 
¡María! Bendita eres entre todas las mujeres y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre, Jesús.
Amén.

It's been a year and a half since Café Holy Tony was last were able to meet. Today Café Holy Tony returns. The topic for this first café evening of the year is: My favorite mistakes, or, How God works in moments of transition.

Mary Troxell, a philosophy professor at Boston College, once wrote,

"My first mistake was becoming Catholic. ... Then in college I became a Marxist atheist. ... Then the worst mistake of all - I got a job! ... They say that God draws straight with crooked lines."

To get us started, I've attached Prof. Troxell's essay, plus an essay by Fr. William Leahy SJ. If you have time, I recommend them! But whether you get them read or not, please do come to our café evening. Be ready to share some of the best mistakes in your life, and how God drew good things even out of your bad decisions.

In 1956, Pope Pius XII described the position of the Roman Catholic Church in Palestine during the Israeli-Arab "Long War" of 1948 as "totally caught in the liminal tribulations of the times". The Church as a community tried to be neither for nor against the nation of Israel, neither for nor against the Palestinians, neither for nor against the British, the French, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the United Nations, the Americans. The Catholic authorities and the Catholic people sought neither to convert Jews, Muslims, Orthodox Christians or Protestants - but at the same time to proclaim that our mission is to convert the whole world. "In the liminal spaces of Palestinian Catholicism, God reveals His simplicity and His complexity" wrote the Italian historian Maria Chiara Rioli (a footnote).

The power and the mercy of God are revealed at the margins, at the spaces in between, in the hard to define or classify.

Theologians call this idea "liminal theology". Josef Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) often spoke of this "liminal condition" in connection with purgatory. For example, in the encyclical Spe salvi (2007), he wrote, 

"Very few people experience pure goodness or pure evil, but always something in between. ... Our experience of life, and our experience of judgement, is always at the intersection of God's justice and God's mercy. But no one lives alone, no one sins alone, no one is saved alone. The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do and achieve. And conversely, my life spills over into that of others: for better and for worse. ... So where does my purgatory end and the next person's begin?" (Spe salvi, par. 47-48)
 

 
St. Francis of Assisi (13th cent.) said it with a picture: he called this transition between God's mercy and God's judgement "the seraphic confusion - the confusion of the angels". Only when I admit that I am totally confused and cannot figure my own life out, said the saint of Assisi, do I give the Holy Spirit room to work. We have to leave our comfort zones and embrace the confusion. (here is an essay)

Already in the 10th century, St. Symeon the New Theologian - called "the Last Father of the Church" - said that the human being inhabited a world of in between, where weakness leads to strength and our crookedness becomes Gods directness. For in the beginning, God breathed out the Universe, and now He inhales the Universe back into Himself, and human life takes place at the turning of God's breath. He wrote:
 

 
O Christ, behold my affliction,
behold my faintheartedness,
behold my powerlessness,
behold my beggary,
behold my feebleness,
and have pity on me, O Logos! ...

And God said:
“Why do you expect to constrain Me with words, O children of the humans?
And why do you senselessly say that I hide my face from you?
And why do you suspect that I shut the doors and gates?
And why do you suspect that I ever separate myself from you?
And why did you say that I burn you,
and ignite you,
and beat you to a pulp?
Your words are not straight, 
your understanding is all crooked.
But rather listen to the words that I am going to say to you,
and I will make straight lines with your crooked fears. ...


Understand what I teach you!
And so I have said:
by my power I blew a soul into you,
a soul both logical and rational,
which was united to your body
and the one being appeared out of the two.

You are a rational, bodily, living being, 
a human who is double from two natures inexpressibly;
from a visible body that is without senses and irrational,
and from an invisible soul according to my image both logical and rational.
What a strange marvel!

You, o human, are between all things, between creatures.
Your existence is in essence in between.

Between what? 
Between the material and the immaterial.
 

 
St Symeon the New Theologian. Hymns of Divine Love no. 53
From: St. Symeon the New Theologian. Divine Eros (Popular Patristics Series Book 40) Yonkers NY, St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2010. Pages 340-343


Well met at Café Holy Tony!
~Friar Bob Showers OFM Conv.


Café Holy Tony
Wednesday, November 3, 2021 at 7:00 p.m.
Caruso's Restaurant, Angola
Café Holy Tony is an open discussion forum for young Catholics. Friends are welcome!

May Day - the International Day of the Worker - was inspired by an event in Chicago in 1886.

The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor obtained a city permit to hold a rally in Haymarket Square (today a trendy Chicago restaurant) on May the 1st. Late in the evening, someone in the rally threw dynamite. Police began firing wildly into the dispersing crowd. Soon seven policemen and four union members were dead.

Eight workers were arrested, most of them Catholic. One was a lay minister at his parish. The trials were held in August. One was released, one got 15 years in jail, two received life sentences (one of whom was murdered in prison), four were hanged in November.

A few years later, several European governments designated May 1 as Labor Day to honor the Haymarket Workers. For the same reason, Pope Pius IX declared May 1 to be the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, partly to honor the memory of the Catholic workers who were executed in Chicago.

And what was the issue that had brought the workers to the Haymarket Rally? Shorter working hours.

 
They wanted to limit the work week to 60 hours. This was hardly the first time that working people asked for better working conditions, and not the first time that Catholics were at the forefront of the movement. After all, the Irish, Italian, Polish and other ethnic Catholic immigrants and second generation Americans made up a large portion of the working class.

I recommend the new book Freedom from the Market by Mike Konczal (The New Press, 2021).

Read the full blog here: LINK

Text: Closing prayer from the Rule of 1221, (Chap. 23)

Picture: Stefano de Giovanni Sassetta, The Ecstacy of St. Francis, from an alterpiece for the friars' chapel in Borgo San Sepolcro, Italy, painted sometmie between 1437 and 1444. In ecstatic prayer, the Holy Francis, surrounded by seraphim and with the virues at his feet, experiences the Holy Trinity in feminine form.

Wayne Hellmann OFM Conv. is the minister provincial of the Province of Our Lady of Consolation of the Order if Friars Minor Conventual, with its headquarters in Southern Indiana. Our friars here in Angola belong to this province. Friar Wayne sent the following letter to friends of the Order:

Dearest Friends of the Friars:
 
In the most unusual way, probably for the first time in our Catholic history, we celebrate the holiest and most ancient days of our Easter Triduum by abstaining from gathering together as the People of God. Yet, this is the central feast of our faith: He is risen! Current global circumstances dampen the Alleluia of our Easter cry.
 
I personally remember with fondness and joy the several times I was privileged to participate in a celebration of the Easter Triduum in Rome, even the Easter Vigil Liturgy in St. Peter’s. And then came the excitement of Easter morning: thousands of pilgrims in St. Peter’s square for the Easter Urbi et Orbi Blessing. It was a wonderful witness of love for our rich tradition and love for festive celebration!

This Easter, however, both the spaces at St. Peter’s, inside and out, will be empty, shrouded in eerie silence. Heartbreaking!

Amidst steady rain, Pope Francis delivered his “Urbi et orbi” blessing to an empty St. Peter's Square during the coronavirus pandemic.


I mention St. Peter’s as a symbol for what is now the case in nearly every Catholic/Christian community on the globe. Yet, if we pause and think a little deeper, this situation for many of our fellow Catholic brothers and sisters is not new.

I think of Catholics in Japan who persevered and lived their Catholic faith for nearly 200 years without the Eucharist and without any public celebration. Or, in more contemporary realities, I think of Catholics in Amazonia who are deprived not only of celebrations of the Liturgy but also more and more deprived of their homeland and natural environment.
 
This impoverished reality includes so many others: for example, those who are aged and sick, but also Catholics of the Eastern Churches in Syria and the Middle East who continue to suffer incredible devastation. The list goes on.

Maybe this year we are called to be in solidarity with them. The majority of Catholics across the globe, even without a pandemic, are deprived of regular access to Easter liturgy. Are they thereby less Catholic?
 

Remnants of an Armenian Catholic church in Syria, 2018. Millions of Christians in the world are denied access to the Mass all year round.


The reality is that our liturgies and celebrations are vitally helpful for nourishing and sharing our faith, but we know God’s grace is not limited to sacraments. St. Peter’s is empty but nevertheless, even alone in the square, our principal pastor, Pope Francis, is there. He encourages us. He calls us to actualize the reality of our “domestic churches” within our homes. We can still open our hearts to enter into deeper communion within the whole Body of Christ.

During the Triduum this year, he encourages us that carrying " ... His cross means finding the courage to embrace all the hardships of the present time.” This accomplishes ultimately what our liturgical celebrations intend, namely, to open our hearts and “make room for the creativity that only the Spirit is capable of inspiring.” By that Spirit, “we uncover our common belonging, … our belonging as brothers and sisters."
 
Precisely therein is new life of fullness, joy of Easter sending us together on the way to Emmaus. I find solace in the pope’s example and in his words, especially for this Easter. For the first time in my memory, I am to be deprived of full assembly for the Easter Triduum. In case you may have missed Pope Francis’ prayer and encouragement, I have attached links to both. You may find them helpful. I did.

Prayerfully,

friar Wayne

"In every age, Christians have suffered for their faith, from the Roman Coliseum to the recent beheadings perpetrated by ISIS. Brave women and men, embracing the cross of Jesus, have gone to their deaths rather than deny their faith, and the blood of these martyrs serves as the 'seed of Christians', enlivening faith in others. Today, the witness of martyrs continues in an especially intense way in the Middle East, where priests are murdered for offering Mass and families are driven from their homes for displaying a cross.

"With this Marian Prayer Program, we honor the martyrs over the centuries as we call particular attention to the suffering of today's Christians ... Featuring the newly commissioned icon of Our Lady Help of Persecuted Christians, the prayer program is the latest in a series of efforts undertaken by the Knights of Columbus to aid those who suffer for their faith. ..."

- from the introduction to the the prayer booklet used that evening

Friar John Bamman OFM Conv. is a member of the Province of Our Lady of Consolation of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual (the Franciscans). He lives and works at the Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation in Carey, Ohio. Friar John is a vocation director for the Province. His nickname is Friar Truck, because he was a truck driver before he joined the Order.

Friar John writes a blog called Why Knot Friar? He writes about what it's like to be a Franciscan friar today - a member of a medieval Order in a fast-moving, post-modern world. Here, for example, is his description of a recent trip to Chicago: Table of Plenty. Enjoy!

October 8-18, 2018, seventeen members of the Secular Franciscan Order, two sisters from the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration in Mishawaka, and one Conventual Franciscan Friar journeyed from Indiana to the birthplace of St. Francis - Assisi in Umbria in Italy.

Sr. Agnes Regan SSFPA was the main planner and organizer. She was assisted by friar Bob Showers OFM Conv. of Angola. OFS members from fraternities in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Mishawaka and Chicago participated.

The pilgrimage included trips to Greccio (where Francis made the first living Christmas manger), San Damiano (where St. Clare founded the Poor Clares), Rivo Torto (where the friars first developed their concept of a 'friary'), and Mount La Verna (where Francis received the stigmata, the living wounds of the crucified Jesus on his hands, his feet and his side). Within Assisi, we prayed at the places where Francis was born, where he was baptized, where he fought against the death penalty, where he founded the Order, where he wrote the Rule, where he died, and where he is buried.

It was our great privilege to be able to pray at all these places and to celebrate Mass, from the tomb of St. Francis to the very spot where he received the stigmata. Each day we prayed moring prayer and evening prayer using the words of St. Francis himself.

Of course, there was also time for relaxation, wonderful food, beautiful scenery, good wine, good conversation and, in some of our cases, meeting up with old friends and acquaintances.

The Secular Franciscan Order - in Latin, Ordo Franciscana Sæcularis, hence the initials "OFS" - was founded by St. Francis of Assisi in the 13th century, with the guidance of Pope Innocent III. It is a fraternity for all those women and men - married and single, lay and ordained - who wish to follow in the footsteps of Christ in the manner of St. Francis, bringing the Gospel into their lives and their lives into the Gospel. You can learn more about the OFS by clicking here.

This was friar Bob's sermon for the Feast of the Assumption:

A confrère – a Franciscan friar who spent some years as a missionary in the Central American country of Honduras – was visiting his parish in the mountains of Comayagüela. He would ride his donkey from village to village and visit parishioners in their homes. Arriving at the home of a very poor family, he complimented the mother on the beauty of the house altar – like in most Spanish speaking households, this family had an altar set up against one wall as a focus of devotion. The woman had on display three beautiful pictures of the Blessed Virgin Mary: Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Lourdes and Our Lady of Fatima.
 
With joy in her voice, she pointed to each picture and said, “This is the virgin I pray to when someone in the family is sick, this is the virgin I pray to for strength in our daily work at home and in the fields, this is the virgin I pray to for the happiness and success of my children.” In his wishful thinking, the priest asked her, “You are aware, are you not, that there is only one Blessed Virgin Mary and all these pictures are of the same woman.” “Oh no, Father”, the woman replied, “there are many Blessed Virgin Mary’s and they’re all cousins!”
 
The priest knew better than to argue with a woman whose faith was stronger and more lively than his or that of any priest. It does remind me, however, that since the early days of the Church, our theological tradition has spoken of two Mary’s.

One the one hand, we have the earthly Mary, the Mary of the Gospel (cf. today’s Gospel, Luke 1:39-56), the historical Mary – the young woman who said YES to the Holy Spirit, who became the mother of our Savior, who loved him, nurtured him, raised him, taught him, until she let him go to do the work of his heavenly Father. And yet she followed him still, through his life and teachings, through his miracles, through his crucifixion, through his resurrection, until she became the woman around whom the Apostles gathered – causing St. Francis of Assisi to call her “the woman who became the Church.” (Salutation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, vs. 1)
 
Most of the big Marian Feasts of the Catholic calendar commemorate the earthly, historical Mary of the Gospels: the Immaculate Conception, the Nativity of Mary, the Annunciation, the Visitation.
 
On the other hand, there is the cosmic Mary, the heavenly Mary, the Mary of the Book of Revelation (cf. today’s first reading, Rev. 11:19a; 12:1-6a,10ab). This is the Mary who is Queen of Heaven, Queen of the Angels, the Mary who intercedes for us – now and at the hour of our death. Today’s feast – the Assumption of the Virgin Mary Body and Soul into Heaven – celebrates her passage from the earthly Mary to the Cosmic Mary.

This puzzle of two Mary’s is important because it mirrors the broader puzzle of our two-fold Christian calling: we are called to be IN the world but not OF the world. (John 17:14-16) How do we do that? What does that mean?
 
On the one hand, we are called by God truly to be in this world, to be part of it, to take it seriously. In the beginning, God placed humanity in the earthly garden and made us its stewards, to nurture and protect it in His name. (Gen. 2:8) We are called to build up a human society in this world that is just and good and holy, reflecting the goodness of our maker. “Be fruitful and multiply,” God said. (Gen. 1:28) We are called upon to raise families, to love our spouses and children and ancestors, to let our families be the foundation of civilization and of the domestic Church. (Cf. Vat II, Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People, chap. 3, par. 11: The Family)
 
But at the same time, we are called upon to remember that all of this passes away, none of it is as important as Heaven. “Our true citizenship is only in Heaven.” (Phil. 3:20) We must remember that only when we see God face to face will we know who we really are. Only in heaven will you become the human being you were always meant to be.
 
How do we do both at the same time?

God gave us Mary as a prism shining light and color on the conundrum. We see it partly in Mary’s words to the archangel Gabriel: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done unto me according to God’s will”. (Luke 1:38) The first step of our enlightenment – the first step of our passing from our own earthly selves to our cosmic selves – is to discern, accept, do and rejoice in the will of God. When Mary visited Elizabeth, she said, “My soul rejoices in God my savior.” (Luke 1:46-47) Being happy, finding true joy in the Lord, is another important step along the way. Mary said, “the Lord has looked upon me in my lowliness.” (Luke 1:48) Recognizing our own limitations, weaknesses and sinfulness with honest humility is another important step. “From this day every generation will call me blessed – the Lord has done great things for me!” (Luke 1:48-49) Even in our humility, we are called upon to recognize the great gifts God has given us and to rejoice in them, and to use them for others.
 
Mary’s greatest example, however – and I say this with trepidation because I know that I shall never experience this first hand – is the example she gave as a mother. The job of every parent is to pour your heart and soul and strength, your life’s blood, your joy, your tears, your hopes, your fears, your dreams, your being, into your children – just to let them go in the end, to say goodbye as they move out into the world. Mary did that with Jesus.
 
And Mary did that with her own life. The passage from the earthly Mary to the cosmic Mary was made possible by Mary’s willingness to let go. “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled." (Luke 1:45)
 
Fulfillment of our calling means to be like the Virgin Mary. St. Francis of Assisi said, “We become the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ when we carry Him in our heart and body through a divine love and a pure and sincere conscience, we give birth to Jesus through a holy activity which must shine as an example before others.” (Earlier Exhortation to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance, chap. 1)
 
You move from your earthly you to your cosmic you – that is, you fulfill the commandment of Jesus to be in the world but not of it – by accepting the will of God, living in true humility and true greatness, filled with the joy of the Gospel, and then by letting this go in the power of the Holy Spirit. You become the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ. You become the Church. Be the Church!