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Tuesday: Litany of St. Michael the Archangel
MAY
13 Tuesday of
the Fourth Week of Easter
FATIMA ANNIVERSARY
1 Maccabees, Chapter 13, Verse
17-18
17 Simon knew that they were speaking
deceitfully to him. Nevertheless, for FEAR
of provoking much hostility among the people, he sent for the money and the
boys, 18 lest the people say, “Jonathan
perished because I would not send Trypho the money and the boys.”
Simon
Maccabee now with the assumed death of his brother Jonathan becomes the next
leader of the Jews but unlike his brother Jonathan does not become the high
priest. Yet because it is not certain that his brother is dead, he is prepared
to pay the ransom that Trypho demands which is money and two
of Jonathan’s sons as hostages which guarantee that when Jonathan is set free,
he will not revolt against Trypho. Trypho invades the land of Judah
bringing Jonathan along as prisoner. If Simon refuses the exchange the people
will hold him responsible for Jonathan’s death. If he accepts, he is making a
deal with a deceitful, treacherous, and ambitious animal called Trypho. Simon
has no choice and pays. Trypho of course reneges, marches, and ravages as he
goes. Simon delays his march on Jerusalem. Thus, Trypho prevented from taking
the city of God, like Napoleon at the attempted taking of Moscow must retreat
back to Syria when a seasonal snowstorm comes and before he goes kills Jonathan
and probably his sons as well. This is tribalism at its worst.[1]
Tribalism and
Fear - Unworthy of Christianity[2]
Marilynne Robinson, noted author, express’s some of her
fears to what is happening today in many of the churches and inside many of us,
namely, new forms of tribalism and fear are reducing our wondrous God to a
‘tribal deity’ and our own ‘local Baal’.
The God of all nations, all families, and all peoples, she
asserts, is too frequently being invoked by us as a God, more exclusively, of
my own nation, my own family, my own church, and my own people. She cites
various examples of this, including her own sadness at how sincere Christians
cannot accept each other’s authenticity: “I must
assume that those who disagree with my understanding of Christianity are
Christians all the same, that we are members of one household. I confess that
from time to time I find this difficult. This difficulty is owed in part to the
fact that I have reason to believe they would not extend this courtesy to
me.”
This, she rightly asserts, is unworthy of God, of
Christianity, and of what’s best in us. We know better, though we usually don’t
act on that and are thus indicted by what Freud called “the narcissism of minor
differences.” And this takes its root in fear, fear of many
things. Not least among those fears is our fear of the secularized world and
how we feel this has put us on a slippery slope in terms of our Christian
heritage and our moral values. To quote Robinson here: “These people see the
onrush of secularism intent on driving religion to the margins, maybe over the
edge, and for the sake of Christianity they want to enlist society itself in
its defense. They want politicians to make statements of faith, and when
merchants hang their seasonal signs and banners, they want them to say
something more specific than ‘Happy Holidays’.
Robinson, however, is distrustful of enlisting political
power to defend Christianity. Why because “this country [the United States] in
its early period was largely populated by religious people escaping religious
persecution at the hands of state Churches, whether French Huguenots, Scots
Presbyterians, English Congregationalists, or English Catholics”. She
adds: “Since my own religious heroes tended to die gruesomely under these
regimes. I have no nostalgia for the world before secularism, nor would many of
these ‘Christian nation’ exponents, if they looked a little into the history of
their own traditions.”
Inside our fear of secularism, she suggests, lies a great irony: We are afraid of secularism because we have, in fact, internalized the great prejudice against Christianity, namely, the belief that faith and Christianity cannot withstand the scrutiny of an intellectually sophisticated culture. And that fear lies at the root of an anti-intellectualism that is very prominent inside many religious and Church circles today. How much of our fear today about Christianity being on a slippery slope can be traced back to this prejudice.
Why are we so afraid of our world and of secularized
intellectuals. This fear, she asserts, spawns an antagonism that is
unworthy of Christianity. Fear and antagonism are very fashionable within
religious circles today, almost to be worn as a badge of faith and loyalty.
And is this a sign of health?
No. Neither fear nor antagonism, she
submits, are “becoming in Christians or in the least degree likely to inspire
thinking or action of the kind that deserves to be called
Christian”. Moreover, “if belief in Christ is necessary to attaining of
everlasting life, then it behooves anyone who calls himself or herself a
Christian, any institution that calls itself a Church, to bring credit to the
Faith, at very least not to embarrass or disgrace it. Making God a tribal
deity, our local Baal, is embarrassing and disgraceful.”
Fear and antagonism do nothing, she adds, to draw respect
to Christianity and our churches and to the extent that we let them be
associated with Christianity, we risk defacing Christianity in the world’s
eyes. But saying that in today’s climate is to be judged as unpatriotic.
We are not supposed to care what the world thinks. But it is the world we are
trying to convert. And so, we need to be careful not to present Christianity as
undignified, xenophobic, and unworthy of our wondrous, all-embracing God.
Why all this fear, if we believe that Christianity is the
deepest of all truth and believe that Christ will be with us to the end of time
Her last sentences capsulize a challenge we urgently need today.
“Christianity is too great a narrative to be reduced to
serving any parochial interest or to be underwritten by any lesser tale.
Reverence should forbid its being subordinated to tribalism, resentment, or
fear.”
Fatima[3]
All Saints’ Day
was originally on May 13 in Rome, but the feast day was transferred to November
1, right at the time of harvest to provide food for the pilgrims traveling to
Rome.
May 13 is the anniversary
of the apparition of Our Lady to three shepherd children in the small village
of Fatima in Portugal in 1917. She appeared six times to Lucia, 9, and
her cousins Francisco, 8, and his sister Jacinta, 6, between May 13, 1917, and
October 13, 1917. The story of Fatima begins in 1916, when, against the
backdrop of the First World War which had introduced Europe to the most
horrific and powerful forms of warfare yet seen, and a year before the
Communist revolution would plunge Russia and later Eastern Europe into six
decades of oppression under militant atheistic governments, a resplendent
figure appeared to the three children who were in the field tending the family
sheep.
“I am the Angel of Peace,”
said the figure, who appeared to them two more times that year exhorting them
to accept the sufferings that the Lord allowed them to undergo as an act of
reparation for the sins which offend Him, and to pray constantly for the conversion
of sinners.
Then, on the 13th day of
the month of Our Lady, May 1917, an apparition of ‘a woman all in white, more
brilliant than the sun’ presented itself to the three children saying “Please
don’t be afraid of me, I’m not going to harm you.” Lucia asked her where she
came from and she responded, “I come from Heaven.” The woman wore a
white mantle edged with gold and held a rosary in her hand. The woman asked
them to pray and devote themselves to the Holy Trinity and to “say the Rosary
every day, to bring peace to the world and an end to the war.”
She also revealed that the
children would suffer, especially from the unbelief of their friends and
families, and that the two younger children, Francisco and Jacinta would be
taken to Heaven very soon, but Lucia would live longer in order to spread her message
and devotion to the Immaculate Heart.
In the last apparition the woman revealed her name in response to Lucia’s question: “I am the Lady of the Rosary.” That same day, 70,000 people had turned out to witness the apparition, following a promise by the woman that she would show the people that the apparitions were true. They saw the sun make three circles and move around the sky in an incredible zigzag movement in a manner which left no doubt in their minds about the veracity of the apparitions.
By 1930 the Bishop had
approved of the apparitions and they have been approved by the Church as
authentic. The messages Our Lady imparted during the apparitions to the
children concerned the violent trials that would afflict the world by means of
war, starvation, and the persecution of the Church and the Holy Father in the
twentieth century if the world did not make reparation for sins. She exhorted
the Church to pray and offer sacrifices to God in order that peace may come
upon the world, and that the trials may be averted.
Our Lady of Fatima
revealed three prophetic “secrets,” the first two of which were revealed
earlier and refer to the vision of hell and the souls languishing there, the
request for an ardent devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the prediction
of the Second World War, and finally the prediction of the immense damage that
Russia would do to humanity by abandoning the Christian faith and embracing
Communist totalitarianism.
The third “secret” was not
revealed until the year 2000 and referred to the persecutions that humanity
would undergo in the last century: “The good will be martyred; the Holy Father
will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated'”. The
suffering of the popes of the 20th century has been interpreted to include the
assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981, which took place on May 13,
the 64th anniversary of the apparitions. The Holy Father attributed his escape
from certain death to the intervention of Our Lady: “... it was a mother's hand
that guided the bullet's path and in his throes the Pope halted at the
threshold of death.” What is the central meaning of the message of Fatima?
Nothing different from
what the Church has always taught: it is, as Cardinal Ratzinger, the former
Pope Benedict the XVI, has put it, “the exhortation to prayer as the path of
“salvation for souls” and, likewise, the summons to penance and conversion.”
Perhaps the most well-known utterance of the apparition of Our Lady at Fatima
was her confident declaration that “My Immaculate Heart will triumph”.
Cardinal Ratzinger has interpreted this utterance as follows: “The Heart open
to God, purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns and weapons of
every kind. The fiat of Mary, the word of her heart, has changed the history of
the world, because it brought the Savior into the world—because, thanks to her
Yes, God could become man in our world and remains so for all time. The Evil
One has power in this world, as we see and experience continually; he has power
because our freedom continually lets itself be led away from God. But since God
himself took a human heart and has thus steered human freedom towards what is
good, the freedom to choose evil no longer has the last word. From that time
forth, the word that prevails is this: “In the world you will have tribulation
but take heart; I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33). The message of Fatima
invites us to trust in this promise.
Catechism
of the Catholic Church
Day 331 2574- 2580
Moses and the prayer of the
mediator
2574 Once the
promise begins to be fulfilled (Passover, the Exodus, the gift of the Law, and
the ratification of the covenant), the prayer of Moses becomes the most
striking example of intercessory prayer, which will be fulfilled in "the
one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."
2575 Here
again the initiative is God's. From the midst of the burning bush he calls
Moses. This event will remain one of the primordial images of prayer in
the spiritual tradition of Jews and Christians alike. When "the God of
Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob" calls Moses to be his servant, it is
because he is the living God who wants men to live. God reveals himself in
order to save them, though he does not do this alone or despite them: he caLls
Moses to be his messenger, an associate in his compassion, his work of
salvation. There is something of a divine plea in this mission, and only after
long debate does Moses attune his own will to that of the Savior God. But in
the dialogue in which God confides in him, Moses also learns how to pray: he
balks, makes excuses, above all questions: and it is in response to his
question that the Lord confides his ineffable name, which will be revealed
through his mighty deeds.
2576
"Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his
friend." Moses' prayer is characteristic of contemplative prayer by
which God's servant remains faithful to his mission. Moses converses with God
often and at length, climbing the mountain to hear and entreat him and coming
down to the people to repeat the words of his God for their guidance. Moses
"is entrusted with all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly,
not in riddles," for "Moses was very humble, more so than anyone else
on the face of the earth."
2577 From this
intimacy with the faithful God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast
love, Moses drew strength and determination for his intercession. He does
not pray for himself but for the people whom God made his own. Moses already
intercedes for them during the battle with the Amalekites and prays to obtain
healing for Miriam. But it is chiefly after their apostasy that Moses
"stands in the breach" before God in order to save the
people. The arguments of his prayer - for intercession is also a mysterious
battle - will inspire the boldness of the great intercessors among the Jewish
people and in the Church: God is love; he is therefore righteous and faithful;
he cannot contradict himself; he must remember his marvellous deeds, since his
glory is at stake, and he cannot forsake this people that bears his name.
David and the prayer of the
king
2578 The
prayer of the People of God flourishes in the shadow of God's dwelling place,
first the ark of the covenant and later the Temple. At first the leaders of the
people - the shepherds and the prophets - teach them to pray. the infant Samuel
must have learned from his mother Hannah how "to stand before the
LORD" and from the priest Eli how to listen to his word: "Speak,
LORD, for your servant is listening." Later, he will also know the
cost and consequence of intercession: "Moreover, as for me, far be it from
me that I should sin against the LORD by ceasing to pray for you; and I will
instruct you in the good and the right way."
2579 David is
par excellence the king "after God's own heart," the shepherd who
prays for his people and prays in their name. His submission to the will of
God, his praise, and his repentance, will be a model for the prayer of the
people. His prayer, the prayer of God's Anointed, is a faithful adherence to
the divine promise and expresses a loving and joyful trust in God, the only
King and Lord. In the Psalms David, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is the
first prophet of Jewish and Christian prayer. the prayer of Christ, the true
Messiah and Son of David, will reveal and fulfill the meaning of this prayer.
2580 The
Temple of Jerusalem, the house of prayer that David wanted to build, will be
the work of his son, Solomon. the prayer at the dedication of the Temple relies
on God's promise and covenant, on the active presence of his name among his
People, recalling his mighty deeds at the Exodus. The king lifts his hands
toward heaven and begs the Lord, on his own behalf, on behalf of the entire
people, and of the generations yet to come, for the forgiveness of their sins
and for their daily needs, so that the nations may know that He is the only God
and that the heart of his people may belong wholly and entirely to him.
Candace’s
Corner
Daily
Devotions
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them
in fasting: Victims
of clergy sexual abuse
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Litany of the Most Precious
Blood of Jesus
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
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Make
reparations to the Holy Face
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