Teaching and Communicating the Splendor of our Faith: A Marian
and Maternal Mission
Sr.
Sara Marie Kowal, sctjm
Introduction
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your
offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you
strike at his heel.”[1]
At the center of the mystery of salvation lies ‘the woman.’ At
the moment of the first sin, man and woman ceased to say “yes”
to God, his Word, and His Love. The communication of grace from
God to the human person was, through the closing of the human
heart, cut off. However, in this first proclamation of the
Gospel in Genesis – the proto-evangelium – God promises
that this communication will one day be restored, and it will be
restored through she who first closed her heart to it – ‘the
woman.’ She who closed will one day open. And many millenniums
later, with the fiat of she who was “full of grace,” this
‘opening’ came to pass. That fiat opened up a torrent of
grace so powerful that God “was made flesh,” and the union and
communication between God and man was restored and made an
eternal reality in the Person of Jesus Christ. The
‘communication’ of the Father – the Word – was made visible and
accessible again to man through the fiat of Mary.
In Mary, each person is able to see his call and destiny –
through our own openness and availability to Love, we too become
channels, teachers, and communicators of Love Incarnate, of
grace and life – thereby bringing about the ‘enfleshment’ of
Christ, God’s own ‘splendor,’ on earth. This leads to the
enfleshment of Christ in the hearts of men and the salvation and
unification of the whole human race – all the substance of the
God’s ‘splendor’ among men. We, like Our Lady, our called to
teach and communicate the ‘splendors’ of God – His
very Word, His Truth, His Love, His Beauty – to the hearts of
men. Within this communication, there exist an infinite number
of little ‘splendors’ that will shine forth as we communicate
the divine Splendor. As we shall see, in this act of
communication, we will thus, with Our Lady, crush the head of
the serpent and bring about the Reign of Love.
Trinitarian Foundations
The foundation of communication comes from the Heart of the
Trinity whose very essence is that of communicative act.
The Trinity who is Love[2]
is a communication of divine Persons that eternally give and
receive Love.[3]
“Charity is love received and given.”[4]
In this sense, we see that love is a mutually communicative
dialogue. Within the Trinity, this ‘dialogue’ is eternally and
infinitely perfect. In regard to man, the Trinity’s self
revelation consists of self-donation and sending;
Christ gave Himself to be sent. Based on this
model, made Incarnate in the Life and Person of Christ, God
calls each member of the Church to do the same.[5]
Though God always desires to communicate with man, to
engage in dialogue with him, man is free and has the capacity to
reject this ‘communication’; and since the first sin of Adam and
Eve, he has continually done so. But God, in His infinite mercy,
sent His Son – His perfect and total ‘communication’ – to be
made man so that man could receive again fully what he had
previously rejected. “In our name, Mary said yes”[6]
to God’s invitation to again participate in His communication of
grace, and this fiat was total and forever. We too are
called to participate in the communication that is
eternal in the Trinity and that happens unceasingly and
perfectly in the person of our Blessed Mother.
The Marian Church
The human person, who is made in the “image and likeness”[7]
of communicative Love, only participates in Love, only becomes
who he is truly is, when he also both receives Love and
gives it away. “This likeness reveals that man…cannot
fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.”[8]
And again, “The human heart accomplishes maturity by choosing to
give itself in love.”[9]
However, the human person, as the common axiom reveals, “cannot
give what he does not have.” Therefore, the human person must
first be a receptor of this love in order to then give and
communicate it to others. This order is expressed and clearly
revealed in the concept of the Church as the Bride of Christ the
Bridegroom. The spousal mystery of Christ and His Church reveals
that Christ the Bridegroom has given Himself fully – unto death
– to His Bride. The reception of the gift of the Bridegroom is
what gives the Bride her essence and her Life. Servant of God
John Paul II explains,
In this way ‘being the bride’, and thus the ‘feminine’ element,
becomes a symbol of all that is ‘human’…In the Church every
human being - male and female - is the ‘Bride’, in that he or
she accepts the gift of the love of Christ the Redeemer, and
seeks to respond to it with the gift of his or her own person.[10]
Therefore, “all are called to respond as a bride”[11]
to the gift of Bridegroom – which is the fullness of His very
Person.
“This is of fundamental importance for understanding the Church
in her own essence,”[12]
which is feminine, and more importantly, Marian[13]:
the hierarchical structure of the Church is ordered toward the
ultimate end of the Church, which is her holiness, and this
holiness is “measured according to the ‘great mystery’ in which
the Bride responds with the gift of love to the gift of the
Bridegroom.”[14]
Furthermore, John Paul II writes, “in the hierarchy of holiness
it is precisely the ‘woman’, Mary of Nazareth, who is the
‘figure’ of the Church. She ‘precedes’ everyone on the path to
holiness.”[15]
This lays down the fundamentals of our discussion. The Church,
in order to be who she truly is, the Body and Bride of Christ,
must look to Mary. For Mary is “Personam Ecclesae gerit:
she represents in her special role, the Church herself.”[16]
It is Our Blessed Mother who embodies the perfection of what it
means to be Church, to be Bride. It is precisely she – who
uttered her ‘fiat’ at the Annunciation and continued to silently
utter it each moment of her life unto the foot of the Cross –
who shows us how to have a constant readiness to receive all
that the Bridegroom desires to give (self-donation
through reception) and how to then pass this gift on (sending
through communication). Von Balthasar writes, “Her
Yes remains for the members of the Church the central and fully
valid answer to the Lord’s demands…Mary always declares her
faith-filled readiness…Nor is there any form of Christian
perfection that does not consists in the Marian act of
unrestricted readiness.”[17]
To be holy, to be Marian, to be human, and to be Church,
we must unceasingly give ourselves as a gift fully to God –
first as receptors of His Word, then as active channels of this
gift[18]
– “so that the whole of people’s humanity can be impregnated
by this Word.”[19]
The life of a Christian is one of self-donating
receptivity and communication.[20]
The twofold movement of Love – receiving and giving – is really
one single movement of Love. There is no Love if it does not
constantly and simultaneously receive and give, for “Love has
only one movement: outward. Love can only do one thing: give
itself…only then can it really be called love.”[21]
As well, John Paul II writes, “he who loves desires to give
himself,”[22]
and Von Balthasar says, “Natural man best acknowledges the gift
of himself by passing the gift on in an unstinting service of
his fellow man and of the whole human work of cultivation…they
join the Church in actively communicating the graces received…
everyone’s giving is nothing but an answer to, and effect of,
this reception.”[23]
Despite the inherent and inseparable nature of this two-fold
movement of Love, we will choose to focus primarily on the
outward movement of Love – the teaching and communicating.
Being Church
Communication is not simply part of the mission of the
Bride, but the Bride herself is the very “communication”
of the Pierced Heart of Christ, for she came forth from His
Heart, just as Eve came forth from the side of Adam. In other
words, to be who she is as Church, she is, in essence, a
“communication.”[24]
The Church is the Body of the Word, and the Word is God’s very
own communication, His “sending forth.”[25]
In her very being, the Church and each one of her members, is a
“receptive communicator.”[26]
Therefore, simply by being who she is, she fully
communicates grace, Love, and Life Incarnate. In a particular
way, the woman is the “face” of the Church, communicating the
splendors and the treasures of the Church in her very person
simply by being a woman.
As well, the role of communicator is distinctly Marian because
Mary always precedes her Son. “For just as this star,
together with the ‘dawn,’ precedes the rising of the sun, so
Mary from the time of her Immaculate Conception preceded the
coming of the Savior.”[27]
She prepared the way for His entrance into the world. Therefore,
in order for Christ to come into the world today, it must be
Mary who precedes Him and Mary who brings Him in her womb, for
God has willed that she be the “distributor of all gifts”[28]
and that all we receive should “pass through the hands of Mary.”[29]
This is why the battle is always against the woman[30];
it is she who receives and transmits the life given to her. The
battle cannot be against God Himself, for He cannot be prevented
from giving. However, the “woman” can be prevented from
receiving and communicating that which she has received. This is
where Mary as perfect model becomes so important. She has
already vanquished Satan in this battle; she has received and
given in a perfect and unhindered manner. Though Satan tried to
prevent reception and communication, he could not have his way
with her. She reigns in heaven as unblemished Queen.
An ‘Enfleshing’ Witness
This brings us to the first and primary way of communicating and
teaching – witness. One must be who he is; one must
live the Life he claims to possess, for “the world is only
impacted with a testimony of life. The words stop having value
or power if they are not supported by an authentic lifestyle.”[31]
It is only in him who “keeps his word” that “love for God is
perfected.”[32]
“Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed
and in truth.”[33]
Mother writes,
It is necessary to understand the importance of the testimony of
life which precedes the testimony of words. Only witnesses are
credible; only those who testify with their lives are able to
touch hearts and minds that are confused and disorientated.
Paul VI told us: ‘Modern man listens more willingly to
witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers,
it is because they are witnesses’ (EN,
41). This is why the person of the Blessed Virgin Mary illuminates the
mission of Evangelization. She is the evangelizer because She
is a living Gospel, a true model whom the evangelizer is
able to present to the person to whom he has proposed the saving
message as the highest realization of the Christian message.[34]
To witness means to enflesh. Mary, more than any other,
shows us that to be means to enflesh God. The word
of her fiat was not merely an empty statement; instead it
was so powerful that it brought about the Incarnation of God. As
Jesus is the “sacrament” of the Father because He makes the
Father visible, the Church is also like a Sacrament of Christ[35]
– incarnating the face and presence of God on earth. “The very
essence of sacrament is that the invisible is tangible in the
visible and that the tangibly visible opens the door to God
himself.”[36]
Servant of God John Paul II explains this same reality in the
Blessed Mother: “When, at the Visitation, she bore in her womb
the Word made flesh, she became in some way a ‘tabernacle’…in
which the Son of God, still invisible to our human gaze, allowed
himself to be adored by Elizabeth, radiating his light as it
were through the eyes and the voice of Mary.”[37]
Communicating and teaching means incarnating and
enfleshing – first within ourselves and then in others. To
enflesh means to act on what we have received. The act of
enfleshment communicates something in a human way; it
concretizes a spiritual reality; something merely spiritual
becomes something human. Enfleshment is the concretization of
love, for true love acts. The Church is the fullness of this
“enfleshing communication” because it is the fullness of the
incarnated Christ, and as we have seen, the same is true of
Mary.
At first glance, the act of enfleshment makes something more
human. However, fitting to the ways of God, the soul also
becomes deified when it enfleshes. In some sense, as
explained above, it is more properly the essence of God to be
Giver and man to be receiver. However, when we choose to give we
become like God. We become participants in the Act of Love. The
ability to receive and give love shows that our nature is such
that it has an inherent capacity for deification, while losing
nothing of its humanity, and in the act of communication this
potential is realized. In giving, we become like God.
Missionary Responsibility
The “outward” aspect of Love is why the Church can say that she
is missionary by her very nature,[38]
and why St. Paul can exclaim, “woe to me if I do not preach the
Gospel.”[39]
It is also why the Church can claim that “mission is…an accurate
indicator of our faith in Christ and his love for us”[40]
– the love of Christ should “impel”[41]
us to take Him to others.
In fact, taking Him to others is constitutes a responsibility.
Love constitutes a responsibility: “Love and
Responsibility can never be separated, for Love is enfleshed in
the responsible choices of the human heart.”[42]
As John Paul II wrote in his book Love and Responsibility,
“Love is never…something merely ‘given’ to the human person, it
is always at the same time a ‘task’…Love divorced from a feeling
a responsibility for the other is a negation of itself, is
always and necessarily egoism. The greater the feeling of
responsibility…the more true love there is.”[43]
Therefore, to teach and communicate all we have received is
necessary: “Love…can never be separated from the task of
forming hearts to enflesh, to live, to act and to be witnesses
to love, by responsibly loving.”[44]
“Rights presuppose duties,”[45]
and gifts presuppose responsibilities. This is mandated by Jesus
Himself in the parable of the talents.[46]
The wicked servant is the one who hid what he had received. The
servants that we were rewarded were those who took that which
they had received – regardless of how much it was – bore fruit
and gave it increase. We see this perfectly in Mary, for her
first action after her reception in the Annunciation is
her Visitation to Elizabeth. Even before this, we see her
outward giving when Mary lays Christ in the manger immediately
after His birth – He is for the world, not simply for her. The
mission of the Mother is always to bring her Son to others and
to prepare hearts to receive Him. John Paul II writes,
This is why the Church’s mission derives not only from the
Lord’s mandate but also from the profound demands of God’s life
within us. Those who are incorporated in the Catholic Church
ought to sense their privilege and for that very reason their
greater obligation of bearing witness to the faith and to the
Christian life as a service to their brothers and sisters and as
a fitting response to God.[47]
Moreover, in the parable of the talents, the servants who bear
more fruit are actually given more responsibility.
Responsibility is a reward. It is a reward that reveals our
dignity, and our Blessed Mother reveals this dignity to the
utmost extent: “Before God, the spiritual greatness of a person
in this life is not in fact measured so much by what God gives,
as by what God asks of the person…God asked a lot of Mary, more
than any other person.”[48]
The Lord knows that love and responsibility are inseparable.
When He bestows responsibility upon us, He does so because we
then are given the opportunity to earn real merit. He desires
that we become real participants in His own redemptive,
loving, and responsible work. The more for which we are
responsible, the more we participate in Love. No one more fully
participated in Love than Our Lady: “God himself, the Eternal
Father…entrusted himself to the Virgin of Nazareth.”[49]
The fact that the Lord lays upon the Church the mission of the
salvation of the world reveals her great and magnificent
dignity. Animated with the very power and strength of Christ,
she and her members really do carry out this infinitely
weighty mission.[50]
Love is responsible when it places all the potentialities of the
person at the service of the gift received. This inseparable
relationship between love, gift, and responsibility should be
the underlying theme of our whole lives. Responsibility comes
from the word respond, which in Latin is respondere.
Spondere means to pledge or promise oneself, and it is
derived from words centered on solemn and ritual libations. In
other words, the word respond means to re-promise, to
re-pledge, to re-pour out ourselves in a libation as has already
been done for us by Christ. It entails the obligation to fully
give ourselves back in love to the One who has already
loved us. Our response and responsibility is the same: to
give ourselves – first to God and then to others.
Motherhood – “A Virgin has given life to all things.”[51]
The fundamental basis of our lives, our destinies, and our
mission is, as has been already mentioned, distinctly feminine,
maternal, and therefore, Marian. Therefore, we must look to
Mary, “our mother in the order of grace,”[52]
to understand the response and responsibility of the Bride to
teach and communicate the gift she has received through her
motherhood. Just as in the natural order where the woman
receives the gift of life and love from the man, keeps it,
nourishes it, gives it life, and helps it to grow, the same
thing happens in the supernatural order: each person receives
life from the Father and keeps it, nourishes it, gives it life,
and helps it to grow – the bride becomes a mother.[53]
Servant of God John Paul II speaks of this essential union
between Mary, the Church and motherhood. He writes,
So too the Church becomes a mother when, accepting with fidelity
the word of God, ‘by her preaching and by baptism she brings
forth to a new and immortal life children who are conceived of
the Holy Spirit and born of God’…If the Church is the sign and
instrument of intimate union with God, she is so by reason of
her motherhood, because, receiving life from the Spirit, she
‘generates’ sons and daughters of the human race to a new life
in Christ. For, just as Mary is at the service of the mystery of
the Incarnation, so the Church is always at the service of the
mystery of adoption to sonship through grace.[54]
St. Paul
too understood this essential motherhood and referred often to
his “little children” with whom he was in travail until Christ
was formed within them.[55]
From the beginning, the Church understood that apostolic
activity is intricately linked to her motherhood, which is
modeled upon and learned from Mary, the Mother of the Son and
the Church.[56]
“All who truly follow Christ become ‘mothers’ of Christ, for by
their faith they bring Him to birth in others.”[57]
But just like natural motherhood entails pain in the bringing
forth of children, spiritual motherhood is “before all, a pain
experienced in the heart.”[58]
Motherhood on this earth is one of pain, and the spiritual fruit
– the life – that comes forth will be “birthed” to the extent
that we open our hearts to be pierced.[59]
For this reason, the heart must be disposed, formed, and
prepared to “give birth” – in other words, the heart must be
pure, open and holy – to communicate and bring forth
grace and life in souls: “Sanctity…is the source of being able
to spiritually conceive Christ in and for the world.”[60]
No one more perfectly demonstrates this better than our Blessed
Mother: “The Blessed Virgin had a spiritual fruitfulness so
intense that is made her the Mother of the Church and of the
human race.”[61]
This requires us to examine some foundational dispositions that
underlie this sanctity.
Necessary Dispositions of Heart
The first necessary disposition of the receiver is a heart that
knows the value of the gift. “The maturity of the
human heart lies in the deep understanding of what has been
entrusted to its care.”[62]
One must recognize that the gift is splendid, beautiful,
infinitely valuable, and infinitely lovable. Only when we know
the magnitude of the gift do we discover our dignity and receive
the graces to “live the gift.” Without this disposition, the
Lord would be “giving pearls to swine.”[63]
Without this disposition, the gift will be neither guarded nor
carefully kept. Consequently, it will not be zealously given to
another because we cannot give what we have not kept, and we
will not give what we do not value.
How do we value, guard and keep the gift? We look to Our Lady
who “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart,”[64]
who never let any grace fall upon her in vain. We look to Our
Lady who became an exile in Egypt in order to protect the Gift.
We look to Our Lady who, with perfect and lifelong constancy,
understood in prayer that the Gift was Love Incarnate, the very
Word-made flesh. Like Mary, “we must responsibly work, dedicate,
and invest ourselves to make [the gifts] be solidly planted, to
make them grow, multiply and be fruitful. The gifts are to be
received, treasured and lived responsibly. These are the
dispositions of a mature heart that is shaped by responsible
love.”[65]
We learn also from her that “to guard is to pray.”[66]
It is in prayer that one learns from the Lord the true value and
meaning of things. In prayer, the Lord plants the Seed of the
Word in fertile soil – fertile if it receives, guards, keeps,
and gives fruit to all that the Lord speaks. Only a praying
heart can be a giving heart. “Unless the missionary is a
contemplative he cannot proclaim Christ in a credible way.”[67]
Therefore, the first duty of every Christian is prayer. To
become a communicator of Truth and Love, one must first
receive Truth and Love, perceive the value and beauty
of Truth and Love, and develop a selfless disposition that
zealously desires to pass on this singularly valuable Good – all
this is done in prayer. Adrienne von Speyr summarizes these
ideas in a beautiful manner:
The time of pregnancy is for Mary a time of perfect
contemplation, of exhaustive listening to the Son. But at
the same time it is a time of action, for she goes to Elizabeth
to bring her the Son, to pass on the gift she has received from
God…This one Lord has only one thought: to give himself away, to
share his very substance, in an infinite manner. The Mother
understood this from the beginning and never bore anything in
mind except giving the Son to the world.[68]
A prerequisite to this receptive and prayerful disposition is
the ability to receive. This ability and capacity
requires the healing of our personal “I”; it requires that we
are whole and healed and free. It requires that we are aware of
our divinely given identity as beloved children, because
“renewed enthusiasm for…mission will always depend on the
certainty of…personal identity, which is not artificially
constructed, but rather given and received freely and divinely.”[69]
A container cannot carry water to another if it is full of holes
that allow the water to leak out or if it is full of other
things that do not allow room for the water. Either one of these
problems leave the human person incomplete, in need, and unable
to communicate Love. To receive the child, the womb must be
whole, sound, and empty. This means that one must go to the
Father to heal the wounds of the heart, to heal one’s conception
of his or her identity. It also means that the heart must
empty itself of all that is not from God. As our
Mother Foundress says, one must become poor –
from ourselves, our ‘attachments,’ ‘interests,’ and ‘projects’ –
all that has become a ‘treasure’ for us. All these things that
we guard, protect, defend and fight to keep are the riches that
do not permit Christ to be born fully in our hearts. We must
empty our hearts to be able to make room for the Child…To be
poor in spirit means to empty ourselves of worldly treasures in
order to be filled with spiritual treasures.[70]
Only then can one accept the “gift of communicating life, the
gift of maternity…so one can be a mother, can embrace souls, so
one can forget about oneself and become invested in the life
that has been conceived.”[71]
Again, we look to the Blessed Mother who was perfectly healed
and whole in her personal “I.”[72]
She was the Immaculate Conception, and there was no grace that
was given to her that was lost or that fell to the ground in
vain. Though no person begins in this state, each one must see
Our Lady who “proceeds us”[73]
and walk towards what has already been attained and perfected in
her.
However, one must also avoid the opposite error – that which
erringly claims one cannot begin to give until he is fully
healed. In fact, it is precisely the opposite: “The deepest
wounds of the human heart are healed by loving and serving.”[74]
As soon as we have received – and we have all received – we must
begin to give. Only when we give, will we receive more. Love is
meant to be in motion. If it is not in motion then it is not
love. If grace does not flow through us, it becomes
stopped up and stagnant, like the Dead Sea which has no outflow.
On the contrary, “[love] regenerates itself in giving itself, it
receives itself in giving itself, it does not run out and is not
used up.”[75]
Reception is for the sake of mission.
Another prerequisite disposition is that of internal
freedom. Each person must freely choose to
respond with their personal “I” to the call of the Divine Love.
It cannot be a choice made from constraint, fear, or force.[76]
Only a heart that is free can freely receive and freely pass on.
If a heart is not free, out of fear, it will look to grasp and
hold on to what it has been given. “Mary…at the side of her
Son…is the most perfect image of freedom and of the liberation
of humanity and of the universe.”[77]
At the Annunciation, with open hands and heart, she received
fully; nothing was rejected, for she received the entirety of
the very Person of God when she responded, “Behold, I am the
handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”[78]
And standing at the foot of the Cross, with open hands and
heart, she handed back to the Father the entirety of the Gift.
“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name
of the Lord.”[79]
Humble Instruments – “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord”
The next attitude or disposition required to be an effective
communicator of Truth, Love, and Life is the base on which all
the others must be built. It is the recognition that we are
simply humble instruments, “manifold distributors of God’s
various graces,”[80]
and that everything should be done for His glory, understanding
that “it was not [we] who chose to follow Jesus; it was Jesus
who chose [us].”[81]
All who teach must understand that “it is Christ alone who
teaches - anyone else teaches to the extent that he is Christ’s
spokesman, enabling Christ to teach with his lips.”[82]
St. Paul, arguably one of the greatest communicators of the
faith, understood that “we are not, like so many, peddlers of
God’s word; but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God.”[83]
He knew he was only an “ambassador for Christ,”[84]
a “servant of Christ and steward of the mysteries of God,”[85]
and one “entrusted with a commission.”[86]
We are simply instruments of grace; it is actually the Holy
Spirit who teaches and effects this grace in the heart of
man. Therefore, as those called to be communicators of God’s
grace and love, we are called to be Temples of the Holy Spirit
so that He can work through us in the hearts of others. Mary, as
the Bride of the Holy Spirit, carried the Spirit with her in an
unsurpassable way. This union made her truly “effective.” The
presence of the Spirit – not the eloquence of our words, not the
amount of our preparation, not our natural gifts – is what “sets
[a person’s] heart aflame with greater desire…[and] makes him
love what he already knows and desire what he has yet to know.”[87]
Even the words of Jesus, the living Word, did not fully
penetrate the hearts of the Apostles until the descent of the
Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Importantly, it was the presence of
the Blessed Mother among them that served as the silent channel
through which the Spirit was able to pass and descend upon the
nascent Church.[88]
The Word is the seed planted in the soil of our hearts, but the
Spirit is the sun and rain that brings about its growth, the
flame that ignites the hearts of the faithful to follow Christ.
This deep and humble recognition of our identity is fundamental
to mission, and Our Lady possessed this recognition in its
perfection. In her response at the Annunciation she was fully
aware of her identity: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the
Lord.” Our Mother Foundress explains, “She said, ‘Behold, I am’…
‘I am’ who? ‘I am the servant of the Lord.’ She gave her
personal fiat with the totality of the personal ‘I’… She
understood herself being daughter so she could be a servant at
the service of God.”[89]
Furthermore, the Magnificat of the Visitation shows us
that she knew her purpose: “My soul magnifies the Lord.”[90]
Our whole ‘instrumentality’ – thoughts, desires, words,
gestures, actions – should have as its end the glory of God.
If it does not, we will fail to yield fruit to the extent that
we lack this intention.
“For he is God’s servant for your good”[91]
St. Therese of Lisieux understood this truth well. One day she
was praised by her novices for her wisdom, and they extolled the
many graces and favors she had received from the Lord. She
replied to them that she was simply a cat dish that was filled
to overflowing with milk so that many kittens could drink from
it; they should understand that the dish was full for the sake
and love of the kittens, not for the sake of the dish.[92]
“To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common
good.”[93]
We must have this same profoundly humble understanding of our
own identity and purpose, for “what have [we] that [we] did not
receive?”[94]
Therefore, since we have received without cost, we also must
give without cost.[95]
Von Balthasar writes on Our Lady,
[T]his preeminent member of the Church does not possess these
special qualities privately for herself alone. She does so in a
new fruitfulness for the community as a whole and for each of
its members, a fruitfulness whose origin is the grace of the
Cross. Sin alone gives man the mentality of the private
individual, because it deprives him of the spirit of communion
and of the will to selfless communication. In contrast, the more
purely man receives God’s grace, the more obvious is his
readiness not to keep it for himself, his readiness to let
everyone participate in it.[96]
In fact, we can see clearly throughout salvation history, and
most clearly in the nation of Israel, that the Lord bestows an
excess on one for the sake of the many. Pope Benedict XVI
writes, “The intention of this particular choice is to reach,
through a few, many people and through them to reach all. In
other words the intention of God’s specific choice is
universality.”[97]
We are instruments, and the nature of an instrument is to be put
at the service of many. Beautifully, this also reveals the
mystery of His fecundity that is able to make something great
out of something very little. Often this “littleness” plagues
many with the opposite sentiment of despair – in the face of the
mission, they realize they are incapable. However, this is a
manifestation of a pride that desires to be self-reliant. In
reality, God has given the mission, and therefore, He
will provide the strength and the means. “He gave the apostles a
final command - to make disciples of all nations and to teach
them to observe all that He had commanded.”[98]
But he also “gave them the Spirit to fulfill this mission.”[99]
Pure and Transparent Love
We also must understand that Love seeks to give and waste itself
for the sake of the other. Loving God is measured and
expressed in the way we love others for their own sake.
“Authentic love (Agape) does not say, ‘I long for you as
a good,’ but ‘I long for your good; I long for that which is
good for you.’”[100]
In the transmission and communication of truth, we cannot seek
ourselves, our own pleasures, or our own preferences. Our eyes
must always be focused on the other, and we must put the good of
the other above our own.
As in the Wedding at Cana, Mary saw the needs of her “children”
before they themselves saw them. After the miracle, no where in
the Gospel do we read that the couple gave thanks to Mary or
Jesus for what they had done. We do read, however, that God’s
glory was made manifest and that many came to believe.[101]
A mother does not seek thanks, praise, or honor; instead she
seeks the glory of God and the increase of faith in souls. Von
Balthasar writes,
The more perfectly a Christian develops this selfless love in
himself, the more all others can live on his goods as if they
were their own. Not only are individuals transparent to one
another, they also radiate what is theirs into the others –
although we can speak only in a loose sense of ‘theirs,’ because
perfect selflessness and transparency are nothing other than the
life of God and Christ in creatures. Mary, as the purest of all
creatures, irradiates what is her own least of all.[102]
The essential virtues for this disposition are purity,
poverty of heart, and sacrifice. To be pure and poor
of heart means that one only desires the will of God; everything
is motivated by love of God and the other. Von Balthasar writes,
“If this readiness [to receive and carry out the ecclesial
mission] is lacking, if the one sent is negligent or is not
selfless or mixes other personal motives and aspirations with
his mission, then even important missions can miscarry, and the
injury to the Church is so much the greater.”[103]
All disorder in the communication of love comes when we are
looking at ourselves – we communicate what we have and what we
love, and if we love ourselves, we will communicate ourselves.[104]
“Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”[105]
This is why Our Lady, “embracing God’s salvific will with a full
heart and impeded by no sin,” was able to devote herself
“totally as a handmaid of the Lord to the person and work of her
Son.”[106]
Related to purity of heart is our responsibility in
communicating the truth in a way that respects and elevates the
dignity and worth of the other individual. Christ did
this in an infinitely great way by “humbling himself as a slave”
so that we could be raised to union with Him. In general, it can
be said that there are three great “abuses” of the human person:
when they are desired as a possession; when they are
desired for the sake of power; when they are desired for
the sake of pleasure. These three sinful root
inclinations of the human heart must be continually recognized
and fought against in the communication of the truth.
Communication is not pure if it is stained with these desires.
We must communicate and teach in a way that helps each person we
encounter know that they are loved, that they are necessary and
useful simply by the fact of their very existence – to God, to
the Church, to the world, and to us. Pope Benedict XVI writes
that the root of man’s wretchedness is the feeling of being
worthless, unloved and unnecessary.[107]
The answer of God to our loneliness is communion and union with
Him through His Son. But this union is realized in our communion
with His Body, with one another. Therefore, when we communicate
and teach we must do so in a way that says to the other, “Yes,
you are loved for who you are. You are necessary, you are useful
as a person, not simply for what you have and what you
can do for me.” This requires the setting aside of ourselves and
our own expectations and placing the other first. For example,
when we express impatience or unkindness with another for a task
done slowly, poorly, or not to our expectation, we are
implicitly treating them as a tool for use. In other words, they
make us unhappy because they have not complied with our
expectations – therefore, they are not “useful” to us. I cannot
want people to conform to my standard of expectations according
to what is good for me. The desire to use people is a
desire to possess them, to “box them in,” in a box of our size
and liking. However, precisely the opposite mentality is
necessary. Communication and teaching is oriented to the service
of the other, for their growth, at their pace,
according to God’s will. Those who communicate are at the
service of the receiver. The growth of the other is not at
the service of our own desire for worth, our own desire for
success, or our own need to see the fruit of our labor – these
are all unnecessary “pleasures” or consolations to which we must
be unattached.
St. Therese gives an excellent example of this in her selfless
direction of the novices. Commenting on this ministry, she once
shared with her sister Celine,
My only desire has been to please Him; consequently I have not
worried over what others might be thinking or saying…I have not
sought to be loved for myself…When there is a question of doing
good to our neighbor, we must let nothing deter us nor pass over
anything to make things easier for ourselves. As for reprimands,
our intention in giving them must be directed first to the glory
of God and must not spring from a desire to succeed in
enlightening the novices. Moreover, in order that a correction
bear fruit, it must cost in the giving, and the heart
must be free from the least shadow of passion.[108]
Celine comments, “It was evident that she was never influenced
by external appearances but always maintained a universal
reverence and respect for the soul for its own sake.” Here we
see the virtues of purity, poverty, and sacrifice magnificently
displayed.
Sacrificial Love and the Necessity of the Cross
A true mother and teacher loves, but this love is demanding, and
its demands are the Cross. In fact, teaching and communication
is authentic and intelligible only if it points to the
Cross.[109]
John Paul II writes,
[Mary] understands sinful man and loves him with a mother’s
love…[She does not] permit sinful man to be deceived by those
who claim to love him by justifying his sin, for she knows that
the sacrifice of Christ her son would thus be emptied of its
power. No absolution offered by beguiling doctrines…can make man
truly happy: Only the cross and the glory of the risen Christ
can grant peace to his conscience and salvation to his life.[110]
In our Blessed Mother, we see a true imitation of Christ, whose
communication of love and life to souls cost Him
everything. The virtue of sacrifice requires a
willingness to suffer and die for the sake of Love. This is
lived out perfectly in Mary, and particularly in her maternity,
for her soul was pierced at the foot of the Cross, the moment
she “conceived” the Church within her womb. In the natural
order, to give life to the child in the womb, it costs the
mother her very being and life. From the moment of the child’s
conception, the mother sacrifices her body, time, energy, love,
attention, and physical good for the sake of the child. She
holds nothing back from the growing child in her womb – nature
even does this without her willful consent; this is the extent
to which the call to sacrifice is stamped in our very being. To
communicate and teach requires the laying down of one’s life;
one must be willing to suffer and be pierced. This is why in
“contemplating the pierced side of Christ…the Christian
discovers the path along which his life and love must move”[111]:
to love means to suffer, and in this suffering, life is given
and “poured forth” like the blood and water from the side of
Christ. Our Mother Foundress explains: “Love to the extreme is
capable of the most grand sacrifices and sufferings, and a love
capable of freely giving itself to that extreme is capable of an
immense fecundity. There is no life without love and the
disposition to sacrifice; there is no love without sacrifice;
there is no sacrifice that, embraced with love, does not give
life.”[112]
To separate love, suffering, and the giving of life is to
destroy the fundamental essence of Christ and the Gospel.
Therefore, we must only teach and preach “Christ
crucified”[113]
and the “scandal of the Cross.” There is no other road to
salvation except through the Cross. The Queen of Martyrs knows
this above all others. We must never water down the Gospel
message and allow others to believe that following Christ does
not require the Cross. In fact the opposite is true: just like
the Teacher and His Mother, we shall always be pierced. We must
be willing to “remain in spirit at the foot of the Cross, to
receive [his blood], and pour it out upon souls.”[114]
Our Mother Foundress summarizes: “Our life is not about
suffering, it is about love. We choose love and we freely choose
to love. If love will cause us suffering we embrace it as a
consequence of love. And when suffering appears in our path, we
make it fruitful by embracing it with love.”[115]
Being an open channel of grace entails the Cross, but we have
hope in the midst of its inevitable presence, for it opens up
streams of life-giving water for many. In fact, suffering is a
gift – for us and others – for it expands our hearts, and
thereby they become wider channels through which more
grace is able to flow.
Channel of Grace: “The gifts of the Messiah flowed through
her...”[116]
The goal of teaching and communicating Love is so that persons
can be fully realized[117]
because “the glory of God is man fully alive.”[118]
Sin has caused deep wounds in the human heart; it has left holes
and an emptiness that can only be filled with Love. Love fills
in the holes, closes the bleeding wounds. Love converts and
changes the human heart. Love allows to the human person to grow
and mature and reach full stature. To teach and communicate this
love means to cooperate in the work of elevating the human heart
to its fullness. The full potentiality of the human person is
met when the heart opens itself to be filled, healed, restored
and elevated to the heights God has destined it to reach – in
other words conversion. If this glorification of God and
renewal of the human heart is not the end to which all is
directed, we act in vain. And is this not the goal of every
mother? To help her child grow and mature and reach the
perfection for which he was created? Did not even Jesus “advance
(in) wisdom and age and favor”[119]
under the guidance of His Mother, in the home and school of
Nazareth? Moreover, we are able to see in the Wedding at Cana
that Mary, in her solicitous maternity, not only brings about
the “filling” of the couple’s humanity, but the changing of
“natural” water into “supernatural” wine; she, through her
maternal intercession, brings about, in a sense, divinization.
Again we see that this mediation is “intimately linked with her
motherhood.”[120]
Through her communication of all grace, she cooperates in
“generating people to a new and immortal life: this is her
motherhood.”[121]
In Mary, we come to understand that this maternal
mediation of grace, this “being a channel,” is not simply a
passive role. In fact, the truth is precisely the opposite: “In
this active receptivity Mary, and the Church, become the
productive womb of all redemptive grace.”[122]
The Lord desires – and mandates – our active
participation. And this applies to all – to teach and
communicate is a “work for which the whole Church must feel
responsible and must wish to be responsible.”[123]
The love we have received ‘impels us’ to go forth and to
actively speak this Word to others. “I believed, and so I
spoke.”[124]
Paul VI writes,
[T]he presentation of the Gospel message is not an optional
contribution for the Church. It is the duty incumbent on her by
the command of the Lord Jesus, so that people can believe and be
saved. This message is indeed necessary. It is unique. It cannot
be replaced. It does not permit either indifference, syncretism
or accommodation. It is a question of people’s salvation… It
merits having the apostle consecrate to it all his time and all
his energies, and to sacrifice for it, if necessary, his own
life…Evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to
the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to
evangelize, that is to say, in order to preach and teach, to be
the channel of the gift of grace.[125]
“Do whatever he tells you…”
We have seen so far that Mary, the Church, and each one of us
communicates and teaches, first, by being who we are.
“Teachers that do not live what they teach are not teachers.”[126]
This entails receiving God and His Word, His Love, and allowing
Him to do His will in us. However, to announce the message, we
must know the message. Only a real and personal knowledge
and relationship with Christ will enable us to communicate the
truth about Him, for as we know Him, we possess
Him.
What is the message? “To evangelize is to announce Christ, the
Savior of mankind.”[127]
The Message is a Person. Therefore, “at the heart of catechesis
we find, in essence, a Person, the Person of Jesus of Nazareth…
Accordingly, the definitive aim of catechesis is to put people
not only in touch but in communion, in intimacy, with Jesus
Christ.”[128]
And Mary has an irreplaceable role in this announcement because
she knows the message more than any other and she carries the
incarnated Message in her very womb: therefore, “Every encounter
with her can only result in an encounter with Christ himself.”[129]
We must enter first into the school of her Heart to be taught,
and we must bring others into this same school. For in this
Heart, this school, Jesus reigns, dwells, and teaches. Only the
Heart of the Mother can reveal the Truth, the Person of
the Son, the Heart of God that beats with love for us and calls
us to change. In the school of the Blessed Mother, we are able
to learn how to abandon ourselves in full trust to the truth and
faithfulness of His word; since He is Truth, He cannot deceive
and all His promises to man will come true.
“Among creatures no one knows Christ better than Mary; no one
can introduce us to a profound knowledge of his mystery better
than his Mother. The first of the ‘signs’ worked by Jesus – the
changing of water into wine at the marriage in Cana – clearly
presents Mary in the guise of a teacher, as she urges the
servants to do what Jesus commands.”[130]
She directs us always to Christ and is the “spokeswoman”[131]
of His will, always directing us to “do whatever He tells you.”[132]
This is Our Lady’s “great commandment” to us. We must adhere to
it and repeat her message to others – “do whatever He tells
you.”
The Message is Truth, Love and Beauty
To know the Message – Christ – we must be aware of three
essential characteristics. The first characteristic of the
Message is that it is the Truth – Jesus is the Incarnate
Truth.[133]
The message cannot be anything but the Truth. It cannot be
watered down according to one’s own preferences, beliefs or
opinions. It can only be that which the Church and her
Magesterium – the Body of Christ Himself – teaches and
proclaims. Anything else is not Christ. In fact, each person has
the right to receive this Truth in its entirety.[134]
The second characteristic is that the message is Love –
God is Love.[135]
Therefore, anything that does not love the person, anything that
does not respect his dignity, anything that does not help him
reach his eternal home, cannot be the message. A mother only
gives her children good food, good milk. She will never feed
them with something that will bring harm. Our celestial Mother
clearly demonstrates this, for she feeds us with the Living
Bread from Heaven, the Bread of Life.[136]
Most importantly, the Splendor of the Church is precisely Love.
Love is the Soul of the Church. Love is the origin and end of
the Church. Love is the only true Splendor that we should
proclaim – for all other ‘splendors’ are born from the Splendor
of Love. In the home, family and school of the Church, we must
proclaim, communicate, and witness to the splendor and greatness
and power of Love. And to be formed in the School of Love we
must enter into the Heart of the Church: the Heart of Mary. In
her Heart, we are able to receive and be taught by the one who
most perfectly knew Love.
Finally, the Message is beautiful. God is Beauty
Incarnate. Our message should inspire in the heart a feeling of
wonder and awe at its greatness and beauty. If the one
transmitting the message does not see the Message as beautiful,
but instead simply a burdensome duty or task, this attitude will
be communicated to the receiver. “Teachers content with
communicating mere facts, and who themselves never thrill at
what they teach…are hardly going to stimulate their student.”[137]
The human heart was created for the beautiful, and just as it
naturally moves toward the good and the true, it naturally moves
toward the beautiful. Beautiful things, according to St. Thomas’
well known definition, are those which, when seen, please. The
human heart is not moved to something that repulses it. This is
why St. Francis de Sales counseled many of those he directed to
have a gentle, attractive and peaceful devotion, for devotion
and piety should be attractive to others so that they
will also desire it themselves. This is why our Mother Foundress
says, “Let us transmit the truth in a way that touches the
hearts of modern men. This is done by being true witnesses:
faithfully loving what we believe and joyfully living what we
love.”[138]
This means that everything about the way we are and live
somehow either transmits beauty or ugliness. The entirety
of the message must be beautiful to be fully effective – this
includes gestures, tone, expressions, orderliness, harmony,
authenticity, visible presentation, and the truth of the
message. A lack of beauty is any area takes away from the power
and efficacy of the message.
This is why holiness transmits beauty in an unparalleled way.
Holiness transmits and communicates goodness simply because it
is beautiful. Sin, due to its absence of the good, true, and
beautiful, is ugly. Creation communicates some of the
beauty of its Creator – how much more then do the Saints, who
carry in them to a supreme degree Beauty Himself, radiate and
communicate this beauty simply by their presence? How much more
does our Blessed Mother – who has no sin to take away her beauty
and who has the fullness of God in her very being – radiate and
communicate celestial and heavenly beauty? Added to Mary’s
sinless-ness is her particularly feminine heart. Though all
creation is beautiful, God bestowed His beauty upon the feminine
heart is a more supreme manner.[139]
The feminine heart has been given a particular grace of
communicating beauty in a special way, a way that draws men
toward it.
Furthermore, blindness to beauty is a result of sin, of choosing
less beautiful things in an attempt to satisfy the human heart
with what can only be satisfied by Beauty.[140]
Therefore, true teachers work to root out sin in the hearts of
their students so as to allow them to “see.”
Finally, one does not communicate the truth simply because one
knows something. Only when one sees the beauty of it, and
then begins to love it – only then does one truly know
the thing; and only then does one truly communicate it (here we
are able to see the inseparability of truth, love, and beauty).
To love and know God comes only from the fire of
the Holy Spirit, “by whom there is formed in his mind a delight
in, and a love of, that supreme and unchangeable good which is
God.”[141]
This is given only in prayer. This is why the Church has chosen
as her greatest theologians and teachers “not only men and women
of keen intelligence and learning,” but those “whose love and
sanctity illumine their professional studies.”[142]
Wordless Witness
“Spread love everywhere you go…Be the living expression of God’s
kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness
in your smile, kindness.”[143]As
has already been briefly mentioned, the way in which we
communicate is as important at the words we actually say.
In communicating and teaching, we must always be kind,
respectful, sweet, polite, and courteous. Our words should
always be precise, clear and un-repetitive. They should display
maturity, formation and education – however, never in a way that
is condescending, but instead, one that elevates the mind
and the heart. All that we say should and do should edify: “No
foul language should come out of your mouths, but only such as
is good for needed edification, that it may impart grace to
those who hear.”[144]
We should always avoid judgmental, critical, dry, sharp,
exaggerated, or harsh words and responses. It also must never be
forgotten that to communicate is truly to share; it
involves reciprocity; therefore, we also must be willing to be
silent and listen. The tone, the expression, the gestures, and
the eyes communicate and teach. If any part of the “message”
lacks love, the message itself will be lacking. One may be able
to lie with words, but the heart communicates itself in many
unspoken ways. If one is not loving in the heart, one will not
communicate love in its fullness. These unspoken “lackings” can
often be the most harmful, even if the one receiving them is not
able to tangibly express what seems to be lacking; however,
there is a certain imperceptible understanding within people
that tells them “something is missing.” This is why the holiness
of many saints is often simply “felt” or “perceived” without any
particular external manifestation on their parts. Love radiates
from the inside, from the heart, and expresses itself in
countless imperceptible exterior forms.
Communicative Wisdom
Love is wise, and a mother knows how to teach and communicate
according to the capacities and capabilities of her children.
She always transmits the Truth according to the mode of the
receiver. In other words, she is aware of the capacity of
her child and gives him only what he is able and ready to take
in. She understands the need for a patient balance between the
desire for progress and a humble acceptance of human realities.
She knows when to urge and challenge her child to move forward
and when to quietly wait for his own initiative. She is aware
that speaking at an inopportune moment can cause harm and that
inopportune silence can leave children in error who may have
been instructed. She understands that Truth is often difficult
to hear – it pierces the heart like a two-edged sword – and she
knows that the communication of it requires maternal love,
wisdom, prudence, and gentleness: “We must be very tactful about
how we get hearts to expand their vision and to love and esteem
virtuous living.”[145]
Truly wise and prudential communication is always orderly,
harmonious, and rightly timed.[146]
We see this wisdom in St. Paul who, though he wished to feed his
“children” with solid food instead of milk, could not because
they “were not ready.”[147]
The Lord yearns and desires from the depth of His Heart to give
us the greatest and richest of spiritual gifts. Without limit He
wants to pour forth His love and the “riches of his grace.”[148]
However, He cannot “throw his pearls to swine.”[149]
This is not for the sake of the pearls, but the swine who will
be held accountable for the wasted pearls. The “swine” must
first be changed and elevated so that they can receive the
pearls.
Therefore, those that communicate and teach must have a profound
understanding of the human person – both his natural and
supernatural capacities. This comes to one certainly through
study, but more from personal experience and self-knowledge.
When people have personally experienced and understood the
effects of sin and grace in their own lives, they are
able to see and recognize them in others. In other words, we
must first allow ourselves to be converted and purified
in order to convert and purify others; to show the way, one must
know the way.
Each man and woman is a unique and unrepeatable individual with
his or her own mixture of dispositions, situations, maturity,
and realities. “One and the same exhortation is not suited to
all, because they are not all compassed by the same quality of
character. Often, for instance, what is profitable to some,
harms others…herbs which nourish some animals kill others…the
discourse of a teacher should be adapted to the character of the
hearers, so as to be suited to the individual in his respective
needs.”[150]
A harp sounds beautiful precisely because each string is
played in a different manner and style – but never in a manner
that will cause them to snap or break.[151]
We know must know the level of each soul and lead them, from
that spot, one step higher.[152]
Jesus demonstrated this in the Bread of Life discourse in which
he first fed the people physically so as to draw them to
desire Heavenly Food that eternally satisfies.[153]
As a teacher of souls, one must be able to carefully see the
middle of opposing extremes, assess the soul’s individual
realities, and guide them along a unique, yet common, path. One
must see both the present situation in all its reality and
the potentialities of the human person – always giving each
person as much as possible, but all the while respecting the
important element of natural human progress.
Cultural Wisdom
This concept of giving according to the mode of the receiver not
only concerns the person himself, but also the context in which
the person lives. In other words, the message communicated “must
touch life.”[154]
It must be put forward in a way “that is as understandable and
persuasive as possible”[155]
so that one can receive it, understand it, and live it.
Therefore, it must adapt itself to the temporal and
cultural situations of those being addressed. Our Holy
Father Pope Benedict XVI writes, “Each people should make the
revealed message penetrate into their own culture, and express
the salvific truth with their own language. This implies a very
exacting work of ‘translation,’ as it requires finding adequate
terms to propose anew the richness of the revealed Word, without
betraying it.”[156]
If we speak the truth in such a way that our hearers cannot
understand how to apply it to their lives, the Seed of the Word
falls on a hard path and never takes root.
Our Lady displays this delicacy in a magnificent way. Looking
back through the Marian apparitions throughout the centuries, it
can be seen that Our Lady always presents herself according the
culture in which she appears. Each image is distinctive – the
same person, but presented according to the culture of the time.
One of the most distinctive examples of this is Our Lady of
Guadalupe. Through this image, she “spoke” to both the native
Indian culture and the Spanish colonists: she appeared as a “mestiza,”
one who was a mix of both Indian and Spanish descent; as well,
her hands were united in prayer, but they were of different
shades, one darker and one lighter. The image is clearly
Christian, but it also uses signs and images that spoke to the
native Aztecs so that they could understand.[157]
Here we see evidence of a “cultural prudence” that knows how to
speak to all people, in all situations, and in a “language” they
can understand.
However, Our Lady neither makes the opposing error of being
“pulled down” by a given culture, adapting the message to the
culture. This is the other opposing extreme that should be
avoided. In general those who communicate truth must take on the
culture of their place, but they are also called to be as
leaven, purifying and elevating it. Paul VI summarizes this
well:
Evangelization loses much of its force and effectiveness if it
does not take into consideration the actual people to whom it is
addressed, if it does not use their language, their signs and
symbols, if it does not answer the questions they ask, and if it
does not have an impact on their concrete life. But on the other
hand, evangelization risks losing its power and disappearing
altogether if one empties or adulterates its content under the
pretext of translating it; if, in other words, one sacrifices
this reality and destroys the unity without which there is no
universality, out of a wish to adapt a universal reality to a
local situation. Now, only a Church which preserves the
awareness of her universality and shows that she is in fact
universal is capable of having a message which can be heard by
all, regardless of regional frontiers.[158]
As well, communication and the teaching of the truth must also
utilize all means possible. Mother’s do not limit themselves in
the ways and means they use to teach their children. Therefore,
we must employ the “modern means which this civilization has
produced,” first and foremost among these the technology, mass
media, and means of social communication.[159]
The Family: “Called upon to Communicate Christ’s Love”[160]
The family, in the communication of the ‘splendors’ of the
Church, is the place in which the most primordial action of this
sort takes place – through the parents’ free openness to grace
and love, a new immortal ‘splendor’ (a person) comes into being.
The unique and irreplaceable grace of new human life – the
greatest ‘splendor’ of the Church, second only to Christ – is
brought forth within the context of the family. In
the same way, new supernatural and eternal life is communicated
and brought forth within the context of the Church – the Family
of Jesus.
This Family of the Church, “is to be a home where hearts are
received, nurtured, formed, educated and helped to grow in
grace, wisdom and stature before God and men.”[161]
This is why it has been consistently taught that the primary
place of education is within the family and that the first and
greatest duty of parents is the education of their children.[162]
This is so true that “everything depends,
generally speaking, on how the parents and the family carry out
their first and fundamental duties, on the way and to the extent
to which they teach this creature…to ‘be a man.’ The family
cannot be replaced in this.”[163]
Furthermore, the Church is called both Mother and Teacher,[164]
which indicates that the “teacher” aspect is deeply feminine.
While the father certainly has a role in this and the “active
presence of the father is highly beneficial,”[165]
it is clear that traditionally, he often “leaves” in order to
provide; therefore, the primary task of education falls to the
mother.
John Paul II affirmed this truth about the family and the
primary place of the Mother:
Cana in Galilee
tells us about the family and evangelization. Jesus went there
with his Mother…[S]he says to the waiters: ‘Do whatever he
tells you’…What is indeed striking about this passage is the
very fact that the Lord started his messianic activity from
the family. Cana in Galilee tells us that the family is the
first place of evangelization. It tells us that while both
parents are responsible in all things for the family, it is
the mother who is generally the first evangelizer. It was
Mary who declared: ‘Do whatever he tells you’ (Ibid.
2:
5). Experience shows that it is often Christian mothers who
are the first to teach the truth about God, the first to join
their children’s hands in prayer and to pray with them.
Mothers teach their children to distinguish good from evil.
They teach them the commandments of God…The magnificent
vocation and responsibility of parents, and in the first
place of mothers, consists not only in bringing children into
the world, but also in leading them to spiritual maturity. The
family is the natural environment in which this task can be
fulfilled. The educational role of the family is never easy, but
it is always a sublime and noble human enterprise. In
transmitting the Gospel spirit, Christian families have a
perfect model in the Holy Family of Nazareth.[166]
The Church then, being a Family[167],
is a Home and School of love and responsibility,
“of deeper humanity.”[168]
The maternal and Marian duty of the Church is formation; for
love always requires formation: love never simply just is,
but it is always becoming.[169]
Jesus Himself grew in wisdom and stature before God and men[170]
– and He did this within the Family of Nazareth.
Since the Holy Family of Nazareth serves as model exemplar for
each family on earth, “the Church is called to be a living icon
of the life of the Holy Family, of the life of the House of
Nazareth.”[171]
God Incarnate was taught and formed by the maternal and feminine
heart of Our Lady and the protective and custodial heart of St.
Joseph. But primarily, the Child Jesus allowed Himself to be
formed by His Blessed Mother, being taught in her School of
Nazareth. “As He sat on her lap and later as He listened to her
throughout the hidden life at Nazareth, this Son, who was ‘the
only Son from the Father,’ ‘full of grace and truth,’ was formed
by her in human knowledge of the Scriptures and of the history
of God’s plan for His people, and in adoration of the Father.”[172]
Furthermore, “The Son of God who became Son of the Virgin
learned to pray in his human heart. He learns to pray from his
mother, who kept all the great things the Almighty had done and
treasured them in her heart.”[173]
Therefore, we too must enter into the school of Nazareth so we
can, under the guidance of Mary, “begin to understand the life
of Jesus,” for the School of Nazareth is the “School of the
Gospel.”[174]
We must enter into this school to encounter, contemplate,
meditate upon, penetrate, and freely receive the hidden
mysteries of God because “the Heart of Mary is the greatest
school to learn about the mysteries of Christ.”[175]
We too must enter into the womb of Our Lady so we can
live in union and communion with the Heart of Jesus. When we
have been formed by the maternal heart of Mary to live according
to our dignity and vocation of love, we must then “go out” to
perpetuate this mission and communication of love. Our mission,
however, is to “go out” in order to bring others back “in” –
into the Home and School of Nazareth. Communication begets
communion.[176]
We go out to draw back in. The Son “left” His home in Heaven and
in Nazareth so that we could “come in.” We are called on earth
into the Home of Nazareth, the Home of the Church, in which the
Blessed Mother is the teacher and guide, so that we can form our
hearts for the eternal Home of Heaven. Both the source
and fulfillment of the communication and communion of
Love is the family.[177]
“Mother of Our Unity”[178]
To further understand the importance of family, it becomes
necessary to understand that at the root of the family is the
concept of communion. The words communicate and
communion come from the same root that is derived from the
word for unity or oneness or sharing. To
communicate means to “make something common.” As we have
seen in Mary, she communicates the very Person of Christ – as do
we when we place ourselves at His service, when we become, like
her, a humble “handmaid.” In doing so, we become united
in the very Gift we have communicated. As we have just shown,
communication begets communion, and this communion is both the
source of the communication (because only in communion
with Christ and His Church are we able to receive), and it is
also the most splendid fruit of the mission of
communication.[179]
To communicate the Lord means that not only do I give Him to
another who lacks it, but that I also receive Him and we
now participate together in Love. We share Love,
and we also gain the gift of one another. In the act of
communication we become more united with Christ and with one
another. This means that Our Lady, who perfectly and totally
communicates the fullness of grace, is united with each one of
us in a way beyond what we can understand. As well, it also
means that she, in and through her person, with the power of
Christ, brings about the full union of the Church. Our teaching
and communication, if it is real, will participate in this
“uniting” and will bring about the union of the Body. Our
relationships – with God and one another – should bring about
communion, greater bonds of love and fraternity. If our teaching
and communication are not doing so, we must question whether
they are authentic.
Therefore, the presence of communion, the presence of family
becomes the “sign par excellence”[180]
of the effectiveness of mission and evangelization. “This is how
all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for
one another.”[181]
The living out of family, of fraternity, is a sign of “greatest
importance because it is the sign that points to the divine
origin of the Christian message and has the power to open hearts
to faith.”[182]
More so, we can say that “fraternal communion is already an
apostolate…The more intense [the] fraternal love, the greater
the credibility of the message she proclaims.”[183]
In conclusion, the mission of teaching and communication is a
mission of communion and unity, in answer to the
prayer of Jesus – “that they all may be one.”[184]
As model par excellence, Our Lady brings about communion
and union: first, between God and humanity just as it happened
for the first time in her immaculate womb; second, between one
another, through her divine and universal motherhood. This union
and communion were able to be realized and fulfilled in her
because of a perfect openness of heart – she received and gave
without reserve, without ever looking to herself. This is what
each one of us is called to do as well. Through our perfect
openness and availability to Love, we are called to communicate
Love to all, thereby leading all men to their yearned-for and
eternal destiny – marriage with God; perfect communion and union
with God and, in Him, one another; eternal beatitude. Through
the Heart of Our Lady, within which the Church is united, we
will be led to the eternal communion that is found, sustained
and accomplished in the Heart of Christ. Thus, the head of the
serpent will be crushed and Love will triumph.
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[3]
Catechism of the Catholic Church (hereafter
CCC), no. 221
[4]
Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas en Veritatis, 5
[5]
Mugride and Gannon, JPII: Development of a Theology
of Communication. They write, “The communicative
self-revelation of the Trinity involves self-donation
and sending in order to communicate the salvific
plan; the very pattern of communication to which the
Church exhorts her members” (p. 53).
[6]
Benedict XVI, Angelus Message, July 20, 2008
[8]
Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes
(hereafter GS), 24
[9]
Mother Adela Galindo, Love is the Essence and
Vocation of the Human Heart
[10]
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatum (hereafter
MD), 25
[13]
Hans Urs von Balthasar writes, “In reality, she shows
herself and defines herself as the archetypal Church,
whose form we have to take as our pattern. We. That
means every single Christian, and yet it may mean even
more: our image of what the Church is” (Mary: the
Church at its Source, p.123).
[14]
John Paul II, MD, 27
[16]
Hans Urs von Balthasar, Explorations in Theology II:
Spouse of the Word, p.36
[17]
Hans Urs von Balthasar, Mary: the Church at its
Source, p.120
[18]
Hans Urs von Balthasar writes, “The Church is primarily
feminine because her primary, all-encompassing truth is
her ontological gratitude, which both receives the gift
and passes it on” (Mary: the Church at its Source,
p.140).
[19]
Cf. John Paul II, Catechesi Tradendae (hereafter
CT), 20
[20]
Even the priestly functions – the preaching of the Word
and the administration of the sacraments – is considered
a maternal role, for in these the Church gives what she
has received. John Paul II writes, “The Church becomes a
mother in preaching God’s word and administering the
sacraments, particularly Baptism, in celebrating the
Eucharist and forgiving sins” (General Audience, August
13, 1997).
[21]
Mother Adela, Love is the Essence and Vocation of the
Human Heart
[22]
John Paul II, Dives en Misericordia, 74
[23]
Hans Urs von Balthasar, Mary: the Church at its
Source, p.134-136
[24]
Mother Adela Galindo, Retreat to Woman, December 14,
2008
[26]
Mother Adela Galindo, Retreat to Woman, December 14,
2008
[27]
John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater (hereafter RM),
3
[28]
Cf. Pope Pius X, Ad Diem Illum Laetissimum, 12
[29]
St. Bernard of
Clairvaux, Hom. III: in vig. nativity., n. 10;
PL, 183, 100
[30]
Cf. Genesis 3:15 and Revelation 12
[31]
Mother Adela Galindo, Mother’s Sayings, section
on Apostolic Life.
[34]
Mother Adela Galindo, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Star of
Evangelization
[35]
Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium (hereafter
LG), 1
[36]
Pope Benedict XVI, Address to the Diocesan Pastoral
Convention, May 26, 2009.
[37]
John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 55
[38]
John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 5
[40]
John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 11
[43]
Karol Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility, p. 139,
131
[44]
Mother Adela Galindo, Letter on the Solemnity of the
Sacred Heart, June 19, 2009
[45]
Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas en Veritatis, 43
[47]
John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 11
[48]
Fr. Cantalamessa, Mary: Mirror of the Church,
p.82
[49]
RM, 39, italics added
[50]
This is why the Second Vatican Council, when speaking of
the mediation of Mary, says, “The maternal duty of Mary
toward men in no wise obscures or diminishes this unique
mediation of Christ, but rather shows His power. For all
the salvific influence of the Blessed Virgin on men
originates, not from some inner necessity, but from the
divine pleasure” (Lumen Gentium, 60). God does
not need the mediation of Our Lady or us; however, He
desires it for our sake. The Constitution
continues, “Just as…the one goodness of God is really
communicated in different ways to His creatures, so also
the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude
but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is
but a sharing in this one source” (no. 62).
[51]
St. Ambrose, Ep. 63,33; PL 16, 1198. As
quoted by John Paul II in his General Audience on
September 17, 1997.
[53]
The Council states, “Hence the Church, in her apostolic
work also, justly looks to her, who…brought forth
Christ, who was born of the Virgin that through the
Church He may be born and may increase in the hearts of
the faithful also. The Virgin in her own life lived an
example of that maternal love, by which it behooves that
all should be animated who cooperate in the apostolic
mission of the Church for the regeneration of men” (LG,
65).
[56]
RM, 43: “It can be said that from Mary the Church
also learns her own motherhood.”
[57]
National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Pastoral
Letter: Behold your Mother, no. 71
[58]
Mother Adela Galindo, Letter 22
[59]
John Paul II confirms this by saying , “Precisely there,
precisely though ‘the sword which pierced her soul,’
through an incomparable ‘kenosis of faith,’ did not Mary
perceive completely the full truth about her
motherhood?” (Letter to All Consecrated Persons
Belongs to Religious Communities and Secular Institutes
on the Occasion of the Marian Year, May 22, 1988).
[60]
Sr. Paula Jean Miller, F.S.E., “The Spousal Bond.” Essay
as published in The Foundations of Religious Life
by the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, p.
61.
[61]
John Paul II, Letter to All Consecrated Persons
Belongs to Religious Communities and Secular Institutes
on the Occasion of the Marian Year, May 22, 1988.
[62]
Mother Adela Galindo, Letter to Two Sisters,
January 29, 2009.
[65]
Mother Adela Galindo, Letter on the Solemnity of the
Sacred Heart, June 19, 2009
[66]
Cf. Mother Adela Galindo, Letter 49
[67]
John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 91
[68]
Adrienne von Speyr, Handmaid of the Lord, p.52-53
(as quoted in The Beauty of Mary). Italics
added.
[69]
Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, July 1, 2009
[70]
Mother Adela Galindo, Christmas Letter 2005
[71]
Cf. Mother Adela Galindo, Words to on the Entrance of
Three Sisters into the Novitiate, May 13, 2008.
[74]
Mother Adela Galindo, Book of Sayings, Section on
Love
[75]
Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus Message, June 14, 2009
[76]
“Man’s dignity therefore requires him to act out of
conscious and free choice, as moved and drawn in a
personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in
himself or by mere external constraint” (Gaudium et
Spes, 17).
[77]
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation, 97.
[87]
St. Augustine, In Ioannis Evangelium Tractatus,
97, 1: PL 35, 1877
[88]
John Paul II in Redemptoris Mater says, “And so,
in the redemptive economy of grace, brought about
through the action of the Holy Spirit, there is a unique
correspondence between the moment of the Incarnation of
the Word and the moment of the birth of the Church. The
person who links these two moments is Mary: Mary at
Nazareth and Mary in the Upper Room at Jerusalem. In
both cases her discreet yet essential presence indicates
the path of ‘birth from the Holy Spirit’” (no.24).
[89]
Cf. Mother Adela, Words to on the Entrance of Three
Sisters into the Novitiate, May 13, 2008
[92]
She explains, “According to your needs God pours
out the milk into His little bowl” (My Sister St.
Therese, p.203).
[96]
Hans Urs von Balthasar, Mary: the Church at its
Source, p.110
[97]
Pope Benedict XVI, Address to Diocesan
Pastoral Convention (italics added)
[100]
Christopher West, The Love that Satisfies, p.63
[102]
Hans Urs von Balthasar, Mary: The Church at its
Source, p.122
[104]
Cf. Mother Adela Galindo, Virtues for SCTJM and How
to Repair
[107]
“In what does man’s wretchedness actually consist? Above
all in his insecurity…[that] his existence that offers
satisfaction neither to himself nor to anyone else for
whom it might have been necessary, irreplaceable,
consequential. We can say, then, that the root of a
man’s wretchedness is loneliness, is the absence of love
– is the fact that my existence is not embraced by a
love that makes it necessary” (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger,
Principles of Catholic Theology, p.52).
[108]
Sr. Genevieve of the Holy Face (Celine Martin), My
Sister Saint Therese, p.5-6
[109]
Hans Urs Von Balthasar writes, “[T]he radiant
absoluteness of the teaching, which shines forth in what
it says, promises and demands, becomes intelligible only
in terms of the fact that his life points as a whole
toward the Cross” (Love Alone is Credible, p.
84).
[110]
John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, 120
[111]
Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 12
[112]
Mother Adela Galindo, Letter 36
[114]
Cf. St. Therese of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, p.
99
[115]
Mother Adela Galindo, Foundress SCTJM
[116]
The Congregation for Catholic Education, Letter: The
Virgin Mary in Intellectual and Spiritual Formation,
no. 8
[117]
Cf. Mother Adela Galindo, Address given for the
Renewal of Vows, June 18, 2009
[118]
St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book IV, chap. 20
[122]
McBride, The Marian Theology of Von Balthasar and the
Proposed Definition of Mary Co-redemptrix (As found
in Mary Co-redemptrix: Doctrinal Issues Today,
p.181)
[125]
Pope Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi (hereafter
EN), no. 5, 14
[126]
Cf. Mother Adela Galindo, Book of Sayings,
Section on Apostolic Life
[127]
Mother Adela Galindo, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Star of
Evangelization
[129]
Pope Paul VI, Mense Maio, 5
[130]
John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 14
[134]
“In order that the sacrificial offering of his or her
faith should be perfect, the person who becomes a
disciple of Christ has the right to receive ‘the word of
faith’ not in mutilated, falsified or diminished form
but whole and entire, in all its rigor and vigor… The
method and language used must truly be means for
communicating the whole and not just a part of ‘the
words of eternal life’ and the ‘ways of life’” (John
Paul II, CT 30, 31).
[137]
Fr. Thomas Dubay, The Evidential Power of Beauty,
p. 74
[138]
Mother Adela, Book of Sayings, English Section
[139]
“In this way the basic plan of the Creator takes flesh
in the history of humanity and there is constantly
revealed, in the variety of vocations, that beauty-not
merely physical, but above all spiritual-which God
bestowed from the very beginning on all, and in a
particular way on women” (John Paul II, Letter to
Women, no. 12).
[140]
“One fails to see the form of Jesus because of the guilt
of a ‘darkness’ which does not see, recognize or receive
the Light…Guilt intentionally looks away from its
mirror, for there is nothing gratifying or edifying to
behold, but only something contemptible” (Hans Urs von
Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, as quoted in
The Evidential Power of Beauty, p.76.).
[141]
St. Augustine, On the Spirit and the Letter, ch.
5
[142]
Dubay, The Evidential Power of Beauty, p. 68
[143]
Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta
[145]
St. Jane de Chantel, Letters of Spiritual Direction,
p.236. St. Jane is a beautiful example of a truly wise
and prudent maternal heart. Some other examples of her
gentle direction from this work are worth noting: “When
you need to correct someone, it is better to put it off
a little and make the correction in private and with
kindness” (p. 236). “Bring about her healing by
gradually showing her her weaknesses, without upsetting
her…Give her plenty of time” (p. 237). “Win them over
through kindness, patience and instruction…for love wins
all…True charity requires us to forget the faults of
others in order not to wish them ill, but not to forget
them when this would mean jeopardizing the well-being of
a community…” (p241). “Win her by gentleness, but
without giving in to her whims” (p243).
[146]
Consistent teaching of Mother Adela Galindo.
[147]
1 Corinthians 3:1-3
[150]
St. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Care, p. 89
[151]
Isaiah 42:3 – “A bruised reed he shall not break, and a
smoldering wick he shall not quench.”
[152]
In Pastoral Care, St. Gregory demonstrates by
truth by explaining that to help those who sow discord,
one must first make them love earthly peace
before they progress to love of heavenly peace,
“passing, as it were, from a point nearby to the best
position, they may rise to the peace which as yet is far
from them.” Moreover, he counsels that the prideful are
too be given praise in order to make the bitterness of
correction go down more smoothly (p. 185); and again,
“when fledglings attempt to fly upwards before their
wings are fully developed, they fall down from where
they tried to soar” (p. 180).
[156]
Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, June 17,
2009
[157]
Our Mother Foundress, Mother Adela Galindo, explains,
“She had a sash at Her waste indicating that She was
pregnant. On Her womb, a flower with four leaves was
depicted – the Aztec sign of divinity. In this manner
the image indicated that the Lady was with child and
that Her child was God…Furthermore, the brooch on Her
neck had a cross on it like those the Indian people had
seen on the Spanish ships…The stars on Her mantel were
the constellations of the sky that night. These
indicate that She is the star that shines in the
darkness. For the Indians, the stars, moon and sun were
gods, and Our Lady came with the stars as a mantel,
covered by the sun, and with the moon under Her feet.
They were at Her service, as She is the Queen of heaven
and earth…It is thought that Our Lady used the Aztec
words nahuatl de coatlaxopeuh, which is
pronounced “quatlasupe” and thus sounds very much like
the Spanish word Guadalupe. Coa means
serpent, tla is the article ‘the,’ and xopeuh
means to crush. Therefore, Our Lady referred to Herself
as the one who ‘crushes the serpent.’ Actually, the
Tepeyac was the temple of the ‘divine mother,
serpent’” (Our Lady of Guadalupe, Star of
Evangelization).
[160]
John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, 49
[161]
Mother, Letter on the occasion of the Naming of the
Retreat Center in Peoria, September 8, 2009
[162]
Guadium et Spes: “By their very nature, the
institution of matrimony itself and conjugal love are
ordained for the procreation and education of children,
and find in them their ultimate crown… Marriage and
conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the
begetting and educating of children… Parents should
regard as their proper mission the task of transmitting
human life and educating those to whom it has been
transmitted” (no. 48, 50). Furthermore, Catechesi
tradendae: “The family's catechetical activity has a
special character, which is in a sense irreplaceable…
Family catechesis therefore precedes, accompanies and
enriches all other forms of catechesis” (no. 68).
[163]
John Paul II, General Audience, January 3, 1979,
no.3
[166]
John Paul II, Homily, September 19, 1995, no.5-6
[167]
This essential nature of the Church as a family extends
to all levels of “Church.” Each parish, being a small
representation of the universal Church is called to be a
“fraternal and welcoming family home” (CT, 67).
[169]
Karol Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility, p. 139
[171]
Mother, Letter on the occasion of the Naming of the
Retreat Center in Peoria, September 8, 2009
[174]
Pope Paul VI, Address, January 5th,
1964.
[175]
Mother Adela Galindo, Living the Year of the
Eucharist in the Heart of Mary.
[176]
John Paul II, Christifideles laici, 32
[177]
This is why one of the final steps of catechesis and
evangelization is the entry of the believer into a
community of believers. First, the message must be
received, witnessed to, proclaimed, and adhered to on an
individual and personal basis – in other
words, each person must accept Christ as His own and
make a personal decision to live according to love.
However, this adherence “cannot remain abstract or
un-incarnated,” but it must reveal itself “concretely by
a visible entry into a community of believers” (Paul VI,
Evangelii Nuntiandi, 24). As well, John Paul II
writes in Catechesi tradendae, “the ecclesial
community at all levels…has the responsibility of
welcoming them into an environment where they can live
as fully as possible what they have learned” (no. 24).
[178]
Cf. John Paul II, Speech in Guayaquil, Ecuador,
January 31, 1985.
[179]
Cf. John Paul II, Christifideles laici, 32
[180]
Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and
Societies of Apostolic Life, Congregavit nos in unum
Christi amor: Fraternal Life in Community, 54.
[182]
Fraternal Life in Community, 54.
