Deacon Dan Wright

Assuming Heaven

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me
and holy is his Name.

We look to her; often we call upon her for assistance in times when our prayer alone doesn't seem to be enough.  We reflect upon that greeting so long ago that in time has proven true--all generations indeed have called her blessed.  She shows us the meaning of blessing, and in our prayer through her we share in her blessedness.

Her presence seems near in those moments when we can't quite find the needed strength.  I doubt that it is a weakness or a fault to which we as the children of Adam cannot relate.  However, we find the way beyond it in our asking for help.  We look to one who knelt at the cross.  Indeed, the connection of the cross is never too far away. We say and we believe that Our Lady is the perfect pray-er.  No prayers could match the intensity of those prayers at the foot of the cross. None were as perfectly born of need as those of she who bore the one who suffered that we might live.

She proclaims his greatness, while at the same time she acknowledges her lowliness.  It is a lowliness that she models for us, for it comes forth from the humility that the Master taught us, and that we must acquire in order to inherit the kingdom of God. 

She leads the way and inherits the kingdom perfectly in her actions of humility and her prayerful submission.  Yes, in all she is and does she awaits the kingdom of God that calls her forth and draws her unto itself.  And, we look to her humility as a perfect model.  For we too desire that same liberation from this fleeting moment that often seems to pull us back to the clay from which our bodies were formed.  Still, we look toward heaven and we believe.

She sings of his holiness and his might and in doing so she loses herself in him.  Her identity and his merge as one.  Her soul sings and even in the singing she begins her rising heavenward.  We desire to go along, needing help along the way.

Her help is present for us; she is the icon of that help that comes from God alone. 

We see help in her, perpetually, yet in her is the God in whom she loses herself. It is God then who provides our help; she is the window through which it flows.

I find myself devoted to her completely.  She is my mother--given to me as mother, and I behold her blessedness.  Hers is the blessedness of one who bears all mystery within.  By that which she alone bears, she is ever assumed into heaven.

The beauty I find in it is the promise that it contains.  I look to her assumption in hope of what awaits.  I look ever hoping, ever desiring, desiring God, and knowing my need for help along the way.

I pause in this summertime moment.  Another season of life comes and goes.  Looking upward as the hosts of heaven pass overhead leaving occasionally a burning streamer behind.  It is humanity's desire to be assumed, losing ourselves in God forever.

On the Feast of the Visitation

Over the years the times have been many that I have pondered the visitation of Our Lady to her cousin.  It has always been a blessing to recall the joy inherent in the Elizabeth's greeting, that the hidden infant in her womb leaped for joy.  I have always considered that the reason for the joy in the narrative is the presence of the long-awaited messiah who had finally come into the world.  In Mary's womb rested the hope of all generations, the salvation of the world.

While today's feast is undoubtedly Christological in its significance, we also take the opportunity to consider and honor Mary in it.  Upon deeper consideration the Visitation also provides us with great pneumatological insight for living the life in Christ. The lectionary readings for today, especially the second option for the first reading, give us a model to follow if we truly desire to imitate the way of life that Mary shows us.  That is, if we truly believe and are devoted to her as the Ark that holds the New Covenant, then we see that her fullness of grace is also a fullness in modeling spiritual holiness by way of submission and obedience to the gentle spirit of peace.

St. Paul shows us the way of holiness.  It is the way of a life filled with the graces of the Holy Spirit, and thus it is the way that Mary models for us:

Let love be sincere;
hate what is evil,
hold on to what is good;
love one another with mutual affection;
anticipate one another in showing honor.
Do not grow slack in zeal,
be fervent in spirit,
serve the Lord.
Rejoice in hope,
endure in affliction,
persevere in prayer.
Contribute to the needs of the holy ones,
exercise hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you,
bless and do not curse them.
Rejoice with those who rejoice,
weep with those who weep.
Have the same regard for one another;
do not be haughty but associate with the lowly;
do not be wise in your own estimation.

In a mysterious way everything we desire to know and achieve can come together in one simple prayer, if it is a prayer that has come to be a part of our hope founded on Christ and associated with the desire to serve God in the beauty of holiness.  I don't ask why so much as I simply understand that whenever I say "Our Father..." or "Hail Mary..." there is much more going into it than merely the words that I am saying.  It is my heart that prays and the culmination of all I believe, even the deepest cries of my soul, are summed up when I give to God my all and say a simple prayer.

Sure enough, what today's feast shows us has a lot to do with joy, and it has a lot to do with the great mystery of salvation coming to the world.  However, in a way that touches our lives in the here and now, the Visitation shows us the spiritual path of humility and service.  In ways that we may not have yet considered it shows us the path of peace and justice through total submission to the Spirit that is peace and justice. 

Rosary on Tap

In the spring of 1989 I became acquainted with a fellow named Chris who had several defining and somewhat anomalous characteristics: Chris was an Episcopalian who really wanted to be a Catholic more than anything.  Chris also envisioned himself becoming a priest; however, he had an equally strong desire to marry his girlfriend and have her serve beside him in his ministry along with a brood of children.  Lastly, but still I always got the feeling that it was a high priority, Chris had an overwhelming love for the Rosary.

I don’t know for certain what finally became of Chris.  Our acquaintance was short lived—I lost touch with him after about a year—yet the friendship, at least in being a kindred soul lives on to this day.  However, the short time that I knew Chris had a lot to do with what would happen in my life in the days to come.  Chris and I knew one another from frequenting the same beer hall.  Our best conversations, perhaps I should say my best instruction from Chris, occurred in that setting.  It wasn’t exactly the locale for “high church” theology as prying ears would often point out to us.  Often others would join our table and add to the excitement of discussing the faith we held in common. We met over the course of many months for nightly conversations on religious topics.  Throw in a couple pitchers and it would become quite interesting.  Once a fellow asked Chris, “How can you guys sit in here, amid all the drinking, vulgarity, and cigarette smoke, and discuss that stuff night after night?”  Chris simply told him, “Because it’s what we love.”

Over the years the conversations I had in that unusual colloquium have mostly receded into the blurry region of half-memories, that is, except for one.  On one particular evening Chris brought a rosary and as the usual group gathered he said tonight I’ll teach you how to pray the Rosary—“the Roman Rosary.”  I sat and listened with great interest as Chris explained each prayer, each mystery.  It was the kind of life-experience that had depth, value, and a place in subjectivity where humanity and the divine mingle: it was an experience of heart, one not to be forgotten.

Two years later I returned for a weekend visit knowing that I would encounter a different world from the one I left behind.  The tyrant change is no respecter for the cherished past.  I inquired about Chris and I was told that he and his girlfriend had gotten married and moved to the east coast to teach English at a parochial school.  By this time in my life I had become Catholic—it was my first year as a Catholic, and as I recall the visit was shortly following my Easter entrance into the Church.  That weekend I had brought a rosary along.

I decided to visit the locale of those salient conversations of a couple years past, but I didn’t find anyone who had been a part of the midnight theology club.  Perhaps out of nostalgia I picked out the same table and sat waiting a short while for patrons to arrive—it was still fairly early in the evening.

In the summer of 1988 I had the privilege of becoming friends with a young Iranian—an ethnic Kurd—who had grown up in Brooklyn—Ahmad was his name.  Ahmad was a mathematician and had helped me get through some higher math that I needed to graduate.  When I returned that weekend to visit, Ahmad was the first person I knew who stopped by to say hello, though he had never been part of our theology discussions.  Most of that group had moved on, including myself.  After only a short catching up I told Ahmad that I had become a Catholic recently.  I knew Ahmad was Muslim but I didn’t know how serious he was about it.  When I told him that I was Catholic he asked if I had a rosary.  I took out my beads and handed them to him.  I asked him if he would like for me to explain the prayers, but he declined.  He said “No, I just want to hold them.”  Ahmad sat there and held my rosary in his hand for better than an hour—he just wanted to feel the bead in his hands.

As we sat there I thought of Chris; I thought of my first experience with the Rosary, and I thought of my prayers in the park that I wrote about in the last post.  I remembered that I too had at one time just wanted to hold the beads in my hand. What God had planned for me I didn’t know.  It’s funny that going on 20 years later God's plan is still being fulfilled.  God is still telling me to have faith and he's showing me how he uses the created order to strengthen our faith in him and to prepare our hearts for eternity.  I think through the Rosary, and even somehow through the beads alone, I have learned a great deal about communing with others; that is, about relating with both ordinary folks and great saints—even relating to the perfect example of prayer, Our Lady who prays for us always and shows us the way of prayer. 

My Rosary story isn’t finished yet.  It’s an ongoing story of connectedness in my life.  Even better, it’s the story of us all and our being connected mystically to one another.

Now, just one last thing before I finish for the night.  As I was wrapping up with my regular Tuesday evening religious education class tonight I found a pamphlet in my son's book entitled "How to Pray the Rosary."  It was identical to the one that came with my first rosary.  While I know that this find was a coincidence, it is nevertheless full of depth and meaning, a message of affirmation; a message full of grace.

Rosary Memories

It was the summer of 1990.  Much had transpired in between the time that I wrote about on last evening’s post and this time.  In many ways my faith-life had been turned upside down.  Things I once believed strongly—the evangelicalism of my early adulthood, even the value of belief itself—seemed simply to be no longer; the things I once valued no longer captivated my imagination, nor did they seem to call to me.  In fact, I was in a somewhat dangerous place in life. 

I had gone through a period of loss that seemed to return time and again like a tidal wave sweeping away the debris on the shore and washing the remains out to sea.  The loss in my life felt so great at times that it left me with a feeling of complete emptiness.  I had graduated with a degree in philosophy three years prior, and had tried to earn a living at a number of different jobs—all without real success.  It seemed that I always ended up back at the night restaurant.  After a failed relationship ended late during the previous year I uprooted myself, left everything behind, and moved back to east Texas where I had grown up.

I still recall the prior winter, when one afternoon alone I felt the sense of my failures come crushing down.  I remembered having been taught to turn to Jesus.  I remember praying, “Where have I failed?  Sustain me just a while longer…give me hope.”  Somehow in that cold afternoon warm light seemed to pour into the room.  A familiar presence, though I couldn’t say who or what, seemed to be with me.  Just for a moment all my questions and longings to escape loneliness seemed not really to matter at all.  In a way that eludes my words everything seemed to be answered in a single breath.

Just a few months later I began to make choices.  I left everything behind—whether it was a leap of faith or not was something that I didn’t consider.  The only anchor in my life was that I had been taking a great deal of comfort in the Catholic faith, though at the time I was still just observing from a distance though growing ever closer in the heart.

After having moved back to east Texas I recall having yet another epiphany of light—I woke up one morning feeling as though God had communicated the secrets of the universe the night before.  I didn’t waste time getting to the Catholic parish to tell them that I was interested in becoming a member of the Church.   As I began to attend regularly I purchased a wooden rosary from the parish gift case.  It seemed to attract me.  I thought about that rosary of a number of years past.  As I held it in my hands and felt each of the beads I felt a strong sense of peace.

On the way home from church the morning that I bought my rosary, I stopped to rent a movie for the afternoon.  Among my selections was a documentary film about Mother Teresa of Calcutta.  I thought that getting to know the “living saint” was a good way to get a little better acquainted with the faith that I had chosen to embrace.  One scene showed Blessed Teresa holding a rosary in her hands.  At least the rosary that I had purchased came with a “how to” booklet.  I prayed all the mysteries in one setting that first day.

Still alone in life for the most part, I took the opportunity on many afternoons to find a nice place to sit and pray in my favorite park.   It was always “Rosary prayer,” and it blessed my life abundantly in ways that I didn’t begin to imagine at that time.  I recall one Friday afternoon, while praying the sorrowful mysteries, I spotted a tree that reminded me of a cross.  I envisioned seeing Jesus on that cross giving everything for me—so that I could be happy.  I returned to that particular place several times over the next couple years to pray, always with rosary in hand.  My life was beginning to take on new meaning and I was making new friends as well.  I even had an evangelical friend with whom I worked ask me if she might go to the park with me some afternoon to “pray my Rosary prayers.”

It is an interesting phenomenon that in our experience of life we run into the repetition of certain qualities of life that appear to us unchanged over time.  It’s kind of like my tidal waves that come along ever so often and sweep things away.  In life at this moment I feel that a huge wave is lurking on the horizon—for me there’s the unknown: a change in jobs, certainly—a change in careers, perhaps even so.  Yet in it all I'm holding on to my lifeline.

Four years ago I had a dream.  I was looking for answers to life’s most perplexing questions—perhaps I was perplexed.  Yes, Deacon Dan thrown into the mix of all these souls just searching, not really knowing, often failing, still often perplexed…in the dream I came to a shrine of sorts where the souls of the departed were waiting.  There I met Mother Teresa, who at the time of the dream had not yet been beatified.  In the dream I knelt before this saint to be and in my silence she spoke to me “Do not be afraid to turn to our Lady.”  I can only turn in the way that I have learned to turn--one bead at a time.

Now, as my reflection for today, along with the evening, draws to an end, I reach in my pocket and take out my rosary—it’s the one my mother held in her hand the day she became Catholic—I take it out of it’s case and I place it around my neck.  There’s just something about having the crucifix hang over my heart.  I’m going to go into the back yard and sit on the swing and pray tonight.  You can pray with me too.  I don’t know what I will pray for, but the times in my life when I’ve turned to Our Lady have been times when I’ve seen Jesus most clearly.  The quality of my life experience of late has had a familiar feeling.  Perhaps I see a wave coming my way again, perhaps not.

Reflections on the Rosary: Mercy Unimaginable

In a special way the mercy of God was on my mind this weekend.  True, it being Divine Mercy Sunday influenced the direction of my thoughts.  It seems that we never run out of ways to experience the mercy of God in our lives.

Recently a reader has asked me to reflect on the Rosary.  It seems to me that Mercy Sunday is a good place to get that started.  The Rosary is one of the ways that I have especially experienced God’s mercy in my life.  While I anticipate a busy week at work, I thought it would be interesting to give you several short reflections on my experience of the power of the prayers of the rosary.  Now that I'm committed to blogging this week, I'm putting the burden on you to keep me in your prayers.

The Rosary has held a special place in my experience as a Catholic.  It was the Rosary in many ways that led me to the faith. Perhaps this is difficult to understand, especially perhaps for a non-Catholic observer.  For me, before I came to the faith, it had to do with simply holding the beads in my hand or even wearing them over my heart.

I have to admit that in the very beginning I understood very little about the Rosary.  The prayers were a mystery, and I had a hard time finding anyone who could explain it to me.

The start of it all was back in my undergraduate days at the University of North Texas, in Denton.  It was North Texas State University back then.  I was away from home for the first time and although I was naïve about many things, religion wasn’t one of them.  I had schooled myself over the years on the various faith expressions of the world.  Catholicism wasn’t where I saw myself heading at the time, but I had an open mind and was willing to learn more. At the time I had met a young woman—a girlfriend for a short while—who told me she was Catholic.  Though I learned later that she neither practiced the faith nor was she able to answer my questions about it.  However, she did have a nice-looking black rosary that she allowed me to borrow.  She told me that each bead had its own particular prayer, but she knew none of them.

In my ignorance I decided to wear it like a necklace, which I still sometimes see young people doing.  In the early 1980s it was something of a fashion statement to wear a rosary beads.  I recall at that time stopping at a sandwich shop where many professors would gather for lunch.  I was wearing my girlfriend’s rosary.  One of the professors having lunch sitting near where I was told me, “I have one of those too, but I carry mine in my pocket."  This was my first meeting of someone who over the next several years would be a mentor and friend to me, someone who would help make my journey to the Catholic faith an easier one for me—not necessarily in doctrinal terms but in associating the faith with someone who was willing to show me kindness and friendship, two important aspects of mercy in my personal estimation.

It was just holding the beads in my hand at first—having them close to me bodily, feeling the crucifix resting over my heart.  It all seemed so natural; something that I could not explain was beginning to happen on a deep level.  I never gave my girlfriend’s rosary back.  I remember losing it at my late evening restaurant job where I worked washing dishes and was paid in cash daily.  I offered to replace it but it wasn’t important to her.  However, for me the loss of that rosary was something that I thought about for a long time.  Because of my having that rosary for the time that I did—I am convinced—a series of events began to unfold in my life that led me to have a deeper longing for God.  For one thing, this late-evening job was an act of mercy on someone's part.  The boss was a man of faith, and though his prayers were private they were there...I just somehow know.  Also, my coworkers in the kitchen, although they spoke no English, showed great kindness.  Who knows what prayer has wrought?

It isn’t that I believe there is some magic about the beads themselves; however, as a sacramental they likely had been blessed.  It has been my experience that prayers have a reach much farther than we are often able to comprehend.   There is “just something about the beads” that is beyond the normal limits of reason.  When individual personal faith, true faith in the power of God to communicate to us in any means that the human mind can imagine, is coupled with an object that over time has come to have universal significance as an object of faith, the mystical qualities of God have a doorway to enter into lives.  What comes from allowing such qualities to grow is a beautiful reality that unfolds as our lives move through the many mansions that God has prepared for us. 

The Rosary is something that over the years has added a significance that I can only describe as a “sweet presence.”  It may be that at this time in my life God to make the Rosary a bigger part of my spirituality—I can’t say for sure.  However, it’s something that has been on my mind, and something that a reader pointed out an interest in getting my take on.

God has shown us mercy unimaginable, perhaps ineffable, but I feel compelled somehow to find the words and images to express it.  Join with me over the next few days as I explore my experiences, memories, and spiritual imaginings of the Rosary.

On the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

It was difficult at first for me to learn to let Guadalupe speak to me.  Culturally it seemed that I lived a world far from that of those for whom Guadalupe resonates.  However, what Guadalupe represents most to us is the ability of our faith to transcend language and culture--Guadalupe is truly a catholic event.

My relationship to Guadalupe grew gradually out of the Marian devotion I learned as a new Catholic coming through the RCIA many years ago.  Having come from a Protestant background, I think that the Marian dimension of the faith might have been the hardest for me to accept, but perhaps the one thing that helped in that regard more than anything else was the rosary.  Someone had the foresight to put a rosary in my hand.  Certainly, I feel that God had invited me to explore the rosary and to examine how I might come to Jesus by way of the one who bore him.  There was something irresistible in the prayers of the rosary.  Someone, it seems, had been praying for my soul--my mercy-needful soul--for some time.

My first experiences of Guadalupe were introduced to me by means of a culture where I live that has coexisted alongside the English speaking culture since the days when my Anglo-Saxon and Scottish ancestors first arrived in what was then a foreign land.  Ironically we look to Our Lady of Guadalupe as the patroness of the Americas--rather than standing for a segment of us, she stands for everyone, especially in our ability to carry and receive the message of Christ.  Guadalupe stands for our hope that the western hemisphere, and the whole world, ultimately will belong to Jesus. Naturally the first bearer of the message of universal salvation is the one who bore salvation for us.  Guadalupe tells us that Christ has come for all people, especially for future generations and converts.

Six years ago my mother, actually my great aunt but still the only person whom I had ever known as Mother, lay dying in a nursing home.  I was just finishing up the last part of the diaconal formation process with ordination only a few months ahead.  I was planning on making a trip to the far Northeast corner of the state to visit my mother.  I felt her need as she struggled with the pain of her last days.  Relatives had said, "How long will God let her suffer?"  So, a week before my visit, at one of the parishes where we were having formation classes, I took a moment to pray.  I found in the parish church a beautiful copy of Guadalupe and I knelt and prayed--"Assist me dear Mother, and assist that one who gave her love to me as a mother."  A week later mother converted to Catholicism as she lay in a nursing home bed and I had the privilege of baptizing her.  That afternoon she held my rosary--the same one I still use for prayer and carry in my pocket daily.  Mother died peacefully only a couple months later.

Throughout my faith journey icons have played an important role.  Perhaps none has been so important as she who is surrounded by the light that is her Son while she mysteriously bears him at once.  She always bears him--always she serves as carrier of the Good News, the Evangel within.

In Guadalupe the mystery appears richer because in order to apprehend it we must suspend our cultural prejudices.  We let go of who we are in order to hear her speak to us--she speaks neither in English nor Spanish.  We hear her in the tongue of the New World, a tongue that leans toward heaven because it resembles the new and final world in which Christ is the eternal light.  We too are the new people of God and when we are able to receive the message of Christ in a tongue that transcends our own, it is as profound as roses blooming in the snow.

The Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows

Thus the violence of sorrow has cut through your heart, and we rightly call you more than martyr…St. Bernard, Abbot

As we join our prayers today with Our Lady of Sorrows, we realize what a great price was paid that we might live. We join our hearts to our Blessed Mother’s and we look upon the Crucified One. We pray that he would make us new, purify our hearts, and give us the will and desire not to stray from his love.

Fittingly, the Memorial of our Lady of Sorrows falls on a Friday this year. Thus, we recall that on a Friday afternoon long ago our Lord gave his life for us; we recall that he presented his mother to the beloved disciple, and in doing so he gave her to us too. We recall that her heart was pierced with sorrow beyond comparison. We join our prayer and penance in the spirit of her sorrows—it was for our sins that he was wounded.

For anyone who has ever suffered a loss, anyone who has ever felt the pain of sorrow, any untimely death when a loved one was taken early, today is a special day to remember that we are not alone. Love is never far away. The image of the sorrowful mother has the power, in a way that transcends ordinary reasoning, to attract us to that which can heal us.

St. Bernard writes in today’s Office of Readings, “Let him be surprised who does not remember the words of Paul, that one of the greatest crimes of the Gentiles was that they were without love. That was far from the heart of Mary; let it be far from the hearts of her servants." It is love that heals the heart, and love that makes the heart new. It is love that gives the heart the will to pray, "keep my spirit always close to yours; let our hearts now be as one for ever and ever."

In many of the readings over the past weeks the central message has revealed something to us about the heart. What comes out of the heart is what matters; the heart is what has the power to make us pure, or to show us our unholiness. Thus, the heart is both the messenger of grace and the indicator of our need for it.

Today we focus on the sorrow that a heart can feel when it is a heart of love's own making, that is, when it is a heart given to us from God. Today we can participate with Mary standing by the cross; today we remember Jesus' passion and what it brought to us. By the power of his passion may he heal the sorrows of our world: may he reconcile our souls to himself, and may he reconcile our sorrowful divisions. Let us stand near our Lady in her prayers, for they are prayers for us all.

Mary, the Icon of Participation

It’s just an idea I have, that if I say something about Mary on this special day when we celebrate her birth, it should be something she teaches me that I find meaningful. Therefore, I’d like to dedicate the post today to an idea that I find has far-reaching implications, and that I see Mary as exemplifying—participation.

Participation is the real way that we gain knowledge of truth, which is knowledge of the world as it is experienced first hand and unmediated. We all participate to one degree or another in the world of each other’s lives. We share in what is important to one another, and often we do it well enough to let down our guard and step into the other's shoes. Participation, in its most real sense, means seeing through the eyes of another. It is the experience of spiritual union.

When we consider Mary, we see her act of participation as being such that it allows the Christ to come into the world through her. The one with whom she chooses to participate fully is the Holy Spirit. We see in Mary’s participation a surrender of the stance of selfhood in order to yield perfectly to the power of God. Thus participation, in a way that augments the experience of self, paradoxically must relinquish the claim to self in order to be realized. To participate in the being of another one must be willing to take upon himself or herself the deepest and most primary aspects of the other.

Mary teaches the kind of active surrender in which one gives oneself completely though without passivity. It is the act of maintaining one’s purpose and identity in the world while joining it to a secondary or greater purpose; that is, joining to a purpose or identity outside oneself, be it human or divine. Participation in this sense is a realization of true intersubjectivity through which acting subjects reciprocally share the deepest aspects of selfhood.

Mary shows us the way of participation; it is the way of prayer in which the depth of one’s being says to God, “Be it done according to your will; I offer you my all, my everything.” Mary, in giving herself, in her surrender, discovers her role as the predestined mother, the new Eve, a role in which she participates through her womanhood in the coming of life.

On the Memorial of the Queenship of Mary: An Advocate in Heaven

Today’s Memorial is a good jumping off point for something that I would like to explore more deeply. The thought came to me during my morning commute to the school where I teach, which is in a neighboring city. I have about 45 minutes going outside of Austin, and thankfully I don't have to worry too much with the traffic, which mostly comes from the opposite direction. It gives me time, as I drive into the morning sunrise, to reflect on the spiritual significance of life.

However, the last few mornings I have dreaded the drive due to a flare up of sciatica, which makes sitting for more than five minutes significantly unpleasant until my senses numb. When I got in the car yesterday morning I was thinking, "Today I’ll have to depend on my advocate in heaven." I had strong sense of peace as a continued my drive. It was an opportunity for me “to offer it up” I thought. Driving and teaching school on Vicodin isn’t wise or realistic. So there I went, sitting on my pillow, breathing deeply, praying and driving at the same time. I remembered my wife’s first labor 12 years ago and soon I forgot all about my pinched nerve. It was just justice coming my way I figured.

Although I wasn’t thinking about today’s Memorial specifically, I felt inclined to give time and thought to the idea that we have an advocate in heaven. One of the things that I had to come to terms with, as a convert from Protestantism, was Mary’s role as Advocate—a title we bestow on her in our faith and from grateful hearts. It is a title that flows from the sheer gratitude of knowing that she bore our savior out of her freedom to choose. She freely chose to say yes to the Holy Spirit.  She too bore the pain of childbirth, and the pain of Good Friday.

An aspect of Mary’s advocacy, especially as we see her exalted in heaven, is that her advocacy flows forth from heaven; that is, it is the direct result of the most basic relationship, the advocacy of Jesus Christ who intercedes for humanity continually before the Father. The advocacy of our Lord is the foundation for all hope. It is a certainty that we may turn to at all times.

For the next couple posts I’ll be taking a closer look at the Epistle to the Hebrews, and portions of Romans, even though they're not coming up in our readings. There is something special that the Lord wants to say to us now in regard to what it means to have faith, to believe that God loves and cares for us enough to make seemingly impossible things happen at any moment. I believe it will be helpful to explore the foundation of the meaning of advocacy in Christ. Really, an easy case unfolds for holding the belief that Mary is our Advocate and Queen. It has to do with Christ’s humanity, which he receives from his mother.  The Queenship of Mary is the logical outcome of her being the Theotokos, the Mother of God.

I suppose the reason that I’m interested in the advocacy question itself is that there are times when we need an advocate more than others. It seems to be, maybe more often than not, that God tells us to depend on his love given through others. Could he be speaking to us now through particular situations? Maybe it's time to share those situations with others. At the risk of stating a truism, there are certain aspects of living life as a human being that involve having real needs. What I'm saying is there are times that we just can't figure it out alone.

Sometimes our need flows from personal pain or from the suffering or needs of those close to us. At other times it seems less clear, but is every bit as real. Living often seems to cry out to us all by itself. It's an emptiness that longs for God alone. A close friend, now gone to his reward, once told me, “Whether it’s lumbago or a terminal illness, you’re presented with the opportunity to look straight in the face of your greatest fears, and your greatest hopes, but you have to learn to see them.” Through manifold opportunities, which most often will perplex and confuse us, life is certain to give us the opportunity to find our advocate.

The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

As I consider this solemn day and its deeper spiritual meaning, I consider how I, as a  convert, felt drawn to the Blessed Virgin early on in my faith as a Catholic. There have been many times over the years that I have sensed the need, sometimes inexplicably, to seek Mary’s help and assistance in my life. As I look back on those times I can undoubtedly witness that I received special strength to go through many difficulties that were to come, which I had no way of knowing were laying ahead. Other times, the devotion to Our Lady simply helped me to grow and mature in my faith.

Always, it has been the case that being devoted to the mother of my Lord has helped me to know him better. She has shown me her Son numerous times and in many subtle ways. She shows me the love that will lead us to heaven. She shows me the excellent way of prayer. In the Magnificat, from today's gospel, I see the blessedness of humility, which leads to exaltation. In my formation as a Catholic, I was taught to find my “yes” to the Lord somewhere in Mary’s affirmations. In her Assumption we see the sharing of the glory that comes with that yes, while simultaneously seeing the beauty of her exalted humility.

Having once been a Protestant, there were occasions when devotions to Mary seemed extrinsic to what I learned as a child. However, a little over two years ago I had a dream in which Blessed Teresa of Calcutta appeared and told me not to be afraid to seek the assistance of Our Lady. When I first converted I looked to Mother Teresa as a model of what it means to be a saint and a servant in the spirit of God’s great love. Moreover, I consider that my prayers, joined to those of the Blessed Virgin, following the dream got me through a very difficult and trying time in events that surrounded my young son, who has autism. In many ways the progress he continues to make is miraculous.

I have to say that I felt apprehensive about sharing the dream with you here on the blog, but I feel certain that God gave it to me for a special reason. Truly, we should never fear seeking the help of the one who guided the Lord through his childhood.  Certainly, she is our mother too.

The Solemnity of the Assumption reveals God’s great love for us. It shows us that we are to follow Jesus and his mother into heaven. It shows the joy and crown that awaits those who persevere in faith. Today as we prayerfully and joyfully recall the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I thought it fitting that I share with you a traditional Marian devotion, which I found on what I consider to be a most helpful website. The prayer, or devotion, is the Little Crown of the Blessed Virgin, which was put in its final form by St. Louis Marie de Montfort. To me, it seems very appropriate today.

Click here to pray the Little Crown of the Blessed Virgin.