Celebrating Our Lady’s Birthday

Today, September 8th, the Church celebrates the birthday of the Virgin Mary!  (As you may haven noticed this feast is fittingly celebrated 9 months after the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8th.)  So why does the Church celebrate Our Lady’s birth?  We rejoice today because the birth of Mary is like the preface to the birth of our Savior.  We celebrate the birth of our Queen because she gave us our King, and so, in a way, the story of our redemption begins with Mary.

Who could not be joyful on the day that the mother of our Lord is born?  Today we celebrate God’s greatest creation!  The holiest and truest disciple of Christ!  The Immaculate Conception herself!

The Virgin Mary has so many titles of honor: Seat of wisdom, Ark of the covenant, Morning star, Queen of Angels, Holy virgin of virgins.  And she has rightfully been given these titles because no human being has ever belonged so fully to our Lord Jesus.  Because no human being has ever led so many souls to her Son – work she continues in Heaven (and thanks be to God for that intercession!).

So while today we honor our Queen because she is worthy of our honor and love, this is not the ultimate reason for our devotion.  We honor Mary because in doing so we honor her Son, who is always pleased when we love His mother.  And perhaps this why Marian feast days are always so joyful, it’s like two for the price of one.  As we honor our Queen she directs us to her Son so that the honor we give her will redound upon Him.

There’s a famous hymn called Mary the Dawn, and I’d like to close with two couplets from it, which capture the spirit of today.

Church of St. Anne, believed to be the birthplace of Our Lady

Mary the dawn, Christ the Perfect Day;
Mary the gate, Christ the Heavenly Way!

Mary the temple, Christ the temple’s Lord;
Mary the shrine, Christ the God adored!

Happy Birthday, my Queen!  Tōta tua!

God’s Breathtaking Love For Us

It’s so easy to let worldly concerns get in the way of our spiritual lives, to forget how absurdly fortunate we are to call ourselves Christians.  Perhaps because God’s love for us is so much greater than we can comprehend, because it’s not something we can see, we can sometimes lose sight of it.  But oh how He loves us!

And it’s precisely because He loves us so that we have nothing to fear.  No matter what concerns are before us, He is always in control.  His plan is unfolding with each passing moment, and though we don’t always understand it fully, He is making everything work for good.  I can’t help but marvel at the fact that God lets us know anything of His plan at all.  He is our Creator and so certainly doesn’t have to explain Himself to us. Yet He humbles Himself to work with His creatures.  His love is so great that He wants us to live in Him and do His work!  Though He is so much higher above us, He doesn’t treat us as slaves.  He doesn’t even treat us as servants.  No, rather, incredibly, He calls us friends (John 15:15)!  And through our Lord are not only friends, but sons and daughters of the Creator Himself!

It’s so easy to lose sight of all this, especially when things are rough.  Sometimes it feels like we’re going to buckle under the weight of our crosses.  But Jesus tells us not to worry, to trust Him.  The burdens of this world can be heavy, can be suffocating, but Jesus wants to help us carry our crosses.  He wants to take away all of our pain and suffering and give us His light yoke, but He can’t if we’re too focused on ourselves.  Jesus is calling us to fix our eyes on Him so we can be filled with His love and peace.  Jesus is desperately seeking for us to open our hearts to Him so that they can be filled with Him.  He wants to drive away all the darkness and be one with us in His marvelous light.

So let us give thanks for such incredible love; for a love that couldn’t be stopped by death and so can’t be stopped by anything else we experience in this world; for a love that is pursuing us with every breath we take with an intensity unlike anything else.  Let us be grateful for so great a Savior and respond to His love!  Let us go and be filled with His love, meeting Him in the sacraments, in prayer, and in each other.

Noster Deus nobiscum, quis quidque contra?

See Also: God’s Radical Love For Us

Reflecting on the Lessons Along the Way

Recently Richard Maffeo was kind enough to send me a copy of his book Lessons Along the Journey and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading it.  It’s a compilation of reflections, mostly around 2-3 pages each, over an incredible 13 year period.  To be honest I generally don’t like these kind of books because I’m an impatient reader.  I’ve never been the read a chapter a day kind of girl.  I generally consume books, rather than savor them.  But Lessons Along the Journey (pleasantly) surprised me…I had to put it down.

Unusual as it may seem, “I had to put it down” is a true compliment.  Each short story was so filled with meaning, so powerful that I found myself willingly putting down the book to ponder and reflect.  I’ve rarely had the experience of a book that made me feel “prayerful”, but every time I read another reflection I found myself drawn toward prayer.

It seemed like each story reminded me of a similar experience with the Lord, or of a lesson I had learned (or am still learning), or just reminded me of the many blessings I have.  Whatever the case, I found myself inexplicably with the desire to spend time with the Lord in prayer.  I say inexplicably because I very rarely have the desire to pray.  I build it into my schedule, and am always glad I prayed once I’m done, but it usually takes effort to begin (kind of like going to the gym).  So the effect Lessons Along the Journey had on me was a wonderful surprise.

Reading about some of Richard Maffeo’s lessons has led me to reflect more on my own lessons, which is a gift in itself.  You can check out his blog and book here at The Contemplative Catholic Convert.  Either way I encourage you to take a little time out of your busy schedule and spend some time with the Lord, reflecting on the many things He has taught you and asking Him what He’s trying to teach you right now.  He’s so good to us all the time and we’re too often oblivious.  And as one of the the reflections in the book reminds us, “Our journey with Christ should deepen our love for Him.”  May each step of your journey do so!

Changes to the Mass in 2011

It is important to begin by noting that the Mass itself is not changing.  It’s perhaps misleading to speak of the “New Mass.”  Some of the texts of the Mass are changing, but the elements of the Mass remain the same: the Introductory Rites, the Liturgy of the Word, the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the Communion Rite and the Concluding Rites.  That being said, here’s what you need to know about the Roman Missal, Third Edition (if you want a shorter explanation: click here).

Why are changes being made?
JPII promulgated the third edition of the Latin Roman Missal (Missale Romanum) in 2001, and our new missal will now reflect the additional prayers and revisions found in that missal.  We are, after all, one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church and the Mass should reflect our unity.  You will notice quite a few changes in wording largely because when the Latin Mass was first translated into English after Vatican II, some liberties were taken by the translators that are now going to be corrected.  While perhaps an inconvenience, the words we say will now be closer to the texts used at Masses around the world.

When will the Missal begin to be used in the liturgy?
The new translation will be used with the start of Advent, 2011.  That particular Sunday falls on November 27, 2011.

What are some of the changes?
The changes are bolded.  The non-bolded text is there to give enough context so that you can recognize in which part of the Mass the change is occurring.  Again, these changes have been made to make our English missal more true to either the Latin missal or to Vulgate (the Latin Bible).

What does all this mean?
It means that come Advent we will all have to follow the Missal closely as we get used to the changes in the Mass.  For the most part, the changes in our responses are small (nearly the whole of them are listed in the table above, with the exception of the Mysteries of Faith).  So that will make the transition easier for us as we assist at Mass.

The biggest changes are found in the prayers the priest recites.  As the USCCB’s website tells us, “the style of worship will be more formal. But it will also be deeper theologically and more evocative emotionally and intellectually.”  Meaning what?  Some of the language may sound strange to our ears at first, but it’s intended to remind us that we are worshiping the one, true God.  It’s supposed to sound a little strange so that we remember that what we are doing is neither unimportant nor ordinary.  In the Mass we are doing nothing short of sacramentally renewing Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross – if this doesn’t call for special language, nothing does!

Hopefully this post has been some help to you.  If you’d like to learn more, you can go to the USCCB’s site directly here.  Or better yet, look at the new text of the Order of the Mass.  I can’t encourage you enough, no matter how many years you’ve been Catholic, to take this opportunity of an updated Missal to deepen your (and your family’s!) understanding about the purpose,  the structure, and the mysteries of the Mass!  You may also want to check out A Deeper Understanding of the Mass.