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The Monday After | Knowledge of Mary, The Golden Key in a Red Bag
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A little boy came to me after Mass yesterday, showing me a gold key in a red bag. It turned out to be a good way of understanding the intercession of the Blessed Mother. This is a teaching on Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and how she desires to help us to stay close to her Son.
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So after the 8 o' clock mass yesterday, a little boy approaches me with this small red velvet bag. I look inside and I see a little golden key. It's a key. The boy says, oh, how nice. It's for Santa. Oh, I think he'll like this very much. We don't have a chimney. I thought, what a beautiful way to try to understand Our lady and who the Blessed Mother is trying to be for us. She's trying to help us to find a way to let her son Jesus into our hearts. That's why he gave her to us when he was on the cross. That's why God wants us to turn to her and say, blessed Mother, please pray for me now and at the hour of my death so that I can let your son Jesus into my heart. And then she gives it to us, this intercession, like in a little red velvet bag, which is the promise of glory, like the psalm yesterday. Let him enter. He is the King of glory. But because he reigns on the cross, it's scary. And she knows that as God does. We follow her son Jesus as closely as possible, but find it really difficult to follow him all the way to the Cross. That's where the Blessed Mother comes in. That's why she was given to us when he was on the cross. Behold your mother. She will enable you to follow me all the way to. And then through this cross to glory. So this is the key. So Marian devotion in some ways is like the key to salvation. Okay, well, let's talk a little more about that now. So this is the fourth and last of our four Advent talks. We spoke about emptying ourselves of the Spirit, of the world and then recognizing that we have a heart that desires God and was made for him. And it's coming to us as the fulfillment of our desire, like in Christ. So we spoke about the person or knowledge of Jesus and now the knowledge of Mary. So last week, when we spoke about knowledge of Jesus, we said, he is the eternal mystery, the eternal word of the Father, word made flesh, conceived by the Holy Spirit, second Person of the Holy Trinity, consubstantial with the Father. It's a pretty big deal. Nothing ordinary about it. So the Blessed Mother then, is given to us because she's also, because she is the Immaculate Conception, the perfect lens through which we can look at her son Jesus, to know Him. In truth, there's nothing in her that would distort her vision of him, whereas we experience and choose sin. And so it distorts our vision of him. So we turn to The Blessed Mother, she who was conceived free from sin. O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee. When we look at her son Jesus, through her, we can see him as she sees him. We can love her as she loves her. So this is where we start talking about the Rosary. At the very beginning of praying to Mary, we imagine the Holy Rosary and what is the Rosary? Thinking about her son Jesus, the mysteries of the Rosary, while praying to her in such a way where by repeating the Hail Marys, hopefully she kind of disappears like a clean piece of magnifying glass through which we can look at her son and she might magnify him for us. The way that when you look through a magnifying glass at something, you don't really see the glass as much as what you're looking at. You see it very clearly. The Blessed Mother wants to be like that magnifying glass. She's certainly not trying to get in between us and her son, but that we might look through her to see him more clearly. That's why she said, my soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. But look at him, she says through me that you may see him as I see him and love him as I love him. That's why God gave us the Blessed Mother, to magnify her son for us. She's not in competition with him, but she helps us to see him more clearly. You know, it's funny, if you were going to suggest to someone how they might pray to the Blessed Mother, you might say, well, imagine our Lord, because the whole thing is about relationship with Christ, then praying Our Father because ultimately Christ came to help us to do the will of the Father, as we said. Right? And then why don't you pray Hail Marys, like just over and over again to the point where they might kind of disappear a little. So you can just begin to pray in a more free way without overanalyzing your prayer with your head. Just say the Hail Mary so you can start to pray more just with the heart. So the repetition might make you less self conscious and you can maybe enter into a little contemplation of her son Jesus. And then at the end, why don't you pray that that key leads to that red velvet glory? You know, the key was given to you. And so why don't you say, glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit? That's basically how we pray the rosary. I can see why we do. I mean, it's Not a bad way. It's like in a beautiful way. Traditionally, we say there's the Mass, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and then there's the Holy Rosary. It's a very, very powerful prayer. We call her the Mother of Mercy. You can maybe just start to see why. Even as Christ reveals himself to us as the Divine Mercy, his heart is open to us, and this red glory comes forth from his heart. And then there's that white ray also that speaks of our baptism, and that's how we enter into his heart. So mercy, the word mercy is God opening his heart to us even after we close our hearts to him. So again, Mary helping us to find a way to let her son Jesus in, is mothering the mercy. She's mothering us so that after she becomes Mother of Mercy herself as giving us Christ, she can become our mother too, by helping us into his heart, Mother of Mercy. And she's also, you know, very patient and understanding with us, as a mother would be naturally with all of her children. So why do we need mercy and therefore the Blessed Mother, or consecration to the Blessed Mother? Because we were baptized, but we don't always live our baptism. There's times when we sin against Christ. Now, what do we do when we sin against the one who was sent to save us? As we said last time, we ask for the Holy Spirit to restore us to Christ through the forgiveness of sins. And we ask for his spouse and her intercession, the Blessed Mother, the one who conceived by the Holy Spirit. So consecration is about as adults, giving ourselves to God the way that we were given to God in Baptism. Like even when our Protestant brothers and sisters speak about adults, Baptism seems to me that that's the desire to give yourself to God as an adult. And we need to do that too, as Catholics. But we've already been baptized, so we have these consecrations. Of course, we celebrate it formally in the Sacrament of Confirmation, but again, we're teenagers, so a lot of times that gets missed, too. But as adults, if we consecrate ourselves to God most powerfully and perfectly to Jesus through Mary, it is a way of renewing the baptism. So you heard St. Paul say this past Sunday in the second reading, he is a slave of Christ Jesus. That means he's giving himself as an adult to Christ. And he says, I do this so that I might bring about in you the obedience of faith, that you also might give yourself to God as a child gives himself to his parent. And he says, so that you might belong to Christ. So that is Consecration, language, slave of Christ Jesus, Obedience of faith, belonging to Christ Jesus. But it's not meant to be a kind of repressive slavery. But the adult who entrusts himself to God by way of a consecration made with the will and the intellect as an adult after baptism. Because we oftentimes forsake our baptism or sin against it. Right. So Mary is given to us as a. A sign of God's constant openness to our constant need for consecrating ourselves to him again and again and again. By the way, when you come to Mass over and over again. Right. Go to church very often. Why do we go for that consecration, which is what happens to the bread and wine when they are dedicated to God and become the living body and blood of Christ. That's what happens to us when we renew our baptismal vows through consecrations in the most blessed way, through the most blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist. But it's a renewal of consecration. The Blessed Mother is just offering us her assistance too. All right. I hope that's not too difficult to follow. It's not meant to be. I'm trying to be as clear as possible. I mentioned an example at the Mass yesterday which I can quickly revisit for you here. I don't think it worked as well as I had hoped. But the point was to say that I bought a pair of Doc Martens before I went away to college and was all excited to wear them all throughout college. But I destroyed them, like right when I got there because I went sleigh riding on dining hall trays with friends. And to stop myself at the bottom of the hill, I would drag my toes in the snow and ice underneath. And so I ruined these Doc Martens. And so all throughout my first couple of years of college, I would look at them and feel regret whenever I looked at how I misused them and did damage to them. So they bore the wounds of the misuse. And I mentioned that that's what it also felt like for me to look at my soul when I went to college. And thinking about what happened in high school and the ways I had been living, the decisions I had been making, which had very little to do with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I was hardly living from my baptism. I had also done damage to my soul. I looked at my soul and felt a similar sadness as when I looked at the Doc Martens. I saw the damage of the misuse. But I also. And I remember the first thing I did when I went to college was pray to the Blessed Mother, I always would turn to Mary because I had some sense. My mother taught me this when I was growing up. My father also held this out to me with my mother, that you could always turn to the Blessed Mother for her intercession, a powerful intercession, the well beloved Spouse of the Holy Spirit, you know, for her to help you to live again from the Spirit of Christ in you. So I did that. The first thing I did, I was nervous, I guess, a little bit, and afraid of how everything was new and uncertain. And I prayed the rosary. I walked on the shore of Lake Ontario because I went to SUNY Oswego and I prayed the rosary. I mean, I would always reach for the rosary when I was. When I was afraid. And so I knew that I could turn to her also for the restoration of my. Of my heart, of my soul. And I can see then why we call her in the Hail Holy Queen, Gracious advocate. A gracious advocate. Because the Holy Spirit is referred to as advocate, right? The Scriptures call him that. The one who was sent to plead on our behalf to intercede for us. This is intercession. You know, even when our Protestant brothers and sisters say, I don't need anybody to intercede for me and Jesus, I go directly to Jesus. No one goes directly to Jesus. The Holy spirit is, as St. Paul said, interceding on our behalf with inexpressible groanings. Now, of course, it is also the Spirit of Christ, but the Holy Spirit's third Person of the Holy Trinity, sent to advocate for us, to help us to stay in communion with Christ. And he intercedes between us and Christ, and he's also interceding between Christ and the Father. But the Blessed Mother, his spouse, the Holy Spirit spouse, is also a gracious advocate. You can see then why, even after she's given to us on the cross from the cross, and she looks around and sees how many disciples, including 10 of the other apostles, because you just got John under the cross and Judas is gone, and there's 10 in the upper room afraid and locking the doors because they're afraid of the cross. Where's the first place the Blessed Mother goes after the cross after her son dies? To the upper room to say to them, even now, with a little red velvet bag and a key, like to say, even now, let him in. Let him enter, the King of Glory. And she goes to comfort them and to help them, to console them. They feel badly about. Actually remember the Passion of the Christ, Gibson's Passion of the Christ, when he very powerfully portrays Peter Seeing the Blessed Mother and go, no, no, no, no, no, no. I denied him, Mother. He calls her mother, Mother. I denied. I denied him. It's really hard. But the Blessed Mother is sent to help us, to comfort us, to say, he still loves you even when you. Yeah, that's a. I forgot about that scene. That's a powerful scene. Remember when Peter is crying, weeping because he didn't go to the. He's denied. He denied him three times. And they're in the courtyard and he is portrayed as seeing the Blessed Mother and although it stings, she reaches out to him with a gentle, a gracious advocacy. Oh, Peter, he loves you always, Peter. Even though you close your heart to him, his heart is always open to you. And that's what the Blessed Mother helps us to know and to believe. That's why God wants us to have her let him enter. He is the King of glory. She goes to the apostles in the upper room. Although the doors were locked, they let her in just as they let Mary Magdalene come in to announce the resurrection. Our lady knocks and you know it's true. Like sometimes we are afraid of who it might be. And she says, she says, it is I. You can let me in. And we let her in. And then when she comes in, she says, now, let him enter. Let him in now. Christ does come to the apostles, although the doors were locked and he appears to them. But what Our lady wants for us is that we would allow him in, become men and women, she says to us, who more and more give him permission to enter so that he can accomplish his glory in you with your participation and the freely given. Yes. That he wants from you. He wants your love and for you to be unafraid of Him. Okay, so let's say it this way. I mentioned this yesterday too. There's a reason, I think, that we stop asking that God would accomplish his glory in us. That desire we have in our hearts for God. And I think it's because it gets frustrated so many times in this life that we perhaps start to doubt whether that's a real desire at all. Maybe I'm not made for heaven. We start to say. Maybe we even hear a lot these days. Maybe there is even no personal God. Maybe I'm not destined for holiness. Maybe I'm just called to kind of survive, go along, to get along and stay as safe as possible and be hurt as little as possible along the way. You know, we just start to kind of cower into a defensive, self protective posture and we begin to even deny that desire for God at all. But in this Christmas season, we see children making lists, lists of things that they desire and asking that in some mysterious and even magical way that the desires of their heart would be met, would be fulfilled. So that's why the Christmas season stings the adult a little bit. Because if you ask an adult, what do you want for Christmas? A lot of times you hear, like, oh, I don't know. It doesn't. Whatever. I mean, like, you see what happens to our desires, like, what do you want? It's one of the first questions that Christ would ask the apostles and disciples. What are you looking for? What do you desire? What do you want me to do for you? He's trying to awaken our desire for God. So I mentioned yesterday, since our hearts do desire God, no wonder we look for him in riches or in fame or in power. Because if we think about, like, a king, say, for example, King David, right? Remember, Jesus is born in Bethlehem, the city of David, so he could be son of David. And the fulfillment of that promise made to King David and his family, that from his line a king would come whose kingdom would last for all ages. A kingdom, even David's, is full of riches and celebrity or fame. Everyone knows me and power, royalty. But Christ comes to fulfill that as God, not as worldly riches or worldly fame or worldly power, but heavenly. Remember, he said before Pilate, my kingdom does not belong to this world. So that's why Jesus in the Eucharist can fulfill our desire for true riches and true fame and true power. But it is in a surprising way. It's in what looks like now a piece of bread. But it was already surprising when the shepherds and magi saw it for the first time, the baby lying in a manger. Bethlehem means house of bread. It happens to be the city where David was anointed and the baby is found in the manger, or a manger, which means to eat, right? So it is already foreshadowing that he will come to us as the Eucharist. But it is surprising. It's surprising. So what that means is, and this is what the blessed mother and St. Joseph show us, is that God has come and will indeed, you know, come to fulfill our desire for Him. But he will do it in a surprising way, according to his will for us. Or as Our lady says, let it be done unto me according to youo Word. So I wanted to be open with you to God, still fulfilling that desire in our heart, because we were made for this. But then open to letting him fulfill it however he wants to. Mary is referred to as full of grace. And that's interesting, because Christ, he said to us, I have come that you might have life and have it to the full. The full. I have come that you. You might have joy, and my joy might be in you, so that your joy might be complete. And he even says, seek first then the kingdom of heaven, right? True riches, true fame, meaning being known by the saints in heaven and by the other members of the church, and then true royalty or true power which is to serve. Seek first the kingdom of heaven, and then all these things will be added unto you. All these things and that expression, and then all things will be given to you. It reminds us of what we wanted when we were children, when we wrote lists of things that we wanted. We wanted everything. And that's why we wanted more pizza and more ice cream and more tv. We wanted to stay up, remember? We hated going to bed. And now we're like, I can't wait to go to bed. Like, all we want to do is sleep now. We were children. Like, I don't want to go to bed. And it's hard for us to understand why a child wouldn't want to go to bed. But it's hard for us to understand the child. We're so far away from that initial fundamental desire, you know, that's why Jesus said, unless you become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven, because it comes from that. The desire living from that desire of the heart for all things. That's why the rest of that psalm, let him enter, for he is the king of glory. Grow higher, ancient doors. Grow higher, ancient doors. In the first reading yesterday, when Isaiah said to King Ahaz, ask for a sign from the Lord, and let it be as deep as the netherworld or as high as the sky. Whoa. Right. Whoa. That's in the depth of our heart, as deep as the netherworld. There's a desire for God, who is as high as the sky, you know? But Ahaz says what we say so often. He's like, no, I. I won't tempt the Lord. I don't want. Isaiah's like, why not? He's offering you himself. And Ahaz is like, I'm just thinking about maybe talking with the king of Assyria, because he's got riches and he's got military clout and power and influence, and he's well known. And so I'm going to just try to deal with him for. On the sake of. For the sake of Judah. That's what King Ahaz was doing. And Isaiah was like, no, no, no, no. Ask from the depth of your heart for something as high as the sky. God himself will fulfill that desire. Please, Ahaz. Isaiah is saying, don't start dealing with the king of Assyria. But Ahaz does what we do so often he's like, no, it'll be good, it'll be good. And he starts dealing with him, and it's not good. And it leads to the desecration and then decimation, disintegration of the people of Judah, and it leads to ultimately to the Babylonian exile. We keep getting betrayed by the world whenever we go to the world for what God alone can give, and what God is trying to give us is himself. Yeah, sorry. So the recording actually just stopped and started again. So this might be a little disjointed, but I'm going to end with a few real life examples of what it might look like for God to fulfill the desires of our hearts in a way that is surprising to us. So we mentioned the shepherds and the magi. They come to find Jesus in the Holy family in Bethlehem, the house of bread, lying in the manger. It's kind of like the church, right? As the bread of life for us to eat. Surprising, but nonetheless fulfilling. And they fall down in adoration. It's the first occasion of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, right? They come to him to say, speak to us, Lord. Speak to us. Adoration. But again, if this helps you to picture this for your own life, like my own mother, she used to pray all the time as a little girl for the desire of her heart to be fulfilled, which was to have a good Catholic husband, be a good mother and wife to a Catholic husband. And she met my father in high school, fell in love with him, a good Protestant boy. And she questioned how this could be. She would stand before the Blessed Mother, the statue of Our lady of Perpetual Help in Lindenhurst, and she would say, but you know the desire of my heart, please ask God how this leads to its fulfillment. And in time, my father converted to Catholicism. And as you ask him why, he would say, for the Eucharist and for the Blessed Mother. It strikes me that's how Joseph would have responded. Like Joseph, why are you doing this? Why are you responding to the angel and not being afraid to take Mary into your home like this? And he says, I'm doing it for the Eucharist and for the Blessed mother. That's what St. Joseph would say, I'm doing it for my son, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and for the Blessed Mother to be as close to them and as helpful to them as possible, to be as one with them as possible. And Joseph's like, this is a surprising way that I would be father and husband, living in a virginal, celibate way with my wife, a kind of consecrated virginity with her, but nonetheless her husband, like a spiritual priest to the household and also being truly father to my son, but fostering the fatherhood of life of God in him. Well, you can just see then it's like even in our lives, when I look at my parents, I'm like, that wasn't how they expected their heart's desire to be fulfilled, but it's nevertheless like according to his word for them. And then, you know, lastly, my own life. I tell about the friends that I met after college in the church. Unexpected group of friends. I love them very much. The friendship with them was deeper than the netherworld. And it was reminding me of my desire for something as high as the sky. My desire for God had gotten kind of flattened, leveled, muted a little, you know, like that glass that's trying to see God clearly but gets smudged and dirty. The friends I made in the church after college reawakened that desire for God in me and also filled me with the confidence that I too might be able to let God fulfill that desire. And then I felt called to the priesthood again. I always wanted to be father and husband, and so I am. But it's spiritual fatherhood and spiritual husbandry, like St. Joseph. It's surprising, unexpected, but fulfilling. So this is what he wants for us. And this is what our lady wants for us to say to God. I see now that you've been frustrating my attempts to make myself happy because you will not let me settle or be fulfilled by anything other than you. You love me too much to give me anything other than yourself. So even though it's been tough being frustrated by your providence over the years, and I have locked the door many times of my heart, to you I will, and thanks to your mother in a special way, who softens my heart with this red velvet bag and the key inside to say, let him enter the King of glory. I will let you in to fulfill your will in my life according to your word, in whatever it might look like. And I want to end by saying this. It's like Samuel who was taught by Eli to say, speak Lord, for your servant is listening. And that reminds me of Eucharistic adoration, the word Adoratio. Adoration is to the mouth. Like think about an oration, a speech or orator, a speaker. So adoration is to the mouth. We go to Jesus, the first occasion of adoration, right? We see the shepherds and magi kneeling before the baby Jesus, you know, speak, and then his presence speaks. So it's the real presence of the Eucharist speaking to the heart of the believer. And that's what eucharistic adoration is. And so we say, speak, Lord, for your servant is listening, right? Let it be done unto me according to your word, the way the Blessed Mother says. But that line from Samuel, given to him by Eli and then prayed by Samuel, like he was taught. Eli intercedes for Samuel, right? Remember, intercession. And Samuel does say, speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. Samuel becomes the one who will anoint Saul the first king, and then even David. So you see the connection between Samuel and David and then Jesus born of the. So it's. You can just see, then I mentioned this. I want to end with this. How the Old Testament and the New Testament, they meet in Christ and in particular at the cross. Which is why the Blessed Mother and Jesus are there together like a kind of new Adam and a new Eve, as the center of human history. All the graces of God that reach back into history come from that cross. And all the graces of God that have been with us since and will reach into the future come from that cross. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. And that glory comes into the world through that cross. No wonder then, the mother of Samuel, Hannah, at least in English, as we spell her name, would be a little gift given to us who spell it H A N N A H, A palindrome. A name that can be read and spelled the same way, forwards as backwards. It's like history. Life in this world reads the same forwards and backwards because it's all about the man in the middle with his mother, the new Adam and the new Eve. It's all about Jesus and Mary. So I don't know. I hope that was not only interesting, but helpful. And perhaps you received this little word about Our lady as a key in a little red velvet bag to help you to open your heart to him as he comes to us now, the great feast of our salvation, which is Christmas, which is drawing very near very soon, another opportunity because of his mercy and the gracious advocacy of Our lady, another opportunity for us to open our hearts to him, to let him enter this king of glory.