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I
Thirst
OUR
LADY AND THE MC FAMILY
THEME: It is Our
Lady’s role to bring together the thirsts of God and man.
GRACE: To be lead docilely to this encounter
with Jesus’ Thirst
PREPARATORY PRAYER: “Come
Lord Jesus, I am Yours.”
MEDITATION 9
In
union with her Son Jesus, it is Our Lady’s role and dignity to bring
together the Thirsts of God and man ‑ as she did first of all in her own
womb, as she did for John on Calvary, as she did for the disciples at
Pentecost, and as she will for each of us in our daily living of those
mysteries as Jesus is born in our life, as we come in contact with His
passion in the Eucharist and the poor; as we receive the gift of His
Spirit. She is the "garden enclosed," the new Eden for our meeting with
God's Thirst, the wedding place of God and man in Jesus.
REVISION:
Write
down for 10 minutes (or more) the insights received.
PRAYERS: THE ROSARY
(at
least one decade)
with the
HUMILITY
LITANY
and MOTHER TERESA’S PRAYER
>
I
Thirst
OUR
LADY AND THE MC FAMILY
THEME:
To hear Jesus say “behold your mother” was to hear Our Lady
say “behold His Thirst”
GRACE: To understand these words “behold His
Thirst”
PREPARATORY PRAYER: “Come
Lord Jesus, I am Yours.”
This work of Our
Lady's intercession and preparation for the gift of God's Thirst continued
(and continues) well beyond Calvary
With the beloved
disciple at her side, it is not difficult to see her as the one to relate to
the early Church, gathered around her in prayer, the great words of her Son:
"I Thirst". She was the one to help prepare them for the Living Waters
at Pentecost. One may contemplate her sharing with John at Ephesus,
her understanding of the words they had both heard on Calvary, and the fire
and urgency those words had impressed on her soul. As the Holy
Spirit's spouse, she would have shared the divine urgency to have them
written down for the Church. The very sight of Our Lady, who had taken
him into her heart at Calvary, and whom he had in turn "taken unto His own"
at Ephesus, must have been a constant reminder of the very next words of
Jesus, spoken after the gift of His Mother.
To hear Him say, "Behold
your mother",
was to hear her say, "Behold His Thirst."
REVISION: Write
down for 10 minutes (or more) the insights received.
PRAYERS: THE ROSARY
(at
least one decade)
with the
HUMILITY
LITANY
and MOTHER TERESA’S PRAYER
>
I
Thirst
OUR
LADY AND THE MC FAMILY
THEME: Our Lady would receive a share of His
power and authority over the
whole of humanity
GRACE: To share Our Lady’s mission of
satiating the Thirst of her Beloved Son
PREPARATORY PRAYER: “Come
Lord Jesus, I am Yours.”
MEDITATION 11
After her Assumption, her role of intercession was magnified and empowered
immeasurably.
Jesus has ascended to the Father's right hand, "living ever to intercede
for us"; Our Lady has joined Him there. There she "sees His glory" (the
radiance of the Trinity's Thirst “shining on the face of Jesus"), just as
she did at Cana and Calvary, and there (as before), she intercedes the
outpouring of His Thirst on the Church and the world.
As Jesus, at His Ascension, was given "all
power and authority in heaven and on earth",
so too Our Lady in the glory of her Coronation would receive a share in His
power and authority over the whole of humanity (as before, standing with Him
in the “glory” of Calvary she was given to share in His power and authority
over John).
It is not a power or authority to be served, but to serve ‑ to serve the
mystery of Jesus' Thirst in the Church and the world (cf. Rom.41).
REVISION: Write
down for 10 minutes (or more) the insights received.
PRAYERS: THE ROSARY
(at
least one decade)
with the
HUMILITY
LITANY
and MOTHER TERESA’S PRAYER
>
I
Thirst
OUR
LADY AND THE MC FAMILY
THEME: Our Lady would again intercede for grace
and conversion
GRACE: A deeper conversion to be able to
satiate Jesus' Thirst more fully
PREPARATORY PRAYER: “Come
Lord Jesus, I am Yours.”
MEDITATION 12
As the world began
to drift yet further away from her Son in recent generations, she would
again intercede for grace and conversion: as she had in Cana, she would
plead for some extraordinary intervention to reveal the depth of His
Thirsting but forgotten love for man.
Since the new wine
that had begun to flow at Cana was apparently about to "run out" in men's
hearts, she pleaded for us once again, reminding Him that "they have no
wine" for the wedding. And again, He answered.
One can detect an
analogy with what happened from Cana to Calvary: Though the hour to reveal
the depth of Jesus' Thirst in the Church had not yet come, He deigned to
prepare the way as at Cana, by giving first the symbol of His Thirsting Love
‑ the revelation of the Sacred Heart.
And as at Cana, the
Church "saw His glory and put their faith in Him." But as the first
disciples, so mankind would soon begin to abandon Him, "each going his own
way and leaving Me alone" ‑ alone in His unknown and unsatiated Thirst.
"I
looked, I sought for love, and I found none"
(Ps 69‑20).
As Pope John Paul II
would declare of this generation: "Never has mankind in all its history, so
totally and systematically rejected God as it has today."
REVISION:
Write
down for 10 minutes (or more) the insights received.
PRAYERS: THE ROSARY
(at
least one decade)
with the
HUMILITY
LITANY
and MOTHER TERESA’S PRAYER
DAY 18
>
I
Thirst
OUR
LADY AND THE MC FAMILY
THEME: At Our Lady's
pleading the MC Family was born
GRACE: To be Jesus’ voice proclaiming in the
world “I Thirst”
PREPARATORY PRAYER: “Come Holy Spirit, I am Yours.”
MEDITATION 13
Again,
our Lady pleaded, and the Lord granted to the Church not only the symbol,
but the full revelation which this symbol represents: "I Thirst"‑ the
fullness of divine love contained in the Heart of Jesus.
"At
our Lady's pleading, the MC Family was born"
‑ born through
Mother, born in all our human poverty, yet born to be Jesus' voice
proclaiming in the world: "I THIRST".
But we cannot be
voice to what we have not ourselves first "heard
with our ears and seen with our eyes, which we have beheld and our hands
have touched"
‑ the mystery of Jesus' Thirst for us.
In our weakness and
wandering ‑ in this urgent "hour" of rejection all about us, let us do as
Saint John, let us find Our Lady.
She will bring us
faithfully to our own particular Calvaries, where we will come close enough
to Jesus in the glory of His Passion to hear and touch and behold His
Thirst, close enough to satiate Him and tell of His Thirst to a thirsting
world. She will bring us close enough to His Passion in the Eucharist, in
our community, in the poor, and in the poverty of our heart, to allow our
soul to be "pierced", as hers was, by the sword of His Thirst.
"Stabat Mater" – it
is she alone who will teach us to stand and persevere "at the cross, our
station keeping."
REVISION: Write
down for 10 minutes (or more) the insights received.
PRAYERS: THE ROSARY
(at
least one decade)
with the
HUMILITY
LITANY
and MOTHER TERESA’S PRAYER
DAY 19
>
I
Thirst
OUR
LADY AND THE MC FAMILY
THEME:
Our Lady was to be the patroness of the MC Family
GRACE: To be vigilant to the small ways of
satiating Jesus' Thirst
PREPARATORY PRAYER: “Come
Holy Spirit, I am Yours.”
Cana and Calvary
were the alpha and omega of Jesus' public ministry, of His work of
revelation of the Father's Thirst, and they are two places in the Gospel
specially marked by Our Lady's presence.
The Gospel gives us
a sense of her "staying", her watching in vigil at both these occasions.
They must be two "stations" of the Society (and Family) as well: with Our
Lady at Cana (in intercession), and at Calvary (in loving contemplation and
service).
In view of her
intimate connection to the mystery of Jesus' Thirst, it should be clear that
Our Lady was to be Patroness of the Family. Without Our Lady, we would be
as Saint John, alone on Good Friday.
Without the fidelity
she inspired in St. John, the Church would never have heard the words
"I
THIRST"; and without the fidelity she inspires in us, the world will never
hear those words
"I THIRST" today.
REVISION: Write
down for 10 minutes (or more) the insights received.
PRAYERS: THE ROSARY
(at
least one decade)
with the
HUMILITY
LITANY
and MOTHER TERESA’S PRAYER
DAY 20
>
I
Thirst
OUR
LADY AND THE MC FAMILY
THEME:
Our Lady's Immaculate Heart points to her interiority
GRACE: A pure heart to love and serve Jesus
PREPARATORY PRAYER: “Come
Holy Spirit, I am Yours.”
MEDITATION 15
Why
do we look especially to her Immaculate Heart?
Would not the
mystery of her Visitation have been more fitting to celebrate as our Society
Feast? On the surface, perhaps it could seem so.
But what is the
essence of the MC charism? As Mother insists, it is not so much a
particular work, but rather a particular spirit in which that work is
done, that constitutes the essence of our Family.
It is not so much
what is exterior as what is interior that makes us MC's. If this is what
the Holy Spirit has shown us as central in our vocation, then this is what
we are to seek as central in her who is patroness of our vocation. While
other Marian feasts celebrate some isolated event in the unfolding of her
life, her Immaculate Heart points to her interiority; not to some one
thing she did (as the Visitation), but to the spirit with which she lived
every moment of her life, to the love she put into everything she did, from
Conception to Assumption and beyond. Love and interiority are the
foundation of the MC charism; this is why the Holy Spirit has given us as
our inheritance the feast that celebrates Our Lady's love and interiority ‑
the feast of her Immaculate Heart.
REVISION: Write
down for 10 minutes (or more) the insights received.
PRAYERS: THE ROSARY
(at
least one decade)
with the
HUMILITY
LITANY
and MOTHER TERESA’S PRAYER
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