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DAY 21
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I
Thirst
OUR
LADY AND THE MC FAMILY
THEME: The vocation to satiate, the vocation to
love, establishes us in a special relationship to the heart of Our Lady
GRACE: To be Jesus’ voice proclaiming in the
world “I Thirst”
PREPARATORY PRAYER: “Come
Blessed Trinity, I am Yours.”
MEDITATION 16
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In her Immaculate Heart we see the reflection of everything we are to be
as MCs.
Her Heart is the symbol of her satiating of the Trinity’s Thirst for
love – which is our whole vocation.
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If the Heart of Jesus is the symbol of God's Thirst for us, then the Heart
of Our Lady is the symbol of her thirst for God.
This pure thirst for God is what Mother calls "undivided love" ‑ the
goal of our MC life. It is this undivided love we honor in Our Lady's
Immaculate Heart (Immaculate = undivided / Heart = love). It is a symbol
and model of our vocation to love (to which we bind ourselves by our fourth
vow of charity) and to be love in the
church.
The role of the Church is an extension of the role of Our Lady, she is its
"type" and prefigurement. And so the MC Family can say, paraphrasing St.
Therese,
"I
have found my vocation: in the Heart of the Church (and in the Heart of Our
Lady),
I will be love . .
."
The vocation to satiate, the vocation to love, establishes us in a special
relationship to the heart of the Church, and to the Heart of Our Lady. It
is our same MC vocation to love that we see lived out in Our Lady's humble
ministrations; in her living presence from Visitation to Bethlehem, from
Egypt to Nazareth, from Cana to Calvary, from the Cenacle to Ephesus, and
from the Assumption to the present.
PRAYERS:
THE ROSARY
(at
least one decade)
with the
"SITIO"
LITANY
and MOTHER TERESA’S PRAYER
DAY 22
>
I
Thirst
OUR
LADY AND THE MC FAMILY
THEME:
The experience of Jesus' Thirst, the vocation to love, and the
"little way" of humble works.
GRACE:
To do small things with great love
PREPARATORY PRAYER: “Come
Blessed Trinity, I am Yours.”
MEDITATION 17
In this Our Lady is a model for the whole Church, but in a particular way
for those ‑ such as St. Therese, Mother, and our MC Family ‑ who have been
called to represent, and witness publicly to the vocation to love in the
name of the Church.
By approving our charism, the Church itself has placed the MC Family "in the
heart of the church . . . to be love," and in the Heart of Our Lady.
We are to give witness to her Heart's response to Jesus' Thirst not only by
our devotion, but by our service, by our living out the "little way" though
the "humble works" of the MC Family ‑ which are to be a reflection of her
Heart in the world today.
In as much as it is divine grace that moves our "love in action," our humble
works reflect the thirsting love of Jesus. But in as much as we are
creatures seeking to cooperate with grace, our service also reflects Our
Lady's response to grace.
The components of our vocation ‑ the experience of Jesus' Thirst, the
vocation to love, and the "LITTLE WAY" of humble works (which have their
contemporary witness in St. Therese and Mother) in reality find their first
and deepest source in the Immaculate Heart of Mary. (What is implicitly
present as a seed, model, and source in Our Lady, is perhaps more explicit
in St. Therese, and even more so in Mother, once the Father's moment had
come to raise up this gift which He had first hidden in the Heart of Our
Lady . –
to learn more about this
see the document “ST.
THERES AND MOTHER TERESA.
PRAYERS:
THE ROSARY
(at
least one decade)
with the
"SITIO"
LITANY
and MOTHER TERESA’S PRAYER
DAY 23
>
I
Thirst
OUR
LADY AND THE MC FAMILY
THEME: Our Lady, “model for all the aspects of
our MC Spirit and Life”
GRACE: To serve Jesus as Our Lady did, in the
distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor
PREPARATORY PRAYER: “Come
Blessed Trinity, I am Yours.”
MEDITATION 18
Once we accept the mystery of Our Lady’s Heart (her response of pure thirst
for God) as the primary channel for our call, we can then begin to look to
her as a model for all the aspects of our spirit and life.
In her we see the first grace‑filled stirrings of what Mother would later
experience as the Spirit of the MC Family (since they shared a similar
initial grace that brought forth this Spirit ‑ the encounter with Jesus'
Thirst: for Our Lady in the Annunciation, and for Mother in her own
"annunciation" grace on the train to Darjeeling).
We contemplate her trust ("Blessed
is he who trusted that the Lord's words to her would be fulfilled"),
her surrender ("Be
it done to me according to your word"),
and her joy ("My
spirit rejoices in God my Savior"),
especially her joy as gift to others ‑ what Mother calls "cheerfulness" ‑ ("The
moment your greeting sounded in my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy").
PRAYERS:
THE ROSARY
(at
least one decade)
with the
"SITIO"
LITANY
and MOTHER TERESA’S PRAYER
DAY 24
>
I
Thirst
OUR
LADY AND THE MC FAMILY
THEME: Our Lady is first of all
a
presence
in our life
GRACE: To share in the experience of Our Lady’s
encounter with Jesus´ Thirst
PREPARATORY PRAYER: “Come
Blessed Trinity, I am Yours.”
MEDITATION 19
We contemplate Our Lady as a model of
poverty of spirit
("He
has looked on His servant in her lowliness");
of humility (her silence before Joseph);
of poverty (Bethlehem, Egypt, and Nazareth);
of thoughtfulness (Cana); and of "going in haste."
We contemplate her pondering the mystery of Jesus' Thirst
(Annunciation and Calvary); satiating Him (throughout all her life);
witnessing
to His Thirst (Cana, Calvary, Pentecost, and Ephesus);
and continuing in heaven to plead for His Thirst to be known (the
sending of St. Margaret Mary, St. Therese, Mother, and the birth of our MC
Family).
But Our Lady is not a distant model who has to be imitated from afar. She
is first of all a presence in our life, even as she was for St. John ‑ a
presence we are to have confidence in, and recourse to, in all our needs.
She is there present to intercede for us an understanding of Her Son's
Thirst, to share with us her own experience of His Thirst (in union of
spirit with her in the Rosary), to protect us in our wanderings and lead us
back to fidelity and generosity. She will bring us to stand with her "juxta
crucem", "by the cross" of Jesus' passion in the world. There she
continues her vigil and mission until the end of time, and there the Lord
continues to declare, for "those who have ears to hear" ‑ "I THIRST."
PRAYERS:
THE ROSARY
(at
least one decade)
with the
"SITIO"
LITANY
and MOTHER TERESA’S PRAYER
DAY
25
>
I
Thirst
OUR
LADY AND THE MC FAMILY
THEME: It was given to John as his particular
mission to be the witness of Jesus’ Thirst within the early Church
GRACE: To be brought face to face with the
mystery of God’s mercy
PREPARATORY PRAYER: “Come
Blessed Trinity, I am Yours.
MEDITATION 20
In the Father's plan, all of the disciples of Jesus were called to love the
Lord (“Peter,
do you love Me?”)
and preach His gospel, and thus satiate His Thirst for their love and for
souls. But it was given to John as his particular mission to be the witness
of Jesus' Thirst within the early Church.
To be so, it was essential that he first came face to face with the mystery
of God's Thirst. But for that encounter it was necessary that he clings
to Our Lady – cling to her both in his discovery of Jesus’ Thirst on
Calvary, and in his witnessing to His Thirst as he wrote and preached ‑ as
tradition suggests ‑ in Ephesus (this discovery gained at Our Lady's side on
Good Friday, and deepened at her side throughout the rest of his life,
explains why the theme and symbols of God's Thirst to love and be loved run
throughout his gospel, his letters and his Apocalypse).
PRAYERS:
THE ROSARY
(at
least one decade)
with the
"SITIO"
LITANY
and MOTHER TERESA’S PRAYER
DAY 26
>
I
Thirst
OUR
LADY AND THE MC FAMILY
THEME: It is necessary that we too cling to Our
Lady
GRACE: To be able to live a Personal Covenant
with Our Lady as St. John did.
PREPARATORY PRAYER: “Come
Blessed Mother, I am Yours.”.”
MEDITATION 21
As the disciples, the whole Church is called to satiate God's Thirst for man
and man's thirst for God. But as St. John, our MC Family has been given the
particular mission, among other congregations and charisms raised up by the
Holy Spirit, to be the witnesses of Jesus' Thirst within the Church and the
world.
To do so, it is necessary that we first come face to face every day with the
mystery of Jesus’ thirst for us.
But for that, it is necessary that we too cling to Our Lady ‑ both in our
discovering Jesus' Thirst with her in prayer, and in witnessing to His
Thirst with her in our work. Cana and Calvary would not have been the same
for the disciples had Our Lady not been there.
Our Cana (prayer/spousal love) and Calvary (service/redemptive love) will
not be the same, will not be all they are intended to be in the Father's
plan, if Our Lady is not included.
What does it mean to cling to Our Lady? What did it come to mean for St.
John? If, as Mother says, we "cling to Jesus" by the personal covenant
of religious consecration, then
similarly, we cling to Our Lady by a personal covenant of consecration.
This was the kind of "covenant" Jesus himself established between His Mother
and St. John on Calvary: "She is your Mother, you are her son" (an echo of
the covenant relationship between Yahweh and Israel: "You
will be My people and I will be your God").
As Israel's covenant made of them a people "consecrated
to the Lord, and peculiarly His own,"
so our covenant relationship with Our Lady is kind of consecration by which
we entrust ourselves and our mission entirely to her and become thereby
"peculiarly her own.”
PRAYERS:
THE ROSARY
(at
least one decade)
with the
"SITIO"
LITANY
and MOTHER TERESA’S PRAYER
DAY 27
>
I
Thirst
OUR
LADY AND THE MC FAMILY
THEME: She shared her life with Him
GRACE: To give myself totally to Jesus through
Mary
PREPARATORY PRAYER: “Come
Blessed Mother, I am Yours.”
MEDITATION 22
This covenant and consecration is not merely a pious formality. It is more
than just a legal act. Israel's covenant resulted in Yahweh's becoming
their Emmanuel, who shared His life with them. St. John's covenant with Our
Lady resulted in "taking her unto his own", in Ephesus, where she shared her
life with him.
Consecration to Our Lady is not a matter of words, it is rather a covenant
of life shared with her in the service of her Son's Thirst.
There is one question we can ask ourselves that will always cover all the
aspects of our covenant‑consecration with Our Lady:
Am I living to the full the "mystery of Ephesus"?
Only to the extent that we are, will our consecration be effective, will it
become a true covenant of life as Jesus intends it to be. And only when He
sees that covenant accepted and established in our heart (as St. John on
Calvary) will He entrust to us the secrets of His Thirst ("Behold your
Mother"... "I thirst").
Only to the extent we live the mystery of Ephesus, will we be able to bring
forth from that Ephesus experience what tradition suggests John did: the
fruit of witnessing to Jesus' Thirst before the Church and the world.
Let us recall once more that she, as model of the Church, is the wedding
place between God and man ‑ for it is she who prepares (Cana), assists
(Calvary), and nourishes (Cenacle and beyond), the communion between the
Thirst of God and the thirst of humanity.
PRAYERS:
THE ROSARY
(at
least one decade)
with the
"SITIO"
LITANY
and MOTHER TERESA’S PRAYER
DAY 28
>
I
Thirst
OUR
LADY AND THE MC FAMILY
THEME: To live our Ephesus means that we take
her unto our own
GRACE: To be able to take Our Lady into my
heart as St. John did
PREPARATORY PRAYER: “Come
Blessed Mother, I am Yours.”.”
MEDITATION 23
To live our covenant with her, to live our Ephesus, means
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first of all that we "take her unto our own" as a presence in our daily
lives;
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and secondly
that we give her “power and authority” over ourselves and all that belongs
to us, that she may be free to exercise her part in this covenant, that of
"Mother" ‑ actively nurturing Jesus' Thirst within us.
Both of these elements are not just ideas or attitudes, but part of daily
life in all its concreteness and detail. Just as the basic covenant between
God and Israel took the form of promises and prescriptions (that spelled out
the duties and rights of both parties), so our basic consecration covenant
with Our Lady needs to take specific form as well.
The Holy Spirit will guide each one in choosing the terms of their covenant
in complete freedom, so in this same spirit of freedom we offer the
following suggestions.
PRAYERS:
THE ROSARY
(at
least one decade)
with the
"SITIO"
LITANY
and MOTHER TERESA’S PRAYER
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