Christ the King

The feast day of Christ the King is one that is commonly forgotten within Catholic circles; however, the feast seems as necessary today as it was when it was first established in 1925 by Pius XI. Christ’s Kingship over all of creation is declared by Christ himself (John 18). Likewise, Christ’s Kingship is affirmed in the Nicene Creed: “of whose Kingdom there shall be no end.” Now it is easy to spiritualize this Kingdom. One may think it is strictly a spiritual, other-worldly kingdom. However, this is only a part of what Catholics celebrate today.

The feast of Christ the King was established to encourage nations of the world to acknowledge Christ’s Kingship over all of creation and to pay him public honor and worship. If nations do not publicly acknowledge Christ as King, there will be no peace between nations (and this is quite prophetic of the great tragedies that would unfold in the twentieth century). It is important to note as well that Pope Pius XI is speaking of a public recognition of Christ’s Kingship—something not confined to the private sphere.

Today there is an on-going debate on how conservatives ought to proceed. Do we work within the framework of liberalism to achieve good ends or do we abandon liberalism altogether and try to restore an integralstate that harmonizes both throne and altar? What is clear from Pius XI’s encyclicalQuas Primasis that private goods cannot be isolated from the common good. The flourishing of a society mandates that there is a genuine common good (that includes the religious dimension of man) in order to facilitate personal, individual flourishing. This may strike modern American sensibilities as problematic. However, upon closer examination, it is important to realize that modern liberalism does not offer a value-free marketplace of ideas. The liberalism of today offers its own vision of the human good: material success, capital, and autonomy are inherent values. Liberalism has ceased to be a “negative” element (as T. S. Eliot put it); it is now a positive ideology that has its own pseudo-metaphysics.

Today we celebrate Christ’s Kingship, which no regime can ever change. Christians need to seriously consider the religious, liturgical nature of liberalism today. The historian Christopher Dawson has noted how man is a religious creature—nothing could be more foreign to human nature than atheism. Man naturally seeks religious expression, and if his faith is waning, he will quickly turn to politics to exult. Why else do elections seem to be life or death today? When politics becomes religious, there is no true hope. But alas, today is a day for feasting for Christians because we celebrate a hope that is only found in Christ’s Kingship: a King who rules with perfect equity, justice, and mercy.

 

 

Jesus, flow through us
Jesus, heal the bruises
Jesus, clean the music
Jesus, please use us
Jesus, please help
Jesus, please heal
Jesus, please forgive
Jesus, please reveal
Jesus, give us strength
Jesus, make us well
Jesus, help us live
Jesus, give us wealth
Jesus is our safe
Jesus is our rock
Jesus, give us grace
Jesus, keep us safe

~”Water,” by Kanye West

St. Monica’s Prayerful Tears: The Cause of Conversion

I first encountered St. Monica when I read St. Augustine’s Confessions my freshman year in college. Sadly, I do not think I reflected on her as much as I should have, and only more recently have I thought about what an incredible and faithful woman she is. For although she is not present in much of the book, only showing up here and there, we cannot underestimate the critical role she played in St. Augustine’s life—a role that fueled Augustine’s road to the Catholic Church and his path to sainthood. Her prayers lie behind her son’s conversion.

For years, this woman prayed unceasingly for the salvation of her son, Augustine, now one of the most widely known and influential saints in the Church. St. Monica’s prayers brought Augustine from death to Life. Augustine writes in his Confessions:

And You sent Your hand from above, and raised my soul out of that depth of darkness, because my mother, Your faithful one, wept to You for me more bitterly than mothers weep for the bodily deaths of their children. For by the faith and the spirit which she had from You, she saw me as dead; and You heard her, Lord. You heard her and did not despise her tears when they flowed down and watered the earth against which she pressed her face wherever she prayed. You heard her. (III.xi.19)

What I find so inspiring about this saint is she never gave up praying. She prayed knowing that the effects of prayer are real, and that God offers His mercy and grace through our prayers. She knew deep in her heart that prayer makes a difference in our lives and the lives of others, and her life reflected the reality of prayer and of hope for salvation. Even a bishop told her, “as sure as you live, it is impossible that the son of these tears should perish” (III.xii.21). 

It is all too easy for prayer to fall to the background of our lives amidst the business and noise of the world, but if we know what is at stake—the salvation of souls—and what is conveyed through prayer and sacrifice—grace—then how could we ever cease praying for the salvation of souls? And yet, I am guilty of this, time and time again, losing the sense of urgency I ought to have in the desire to see more saved by the grace of God. And this is why St. Monica is so pertinent to every one of our lives. If we ask, this champion of prayer will pray for us—for our own change of heart and for us to become steadfast in prayer—and for the conversion of those we so love. 

For all her tears and her prayers, God gave St. Monica hope that she would see her son in the Church before she died. Augustine writes, “she bewailed me as one dead certainly, but certainly to be raised again by You, offering me in her mind as one stretched out dead, that You might say to the widow’s son: Young man, I say to thee, arise:and he should sit up and begin to speak and You should give him to his mother” (VI.i.1). Even as she was sure he would become Catholic, she never ceased praying. Augustine writes, “But to You, O Fount of mercy, she multiplied her prayers and her tears that You should hasten Your help and enlighten my darkness” (VI.i.1). She never stops praying. Even as she is given incredible hope and consolation that she will see him filled with the grace of God, she prays with great urgency that he would be brought into the Church so he would not be in bondage to false teachers any longer.

St. Monica lived for prayer, and she prayed knowing the life of her son depended on it. At the end of her life, after God granted her the desire of her heart to see her son faithful to the Church and growing in holiness, she no longer knows what is left for her to do on earth. She says to Augustine:

Son, for my own part I no longer find joy in anything in this world. What I am still to do here and why I am here I know not, now that I no longer hope for anything from this world. One thing there was, for which I desired to remain still a little longer in this life, that I should see you a Catholic Christian before I died. This God has granted me in superabundance, in that I now see you His servant to the contempt of all worldly happiness. What then am I doing here? (IX.x.26).

Her life’s mission was to pray. In no earthly thing did she find satisfaction. The request of her prayers was brought to fruition, and after that, all that was left for her was to see the face of Christ, to bask in the presence of God. 

God saw Monica’s tears, He heard her prayers, and He granted her pleas with abundant grace. If only we all prayed like she did, how many more would be saved? But similarly, if we begin to pray and continue steadfast in our prayers, how many will be saved? It makes me think of what Our Lady of Fatima said in the fourth apparition: “Pray, pray much, and sacrifice for sinners, for many souls go to hell because there is no one to sacrifice and pray for them.” Her words are both convicting and motivating. Prayer makes a difference, and we must pray like it does, because it does make a difference. In God there is hope, and we pray because we hope.

St. Monica, pray for us! 

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us! 

Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us and save us!

Consecration to Mary, Our Queen and Mother

For just as the Immaculata herself belongs to Jesus and to God, so too every soul through her and in her will belong to Jesus and to God in a much more perfect way than would have been possible without her. Such souls will come to love the Sacred Heart of Jesus much better than they have ever done up to now. Like Mary herself, they will come to penetrate into the very depths of love, to understand the cross, the Eucharist much better than before. Through her divine love will set the world on fire and will consume it; then will the “assumption of souls in love” take place. When, oh when will the divinization of the world in her and through her come about? (Personal notes, April 23, 1933) – St. Maximilian Kolbe

One year ago today, on the feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, my husband and I consecrated ourselves to Mary, the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, Mother of the Church, and Queen of Heaven. We had a period of preparing for consecration—we read devotions influenced by St. Maximilian Kolbe’s Marian consecration, dedicated ourselves to praying the Rosary, and contemplated what it means for her to reign in our hearts. 

We have realized that as part of the Church, we enter into something so much larger than just a relationship with Jesus, as incredible as that is to begin with. St. Maximilian Kolbe points out that at baptism, we enter into the entire family of God:

The new child of God, who has become a member of the “divine family,” has God the Father for his father, has the divine Mother for his mother, has the divine Son for his brother. He acquires a divine inheritance by his loving union with the Persons who make up this “divine family.” Nor is this all; the divine Son chooses as his spouses the souls to whom he unites himself by this family bond; through him they become the mothers of many other souls. (Sketch, 1940)

In taking Mary as our Mother, to love her and be formed by her as her children, we become more like Jesus, who loves her more than anyone ever can, and who was formed under her loving care. And by giving ourselves to our Mother, we ask to be given a heart for her Son, for no human heart ever loved Jesus more than His Mother, Mary.

If Mary becomes Queen of our hearts, then Jesus is King, for they reign together. Mary is Queen where Jesus is King. In his book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary (which I highly recommend), Brant Pitre points out:

in contrast to most kingdoms, in ancient Israel, the ‘queen’ of the kingdom was not the king’s wife but his mother. Her royal title—‘queen mother’ (Hebrew gebirah)—is the feminine form of the word ‘master’ (Hebrew gebir). It can also be translated ‘great lady’ or ‘mistress’ (see 1 Kings 15:13; 2 Chronicles 15:16; Jeremiah 29:2). (74)

To his point, Pitre highlights King Solomon and the first queen mother, Bathsheba, in 1 Kings 2:19-20, in which it is written, “So Bathsheba went to King Solomon, to speak to him on behalf of Adonijah. And the king rose to meet her, and bowed down to her; then he sat on his throne and had a throne brought for the king’s mother; and she sat on his right.” The queen mother’s position is second only to the king. She reigns at the right hand of the king and acts as intercessor for the people to the king (as seen in 1 Kings 2:13-14, 17-18) (Pitre 78). Who are we, then, to disregard the mother of our Lord and King? If Jesus is our King, we must also have His Mother as our Queen.

The Virgin Mary is brought into the life of the Trinity in a way no other creature is. She is merely human, and yet, by virtue of being created to be the Mother of God the Son, she is preserved from all sin by the special grace of God and so is the most beautiful of all God’s creation. The Holy Spirit is united to her from the very moment of her conception so that she may never depart from God. Thus, when she freely offers her “yes” at the annunciation (Lk. 2:38), she becomes both the spouse of the Holy Spirit and the Mother of God.

Since she is united to the Holy Spirit in so intimate a way we cannot even imagine, her will, too, is intimately united to God’s will. So, we need not fear that she will lead us away from God. No, as God’s perfect creature, she only brings glory to God and points us to Him. As looking at the beauties of God’s creation causes us to sing His praises, even more does Mary cause us to marvel at the goodness and the beauty of God. She does nothing other than point us to Him and see His immense love for us. She does this in a way that is unique from anything or anyone else in His creation; she points us to God in a way that is particular to her as a unique and most perfect daughter of God. When we get to know someone and we come to love them, they show us something of God in a way we had not known before. So too, when we get to know our Mother, Mary, her particular, maternal love, and her unique personality bring us into deeper love of Christ in a way only she can bring out in us. 

I emphasize the importance of consecration to our Blessed Mother because of Mary’s unique role in the economy of salvation and her particular maternal love. She brings out in us love in a way only she can, and she does this by showing us her Son in a way only His mother can. Father Kolbe wrote:

In practice, we know that the souls that have given themselves completely and unrestrictedly to the Immaculata come to understand better the Lord Jesus and the mysteries of God. The Mother of God cannot lead us anywhere except to the Lord Jesus. (Conference, June 20, 1937)

To go back to where I began, when we come into the Church in baptism, we come into the family of God. God gives us His very Being, and He gives us His whole family, too: His Mother, and His brothers and sisters, the saints, who all strengthen us in the Spirit and conform us to His Son, each in their own ways. Even the greatest saints point to our Blessed Mother and know it is her maternal love which guided them to Love Himself.

St. Maximilian, Martyr of Charity

Today is St. Maximilian Kolbe’s feast day, and I am so incredibly thankful for this saint (for a short bio, click here). In many ways, this Polish Franciscan friar and priest is responsible for the love I have developed for Mary and the closeness I feel to her, and consequently, the flourishing of my relationship with God. He has reunited me to the mother from whom I was separated at birth, the mother I did not know I had, and she has nourished me with love and care as her own child. Through Fr. Kolbe, not only did the doctrines of the Catholic Church regarding Mary really start to make sense, but the love for my Mother, our Mother, started to flow out of my heart, bringing me to this most beautiful woman who would show me the great love of her Son for me and for the world.

St. Maximilian’s love and devotion to his Mother show through every word that he wrote, the life that he lived, and the death that died. He earnestly desired that every soul be brought to Jesus through Mary, and it was out of this burning desire that he began the Militia of the Immaculata (MI). The MI’s motto is “to lead every individual with Mary to the most Sacred Heart of Jesus,” and St. Maximilian worked tirelessly to bring this goal to fruition. He used the modern methods of the printing press to spread the love of Jesus and Mary to so many. Ultimately, he hoped to spread consecration to Mary, that she, with the Holy Spirit her spouse, would form these persons into Christ.

Fr. Kolbe knew he was a tool in the Immaculata’s hands. He knew his life was not his own, but rather hers to be offered up for the life of the world and the salvation of souls. Even from a young age, after his own mother died, he gave himself to the Blessed Mother. He placed himself at her feet as a child and learned to love. Thus, it should come as no surprise that he should see a stranger as a brother, and willingly take his place to die in a starvation bunker while in Auschwitz, only to survive and, two weeks later, die by a fatal injection of carbolic acid on August 14, 1941. Truly, St. Maximilian’s Mother formed him into her Son, Jesus, whose love led him to lay himself down for his friend. Mary had been teaching him, always, to love—to kneel with her at the cross of Jesus, no matter the cost, no matter the pain. This is where the life of Christians is born.

Pope John Paul II canonized St. Maximilian Kolbe a saint and “martyr of charity,” and truly, there could be no better name for him. St. Maximilian is compelled by love, and thus compels others by love—because this is what Mary does—she brings us to her Son, the Man who is Love.

The Cross, the manger, all the other mysteries in the life of Jesus are proof of his love for mankind. Who reflects upon it will repay that love with love…

Now, who loved the poor Lord Jesus in the manger and on the Cross more than his Blessed Mother? Neither angels nor human beings so love God as did the Mother of God. Let us not limit our love; let us love Jesus with her heart, for she loved him with that very heart. Let our love for God be the very love of the Immaculata.

For this to be a reality we must be hers; entirely, completely and in every way, hers.

And so, once again Crosses fall upon our shoulders, and the grace of God warming our hearts will inflame them with so great a love that they will be afire with a desire for suffering, a thirst for sacrifice. Yes, sacrifice without limit, for we love our Father and Best Friend, and his Immaculate Mother. Suffering is a school built upon and sustained by love. (Kolbe 86)

St. Maximilian Kolbe is the patron saint of journalists, families, the pro-life movement, prisoners, the chemically addicted, and those with eating disorders.

For more information on St. Maximilian, the Militia of the Immaculata, and consecration to Mary, check out the MI’s website. There are some really great resources to prepare for consecration, all in the spirit of St. Maximilian, including excerpts from his writings. If you are curious why anyone would devote themselves to Mary, these also help explain why Mary is so important to the spiritual life and the life of the Church.

For some reading from Kolbe and on his spirituality, these are fantastic:
Will to Love, St. Maximilian Kolbe
Immaculate Conception and the Holy Spirit, Fr. H. M. Manteau-Bonamy, OP

For more reflections on this saint, take a look at this earlier post, “St. Maximilian Kolbe’s Response to Modernity,” by Zachary Nelson.

Coming Close to Mary

Since my consecration to Mary late this summer, I have been trying to understand what consecration to Mary really means. What does it mean to come close to Jesus through Mary? Thanks to the Militia of the Immaculata, I had some really good resources when I was preparing for consecration to begin to understand, in the spirit of Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe, what it means to find the Way, the Truth, and the Life–that is, Christ–with Mary. It has been said that when you consecrate yourself to Mary, you often do not know the weight of what you are doing until much later, and it seems this is true. No one could possibly understand the great mystery of what it means to be a daughter or son of the Mother of God. I think I will continually be coming into a fuller realization of what it means to be totally hers.

I do not think I understood how much I needed a spiritual mother until I finally realized she is with me, always loving me, helping me fight this spiritual battle on earth to love and to win souls for Jesus. It is a peculiar thing how many Christians acknowledge emphatically the need for both a father and a mother in a physical family on earth, but when it comes to our spiritual family, we think we have no need of a mother. We are fearful of this mother detracting attention from her Son (but, honestly, when is this ever the case in real life?), so we throw this mother, the very Mother of God, out the door of our lives, or at most, let her stand just inside the door without ever acknowledging she is there.

Several weeks ago, when my husband and I knew the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception was coming up, we wanted to return to our consecration to Mary, so we read some more of Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe who brought us to love Mary. Reading what he had to say about living one’s consecration to Mary was nourishment to my soul, for he opened a door in prayer to draw closer to my  Mother, in whose care and by whose intercession has brought me healing in her Son, Christ. Always, she is bringing me to see the personal love He poured out for me and for the whole world. Always, she leads me to Jesus in a way I never could have done on my own.

Saint Maximilian said something that has been key now in understanding my relationship to Mary and to God. Mary is my advocate, my intercessor, constantly going to her Son on my behalf, just as she did at the Wedding at Cana. And when I go to Jesus, I have my Mother at my side to guide me and help me. St. Maximilian said that while we can go to Jesus or the Holy Trinity directly, we should not go without Mary, especially since to go without her is often a sign of pride in us, which only keeps us from the will of God (Mediation 18). I am so small, so little – who am I to go to my Lord at all, especially on my own? But our Lord, our God, humbled Himself, emptied Himself in the womb of a poor virgin and mother, through whom He entered the world as a babe. We can go to Jesus directly, but we do not have to go alone. We have His Mother, who is God’s perfect creation, the new Eve who said yes to God, becoming the spouse of the Holy Spirit, the Woman in whom the Son of God was formed and took flesh. Because we are sons and daughters of God the Father and brothers and sisters in Christ, we also are spiritual sons and daughters of God’s mother who wants nothing more than to love us and to help us to get to know her Son more closely, helping us to love Him. Jesus holds nothing back from us. All that is His becomes ours, including His mother, through whom we come close to Him, through whom we get to know more fully Christ’s will which is the will of the Father. 

With Mary, let us await with expectation the coming of Christ, our Savior. Let us, with Elizabeth, exclaim “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Lk. 1:42-43).

A Time for St. Teresa of Jesus, with St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

On this feast day of St. Teresa of Jesus (St. Teresa of Avila), I returned to the writings of my own patron saint, Edith Stein (St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), who first introduced me to St. Teresa of Jesus, her own patron saint, in her essay, “Love for Love: The Life and Works of St. Teresa of Jesus“. Here, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross passed on to me a great love of and appreciation for this beautiful saint. The treasures to be mined from this saint are great, but I will only touch on the work she began, which Edith Stein saw as critical in keeping the spirit of St. Teresa of Jesus alive.

In the foreword to her essay, Edith Stein offers us a glimpse of her own experience as a Carmelite nun of the reformed order that St. Teresa of Avila established. The image St. Edith offers us is particularly helpful for us to see the importance of religious life and the work of monasteries in our modern time today, as she saw it in her own time during the Second World War. In the end of her foreward, she points us to St. Teresa of Jesus in Spain who lived during the time of the Inquisition and much division within the Church, that we might be moved by her life and her work and learn from this great saint.

“Yesterday in our monastery church we had perpetual adoration [forty hours devotion]. On such days, the faithful who are associated with our Carmel gather around the altar singing and praying from about six o’clock in the morning until about ten o’clock at night. Then the church is closed and during the night the sisters take turns keeping watch in the choir before the Blessed Sacrament. While outside in carnival’s frantic tumult people get drunk and delirious, while political battles separate them, and great need depresses them so much that many forget to look to heaven, at such still places of prayer hearts are opened to the Lord. In place of the cold, the contempt, that he receives out there, they offer him their warm love. They want to atone for the insults that the divine heart must endure daily and hourly. By their steadfast supplications, they draw down God’s grace and mercy on a humanity submerged in sin and need. In our time, when the powerlessness of all natural means for battling the overwhelming misery everywhere has been demonstrated so obviously, an entirely new understanding of the power of prayer, of expiation, and of vicarious atonement has again awakened. This is why people of faith crowd the places of prayer, also why, everywhere, there is a blazing demand for contemplative monasteries whose entire life is devoted to prayer and expiation… One almost feels transported into the time when our Holy Mother Teresa, the foundress of the reformed Carmel, traveled all over Spain from north to south and from west to east to plant new vineyards of the Lord. One would like to bring into our times also something of the spirit of this great woman who built amazingly during a century of battles and disturbances.” (29)

St. Edith portrays beautifully the work of the monastery, the beacons of light that they are as places of peace and conversion of heart. This is the work St. Teresa of Avila sought to increase and strengthen. In a time of great anger and polarization, and especially of great noise and distraction in the modern world, monasteries and churches are havens of rest for the weary. They are places of quiet contemplation of the face of Jesus, places where the lost might flock and find peace and love in the midst of violence and hatred. And they are places where a battle is fiercely being fought for the winning of souls and the strengthening of the Church militant, the Church here on earth.

St. Teresa of Jesus knew the kind of lives to which contemplative religious were called and she saw where they were lacking. Thus, she brought new life and enkindled love in what had become lukewarm in religious life, and she carried out the work God began in her for love of her Lord, Jesus Christ, and in the stead of the Church and the lost and suffering in the world. She could not bear the thought of Jesus being cast aside or of so many souls being lost, as she knew she could have been one of them, saved only by God’s mercy. She resolved to bring other devoted brothers and sisters around her to be in constant prayer for those in the work of saving souls and to fast for the sins of the world. As a result, she established many convents devoted to Our Lord all over Spain, and the fruit of her labors continues to this day.

I praise God that He calls people to dedicate their whole lives to praying and fasting for the Church. We can only imagine the mountains God has moved through the prayers of these saints, and the hearts that have been turned as a result of their unceasing prayers. I thank God that He offers us sacred places where He is present in the sacrament of the eucharist and in the prayers of the people. May we be inspired by the love of Christ to pray and fast also for the strengthening of the Church and the saving of souls, and may we flock to Him in the Blessed Sacrament where He feeds us, His sheep.

In the spirit of St. Teresa of Avila, let us pray and fast as we are able for those whom God has called to religious life, for the flourishing of monasteries and of the Church, and for the opening of hearts to Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

St. Teresa of Jesus, pray for us!

---

I highly recommend reading more about St. Teresa of Avila from The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Herself, or for a more brief account of her life (though still quite comprehensive), see St. Edith Stein’s piece on St. Teresa of Avila in “Love for Love: The Life and Works of St. Teresa of Jesus“.

*Please note: this post contains Amazon affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase using a link from this page, I will make commission from your purchase and you help me continue doing this work. Thank you!