ACT OF CONSECRATION TO THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY

O Mary, Mother of God and our Mother, in this time of trial we turn to you.  As our Mother, you love us and know us: no concern of our hearts is hidden from you.  Mother of mercy, how often we have experienced your watchful care and your peaceful presence!  You never cease to guide us to Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

Yet we have strayed from that path of peace.  We have forgotten the lesson learned from the tragedies of the last century, the sacrifice of the millions who fell in two world wars.  We have disregarded the commitments we made as a community of nations.  We have betrayed peoples’ dreams of peace and the hopes of the young.  We grew sick with greed, we thought only of our own nations and their interests, we grew indifferent and caught up in our selfish needs and concerns.  We chose to ignore God, to be satisfied with our illusions, to grow arrogant and aggressive, to suppress innocent lives and to stockpile weapons.  We stopped being our neighbour’s keepers and stewards of our common home.  We have ravaged the garden of the earth with war and by our sins we have broken the heart of our heavenly Father, who desires us to be brothers and sisters.  We grew indifferent to everyone and everything except ourselves.  Now with shame we cry out: Forgive us, Lord!

Holy Mother, amid the misery of our sinfulness, amid our struggles and weaknesses, amid the mystery of iniquity that is evil and war, you remind us that God never abandons us, but continues to look upon us with love, ever ready to forgive us and raise us up to new life.  He has given you to us and made your Immaculate Heart a refuge for the Church and for all humanity.  By God’s gracious will, you are ever with us; even in the most troubled moments of our history, you are there to guide us with tender love.

We now turn to you and knock at the door of your heart.  We are your beloved children.  In every age you make yourself known to us, calling us to conversion.  At this dark hour, help us and grant us your comfort.  Say to us once more: “Am I not here, I who am your Mother?”  You are able to untie the knots of our hearts and of our times.  In you we place our trust.  We are confident that, especially in moments of trial, you will not be deaf to our supplication and will come to our aid.

That is what you did at Cana in Galilee, when you interceded with Jesus and he worked the first of his signs.  To preserve the joy of the wedding feast, you said to him: “They have no wine” (Jn 2:3).  Now, O Mother, repeat those words and that prayer, for in our own day we have run out of the wine of hope, joy has fled, fraternity has faded.  We have forgotten our humanity and squandered the gift of peace.  We opened our hearts to violence and destructiveness.  How greatly we need your maternal help!

Therefore, O Mother, hear our prayer.
Star of the Sea, do not let us be shipwrecked in the tempest of war.
Ark of the New Covenant, inspire projects and paths of reconciliation.
Queen of Heaven, restore God’s peace to the world.
Eliminate hatred and the thirst for revenge, and teach us forgiveness.
Free us from war, protect our world from the menace of nuclear weapons.
Queen of the Rosary, make us realize our need to pray and to love.
Queen of the Human Family, show people the path of fraternity.
Queen of Peace, obtain peace for our world.

O Mother, may your sorrowful plea stir our hardened hearts.  May the tears you shed for us make this valley parched by our hatred blossom anew.  Amid the thunder of weapons, may your prayer turn our thoughts to peace.  May your maternal touch soothe those who suffer and flee from the rain of bombs.  May your motherly embrace comfort those forced to leave their homes and their native land.  May your Sorrowful Heart move us to compassion and inspire us to open our doors and to care for our brothers and sisters who are injured and cast aside.

Holy Mother of God, as you stood beneath the cross, Jesus, seeing the disciple at your side, said: “Behold your son” (Jn 19:26).  In this way he entrusted each of us to you.  To the disciple, and to each of us, he said: “Behold, your Mother” (v. 27).  Mother Mary, we now desire to welcome you into our lives and our history.  At this hour, a weary and distraught humanity stands with you beneath the cross, needing to entrust itself to you and, through you, to consecrate itself to Christ.  The people of Ukraine and Russia, who venerate you with great love, now turn to you, even as your heart beats with compassion for them and for all those peoples decimated by war, hunger, injustice and poverty.

Therefore, Mother of God and our Mother, to your Immaculate Heart we solemnly entrust and consecrate ourselves, the Church and all humanity, especially Russia and Ukraine.  Accept this act that we carry out with confidence and love.  Grant that war may end and peace spread throughout the world.  The “Fiat” that arose from your heart opened the doors of history to the Prince of Peace.  We trust that, through your heart, peace will dawn once more.  To you we consecrate the future of the whole human family, the needs and expectations of every people, the anxieties and hopes of the world.

Through your intercession, may God’s mercy be poured out on the earth and the gentle rhythm of peace return to mark our days.  Our Lady of the “Fiat”, on whom the Holy Spirit descended, restore among us the harmony that comes from God.  May you, our “living fountain of hope”, water the dryness of our hearts.  In your womb Jesus took flesh; help us to foster the growth of communion.  You once trod the streets of our world; lead us now on the paths of peace.  Amen.

(Pope Francis asks all Catholics to pray this act of consecration of the world, particularly Russia and Ukraine, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He prayed this Marian consecration in St. Peter’s Basilica on the Solemnity of the Annunciation, 25^th March, 2022.)

 

I am here

Oscar Romero - "Love must win out."

On 24th March, 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero, of El Salvador, was shot dead while saying mass.  Why would anybody do such a thing?  

Romero was the archbishop of a deeply Catholic country in Central America, at a time when it was divided by a particularly ruthless, civil war.  As a bishop, he was seeing a misguided elite, which wanted full power in order to hold onto wealth, and so murdering innocent citizens, even their priests.  As a bishop, he could not stand idly by and watch.  This motivated him to speak out, to become the voice for a suffering people, earning himself the title of "voice of the voiceless" and the ire of a dangerous elite.  

As the voice for an oppressed and suffering people, he was affirming not simply their right to exist.  Much more, he was affirming their God given right to live life with dignity.  That is frightening for an exclusive class wanting to take full and sole advantage of the world's riches.  However, their way is not the way of a loving and creating God who desires that the fruits of his creation be enjoyed and shared by all, willing that every man and woman be co-creators together.    

When facing such a reality, taking repentance and conversion, two key Lenten themes, seriously has frightening consequences.   Then, we cannot limit these actions' possibilities for renewing and reaffirming each human person and all humanity before God.  We will be called to go beyond the simplistic, even if rightful, approach of focusing on petty, personal sin.  Thus we will assume a wider vision that no longer takes life and humanity for granted.  Thus we will affirm and renew the covenant God has made with all people. Thus we will look at what really matters in life and why truly all of us are here together.  

This will take us to the roots of who we are, to a spirituality common to all humanity, thus moving us beyond ourselves to a revolutionary stance.  Revolutionary, because it necessitates our affirming who we are in radical ways, thus involving us in renewing the human project. 

Here, the great affirmation of Ceilie, the central character in The Color Purple, a novel set in early 20th century, southern USA. rings true.  She proudly proclaimed: "I may be black, I may be a woman, I may be poor, I may be ugly, but I AM HERE."  

We are all here. Amen.     

You are the only priest who talks about the war.

So said a parishioner to me, on leaving church this Sunday past.  I thought to myself - "Am I?'  However, my voiced response was - "Why wouldn't you as it is part of our reality into which the gospel is immersed!"  Our world reality!  

At the present time, I have an issue with war in our world.  Like so many, I am struck by the images of suffering and horror caused by war in the Ukraine.  I want it to stop now.  There is no point to it.  Then I find myself moving beyond my immediate reaction of compassion and revulsion to thinking.rationally, there are too many wars in our world.  None of them can be forgotten.  Not one can overshadow the other.  

I understand the world focus on Ukraine and I will never minimize its impact on suffering people, nor its barbarism.  Yet isn't that what all wars have in common?  They are simply barbaric and horrible, and very much so for those caught up in the midst of them.  The great tragedy of our world is that Ukraine does not stand alone.  The great truism is that there is no need for war anywhere, but it happens and that is part of our harsh reality. 

Then, in the past week, a friend offered me a helpful insight into my concern.  She said to pray for peace in one war is to pray for peace in all wars.  As we reach out to those sufering in one war, so we are reaching out to those suffering in every war.  As we help people in one war, so we are helping people in all wars. 

My friend's insight gave me a vision for proceeding.  Here is the key word - vision.  To deal with our world in any productive sense, to be able to live the gospel in the midst of the chaos that makes up our world, we need a vision, a shared vision.  The gospel gives us that vision which empowers us to look beyond the mess and chaos of our world to see the possibilities alive for a better world, a world that does not have to be brought down by the base instincts of men and women.  Humanity deserves so much more and will achieve much more, if we only go deeper to our better instincts, to the one God with us and within us.  Spirituality matters always.  

As Proverbs says, "The people without a vision will perish."       .

 

Lent. are we ready?

                                                   Brisbane Flood, February 2022

Brisbane Flood, February 2022  

For anyone who knows Brisbane, my hometown, this picture portrays utter disaster for the local population.  After days of of previously unknown levels of rainfall, Toombul Shoppingtown, my local mall, went under as never before seen.  Beyond the sad losss and great suffering experienced by the people, the great tragedy is the failure of successive Australian governments to acknowledge climate change  

Lent has surely begun.  With the First Sunday of Lent, we heard the story of the temptations of Jesus in the desert.  There are three, each telling us something about God.  With his firm response to the devil, Jesus denies the opportunity to be either relevant, powerful or spectacular in the ways of the world.  Rather his way is the way of  the humble Christ, who shows us the face of God, loving, gracious and merciful.  

Let us remember this hidden, unassuming God, as we ponder the message of Pope Francis for this Lent.  Let us not grow tired of praying; of uprooting evil from our lives; of doing good towards our neighbour.  Let us go deep within and pray, and ever do good for our brother, our sister, our planet.  Let Lent roll on.