July 9th the Passionists honor Mary, the Mother of Jesus, under the title of Mother of Holy Hope. The devotion was promoted by the great missionary, Father Thomas Struzzieri, who later became a bishop. He carried a picture of our Mother of Holy Hope with him on missions, and we honor the same picture as a reminder that Mary helps us in our needs.
Mary supports our hope. Here’s what Blessed Dominic Barberi, CP wrote:
“One title that belongs rightly to Mary is that of Mother of Holy Hope. Hope is that virtue that anchors the ship of our soul in the stormy sea of this troubled world. It is a comfort left to us after the fall of Adam, a support in our weakness encouraging us to practice all the virtues.
Theologians say hope is a virtue planted in us by God enabling us to confidently expect eternal life and all that leads to it. Since Mary was hopeful to an heroic degree, she is appropriately called Mother of Holy Hope.
Though endowed with extraordinary graces and unstained by original sin, Mary never counted on any resource of her own. Rather, she knew God is the author of every good thing and the source of everything. She confided in God fleeing from persecution from her own country. She hoped in God even when she saw her divine Son die on cross and his disciples left him.
She stayed firm in what seemed like disaster, and strengthened those discouraged who turned to her as to a mother. She encouraged the weak, lifted up the fallen and urged the strong to ever greater trust.
We must not think Mary is not our mother now. No! Even now, enthroned in glory, she reaches with a mother’s hand to those who go to her. She is always a mother of holy hope.”
Lord God, you have given us the Blessed Virgin Mary as mother of our hope.
Under her protection, may we pass through this uncertain world with our hopes fixed on heaven and so enter into your kingdom.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
In our readings this 14th week of the year from Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus calls for laborers for a harvest: “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” He gathers twelve disciples following that call.
When we think of laborers in the vineyard today, we might think of priests and religious. More priests and religious are certainly needed for the harvest in our church.
But they’re not the only laborers needed for God’s great harvest. What about laborers for places where priests or religious will never be? And what about the harvest itself, where does that happen?
I’m sure at one time or another you have overheard people at a restaurant or on a bus or at some gathering discussing religion. “What do you think of the pope?” “Do you think there’s life after death?” “Do you think Jesus is really God?” Often the questions go unanswered or wrongly answered because there’s no laborer there to speak the truth.
The harvest is waiting in a lot of places..
Jesus spoke about the laborers for the harvest as he moved from town to town in Galilee and saw “troubled and abandoned” crowds, Matthew’s gospel says. We need to ask for laborers among crowds like those of today. Maybe we need to recognize there’s a harvest not far from where we are, “troubled and abandoned,” at a table nearby.
“At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” (Matthew 9, 34-38)
In every age, Jesus calls his disciples to speak to the troubled and abandoned crowds. In this 14th week of the year we have Matthew’s account of that first time Jesus called disciples to preach and enter his ministry. How should laborers in the harvest approach the troubled crowds today ?
In his 1977 novel “Lancelot” Walker Percy tells the story of Lancelot, a man confined to a prison hospital after setting fire to his beautiful ancestral home in Louisiana and murdering his wife and her lover. The man’s fed up with today’s world and turned against it, but he’s still trying to figure out what life’s all about. He’s on to something, one of Percy’s phrases.
An old priest visits him frequently in the prison hospital– his only visitor, it seems– and listens to him, but hardly says a word. That’s partially because Lancelot doesn’t think much anymore of the faith the priest represents.
Yet, the priest listens. Lancelot occasionally asks him if he understands. “Perhaps I talk to you because of your silence. Your silence is the only conversation I can listen to,” Lancelot remarks. Only as the book ends does he say to the priest: “Very well, I’ve finished. Is there anything you wish to tell me?”
In Pope Francis’ exhortation, “Gaudete et exultate”, there’s a wonderful exploration of holiness today. At one point, the pope says “Nor can we claim to say where God is not, because God is mysteriously present in the life of every person, in a way that he himself chooses, and we cannot exclude this by our presumed certainties. Even when someone’s life appears completely wrecked, even when we see it devastated by vices or addictions, God is present there. If we let ourselves be guided by the Spirit rather than our own preconceptions, we can and must try to find the Lord in every human life.” (42)
We’re sent as laborers for today’s harvest, but words may not be the only tools we have to use. Is silence, along with a persevering concern, ways to engage the troubled crowd today? The way of silence doesn’t mean we don’t have to search for the words to say today. We need to find out how the mysteries of the gospel speak in “new wineskins.”
Commentators say the Book of Hosea, the 8th century Jewish prophet we’re reading at Mass in the 14th week of the year, is one of the most difficult books of the bible to understand. Its language and its references are often obscure. But one part of Hosea’s story you can recognize in any television soap opera or romantic novel today: marital infidelity, a broken marriage.
Hosea had trouble with his wife, whose name is Gomer. He was very much in love with her; they’re married and had some children. But Gomer’s not satisfied with Hosea and her family and she leaves them. She wants something else– romance, freedom, new things to see and to do, a new life? Who knows what?
So Hosea is heartbroken and crushed when she leaves him. He doesn’t understand why it’s happened, he’s bewildered and angry and feeling rejected.
Yet he still loves her and tries to win her back. He wants to renew the love they had for each other. Eventually, Gomer comes back, but we’re not really sure if she will stay. What we do know is that Hosea wants to have her back and have their love renewed.
Hosea’s story is an example of God’s relationship to humanity. God loves the world and its people. Yet, we can be unfaithful. But God’s relationship is like the marital relationship, or as we also see in the Book of Hosea, the relationship of a father or mother to their children. God always wants us back.
You can hear the yearning of Hosea for his wife and the love of God for his people in Monday’s reading:
Thus says the LORD:
I will allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak to her heart.
She shall respond there as in the days of her youth,
when she came up from the land of Egypt.
On that day, says the LORD,
She shall call me “My husband,”
and never again “My baal.”
I will espouse you to me forever:
I will espouse you in right and in justice,
in love and in mercy;
I will espouse you in fidelity,
and you shall know the LORD.
(Hosea 2:6, 17-18,21-22)
Hosea is a wonderful prophet paired with Jesus’ call for preachers for the harvest, which is also read from Matthew’s Gospel this week. God always wants us back.
July 4th we celebrate our Independence Day in the USA. Parades, fireworks, speeches, hot dogs. What else? How about the meaning of it all? Today many wonder about the direction our country is taking.
Then there’s this beautiful prayer for the day.
Father of all nations and ages, we recall the day when our country claimed its place among the family of nations; for what has been achieved we give you thanks, for the work that still remains we ask your help, and as you have called us from many peoples to be one nation, grant that, under your providence, our country may share your blessings with all the peoples of the earth. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Today, July 3rd, we remember Thomas the apostle. We’re tempted to think that belief does away with troublesome questions and shelters us from unbelief, making our way to God smooth and undisturbed. Not so, Thomas reminds us; he found faith through his questions and by placing his finger into the wounds of Christ.
Gregory the Great reminds us today of the importance of Thomas the Apostle.
“In a marvellous way God’s mercy arranged that the disbelieving disciple, in touching the wounds of his master’s body, should heal our wounds of disbelief. The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples. As he touches Christ and is won over to belief, every doubt is cast aside and our faith is strengthened. So the disciple who doubted, then felt Christ’s wounds, becomes a witness to the reality of the resurrection.”
That’s an interesting statement, isn’t it? “The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples.” Is an unbelieving world strengthening our faith now?
We go to God through questions, and some troubles too. We’re healed by touching the wounds of Christ. How do we touch the wounds of Christ? Is it by touching those who are wounded like him?
Grant, Almighty God, that we may glory in the Feast of the blessed apostle Thomas, so that we may always be sustained by his intercession and, believing, may have life in the name of Jesus Christ your son, whom Thomas acknowledged as the Lord. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
We’re reading from the Prophet Amos this week at Mass. His message to 8th century Israel is “one of unrelieved gloom,” one commentator says. Israel then, Free from wars, was far from gloomy. Its rich were getting richer and enjoying the “good life”, at the expense of the poor. The religious authorities said nothing. The only voice raised was the voice of a poor, uneducated farmer who cultivated figs, Amos.
Israel’s celebration of feasts continued but Amos spoke for God: “I hate, I spurn your feasts…I take no pleasure in your solemnities…Away with your noisy songs! I will not listen to the melodies of your harps.” Destruction awaited a people unconcerned about the poor.
Still, God offers mercy to his people as we heard on Saturday in one of Amos’ most beautiful passages, echoes of which inspired Martin Luther KIng’s “I Have a Dream” speech:
“On that day I will raise up
the fallen hut of David;
I will wall up its breaches,
raise up its ruins,
and rebuild it as in the days of old…
Yes, days are coming,
says the LORD,
When the plowman shall overtake the reaper,
and the vintager, him who sows the seed;
The juice of grapes shall drip down the mountains,
and all the hills shall run with it.
I will bring about the restoration of my people Israel;
they shall rebuild and inhabit their ruined cities,
Plant vineyards and drink the wine,
set out gardens and eat the fruits.
I will plant them upon their own ground;
never again shall they be plucked
From the land I have given them,
say I, the LORD, your God.” (Amos 9,11-15)
A beautiful definition of mercy. God comes to humanity at its worst, in its sham, its blindness, its evil, and raises it up again. Mercy does not depend on merit. It’s God loving us in spite of ourselves.
We see mercy best as it’s exemplified in the Passion of Jesus. In spite of hypocrisy and injustice, God offers his love to heedless humanity and the promise of a kingdom.
July 1 is the Feast of the Precious Blood of Jesus in the Passionist calendar. It was a feast dear to St. Vincent Strambi, an Italian Passionist who lived in the 19th century when Europe was convulsed by Napoleon’s dreams of world conquest. Over 4 million people, military and civilian, were killed in the Napoleonic wars that stretched out for decades after Napoleon came to power. Bent on victory, Napoleon saw war and the blood shed in mass warfare as the price of empire.
I suppose we can say Napoleon began the armaments race that we see still in progress today. And empire building, or preserving it, still goes on today, spilling so much blood.
Strambi had great devotion to the Precious Blood of Jesus and often preached about it. He saw a new crucifixion in blood shed in fierce battles raging then through Europe and the suffering of those caught in “collateral damage” .The Feast of the Precious Blood turns our eyes not only to the blood flowing from Jesus’ side as he died on the cross but also to the blood shed today.
Painters like Durer (above) pictured angels holding cups catching blood from Jesus’ wounds. Don’t let his blood fall to the ground unnoticed, he tells us. It’s precious. All human life is precious.
Today is the feast of the early Roman martyrs who suffered in Nero’s persecution along with the apostles Peter and Paul. The persecution began with an early morning fire on July 19, 64, that broke out in a small shop by the Circus Maximus and spread rapidly to other regions of Rome, raging for nine days through the city’s narrow streets and alleyways, where more than a million people lived in apartment blocks of wooden construction.
Only two areas escaped the fire; Trastevere, across the Tiber River, which had large Jewish population, was one.
Nero was at his seaside villa in Anzio when the blaze began, but he delayed returning to the city. They say that when he heard the news, he began composing an ode comparing Rome to the burning city of Troy. His absence caused resentment among the people. Rumors began that Nero himself set the fire in order to rebuild the city from his own plans.
To quell the rumors, Nero decided to blame someone else, and he chose a group of renegade Jews called Christians, who had caused trouble before, and had a bad reputation in the city. Earlier, about the year 49, the Emperor Claudius had banished some of them from Rome for starting upheavals in the city’s Jewish synagogues with their disputes about Christ.
“Nero was the first to rage with Caesar’s sword against this sect,” wrote the early-Christian writer, Tertullian. “To suppress the rumor,” the Roman historian Tacitus says, “Nero created scapegoats. He punished with every kind of cruelty the notoriously depraved group known as Christians.” Just how long the process went on and how many were killed, the Roman historian does not say.
The early Roman Christians came mostly from the 60,000 Jewish merchants and slaves with strong ties to Jerusalem. Even before Peter and Paul arrived in Rome, Jewish-Christians, clearly identified as followers of Jesus Christ, were counted among the city’s Jews.
At the time of the fire Jewish Christians had become alienated from the larger Jewish community and began separating from it. Where they lived and met was well known. The authorities, following the usual procedure, seized some of them, brought them to the Prefecture and forced them by torture to give the names of others.
“First, Nero had some of the members of this sect arrested. Then, on their information, large numbers were condemned — not so much for arson, but for their hatred of the human race. Their deaths were made a farce.” (Tacitus)
Instead of executing the Christians immediately at the usual place, Nero executed them publicly in his gardens and in the circus on Vatican hill. “Mockery of every sort accompanied their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.” (Tacitus)
Most thought Nero went too far. “There arose in the people a sense of pity. For it was felt that they (the Christians) were being sacrificed for one man’s brutality rather than to the public interest.” (Tacitus)
We celebrate the memory of the victims of Nero’s persecution, our ancestors in faith, on June 30th, following the feast of Saints Peter and Paul.
Further Reading
It would be good to have two New Testament writings in mind as we celebrate this feast– the Gospel of Mark and the First Letter of Peter.
Many scholars believe the Gospel of Mark was written in Rome following Nero’s persecution and before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70. Roman Christians, reeling from persecution and fearing troubles ahead, learned from this gospel.
Most belonged to a Jewish community that enjoyed extensive privileges under Rome’s emperors; they felt safe and secure– until Nero’s reign. There were brave martyrs, but there were others who betrayed their fellow Christians.
Mark’s Gospel presents the Passion of Jesus as a stark, brutal martyrdom that can’t be explained. How appropriate for Christians facing absurd, unmerited suffering meted out by a capricious emperor. At the same time, more than other gospels, Mark portrays Peter as a disciple who fails his Master and then receives mercy. He seems to remind Rome’s Christians that not only the strong, but the weak are part of their church.
Mark’s Gospel is meant for hard times. Jesus Crucified calls his disciples to follow him to the Cross.
First Letter of Peter
Another New Testament writing offered a similar message to the Roman community and Christians beyond the city. Like Mark’s Gospel, the First Letter of Peter, written in Rome, calls for courage in suffering, even unjust, absurd suffering.
“Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps. He committed no sin and no deceit was found in his mouth. When he suffered he did not threaten; instead he handed himself over to the one who judges justly.” (1 Peter 2, 21-23)
The followers of Jesus should stay the course when suffering comes, Peter says. Stay where you are, the letter says, and “maintain good conduct among the Gentiles,” (1 Peter 2:12) “give honor to all, love the community, honor the king.”(1 Peter 2:17)
Following the Neronian persecution, many Jewish Christianss fled Jerusalem before Titus’ advancing legions. Seeing a sign of the last times, they prepared for the end. Rome’s Christians stayed where they were, it seems, and with their neighbors rebuilt their burnt city, waiting in hope for God’s kingdom to come.
They must have wondered whether to stay in this city, an evil city like Babylon. Should they go to a safer, better place? The Christians remained in the city. I wonder if the “Quo Vadis?” story was a story prompted by questions like these ?
The martyrs of Rome strengthen us to stand where we are and do God’s will, inspired by the Passion of Christ.
