Seeing Jesus through Mary

For the past month, as a community of Life Teen Missionaries, we have been saying a special set of prayers every day in preparation to consecrate ourselves to Jesus Christ through the Blessed Virgin Mary. I know this might sound a little odd; I myself had trouble with this at first. Mary is the mother of Jesus, but what does that have to do with me?—everything. It took me until the day before the consecration to fully understand that we are not making the Blessed Virgin Mary an idol but that she is our Mother. She is there to help guide us along our faith journey.  

On December 7th, we woke up early for a special candlelight Mass. The whole church was solely lit by small candles, which sat on the pews in front of each person. While mediating during the offertory, I closed my eyes and saw the image of the Blessed Virgin walking down the candlelit aisle towards the front of the altar, hand-in-hand with a little girl. As I looked closely, I began to realize that it was me. As we approached the altar, Jesus was welcoming his mother with open arms. Mary gave the little girl's hand to him and they all hugged. Instead of fighting and wasting energy over why I don't understand or why I need Mary to be closer to Jesus, I understood that I needed to approach it with faith like a child. To be led in reckless abandonment by my Sacred Mother to the arms of the King of Kings, her most precious Son, Jesus Christ.

Attitude of Gratitude

While reading the Gospel during Morning Prayer on December 2^nd, I scrambled to find my Bible. I began to read Matthew 15:32 – 39, The Multiplication of the fishes and loaves. I got about half way through the passage when I figured out that I wasn’t reading the right gospel for that day. Despite this, I continued to read.

While we pray The Liturgy of the Hours, we take a few moments to share how the Lord is speaking to our hearts. When we began our time of sharing, I recognized how God was clearly putting a theme in my life, that of being grateful. The reason why that passage was so fresh in my mind was because a good friend of mine had sent me a religious article on The Divine Gift of Gratitude the day before. It really placed the great value of being thankful for all the things God has already been providing for each and every day. It’s too easy to sometimes focus on the negatives and complain about the things we don’t have.

Let us follow the example of Jesus when He was faced with the challenge of feeding over four thousand of His followers with only seven loaves of bread and a few fish. Instead of complaining, like His disciples, Jesus took the bread and “gave thanks” to His Heavenly Father for what He already provided for Him. It has made me truly think about how much God has been providing for me recently in this mission year: a wonderful community, a home, a bed, warm clothes, food, and even a place to worship Him at my leisure. So instead of saying, “If only I had (Put Complaint Here) ” or “Things would get better if (Put Complaint Here),” we must try to give thanks without complaining. This is not something that will just happen overnight, but it is a choice.

Let us pray together to continually receive the grace of the Divine gift of gratitude.

Community Newsletter Oct/Nov 2010

Check out the 1st Newsletter from the Europe Mission Base Community:
https://docs.google.com/newsletter