The Anchoress

In the middle ages an Anchoress was a woman who lived in a small, sealed room inside a church;she would have visual access to the Sanctuary and to Holy Communion. Usually there was also a small side window at which she could converse with visitors, receive foods, etc. Usually an Anchorite was rather a mystical and wise sort of person, steeped in prayer. Whether I am wise or holy (prolly not) is for The One to decide - I make no claims for myself, but as a shy type of person with a liking for anonymity, I don't mind taking a line from Julian of Norwich, the wise Anchoress in Britain whose name is lost except as to the patron of her church. Consider this my window. Instead of passing me food, comments will do! I ask only that you be civil, because I do believe that decent people can disagree and still be decent people. Everything is copyrighted, 2006 The Anchoress. Note: All emails are considered fair game for publication, unless you specifically tell me not to quote you or use your name, in which case I am happy to comply.

June 20, 2006

What WOULD Mary do?

Filed under: Faith, Catholicism, Mary

The other day I posted a homily written and delivered by a pal of mine who is taking a homiletics class in preparation for his ordination as a permanent Deacon in the R.C. Church.

Last week’s homily was good. This one is dynamite. It’s provocative, faith-filled, challenging and it will make you think in ways you might not have, before.

What Would Mary Do?
by Greg Kandra

His name was Charles Sheldon – and he is one of the most influential preachers and spiritual writers in American history. Don’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of him. Until I started looking into this a few days ago, I hadn’t heard of him, either.

In 1896, Sheldon published a novel called In His Steps, about a small Kansas town that decided to try and live by a simple credo … summed up in four short words. What Would Jesus Do? Well, the rest is history. Sheldon’s book went on to be published in 21 languages around the world, and the central idea of it became one of the most familiar slogans in popular Christianity. You find it – or its abbreviation, WWJD – on tee shirts, bumper stickers and wristbands.

As Catholic Christians, it’s fair to ask ourselves at important moments of choosing What Would Jesus Do?

But on this feast day (The Annunciation, March 25)…I’d like to challenge you with another question. WWMD? What Would Mary Do?

She was the first disciple – the model for us all – and in her life and in her choices we can gain insight that can help guide our lives, and our choices…beginning with today’s gospel.

When an angel arrives in Nazareth, and tells a peasant girl that she is about to become the mother of the Son of God … what does Mary do? She is young, 12 or 13. She’s not married, doesn’t appear to have a lot of money. Does she try to change things? Does she consider this whole idea unacceptable? Does she bargain or beg or badger?

No. She reacts with breathtaking humility. Mary says: “Behold. I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

A generation later, her Son would echo that idea in the most famous prayer ever composed: “Thy will be done.” I wouldn’t be surprised if He learned that from his mother.

We can learn from her, too.

When the life we have planned suddenly takes a turn we didn’t expect …when the job falls through, or the loan is rejected, or the doctor announces that you’ll soon have another mouth to feed … maybe we should ask ourselves: what would Mary do?

After the Annunciation, Mary sets off to visit her cousin Elizabeth –to help in the final months of her cousin’s own pregnancy. What does Mary do? Is she hysterical? Does she complain? No. She says these words of praise to God: “The Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name.” At this moment, she doesn’t think of herself, her situation, the crisis that she now finds herself facing. She is a young, unmarried pregnant girl – one who, according to the justice of her day, could have been stoned to death. She doesn’t go into hiding. No. She goes out into the world, seeking instead to serve another…and to serve God.

When we find our lives turned upside down … what would Mary do? When we are tempted to think only about ourselves and our own problems…what would Mary do? When there is an opportunity to serve, to help, to offer hope, to make ourselves present, truly present, in the life of another… what would Mary do?

Mary makes other appearances in the gospels, but one that stays with me is at the wedding in Cana. This could be considered her benediction to the world – her advice to a seeking and uncertain Church. In the middle of a wedding, a ceremony celebrating life and community – a new beginning — she points to her son, and says: “Do whatever He tells you.”

It is a powerful testament of faith – and Mary’s final words in the gospels. It’s a statement so significant, Cardinal Archbishop Sean O’Malley of Boston even chose it as his motto.

Do whatever He tells you.

Perhaps, that is the ultimate lesson of fidelity and humility from Christ’s first disciple.

When we seek guidance or direction … what would Mary do? When we are torn between difficult choices — on the job or in life — which one should we make?

What would Mary do? She’d point to her son and say, “Do whatever He tells you.”

What you hear in those words is a lifetime of wisdom and experience – and holiness.

And it began, really, on this feast that we celebrate today. To your right, in this beautiful church, there is a window that depicts the moment of the Annunciation. Gabriel is speaking to Mary…the Holy Spirit is present in the form of a dove…and there is Mary, looking up from a book.

Think for a moment about that image. Mary is studying the word…at the moment she begins to carry The Word.

It is a reminder to us that Mary was the “First Tabernacle.” The first to carry Jesus, and shelter him. In a few moments, we’ll receive the fruits of that tabernacle, in the Eucharist. And the salvation of the world, first made present within Mary, will be present, as well, within us.

Like Mary, we will become tabernacles for Christ.

Savor that opportunity, especially today. Because today we celebrate the moment when our salvation was proclaimed. The impossible became possible. A stranger announced the presence of God, and a girl looked up from her book to declare her assent – her willingness – to take part in the greatest mystery in human history.

Every day, we are invited to share in that mystery – to carry Christ within us, and to bring Him to others.

When God offers us that invitation, it’s worth asking ourselves: “What would Mary do?”

Also by Greg Kandra: Holding Fast and Having Faith

December 12, 2005

Our Lady of Guadalupe and Iraq?

Filed under: Bush Good, America, Mary

Today is a good day.

It is one of my favorite Marian feast days, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. She is the woman from the Book of Revelation, Chapter 12, the “woman clothed with the sun, who stands upon the moon…she is pregnant…” Note, it’s a crescent moon.

And it’s an important day for George W. Bush, too, because it was on this feastday that the Election debacle of 2000 finally ended.

Good things seem to happen for Bush on Marian feast days - I’ve noted it and made a list, here.

This feastday is a fairly new one - Pope John Paul made a rather hasty (not long-planned) trip to Mexico in 1999, specifically to name Guadalupe the Patroness of the Americas and designate the feastday. Those around him noted that doing so seemed important to him - that it be done that year, and not put off.

Muslims love and honor Mary. And today, on one of her great feasts, Muslims in the heart of the Middle East are beginning their elections, and they are dancing as they vote.

Whether those who hate the president will admit it or not, he is responsible for the new freedom of millions, and he is inspiring millions more to seek freedom and work for it.

Today is a good day.

Happy Catholic has a really excellent piece on all the symbolism contained in the image of the Guadalupe. Go read, you’ll like.

November 23, 2004

More things in heaven and on earth than are dreamt…

Filed under: Bush Good, Catholicism, Election 2004, Mary

However…some odd things do get thought about, sometimes.

Here is a question that sounds absurd on the face of it. What do a few obscure Catholic holy days and various feast days of the Blessed Virgin Mary have to do with a formerly hard-drinking-now-reformed Methodist? The answer is, perhaps nothing, or perhaps quite a lot.

During the Great Recount Debacle of Election 2000 – designated the Year of Great Jubilee by Pope John Paul II - some people began to notice that things seemed to go George Bush’s way on feast days of the Catholic Church, or on days that had a Marian connection. And their theory seemed to hold true through Bush’s re-election efforts, too.

Many who watched the 2000 election recount closely maintain that December 8 was the day the tide began to turn in Bush’s favor. On that date, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Florida Judges Terry Lewis and Nikki Carr refused to throw out any of the 25,000 absentee ballots challenged by the Gore campaign in the Martin and Seminole counties. Just a few days later, on December 12 (the newly assigned Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe) everything fell into place for Dubya. The Florida Legislature approved the 25 electors pledged to Bush, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the decisions of Judges Lewis and Carr and, most definitively, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled the Florida recounts unconstitutional, bringing the whole sad exercise to a close. The election of 2000 finally ended on the feast day of the new Patroness of the Americas.

But this odd connection between George Bush and the Catholic Calendar does not seem to end there. Indeed, some of the most noteworthy dates of Bush’s presidency and re-election campaign line up rather remarkably to dates which - while vague to the secular world – are tied into faith. A partial list:

January 6, 2001: Final Day of the Great Jubilee 2000, and Feast of The Epiphany of the Lord; Congress meets in joint session to officially tally the electoral votes of Election 2000, naming winner George W. Bush.

September 11, 2001: The Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary; The date of the worst attack on American soil in her history.

September 14, 2001: The Feast of the Triumph of the Cross; The US Congress authorizes the President to use “all military force” in combating terrorism. Also the National Day of Prayer, and the Memorial Service at the National Cathedral. It is also the day George W. Bush stands upon a pile of rubble and lifts America off her knees.

August 15, 2004: Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary; With President Bush’s re-election campaign staggering under relentlessly negative media coverage, this date sees the oddly-timed Sunday (!) release of the book Unfit for Command, written with the co-operation of veterans of the Vietnam War who feel compelled to tell what they know of the challenger, Senator John Kerry. The book is ignored by the press and denounced by the left, but it is an immediate help to the Bush campaign.

September 14, 2004: Triumph of the Cross; Rathergate, so named for promulgation (by CBS anchorman Dan Rather) of false documents purporting to prove special favors given to Lt. George W. Bush during his service in the Texas Air National Guard, comes undone as document expert Marcel Matley admits “I cannot authenticate the papers.”

October 8, 2004: Anniversary of the October 8, 2000 Apparition of Mary at St. Mark’s (Coptic Orthodox) Church in Assiut, Egypt, and the simultaneous imploring by Pope John Paul II that Mary protect the entire world in the third millennium. After doing poorly in the first Presidential Debate, the president shines in a town hall setting. Although the efforts of Moveon.org, Terry McAuliffe and some in the media manage to spin it as a Kerry victory, even the talking heads on MSNBC give it to Bush, and so do the American people.

October 13, 2004: Anniversary of the 1917 Final Apparition and the Miracle of the Sun, Fatima, Portugal (named for the daughter of Mohammed, who there defied her family and married a Christian man.) Third and final Presidential Debate. Once again, after Kerry-camp spin, most give it to President Bush.

The 2004 election season came to a close on Tuesday, November 2, the Feast of All Souls – a day set aside to remember all who came before us, and especially those who have recently died. In an era of terror and sad-but-necessary war, it seems most fitting that George W. Bush would be re-elected on that date. In the AP snapshot of Bush and his family watching the returns, one notices a Marian Icon on a table, between the president and his daughter Barbara. It seems right.

It will be interesting to see what things happen when, during the next 4 years. Fun to keep track of, anyway.

Maybe I don’t have enough to do.