The Death Of A Son (Psalm 22/69) by Michael Card

Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani
Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani
Why are you so far from saving me?
So far from the words of my groaning
By night and by day I cry out in pain
So why do you not answer?
Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One
And you our fathers trusted
They cried out to you and were saved
They were never disappointed
I am a worm and no longer a man
Lama Sabachthani
They have pierced my feet and hands
Lama Sabachthani
I look for comforters but found none
Oh how could you forsake me?
Oh my strength come quickly come
Come now O Lord and save me
For you would never despise or disdain
The suffering of the afflicted
In the congregation I will proclaim
That from the grave you lifted me
In the miry depths I sink
Lama Sabachthani
They gave me vinegar to drink
Lama Sabachthani
Lama Sabachthani

With Hope by Steven Curtis Chapman

This is not at all how
We thought it was supposed to be
We had so many plans for you
We had so many dreams
And now you've gone away
And left us with the memories of your smile
And nothing we can say
And nothing we can do
Can take away the pain
The pain of losing you, but ...

We can cry with hope
We can say goodbye with hope
'Cause we know our goodbye is not the end, oh no
And we can grieve with hope
'Cause we believe with hope
(There's a place by God's grace)
There's a place where we'll see your face again
We'll see your face again

And never have I known
Anything so hard to understand
And never have I questioned more
The wisdom of God's plan
But through the cloud of tears
I see the Father's smile and say well done
And I imagine you
Where you wanted most to be
Seeing all your dreams come true
'Cause now you're home
And now you're free, and ...

We have this hope as an anchor
'Cause we believe that everything
God promised us is true, so ...

So we can cry with hope
And say goodbye with hope

We wait with hope
And we ache with hope
We hold on with hope
We let go with hope

My variation on a quote from Romans

Paul - "where sin did abound, grace did more abound"

Mike - "where grief did abound, love and comfort did more abound"

Requiem: Eric Wolterstorff in Memoriam

By Cary Ratcliff

Given on May 18^th, 1986

Part 1

Truly terrible is the mystery of death.

I lament at the sight of beauty

created for us in the image of God

which lies now in the grave

without shape, without glory,

without consideration.

What is this mystery that surrounds us?

Why are we delivered up into decay?

Why are we bound to death?

John of Damascus

There is hope for a tree if it be cut down,

that it will sprout again.

And its shoots not cease.

But we die and disappear.

We breath our last and where are we?

Job 14

Never again do we return home.

Our dwelling place knows us no more.

Job 7

Part 2

Like an bird alone in the desert

or an owl in a ruined house

I lie awake and groan,

like a sparrow lost on a roof

Ashes are the bread I eat,

I mingle tears with my drink.

Psalm 102

From the depths I cry to you, oh Lord,

give head to my lament.

Psalm 140

Does the grave declare your great love?

Is your truth proclaimed in the tombs?

Are your wonders admired in the dark

or your mercy where all is forgotten?

Psalm 88

Why do you turn away?

Why do you hide your face?

I wait for you, my soul waits,

and in your word I have hope.

Psalm 130

Restore me oh God my savior.

Psalm 85

Part 3

In all our afflictions he is afflicted,

and the angel of his presence saves us;

in his love and pity he redeems us,

he lifts us up and carries us all our days.

Isaiah 63:9

He bears our grief

and carries our sorrows;

by his wounds we are healed.

Isaiah 53:4,5

Part 4

In my beginning is my end

In my end is my beginning

TS Elliot

O lord, you have fathomed and known me:

you know when I sit down or stand  

you created my inmost thoughts

as you wove me within the womb \.

You saw me before I was born,

My days were inscribed in your book;

They were all formed and set

Before a single one came to be.

Psalm 139

My heart is not proud,

My eyes are not haughty;

I am not intent on great things

Nor achievements sublime.

My soul lies at rest

As quiet as a child;

My soul is as still as a babe

At its mother’s breast.

Psalm 131

I depart in peace

For my eyes have seen your salvation .

You have shown me the path of life.

In you presence there is fullness of joy,

In your right hand are pleasures forever more.

Psalm 16

In justice I go to behold your face;

I shall find joy in your likeness when I awake.

Psalm 17

Part 5

Ours days are like grass;

we flourish like flowers of the field;

the wind passes over us and we are gone,

and our place knows us no more.

But the steadfast love of the Lord abides

forever.

Psalm 103

Though the fig trees do not blossom

nor fruit be on the vine;

the produce of the olive fail

and the field yields no more food;

though the flock be cut of from the fold

and there be no food in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord;

I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.

Habakkaku 3

Part  6

We have seen a great mystery:

We shall all be changed.

We shall all be raised in Christ

as we were buried in Christ.

Death is swallowed up in victory.

The dwelling of God will be with his people.

God will wipe every tear from their eyes,

and death shall be no more.

There shall be no mourning, no crying nor

pain;

sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

For the old things are disappearing.

Revelation 21

The poor will be raised from the dust,

the sorrowing, lifted up from their ashes.

Song of Hannah

Those who sowed in tears

shall reap in songs of joy.

Psalm 126

For the word of the Lord is peace.

Psalm 85

“Behold, I am making all things new.

I am the Alpha and the Omega,

the beginning and the end.”

Revelation 21

To love means..............

The only hearts that do not break are the ones that are busily constructing little hells of loveless control, cocoons of safe, respectable selfishness to insulate themselves from the tidal wave of tears that comes sooner or later.
Peter Kreeft

Catholic Fiction list site

Click here for the lists -  http://www.catholicfiction.net/catholic-fiction-reading-list/catholic-fiction-reading-list-a-b/

10 best link - http://www.faithalivebooks.com/recommend/recom_10_best_novels.html

Catholic fiction in England link - http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2007/11/the-catholic-novel-is-alive-an

http://www.frcoulter.com/books/novels.html

http://www.staustinreview.com/uploads/issues/May_June_2010_article.pdf

http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=11183

http://www.illuminos.com/mem/selectPapers/christianityAndLiterature.html

Your Cross - St Francis de Sales

The everlasting God has

in His wisdom foreseen

from eternity the cross

that He now presents to you

as a gift from His inmost heart.

This cross He now sends you

He has considered with His all-knowing eyes,

understood with His divine mind,

tested with His wise justice,

warmed with loving arms

and weighed with His own hands

to see that it be not one inch too large

and not one ounce too heavy for you.

He has blessed it with His holy Name,

anointed it with His consolation,

taken one last glance at you

and your courage,

and then sent it to you from heaven,

a special greeting from God to you,

an alms of the all-merciful love of God.

Mark Shea links on the Last things

On Earth as it is in Heaven - http://catholicexchange.com/2010/09/29/128242/

The World to Come http://catholicexchange.com/2010/09/10/89660/

Who Art in Heaven -http://catholicexchange.com/2010/09/01/128234/

Blessed are Those who are Persecuted - http://catholicexchange.com/2010/06/02/128204/ 

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul

Prayer of Cardinal Newman

Dear Jesus, Help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go.

Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.

Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly, that my life may only be a radiance of Yours.

Shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul.

Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus!

Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be a light to others;

the light, O Jesus will be all from You; none of it will be mine; it will be you, shining on others through me.

Let me thus praise You the way You love best, by shining on those around me.

Let me preach You without preaching, not by words but by my example,

by the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You. Amen.

Amos 8:4-7 (New International Version)

 ⁴ Hear this, you who trample the needy
       and do away with the poor of the land,
 ⁵ saying,
       "When will the New Moon be over
       that we may sell grain,
       and the Sabbath be ended
       that we may market wheat?"—
       skimping the measure,
       boosting the price
       and cheating with dishonest scales,
 ⁶ buying the poor with silver
       and the needy for a pair of sandals,
       selling even the sweepings with the wheat.
 ⁷ The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: "I will never forget anything they have done.

(God's justice reigns either in this world or in the next at the last judgment)

THE GREAT STORM IS OVER (Bob Franke)

1. Thunder and lightning gave voice to the night,
The little lame child cried aloud in her fright,
Hush little baby, a story I'll tell,
Of a love that has conquered the powers of hell.

Chorus:
Alleluia, the great storm is over,
Lift up your wings and fly!
Alleluia, the great storm is over,
Lift up your wings and fly!

2. Sweetness in the air and justice on the wind
Laughter in the house where the mourners have been
The deaf shall have music, the blind have new eyes
The standards of death taken down by surprise.

3. Release for the captives, an end to the wars
New streams in the desert, new hope for the poor,
The little lame children will dance as they sing,
And play with the bears and the lions in spring.

4. Hush little baby, let go of your fear,
The lord loves his own and your mother is here,
The child fell asleep as the lantern did burn,
The mother sang on 'til her bridegroom's return.

Autism and Agape - What Max and Emily Taught Me

Breakpoint - Charles Colson

September 16, 2010

Late one Saturday afternoon, when Max was five years old, Emily and I took him to a shopping mall. Max became fascinated by a certain toy and was oblivious to everything else, including the announcement that the mall was closing in 20 minutes.

Emily started to gently try and move Max toward the door. And that’s when everything fell apart: he started to scream as she and I each took him by the hand and tried to get him to leave. People stared at us as we dragged him out of the mall—all the while avoiding looking at the people looking at us.

All in all, not one of my fonder memories, yet it’s one I value, because it’s a reminder of how Max and Emily have taught me the meaning of love.

To be honest, I can be judgmental towards other people. A child crying on a plane for example, when I wanted to work, made me wonder what is wrong with the parents. The patience and generosity that enables us to understand the plight of others doesn’t come naturally to me—or to just about anyone else, for that matter.

To the extent that I have learned it, I have learned it from watching Emily and Max. Watching Emily, and other parents of children with special needs, has taught me what it means to love in the biblical sense of the word agape.

It’s a kind of love that the secular, materialistic worldview cannot account for, much less inspire. The best explanation it can give is a condescending, Darwinian explanation for altruism. In this account, a parent’s self-sacrificing care for the child isn’t altruistic at all. It is merely a way of assuring that our selfish genes are passed on.

In other words, what we think is love and altruism is really a selfish investment.

People like Emily put the lie to this idea--precisely because the objects of their love are, evolutionarily-speaking, terrible investments. They can’t take care of you in your old age and they are unlikely to pass on your genes.

None of that matters – these children are loved in a manner that can best be described as fierce. There is nothing that their parents wouldn’t do for them--no sacrifice too great to make. The idea that their own “needs” should somehow take precedence over their child’s is literally nonsensical to them.

And that’s what agape is. It’s giving yourself away for the sake of the other person.

This is of course what God did in Christ. Christ emptied himself for our sake. The hardest thing about being a Christian isn’t following rules – it’s the willingness to give ourselves away in imitation of the Savior.

Remember, there are four words in Greek used to describe love. Every one is self-serving except agape, which is totally self-giving. It knows that the things this world puts so much stock in such as possessions and status, aren’t ours – they are meant to be given away unconditionally.

As Paul wrote in Galatians 5: The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Through agape love.

As I write in the epilogue of Emily’s wonderful book, Dancing with Max, that’s what my daughter has taught me--for which I will be eternally grateful. It’s the kind of treasure I wouldn't trade for anything in life.

Love Alone is Believable

click on link to read article about the works of Von Balthasar

http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/jcihak_hubapol_may05.asp

Self Sacrifing Love - indirect proof of God's existence

For the past few decades, evolutionary psychology has been one of the hottest fields in science. Every time you read a newspaper, a magazine or listen to the radio, there’s a good chance you will run across a story purporting to explain modern human behavior in Darwinian terms.

The “Holy Grail” of such explanations is the attempt to explain human altruism. When the late philosopher Michael Stove called evolution a “ridiculous slander to human beings,” he had our capacity for kindness, generosity, and other moral conduct in mind. It’s Darwinism’s commitment to survival of the fittest that can’t explain this most essential part of being human—caring for others.

Earlier this month, Harvard’s Standing Committee on Professional Conduct found professor Marc Hauser, a leader in the field of evolutionary psychology, guilty of “scientific misconduct.”
The finding followed a three-year investigation into allegations Hauser had fudged his data on the cognitive abilities of cotton-top tamarins. Those are monkeys. That may sound obscure, but the goal of Hauser’s research was to develop a “science of morality” or, more accurately, a philosophy masquerading as a science.

In short, evolutionary psychology is a philosophy in search of data. And without actual evidence, all that people like Hauser are left with are unsubstantiated propositions that are contradicted by millennia of human experience.

The discrediting of Hauser’s work leaves Darwinism and evolutionary psychology without an explanation for altruism and self-sacrifice–the very qualities that distinguish us from the rest of creation.

New Heaven, New Earth quote from Dallas Willard

"The life we now have as the persons we now are will continue in the universe in which we now live"

John Eldredge quote from "Journey of Desire"

Life is a desperate quest through dangerous country to a destination that is beyond all of our wildest hopes, indescribably good.

Pauls' Great Adventure - 2 Cor 11: 18-30

18 So many people boast on merely human grounds that I shall too.
19 I know how happy you are to put up with fools, being so wise yourselves;
20 and how you will still go on putting up with a man who enslaves you, eats up all you possess, keeps you under his orders and sets himself above you, or even slaps you in the face.
21 I say it to your shame; perhaps we have been too weak. Whatever bold claims anyone makes -- now I am talking as a fool -- I can make them too.
22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I.
23 Are they servants of Christ? I speak in utter folly -- I am too, and more than they are: I have done more work, I have been in prison more, I have been flogged more severely, many times exposed to death.
24 Five times I have been given the thirty-nine lashes by the Jews;
25 three times I have been beaten with sticks; once I was stoned; three times I have been shipwrecked, and once I have been in the open sea for a night and a day;
26 continually travelling, I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from brigands, in danger from my own people and in danger from the gentiles, in danger in the towns and in danger in the open country, in danger at sea and in danger from people masquerading as brothers;
27 I have worked with unsparing energy, for many nights without sleep; I have been hungry and thirsty, and often altogether without food or drink; I have been cold and lacked clothing.
28 And, besides all the external things, there is, day in day out, the pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.
29 If anyone weakens, I am weakened as well; and when anyone is made to fall, I burn in agony myself.
30 If I have to boast, I will boast of all the ways in which I am weak.

the Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

(Although known most widely in its abbreviated form above,
the entire prayer reads as follows:)

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

Benedict XVI - Save in Hope

Selections 

40. I would like to add here another brief comment with some relevance for everyday living. There used to be a form of devotion—perhaps less practised today but quite widespread not long ago—that included the idea of “offering up” the minor daily hardships that continually strike at us like irritating “jabs”, thereby giving them a meaning. Of course, there were some exaggerations and perhaps unhealthy applications of this devotion, but we need to ask ourselves whether there may not after all have been something essential and helpful contained within it. What does it mean to offer something up? Those who did so were convinced that they could insert these little annoyances into Christ's great “com-passion” so that they somehow became part of the treasury of compassion so greatly needed by the human race. In this way, even the small inconveniences of daily life could acquire meaning and contribute to the economy of good and of human love. Maybe we should consider whether it might be judicious to revive this practice ourselves. 


46. Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life. For the great majority of people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil —much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul. What happens to such individuals when they appear before the Judge? Will all the impurity they have amassed through life suddenly cease to matter? What else might occur? Saint Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, gives us an idea of the differing impact of God's judgement according to each person's particular circumstances. He does this using images which in some way try to express the invisible, without it being possible for us to conceptualize these images—simply because we can neither see into the world beyond death nor do we have any experience of it. Paul begins by saying that Christian life is built upon a common foundation: Jesus Christ. This foundation endures. If we have stood firm on this foundation and built our life upon it, we know that it cannot be taken away from us even in death. Then Paul continues: “Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each man's work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Cor 3:12-15). In this text, it is in any case evident that our salvation can take different forms, that some of what is built may be burned down, that in order to be saved we personally have to pass through “fire” so as to become fully open to receiving God and able to take our place at the table of the eternal marriage-feast. 





47. Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God. In this way the inter-relation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love. Indeed, it has already been burned away through Christ's Passion. At the moment of judgement we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy. It is clear that we cannot calculate the “duration” of this transforming burning in terms of the chronological measurements of this world. The transforming “moment” of this encounter eludes earthly time-reckoning—it is the heart's time, it is the time of “passage” to communion with God in the Body of Christ.³⁹ The judgement of God is hope, both because it is justice and because it is grace. If it were merely grace, making all earthly things cease to matter, God would still owe us an answer to the question about justice—the crucial question that we ask of history and of God. If it were merely justice, in the end it could bring only fear to us all. The incarnation of God in Christ has so closely linked the two together—judgement and grace—that justice is firmly established: we all work out our salvation “with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). Nevertheless grace allows us all to hope, and to go trustfully to meet the Judge whom we know as our “advocate”, or parakletos (cf. 1 Jn 2:1). 





48. A further point must be mentioned here, because it is important for the practice of Christian hope. Early Jewish thought includes the idea that one can help the deceased in their intermediate state through prayer (see for example 2 Macc 12:38-45; first century BC). The equivalent practice was readily adopted by Christians and is common to the Eastern and Western Church. The East does not recognize the purifying and expiatory suffering of souls in the afterlife, but it does acknowledge various levels of beatitude and of suffering in the intermediate state. The souls of the departed can, however, receive “solace and refreshment” through the Eucharist, prayer and almsgiving. The belief that love can reach into the afterlife, that reciprocal giving and receiving is possible, in which our affection for one another continues beyond the limits of death—this has been a fundamental conviction of Christianity throughout the ages and it remains a source of comfort today. Who would not feel the need to convey to their departed loved ones a sign of kindness, a gesture of gratitude or even a request for pardon? Now a further question arises: if “Purgatory” is simply purification through fire in the encounter with the Lord, Judge and Saviour, how can a third person intervene, even if he or she is particularly close to the other? When we ask such a question, we should recall that no man is an island, entire of itself. Our lives are involved with one another, through innumerable interactions they are linked together. No one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone. The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do and achieve. And conversely, my life spills over into that of others: for better and for worse. So my prayer for another is not something extraneous to that person, something external, not even after death. In the interconnectedness of Being, my gratitude to the other—my prayer for him—can play a small part in his purification. And for that there is no need to convert earthly time into God's time: in the communion of souls simple terrestrial time is superseded. It is never too late to touch the heart of another, nor is it ever in vain. In this way we further clarify an important element of the Christian concept of hope. Our hope is always essentially also hope for others; only thus is it truly hope for me too.⁴⁰ As Christians we should never limit ourselves to asking: how can I save myself? We should also ask: what can I do in order that others may be saved and that for them too the star of hope may rise? Then I will have done my utmost for my own personal salvation as well. 



Mary, Star of Hope
49. With a hymn composed in the eighth or ninth century, thus for over a thousand years, the Church has greeted Mary, the Mother of God, as “Star of the Sea”: Ave maris stella. Human life is a journey. Towards what destination? How do we find the way? Life is like a voyage on the sea of history, often dark and stormy, a voyage in which we watch for the stars that indicate the route. The true stars of our life are the people who have lived good lives. They are lights of hope. Certainly, Jesus Christ is the true light, the sun that has risen above all the shadows of history. But to reach him we also need lights close by—people who shine with his light and so guide us along our way. Who more than Mary could be a star of hope for us? With her “yes” she opened the door of our world to God himself; she became the living Ark of the Covenant, in whom God took flesh, became one of us, and pitched his tent among us (cf. Jn 1:14).



50. So we cry to her: Holy Mary, you belonged to the humble and great souls of Israel who, like Simeon, were “looking for the consolation of Israel” (Lk 2:25) and hoping, like Anna, “for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Lk 2:38). Your life was thoroughly imbued with the sacred scriptures of Israel which spoke of hope, of the promise made to Abraham and his descendants (cf. Lk 1:55). In this way we can appreciate the holy fear that overcame you when the angel of the Lord appeared to you and told you that you would give birth to the One who was the hope of Israel, the One awaited by the world. Through you, through your “yes”, the hope of the ages became reality, entering this world and its history. You bowed low before the greatness of this task and gave your consent: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). When you hastened with holy joy across the mountains of Judea to see your cousin Elizabeth, you became the image of the Church to come, which carries the hope of the world in her womb across the mountains of history. But alongside the joy which, with your Magnificat, you proclaimed in word and song for all the centuries to hear, you also knew the dark sayings of the prophets about the suffering of the servant of God in this world. Shining over his birth in the stable at Bethlehem, there were angels in splendour who brought the good news to the shepherds, but at the same time the lowliness of God in this world was all too palpable. The old man Simeon spoke to you of the sword which would pierce your soul (cf. Lk 2:35), of the sign of contradiction that your Son would be in this world. Then, when Jesus began his public ministry, you had to step aside, so that a new family could grow, the family which it was his mission to establish and which would be made up of those who heard his word and kept it (cf. Lk 11:27f). Notwithstanding the great joy that marked the beginning of Jesus's ministry, in the synagogue of Nazareth you must already have experienced the truth of the saying about the “sign of contradiction” (cf. Lk 4:28ff). In this way you saw the growing power of hostility and rejection which built up around Jesus until the hour of the Cross, when you had to look upon the Saviour of the world, the heir of David, the Son of God dying like a failure, exposed to mockery, between criminals. Then you received the word of Jesus: “Woman, behold, your Son!” (Jn 19:26). From the Cross you received a new mission. From the Cross you became a mother in a new way: the mother of all those who believe in your Son Jesus and wish to follow him. The sword of sorrow pierced your heart. Did hope die? Did the world remain definitively without light, and life without purpose? At that moment, deep down, you probably listened again to the word spoken by the angel in answer to your fear at the time of the Annunciation: “Do not be afraid, Mary!” (Lk 1:30). How many times had the Lord, your Son, said the same thing to his disciples: do not be afraid! In your heart, you heard this word again during the night of Golgotha. Before the hour of his betrayal he had said to his disciples: “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33). “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (Jn 14:27). “Do not be afraid, Mary!” In that hour at Nazareth the angel had also said to you: “Of his kingdom there will be no end” (Lk 1:33). Could it have ended before it began? No, at the foot of the Cross, on the strength of Jesus's own word, you became the mother of believers. In this faith, which even in the darkness of Holy Saturday bore the certitude of hope, you made your way towards Easter morning. The joy of the Resurrection touched your heart and united you in a new way to the disciples, destined to become the family of Jesus through faith. In this way you were in the midst of the community of believers, who in the days following the Ascension prayed with one voice for the gift of the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 1:14) and then received that gift on the day of Pentecost. The “Kingdom” of Jesus was not as might have been imagined. It began in that hour, and of this “Kingdom” there will be no end. Thus you remain in the midst of the disciples as their Mother, as the Mother of hope. Holy Mary, Mother of God, our Mother, teach us to believe, to hope, to love with you. Show us the way to his Kingdom! Star of the Sea, shine upon us and guide us on our way!