Legion of Mary
Melbourne Senatus
Prayer with Action
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Legion of Mary
Melbourne Senatus Prayer with Action |
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SUMMER SCHOOL 2007 MARY’S MAGNIFICAT – BUILDING BRIDGES NOT WALLS
AUXILIARY BISHOP OF MELBOURNE Thank you so much in inviting me to participate in your annual Summer School. I have been a priest now for 26 years and every parish I have ministered was found an active Legion of Mary group of committed Catholics. It was always inspirational to my faith to see such service in the name of the Church been offered in such a humble and subtle way. Such humility in service is offered in the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, the mother of God. I am delighted that you have devoted your Summer School to reflect on her openness to the Holy Spirit. One of my favourite biblical prayers is Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1/46-55). Let us pray it now….. MARY – THE MAGNIFICAT BRIDGE BUILDER In June last year, I was privileged to lead a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. We visited Ein Karem, a suburb of Jerusalem. It was the home of John the Baptist’s family. In Luke’s Gospel it is where the pregnant Mary first prayed her magnificent Magnificat. On the top of a hill is a beautiful Church dedicated to this moment – the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth. I was mesmorised by a most gracious statue outside this basilica. It was of two pregnant women greeting each other – Mary and her cousin Elizabeth. It was so clear to see in the statue that there were four people present and not just two. There were Mary and Elizabeth, and within the wombs of their mothers, Jesus and John the Baptist. Who knows, perhaps it was the first example in the Gospels of shared prayer. Mary’s initiative in visiting her cousin would not have been easy. The guild told us that it may have taken many hours for the pregnant Mary to travel to Elizabeth and Zechariah’s home, presumably on the back of a donkey!! It says something of Mary’s zeal and determination to be a bridge builder in her exalted circumstances. Just to admire this statue of the two greeting each other made me see this more clearly than ever. Here we have Mary being a kind of symbolic bridge between the New Testament and the Old Testament. We see Jesus within her, The New Covenant, greeting John the Baptist, the last of the great Old Testament prophets. It is like a passing on of the baton of faith from one covenant to the other. And it is made possible because Mary went well and truly out of her “comfort zone” to be a symbolic bridge between the Covenants. Here we have the New Eve, Mary, bridging the gap left by the disobedience of the First Eve. Jesus is forever THE bridge builder between God and all of us, but Mary is foreshadowing in her actions THE great “Pontifex Maximus”, Jesus, the Lord and Saviour. And as Mary has done this, so must we! BRIDGES NOT WALLS IN BETHLEHEM But the place of the Visitation was not the only place we visited in the Holy Land. We were visiting in mid 2006 just before warfare broke out again in this troubled area of the world. War was far from our minds though as we visited the other sacred places where Jesus proclaimed the in-breaking Kingdom of God – a Kingdom of peace. For example, as we approached Bethlehem from nearby Jerusalem we were shocked to notice an enormous wall virtually separating the two cities. This pathetic attempt to separate waring parties placed a huge barrier between the place of the Birth of Jesus from his Passion, Death, Resurrection and Pentecost. From a theological perspective, this seemed absurd, as the two are inseparable in the Christian heart. Our bus stopped at the heavily fortified gate separating the two cities. A comparatively young soldier boarded to inspect us and walked down the aisle of the bus carrying a big sub-machine gun. This paradox between peace and war became so personal to us as we all became silent in fear. Hardly a “Silent Night, Holy Night” so far! We were told that this wall had been under construction for some years. When Pope John Paul II visited the area in the Jubilee Year of 2000, he stated in a famous speech that the task ahead was to build bridges not walls! Apparently, his comments were highly criticised the next day in the daily newspapers. But his words were prophetic. BRIDGES NOT WALLS IN OUR HEARTS It reminded me of a devoted and elderly Catholic parishioner I once met socially. She explained to me how committed she felt in the Catholic Church. She also explained the unease she felt deep within her. There was both war and peace in her heart. She explained that since her early years she had not spoken to or associated with her brother. They had simply broken off their relationship. I invited her to explain to me what happened. Her answer rocked me. She explained that it happened so long ago that she had forgotten exactly what the argument was about! Yet she had kept this wall between her and her brother strong and secure all her life. Now she was in her twilight and felt unable to work towards reconciliation – yet this was her deepest desire. I tried to make her see that building a new bridge between them may not be as difficult as it seemed. The advice of the Pope is appropriate here too – the task is to build bridges and knock down walls. If the truth were told, there are many who would be able to identify with this story of the troubled parishioner. As we prepare for the next World Youth Day in Sydney in July 2208, there is the golden opportunity to try again and build a bridge and pull down a wall in relationships between families, estranged friends, and communities in society. This is the true work of justice – restoring broken relationships. JESUS – GOD’S BRIDGE BUILDER AND BRIDGE This is exactly what Jesus has come to do by coming into our world. The walls of sin and division found in the human heart are demolished in the victory of God coming among us in Jesus. This has been done definitively in the Calvary Cross and Easter Resurrection. But it all started in the manger of Bethlehem. There is a connection between the wall separating Bethlehem and Jerusalem and the troubled parishioner with her brother. Walls of division and hatred start in the human heart but rarely stay there. They send out a ripple effect to others and to society in general. Eventually they accumulate and solidify into the walls in the Holy Land today. They are an absolute scandal to the Message of Peace proclaimed by the coming of the Saviour, Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. Once these walls are constructed they are so very hard to demolish. But demolish the walls we must. Otherwise important events like World Youth Days are simply a sentimental respite in the normal business of war making. WORLD YOUTH DAY, SYDNEY (JULY 2008) – THE HOLY SPIRIT BUILDS THE BRIDGE OF JESUS TODAY. Preparations are proceeding very well for the next World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia. His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, has taken the theme of the Days from Acts 1/8: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses”. Just as the iconic symbol of Sydney is its big bridge – the Sydney Harbour Bridge, we want bridges of the Holy Spirit to be built all around the world as Catholic Youth gather in one of the most beautiful cities of the world. I encourage all to visit the official WYD website (www.wyd2008.org) to find out all about the exciting events that are planned. It will probably be the biggest gathering of people in Australia’s history. And it will be a marvellous manifestation of the action of the Holy Spirit in pulling down the walls of ignorance and indifference to Jesus and the strengthening of the love of Jesus, our bridge and bridge builder to the Father of all mercies. I hope the Legion of Mary can come and join us throughout Australia and, indeed, in the “Legion” world! I am sure it would be a response that Mary, so full of the Holy Spirit, would say: “Oh Yes, it would be a Magnificent Magnificat to my Son”. **************** ALL TALKS GIVEN AT THE SUMMER SCHOOL ARE AVAILABLE IN THE BOOKLET FROM SENATUS
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