Christus Resurrexit, Sicut Dixit, Alleluia!!!
Christ has Risen, as He said He would, Alleluia!!!
Blessings, prayers, gratitude, and thanks to all our moms in the parish and our families. We wouldn’t be here without you… literally! But even beyond the infinite gift of life, there are the countless intangible ways you’ve shaped, formed, cared, and loved for us. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
This day, in a particular way, highlights not just moms, but the innate relationship between mother and child. We rightly show gratitude toward our moms (hopefully not just today) precisely because they choose life and gave of their own life for us and our well-being. Is there a cost to that choice? Of course, look at Christ’s Love for us. Look at Mother Mary’s Love for Christ. There is always a ‘cost’ to love, yet love in the end always benefits all – mother, child, family, society.
With the recent & unprecedented leak of a draft of the Supreme Court decision in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, we would do well to remember that such court cases are never just about a child nor ever just about a woman and expectant mother. These are deep intertwined relationships. Relationships that each of us is utterly dependent upon; relationships we have each infinitely benefited from personally and communally. In the days to come, more will be said about whatever the final verdict is in the Dobbs decision, but we as a Catholic Christian people must focus upon the whole, as well as the particular. We can give thanks that perhaps, more children in the womb will be protected and granted their inalienable right to life. But we must equally work all the more ardently and self-sacrificially and yes, lovingly, to support women-become-moms in whatever place they find themselves with those costs for life and love. Life is a gift. But is a fragile one, which needs support, protection, and assistance. Just as we so selflessly received from our own moms, we must selflessly support future moms (and dads, and families, and whole communities).
+Holy Family School held May Crowing this past Friday +
Parishioner and soon to be 8th grade graduate Taylor Hanen crowned Mary and members of the 8th grade class participated in readings, song, and petitions to lead the whole school in prayer and praise of Mother Mary. Together we recited the Litany of Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as the Litany of Loreto.
“This litany to the Blessed Virgin Mary was composed during the Middle Ages… It was definitively approved by Pope Sixtus V in 1587. The Litany's titles and invocations set before us Mary's exalted privileges, her holiness of life, her amiability and power, her motherly spirit and queenly majesty. The principle that has been followed in their interpretation is the one enunciated by Blessed Pius IX: 'God enriched her so wonderfully from the treasury of His divinity, far beyond all angels and saints with the abundance of all heavenly gifts, that she...should show forth such fullness of innocence and holiness, than which a greater under God is unthinkable and which, beside God, no one can even conceive in thought.' Hence, whatever virtue and holiness is found in angels and saints must be present in Mary in an immeasurably higher degree.”
(https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/devotions/litany-of-loreto-246)
The use of Litanies as a source for prayer has waned in recent decades. Their repetitive nature can seem to mechanical. Yet, there is something very helpful in a slow, meditative, praying of Litanies. The various titles & attributes can focus us upon where we need to grow in God’s Grace and Charity. They can call us higher as it reminds us that we can improve. They can also serve as an examination for places we’ve fallen short. On this Mother’s Day, you might recite the Litany of Loreto in prayer for your mom!
Holy Family, Watched over & Cared for by Mother Mary, Pray for us.
~ Fr Jeremy M. Gries