THE PARISH COMMUNITY’S LOUDEST CRY

by Tony Pires

 

Invitations from God come from within life itself. The great role of each Parish Community is to enable every member and every visitor to hear deep in their hearts the call of God – the call telling them that they are loved – that they are precious to God.

 

Pope Francis put it like this, “Each person is a unique and beloved child of God. We are not anonymous, we are not photocopies, we are all originals! God knows us one by one, with our name and our face which is unique. Certainly, some of us unfortunately have heavy limitations to bear. But this detracts nothing from the value of a person; each one is unique, a son or daughter of God, each one is a sister or brother of Jesus. A Christian community that welcomes the person as he or she is, thus helps them to see themselves as God does, which is with a look of love. (Vatican 2023)

 

 

We look to MARY OF NAZARETH: If she had not stilled her own soul…. If she had not attuned her inner ear to the heartbeat of God ….. Would she have even noticed the angel?” (Cheryl Frances Chen, Cistercian Nun)

 

Mary receives into herself, in the fullness of her freedom and humanity, God’s longing to be with us. The promise made to each soul becomes real in her. Mary’s child is Emmanuel, God with us. Whenever we, like Mary, know ourselves to be seen and loved by God – regardless of how little we have in ourselves – and live from that love – God is born anew into our world.

 

The Annunciation teaches: In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Mary in Nazareth. The angel said, “you are highly favoured! The Lord is with you…. The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you … your first born will be called the Son of God.

 

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.”

 

Invitations in the Gospels come in apparently unusual or unexpected ways; they are addressed to all and include the most unlikely people, but they still come from within life itself. Ordinary people open themselves to the purposes of God, and the course of their life is interrupted and changed. They become the means by which God works on this earth.

 

Whatever Mary was planning for her life with Joseph, it did not include becoming pregnant outside of the relationship. An unexpected word interrupts the routine of ordinary time; nothing less than a startling new future is proposed. Will Mary risk an uncharted adventure as God’s collaborator? (Denis McBride CSSR)

 

Marie Howe reflects on the Annunciation: “Even if I don’t see it again nor ever feel it, I know it is and that if once it hailed me, it always does – and so it is myself I want to turn in that direction not as toward a place, but it was a tilting within myself, as one turns a mirror to flash the light to where it isn’t – I was blinded like that – and swam in what shone at me, only able to endure it by being lost and yet so specifically myself … I thought I’d die from being loved like that”.

 

“Faith is the courage to accept being accepted by God”
(Paul Tillich)

 

When Mary visits Elizabeth, she greets Elizabeth and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, exclaims: “Blessed are you among women ….. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” (Luke 1:39-46)

 

Elizabeth’s Blessing: Words of Love around you, an invisible cloak to mind your life.
(John O’Donohue)

 

To be continued …..