Tag: Eve

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Sermon Notes – August 15 – You Visit My Mother . . . I Remember Your Name

“You Visit My Mother. . . I Remember Your Name”

Father Peter Fitzgibbons

 August 14 – 15, 2021

Gospel:  Luke 11:27-28

Where I’m from up north, I lived in a diverse community with very strong ethnic ties and associations.   There was this gentleman who approached a priest and said, “Hey Father, you visit my mother – I remember your name.”  Okay…I’d love to.  What son, as hated as this gentleman allegedly was, doesn’t want to honor his mother.  There’s no shame in honoring one’s mother.  That’s true for us even with all our sins.  What about our good Lord?  He was the only child in history who actually created His mother.  Throughout the centuries, for thousands of years, the Church has always called for devotion to the Blessed Mother – not for worship or adoration – that belongs only to God Himself – but for devotion.  It’s not just a pious tradition for old women sitting in their living-rooms knitting, it’s for the whole Church.  Over the past 50 years or so, Devotion to the Blessed Mother has really fallen to the wayside which is sad, because people really don’t know their faith or scripture.  Non-Catholics say, “I study scripture and I pray scripturally.”  Well, if you studied scripture and prayed scripturally, you would be Catholic.  When you honor the Blessed Mother, you are praying scripturally. 

You’ve heard the proclamation of the Holy Gospel of Saint Luke.  Where did Luke get his gospel?  He wasn’t one of the apostles.  At the Annunciation, Mary was alone when the angel came to her.  Luke wasn’t there.  He wasn’t at Elizabeth’s house when Mary visited her.  So, where did he get all of this information?  Did Luke channel his inner Miss Cleo the psychic?  The first part of the Gospel of Luke is known as the Gospel of Mary, because she told him everything that’s in it.  So, Mary’s words are scriptural.  All of those people who have gotten biblical, theological, or philosophy degrees and who are not Catholic, should sue their professors for theological and intellectual malpractice.  You wasted your money.  Because if you made it this far in the scriptures, then you must be Catholic, and you must honor the Blessed Mother. 

What did Mary say further into the Magnificat?  “All generations will call me blessed.”  So, it’s a scriptural command to honor the mother of Jesus.  It has been 70 years since the so-called Second Vatican Council and some decided that devotion to the Blessed Mother was not scriptural.  Really?  Devotion is decreasing and along with it purity and belief in the Real Presence.  In order to understand Jesus, you have to understand Mary.  In theological studies, Mariology (the study of Mary) is a subset of Christology (the study of Christ).   It was from the Blessed Mother that He took His human nature.  If you look throughout scripture, I’m not going to give you a whole class on Mariology today – it’s a semester-long study – but just look at the highlights.  Protestants say they don’t have to rely on the saints.  Really?  Where is that in scripture?  Who interceded for us before the first miracle recorded in scripture?  The Blessed Mother at the wedding in Cana.   During the Passion, our Lord looked at His mother and said, “Woman, behold your son.”   He then looked at John and said, “Behold your mother.”  Protestants also say, “In order to be saved, you must be washed in the blood.”   Who was standing beneath the cross getting spattered with His blood?  The Blessed Mother.  The blood did not stop. . .the Romans were very good at what they did. When they took her Son down from the cross, He was placed in her lap.  She was covered in His blood.  Was she not bathed in the blood?  Walk in the blood?  After the Resurrection, Mary was in the Upper Room with the apostles when the Holy Spirit came.  This was the second time that the Holy Spirit came to her.  Remember the Annunciation?  The angel said, “Hail full of grace.”  Nobody else in scripture has been called that.  The power of the Holy Spirit came and overshadowed her.  “Oh, you have to be born again in the Holy Spirit.”  Well, Mary did it twice. 

This is why we have devotion to the Blessed Mother.  Just like our own mothers who have died, and hopefully in Heaven, intercede for us to the Holy Father.  How much more so can the mother of Christ intercede for us.  The original woman, the old Eve, took us all out of paradise to the new Eve who leads us to paradise.  Our Blessed Mother is the new Eve. 

Not too long ago, I received a call to go visit woman who was in her last days.  So, I went into the house and gave her the Last Rites.  She said, “Father, I have a Rosary.”  Oh, that’s great!  It was beautiful set of beads.  I said to her, “Hold them in your hands, and as often as you can say the Rosary so that when the time comes when you are to leave this world, our Blessed Mother will come take you by the hand and lead you to her Son.” 

How will you apply this message to your life?  Remain devoted to the Blessed Mother and ask for her intercession with her Son.

 You can read all of Father Fitzgibbons’ sermons by going to https://annunciationcatholicalbemarle.com/ and clicking on “Blog” then “Categories” and then “Sermon Notes.”  From a cell phone, click on “Blog” then “Menu” and then “Categories” (located at the end of page).  There is also a search box if you are looking for a specific topic.

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Meditation of the Day – Eve Believed the Serpent; Mary Believed the Angel

“For it was while Eve was yet a virgin that the ensnaring word had crept into her ear which was to build the edifice of death. Into a virgin’s soul, in like manner, must be introduced that Word of God which was to raise the fabric of life; so that what had been reduced to ruin by this sex might by the selfsame sex be recovered to salvation. As Eve believed the serpent, so Mary believed the angel. The delinquency which the one occasioned by believing, the other effaced by believing.”— Tertullian, p.44

//The Catholic Company//

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Seven Days with Mary – Day 5: Mary As the New Eve

I’ve never understood Eve. Whenever I think of her apple, my mind is drawn to another woman with an “ordinary” object who led me to Mary. I am hesitating to tell this story because it’s precious to me. Four years ago, through a series of serendipitous events, I found myself spending the month of June at a writer’s retreat in the mountains of Assisi, Italy. On a blistering, hot afternoon, I descended the steps into the cool underground of the Basilica of St. Clare of Assisi.

I was unprepared for the intensity of the relics displayed. I became almost disoriented. Clare was lying there, quite tiny. When I turned, I bumped into what I thought was a lantern, but was in fact a glass cube filled with snippets of baby-fine, white curls. This pile of her hair shook me even more than her bones. Beyond that, I encountered Francis’ tunic, the primitive hide roughly stitched. Maternal tenderness ran through me at the sight of his course stocking. Blood crusted the arch—stains of the stigmata.

And that is when I saw Clare’s dress.

The dress was the shade of spring, when the tiniest of buds first appear in pale green mist. It floated high above all the other relics, as if airborne; so utterly, delightfully girly, I actually laughed out loud. I studied it for over an hour, because I didn’t want to break the rules and photograph this sacred object. I needed to make sure the details were captured in my mind forever: the goddess-drape of the long sleeves, the high medieval bodice, the soft cotton, nearly see-through.

The next day, at breakfast with the other artists and writers, one of the women commented that she did not believe that dress could really be Clare’s, especially after all of these centuries. She said that it had to be some sort of reproduction; and besides, a dress that enormous would never have fit those small bones. I was appalled and then saddened, though I did not argue with her. I spent that day in silence under a ripening fig tree, thinking. And I have thought about this quite a bit ever since.

What I learned then is that I am a woman who quietly believes. I don’t need to convince anyone of anything. I just need to keep walking my own path. And on this path, saints like Clare will keep leading me to the Great Mother. I believe that dress was Clare’s. I believe it was her feminine spirit that emanated from within. In the years since I stood before it, the dress has returned to me, lunar-moth like, floating in the dark and bringing coolness to the heat of my 3 a.m. insomnia. It reminds me to turn to Mary, to pray, to let go and let her magic fill the air like a lullaby—to let the Blessed Mother sing.

Marian Prayer

Mary, help me to be a good example to those in my life.

Help me to take the time for others, to be fully alive and present in the moment.

(Prayer from Talking to God: Prayers for Catholic Women)