“My soul magnifies my Lord.”
Today’s feast honors Mary as Mother of the church. The Magnificat sums up the wonder of her faith. We are told that after Jesus’ birth, she became a refugee, experiencing the inherent terrors of finding herself in a foreign land, with a newborn child. She nurtured and protected him until he was ready for ministry and it was she who called, ‘Do whatever he tells you’, at Cana. And then, when he was derided, despised and crucified, she was beside him, to share in the suffering. She was inextricably linked with her son. Munificentissimus Deus "The most bountiful God" is the name of an Apostolic constitution written by Pope Pius XII. It defines ex cathedra the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary The decree was promulgated on November 1, 1950.
I must admit to a great distraction at the vigil mass last evening at the Cathedral. The homily was “What is the difference between the Ascension and the Assumption?”. Please!
As I shut out the terrible homily, I drifted off into my fantasy world, and I became Elizabeth. Elizabeth is the one who ponders the mystery of the Incarnation, coupled with the miracle of her own pregnancy. Her question in today’s Gospel reading never ceases to give me pause: “Why has this happened to me that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” She recognized Jesus before he was ever born. She had the ability to see what so many of us are blind to.
Why, we ask, should God have come to us at all? Jesus was not obligated to take our human form, but He did so out of love for us. He came to dwell in the womb of a human mother, to be born, to live and to minister among us, and to die and to rise to complete the long-anticipated act of salvation.
We are now given the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that God’s mystery becomes our vocation. We carry the Spirit of the Lord within us as Mary once carried Jesus within her. When that Spirit is disseminated among us, when we act in the name of the Lord whom we receive in the Eucharist, we make the Visitation a perpetual and actual reality. Let us then live the Visitation by recognizing Christ in those around us, and in our prayer and acts of charity may we ponder the reality of Christ among us and within us, and may we be to this world a people of great joy.
Let us pray for the innumerable mothers of our troubled world who mourn the loss of a child, that they will find some comfort and courage in their grief from reflecting on the enduring love of Mary. In Titian’s beautiful painting of the Assumption, it seems that Mary is surprised by her passage from this world. She seems to say, ‘Is this really for me?’
From : El Diario de Yucatan (Merida, Yucatan) 6/10/10
Shelters assist illegal aliens on their journey toward the U.S.
The bishop of Tapasla, Chiapas (Mexico’s southernmost state) reported that the shelter at the church in Arriaga takes in 100 undocumented aliens a day, and gives them temporary shelter “so they can continue to their destination to the northern border.” He added that this number represents only a third of the Central Americans who climb on to the train in order to cross the country.
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Mexicans residing in Illinois will contribute to a special program to help Central American migrants by assisting a shelter at Ciudad Ixtepec, in the state of Oaxaca (the second southernmost in Mexico). Central Americans who arrive there use a freight train service, called “The Beast,” to take them towards the U.S. border; some are hurt or robbed. The assistance program is labeled “3X1” and provides that Mexican state and local funds will match contributions by the public. A priest at the shelter said: “Every third day it’s more than 150 persons, last week it was 600.” He added that Ciudad Ixtepec is strategically located between the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico, and “It’s a great market for the south to north crossing of persons, drugs, weapons, and a natural place to exploit migrants.”
Once again more stories of members of the clergy enabling human smuggling. This next one ought to be interesting.
Cambio de Michoacan (Morelia, Michoacan) 6/10/10
Officials in Tamaulipas in collusion with kidnappers & coyotes
This article describes what happened when a Mexican construction worker decided that his only recourse was to enter the U.S. illegally in order to support his family. As he and others with similar intent approached Reynosa, Tamaulipas (the Mexican state just across from Texas, in the lower Rio Grande River valley,) they came upon a police roadblock where they were asked if they intended to enter the United States; when they replied in the affirmative, they were held until a group of men came and took them to a very large house in Reynosa, where there were nearly 600 men, women and children, all hoping to cross to the other side. However, they were all being held for up to $3,000 dollars in ransom, or else forced to join the local criminal enterprises.
The construction worker was able to get ransomed and was then smuggled into the U.S. near McAllen, TX, but he was promptly apprehended by the Border Patrol. He contacted the Consulate for protection and to tell his story but was warned to keep quiet and say nothing. Upon his return to his home in Mexico’s interior, he plans to try to enter the U.S. once again, but this time at another place.
This is institutional slavery, enabled by members of the clergy, the governement of Mexico and lauded as humanitarian by Open Borders groups in the United States. This is what we do to teh Christ within each human being!
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