Our Lady's Lamp

Yesterday, it seems, was the day for weddings. A couple at my church were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary (pray for them and for all married couples!) and I got to witness two of my dear friends, Ashley and Israel, marry each other. It was beautiful. And yes, I cried - like a baby! One of the things I loved about their wedding was that Ashley and Israel decided not to change the gospel from what the gospel of the day was. Instead of finding something like the Wedding at Cana or a "Love one another as I have loved you" or something like that, they kept the reading for the feast of the day: The Annunciation. (Since the 25th of March fell in Holy Week, the feast was moved to the Saturday after Easter). For their wedding, they chose to have the wedding of God the Spirit and a mortal woman read. This, I think, was absolutely beautiful. Think about it. An Angel comes as an emissary and tells a young girl that the God of the Universe wishes her to bear His Child and b...

Today is the Feast of the Visitation - when Mary, newly gifted with the miracle of the God-child, goes to visit her elderly cousin, Elizabeth who was also miraculously pregnant. From the moment of Mary's Fiat , Jesus was within her, the Word was flesh - growing flesh, true, but flesh. The God that made the universe was living and being fashioned a human body inside of a young Jewish girl.  Mary, filled with joy (and probably a bit scared too), goes to see her cousin and help her through the last trimester, which, for an older woman would be difficult even in our current day of comfort. Mary went and greeted her cousin, and as soon as she did, the Child growing in her womb was made known to the still young John, and he - as David did hundreds of years before - leaped for joy at being in the presence of God. The very first person to ever leap for joy, to worship Jesus (besides His Mother by offering her life) was an unborn child. That unborn child was the first missionary - he to...

March 25, nine months before December 25, is the Feast of the Assumption. Christ did not begin his time on earth as a human at Christmas but when he entered the womb of Mary. It was then that “the Word became Flesh” (John 1:14), for life does not start at birth but at conception. One of the great geniuses of the way the Church Calender is set up is that this falls just before Passion week and Easter. To truly understand the upcoming events, the life, suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord, we must understand – at least in part – the Incarnation. This was prophesied by Isaiah and heralded by an angel (Luke 2:26-38). God, the creator of all things, of the world, the animals, the plants, the angels, and us humans, to redeem us from our own sins and failures, left his glory and took up his residence in the womb of a young girl. This would have been very poignant to the Jews. For the first time since the losing of the Ark, the physical presence of God was with them. Without...