Advent of the Mother of God

The First Sunday of Advent begins a time to release ourselves from the grip of Earthly powers to prepare the Way of the Lord and make straight His path.

Advent by Father Gordon MacRae

The Gospels According to Matthew and Luke are the Scriptural sources for the events of Advent and Christmas. They have many similarities and some differences. Matthew alone tells the story of the Magi, a story I unfolded here in “Upon a Midnight Not So Clear, Some Wise Men from the East Appear.” Only Luke has the story of Saint Gabriel the Archangel and the Annunciation. It seems that Mary herself was his source for that account and the events to follow. That Gospel passage graces two important Feast Days within Advent: The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12. I unfolded the deeper recesses of that account as well in “Saint Gabriel the Archangel: When the Dawn from On High Broke Upon Us.”

Both Evangelists often present two stories, one on the surface, and one with much deeper meaning and historical context for those “with eyes to see and ears to hear” making these accounts far richer stories with deeper significance. What lies beneath the lines of the Gospel has to be excavated by seeing and hearing with the hearts and minds of the original hearers of this Good News.

Saint Luke’s account of the Annunciation is followed immediately by Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth who awaits the pending birth of John who would become known as the Baptist. It’s a short account, easy to read and ponder, but it tells two stories — maybe even three — one on its surface and one or two that lay beneath. I am going to reproduce it here:

“In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the child [who would become John the Baptist] leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

— Luke 1:39-45

This account comprises the Second Joyful Mystery of the Rosary and is familiar to all of us. At face value, it relates a joyous encounter between Mary and Elizabeth, her cousin and the wife of Zechariah and expectant mother of John the Baptist.

Then there is a second level of meaning, though subtle, that astute Jewish hearers might detect in Luke’s account. The experience of the child leaping in Elizabeth’s womb in the presence of the prenatal Jesus recalls the Old Testament story of Rebekah (Genesis 25: 22-23), pregnant with the twins, Jacob and Esau. Both Luke’s Gospel and the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, use the Greek word “skirtáō” to describe this “leaping” or “struggling” of the child in the womb.

In Saint Luke’s account, “the child leaped (skirtáō) in her womb” is used to infer that the child in Mary’s womb would be greater than his slightly older cousin, John (expressed in John 3:16 and 3:27-30). In the Old Testament case of Rebekah, it was to show that Jacob would have preeminence over his slightly older brother, Esau, as God Himself explains:

“The children struggled (skirtáō) together within her… And the Lord said to her, ‘Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples, born to you, shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.”

— Genesis 25: 22-23

Also, Elizabeth’s declaration, “Blessed are you among women,” reverberates in Jewish ears back to the experiences of Jael and Judith (Judges 5:24-27 and Judith 13:18). Blessed for their heroic courage in warding off the enemies hostile to Israel, Jael and Judith struck mortal blows to the head of the enemy. In Mary’s case, the victory will be even greater as she puts the head of the enemy beneath her feet (Genesis 3:15).

Elizabeth’s question put to Mary — “Why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” — does not denote a simple visit between cousins. Every occurrence of “Lord” in this account and throughout this chapter in Luke (there are seven such references in this chapter) refer to God. Elizabeth’s declaration that Mary is the Mother of God (Theotokos, in the Greek) became the first Marian dogma to be expounded by the Church and defined, at the Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431.

Preceding these verses in Luke’s Gospel — and found nowhere else — is the beautiful account of the Archangel Gabriel’s Annunciation to Zechariah and then to Mary, and the very different ways the Archangel approaches them with Divine News. It demonstrates the great reverence and deference with which the Evangelist and early Church viewed Mary. It was a reverence that spilled over into art, as evidenced in the great painting “The Annunciation” by Fra Angelico.

The New Ark of the Covenant

And then there is yet another layer of meaning for keen Jewish ears in Saint Luke’s Visitation account. There are several striking parallels between Mary’s visit with Elizabeth and King David’s reaction to the return of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem 1,000 years before. In Luke 1:39, Mary proceeds in haste “into the hill country to a city of Judah.” In the Second Book of Samuel (6:2) David arose and went to the very same place. In Luke 1:43, Elizabeth asks, how is it “that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” In Second Samuel 6:9, David asks, “How is it that the Ark of the Lord comes to me?” In Luke 1:41, “When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the child leaped in her womb…” In Second Samuel 6:16, “As the Ark of the Lord came into the City of David, Michal the daughter of Saul saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord.”

The parallel is extremely important for the hearers of Luke’s words. The importance rests in the way the Ark of the Covenant was viewed by the people of God. It was a chest made of acacia wood — about 3.75 feet long and 1.5 feet wide (1.1 meters by 0.5 meters) lined both inside and outside with gold (Exodus 25:10-26). At its four corners were placed heavy rings of gold through which acacia poles could be slipped to carry the Ark since it could not be touched by human hands.

The lid was composed of a solid slab of gold that formed the “kapporet” or “mercy seat,” the place of atonement. It was surmounted by two solid gold cherubim which formed a throne so that the Ark itself became a footstool for God (Numbers 10: 33-35).

The Ark was built upon the command of God at Mount Sinai, and it housed the two stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed. It also contained a golden vessel of manna (Exodus 16:34) and the rod of Aaron (Numbers 17:10). The Ark became the evidence of the Lord’s intimate association with Israel, a sign of the Covenant, and a housing for the Presence of God. When the Jews encamped, the Ark was placed in the Holy of Holies where Moses “conversed with the Lord” (Numbers 7:89).

During a struggle with the Philistines, the Ark was captured (1 Samuel 4:11) and taken. The Philistines suffered seven months of earthquakes and plagues (1 Samuel 5:3-9) until the Ark was returned. It stayed for twenty years at Kiriath-Jearim until that scene above in Second Samuel (6:16) when David leaped before it as it returned to the Tabernacle in Jerusalem.

The Ark remained there for the next 400 years until the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. to the Babylonians (Jeremiah 3:16). It was not counted among the spoils claimed by the Babylonians but the Second Book of Maccabees (2 Macc 2-5) described that it was saved from destruction by the Prophet Jeremiah and hidden on Mount Nebo where it would stay “until God gathers His people together again and shows His mercy” (2 Macc 2:7).

Thus emerged throughout Israel the expectation of a Messiah, a Branch of David and a Son of God. In Saint Luke’s subtle but powerful short paragraph about the Visitation is found an entire nation’s wealth of understanding about the return of the Ark of the Covenant and the hope of a Messiah. In the subtle hand of Saint Luke, it is in Mary, the Theotokos, the God-bearer, the Ark of the New Covenant that the Dawn from On High broke upon us. Hers is a soul that magnifies the Lord.

The vision of the Ark in the Book of Revelation (11:19-12:1) hints at this identification: the “woman clothed with the sun” is the Mother of God. And she wants the last word. The door to that Word was opened on the Solemnity of her Immaculate Conception. The Word is “Mercy,” a divine Christmas gift, and it is the great tragedy of our age that so many do not even know they need it.

O Come, O Branch of Jesse’s stem;
From Every foe deliver them
That trust Your mighty power to save,
And give them victory over the grave.

O Come, O Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that sets us free,
And close the path to misery.

Rejoice! Rejoice! O Israel.
To thee shall come Emmanuel.

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Our regular weekly post will appear here on Wednesday. The above post was first published several years ago in an older version of this blog. Because of its popularity and focus on Advent, we have restored it and updated it substantially. You may note that some of the wonderful reader comments were posted on the original version of this post.

We have all been through a lot in the few three years. Advent is a time to correct our focus on all that really matters. For more Advent reading we recommend the following posts:

Saint Gabriel the Archangel: When the Dawn from On High Broke Upon Us

How Our Lady of Fatima Saved a World in Crisis

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

The Music of Eric Genuis Inspired Advent Hope

A prison concert by composer Eric Genuis and his outstanding musicians made Advent spirits soar for a prisoner priest and an old friend whom you have come to know.

December 13, 2023 by Fr Gordon MacRae

“Music is a language with the profound ability to stir the heart, inspire the mind, and awaken the soul .”

— Pianist and Composer Eric Genuis

Note from the Editor: The above image shows Eric Genuis and his ensemble performing his composition The Butterfly at a Concert of Hope in Ft. Collins, CO.

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I have, over time and of necessity, become somewhat attuned to signs and wonders here at Beyond These Stone Walls. As Advent loomed, there was no shortage of them and little time to ponder them. The wonders began in the weeks before Advent began. I was descending the multiple flights of stairs from the prison law library where I work as a clerk when, at the bottom, I heard someone call my name.

It was the Director of the prison’s Recreation Department who stopped me. He asked if I know a music composer named Eric Genuis. I said that I did not, but that I had heard of him. “Well, he has heard of you, too,” said the Director adding, “We are scheduling a music concert with him next month, and he emailed me to ask if you might be able to attend.” It was suggested that I keep an eye out for the notice and then sign up if I want to go. Weeks later, I saw a poster advertising the concert. There would be two performances in the prison gymnasium, one at 8:30 AM and the other at 1:00 PM. I signed up for the earlier one thinking that it might be less crowded.

When I arrived for the concert that day, all the front rows were filled with prisoners anticipating something very special. Like a good Catholic, I took a seat at the end of an empty row of seats at the rear. Then someone came over to me, pointing out Eric Genuis conversing with some of his musicians off to one side. I got up and walked over to them. Eric spun around and vigorously shook my hand. “This is Father MacRae, the priest and writer I told you about,” he said to the others. I wanted to sink back into my seat and disappear. Eric spoke of it being an honor to meet me and said that he is a reader of Beyond These Stone Walls. Others in the small group also shook my hand and commented that they appreciated my recent post “Pell Contra Mundum.”

Thirty years in prison have not exactly left me accustomed to recognition, or even basic human respect for that matter. Being where I am, I do not have a sense of the impact of anything I write or of who reads it. When we finished our greetings, Eric asked me for a blessing. Every eye in the huge room was riveted to this scene as I made my way back to the seat I had just vacated. I will get back to this in a moment.

The Memorare

By longstanding tradition at Beyond These Stone Walls, but with occasional exceptions, we publish one post per week on Wednesday mornings. The tradition was born out of the limits of prison writing. As described here recently, this blog has to contend with many obstacles to appear in print. With no computer and just an old fashioned standard Smith Corona typewriter, I count on postal mail — sometimes in vain — to get my completed post from New Hampshire to New York each week. However, one particular post did not cooperate. It was “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Some Older Songs.”

Fourteen days after mailing it, that post still had not arrived for scanning and editing. So we had to do the unthinkable. At the behest of our editor who does all the hard work, I had to dictate my new post word for word over the telephone while our editor typed it one character at a time. She was a paradigm of patience while I imagined little clouds filled with expletives hovering about my head like in the comic books while she typed.

Adding to the frustration, just about every phone call from prison is dropped multiple times and has to be reconnected. Writing like this leaves me feeling a bit like Saint Paul in the middle of his shipwreck (2 Corinthians 11:25). So here we are in the middle of the Second Week of Advent, and I struggle to decide what I will write about in this post. Advent is a most difficult time for a Catholic writer who can publish only once per week.

The reasons may not be so obvious. Just two days after my Wednesday post of last week, the Church honored the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, a most important Marian Feast that I cannot let pass by without notice. She is central to Advent, and there is no Christian hope at all without her Fiat, her “Be it done to me according to Thy Word.” I wrote of her during a past Advent in “Saint Gabriel the Archangel: When the Dawn from On High Broke Upon Us.” (We will link to it again at the end of this post.)

Then, just a few days later in Advent is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a very special Catholic observance for me because she appeared to me as well. Hmmm — I should modify that a little. She did not appear as she did to Saint Juan Diego on Tepayac Hill in Mexico in 1531. She came to me quite differently, and it could easily be dismissed as coincidence, but it wasn’t. You had to be there to see and feel the impact of it, but no one was there except me. Ten years ago, in 2013, I was leaving my job in the prison law library for the day late in an afternoon.

There is a computer at my desk there containing the Law Library database that I must use daily. As I was shutting everything down for the day, I had the sudden inkling to change the background image on the screen. I had never done so before, so when I went to the listings of thousands of background photos to choose from, I could see only identifying numbers but no text or titles or descriptions. I had but minutes left. So I randomly chose one of them only by number from among the thousands of numbers on the screen. I could not see it. Then I shut down the computer.

My next work day that year was December 12, but I was not even conscious of the date. I arrived at my desk at the usual time on that morning and booted up the computer. I opened drawers to pull out files I had to work on, and when I looked back at the screen, I gasped. There was no one I could tell because no one here would understand it and the few who might understand it also might not have believed it. So I told no one except my friends Father Michael Gaitley and Father George David Byers who both took it in agonizing stride.

On my screen that day was a brilliant painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe as she appeared to Juan Diego on Tepayac Hill. In the background is the modern day Basilica of Our Lady, all painted on a canvas in Mexico City. Then, as if tasered, I noted the date this happened. It was December 12, 2013 — ten years ago on the Feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. My friend Father George David Byers found a grainy copy of the same image which is posted above, but it does not do justice to what is on my screen.

Two other things happened in the months preceding this. Two persons who had been my friends in prison also became my family. It was mostly by default because none of the three of us had one. December 2013 was the most trying month of my entire, and entirely unjust, imprisonment. It was also the month that Pornchai Moontri and I, with profound reluctance at first, signed up for a six-week program that would end in our Consecration to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. That story is told on the Marian Fathers own website in “Behold Your Son! Behold Your Mother!”

Then, in that same month, our other family-friend, Alberto Ramos, was suddenly transferred from New Hampshire to a Florida prison from where we would likely never see each other again. “Likely,” however, does not always get the last word.

Now back to 2023 and the Eric Genuis concert ... .

The Measure by Which You Measure

After Eric and his musical entourage asked for a blessing, I made my way back to my seat — only now there was someone else sitting in it. To my utter shock and surprise, it was Alberto Ramos who ten years earlier had been moved to another state to serve out his sentence. Discounting that anything positive can come from any association between prisoners, most states do not allow them to communicate with each other. So for ten years there was nothing but silence from or about Alberto who was sentenced to 30 years in prison at age 14. He is now 44, and has never known any other life.

I wrote of Alberto’s life, and his offense at age 14, in a post many years ago entitled, “Why You Must Never Give Up Hope for Another Human Being.” In 2022, after ten years in distant silence, I wrote of him again in “The Measure by Which You Measure: Prisoners of a Captive Past.” Here is an excerpt from that post:

“Alberto was 14 years old when the knife in his hand severed the artery of an 18-year-old with whom he struggled. It was a vicious end to a late night drug deal gone very bad in a dark Manchester, New Hampshire alley. It happened in 1994, the same year that I was sent to this prison. It seemed a flip of a coin which combatant would die that night and which would survive only to wake up in prison. At age 14, Alberto had won the battle but lost himself. Sentenced to a prison term of 30 years to life, he spent his first few years in solitary confinement. The experience extracted from him, as it also did from Pornchai Moontri, any light in his heart, any spark of optimism or hope in his eyes.

“Then, when finally age 18, Alberto was allowed to live in the prison’s general population where the art of war is honed in daily physical and spiritual battle. It is a rare day that a City of Concord Fire Department ambulance doesn’t enter these prison walls shutting down all activity while some young man is taken to a local hospital after a beating or a stabbing or a headlong flight down some concrete stairs. The catalyst for such events is the same here as it was in the alley that sent Alberto here. There is no honor in any of it. It is just about drugs and gangs and money.

“Alberto’s path to prison seemed inevitable. Abandoned by his father, he was raised by a single mother who lost all control over him by age 12. Drugs and money and avoiding the law were the dominant themes of his childhood. By age 14, he was a child of the streets and nowhere else, but the streets make for the worst possible parents. In ‘Big Prison’ it was discovered that there is more to Alberto than the violence of his childhood. Alberto was 22 when he earned his high school diploma here. He will soon be released after having spent more than two-thirds of his life behind bars.”

The photo atop this section is that of his graduation class at Granite State High School within the New Hampshire State Prison. I wish today that I could have made a movie clip of that graduation. Pornchai Moontri was the class valedictorian so he had to give a speech. Alberto, who is just over Pornchai’s shoulder to the right, snickered when Pornchai momentarily lost his place, but quickly recovered.

Back to the concert again. When Alberto was brought back to New Hampshire from prison in another state to prepare for his upcoming release on parole, he was housed in a different unit than the one I am in. When he saw a poster for the Eric Genuis concert, he signed up hoping that he might see me there. It is for Alberto and Pornchai and thousands like them in prisons across America that Eric Genuis so gracefully and generously shares his God-given gifts.

It is very difficult to describe in words. Eric Genuis is a world class classical pianist and a composer of the most stirring music I have ever heard. Eric’s piano, along with accompaniment from a cello, a violin and the angelic voice of a vocalist reached deeply into our souls. After the ensemble’s rendition of “Panis Angelicus,” an original composition by Eric Genuis with words composed by Saint Thomas Aquinas, Alberto turned to me with a look of awe. “I have never heard anything like this before,” he whispered with tears in his eyes. For the next two hours, we and others in that gym were lifted up and out of prison into a melodious visit to the lower heavens. I began to fear that we might all get charged with attempted escape.

Just a few days later, Alberto was gone again — this time to a minimum security prison unit outside these walls where he can prepare to reconstruct his broken life. Divine Mercy is real, and because it is real, Mrs. Rose Emerson read of Alberto in these pages. She is the mother of the young man Alberto killed all those years ago at age 14. She contacted me asking me to convey to Alberto her forgiveness of him, and her wish to help him when he is ready for parole and release.

On the evening after the concert, I called Pornchai Moontri in Thailand. I told him that Alberto was back, and that we had spent two hours together in a magnificent concert by Eric Genuis. I told Pornchai that we had very little by way of Advent hope going for us this year. Just little snippets of fleeting hope that we cling to on dark winter days in prison. Eric Genuis set that fleeting hope to music, and then set it ablaze.

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Notes from Fr. Gordon MacRae:

Please visit the music of Eric Genuis at www.ericgenuis.com. His cds would be a gift of hope in any Christmas stocking.

Albums — Buy them here.

You may also like these related links:

Why You Must Never Give Up Hope for Another Human Being

Saint Gabriel the Archangel: When the Dawn from On High Broke Upon Us

The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God

Our Lady of Guadalupe Led Pornchai Moontri from His Prisons

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The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

To Christ the King Through the Immaculate Heart of Mary

The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe are both set during Advent. They are harbingers of the greatest story ever told.

December 8, 2021

For most of my life as a priest, I treated the visions at Lourdes, Fatima and other elements of our collective beliefs about Mary and the saints with entrenched skepticism. I considered myself to be a sort of scientist-priest. All knowledge had to be sifted by the scientific method using concepts such as objective scientific study with experiments that can be replicated in a laboratory.

Armed with studies of cosmology and astrophysics, and degrees in behavioral science, my inner world was both predictable and provable. I scoffed inwardly at the pious notion that the Mother of God has appeared in visions to some of the poorest people in some of the most unlikely places on this planet. I also, to my shame today, dismissed openly the notion that the wounds borne by Padre Pio were anything but psychosomatic evidence of an intense psychological focus on Christology.

Then came my Great Comeuppance. It was 1992 and I was living in New Mexico where I was Director of Admissions at a facility for spiritually and psychologically troubled priests. During those years I made regular pilgrimages to the Very Large Array, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in the high desert of Socorro.

In 1992, I was visited by two priest friends, one from Maine and one from New York. I wanted to bring them to the desert observatory but they wanted to visit a Catholic shrine in the opposite direction north of Santa Fe where some sort of Marian miracle had once supposedly taken place there. I was not the one driving which really irked me all by itself — so their votes prevailed.

Sitting in the back seat of the car as we approached the shrine, I scoffed in silence and arrogantly dismissed their interest as spiritually immature fluff. What happened next I have never really been able to articulate with any clarity. I was stricken with a momentary inward vision of how small I am next to the immense power of grace that God has bestowed upon Mary.

It lasted only a moment. I could not see her with my eyes, but she became a momentary presence in the deep recesses of my mind. I could not have withstood more than a moment. And like an intense light, it left me with an echo of itself that has never left me. It cast me then into a state of inexplicable interior collapse. It was not fear, but rather overwhelming awe. It lingers nearly three decades later.

There was nothing about that experience that gave me any sense that I am anyone special, for I am not. Instead, it forced me to reinventory the tools necessary to see and encounter life as it is, and not as I would have it. I was wrong to think that the required tools of life are all intellectual, and I was wrong to think that I had them. Up until that day, I was missing the most essential of receivers and didn’t even know it.

Radio waves fill the atmosphere, but without a receiver, they remain silent. A spiritual life is our receiver. We ignore it, or just go through the motions, to our spiritual peril.

There have been other instances when I felt that I had been spoken to. I described two of those instances in two special posts that left me feeling that it just makes more sense to believe than not. Newer readers may not have seen those posts. They were: “A Shower of Roses” and “A Corner of the Veil.”

Inmates Pornchai Moontri (left) and Fr. Gordon MacRae (right) make their consecration to Jesus through Mary on Nov. 24, 2013, the Solemnity of Christ the King, in New Hampshire State Prison for Men. They pray to become instruments in Mary’s “immaculate and merciful hands for bringing the greatest possible glory to God.”

An Encounter with Christ the King

In a post some months ago, “The Parable of a Priest and the Parable of a Prisoner,” I wrote of the years I spent in empty exile in prison before anything like a spiritual life began to manifest itself. For twelve years, from 1994 to 2006, I did little more than survive here with no sense of a purpose for the heavy cross I carried. As that post linked above reveals, my friend, Pornchai Moontri, spent those same twelve years in prison in the torment of solitary confinement in the neighboring state of Maine. In 2006, our lives converged.

From there, looking back with hindsight, it seems as though our parallel lives were meant to cross. Today, I am certain of that. As our lives converged, we were set — apparently by “accident” on a path that led Pornchai to a Divine Mercy conversion and led both of us to a relationship with a persistent Patron Saint. St. Maximilian Kolbe entered our lives in prison in mysterious ways, and then led us on a path to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

I would have scoffed at and dismissed such a story thirty years ago, but now I cannot because it has captured me in far greater ways than any unjust prison sentence. Over the course of our long walk along the path of Divine Mercy, other events began to unfold in our lives leading me to believe that everything that happened to me — though evil in and of itself — was somehow hijacked by Divine Mercy to bring about a great and wondrous good.

About sixty miles from this prison, Fr. Michael Gaitley, MIC, had been working on a book called “33 Days to Morning Glory.” It’s a self-directed retreat program that Father Gaitley used to develop a superb DVD presentation for a course in Divine Mercy which culminates in consecration of the self to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The very language of this would likely have turned me away as a younger priest. My theology was far beyond such pious nonsense. That was all before my Comeuppance, however.

I did not know Father Gaitley then. Had never even heard of him. But because I had been writing about our story and Pornchai’s conversion, someone at the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts took notice. As Father Gaitley’s 33 Days to Morning G1ory began to sweep the country with profound popularity, someone at the Shrine suggested that this retreat should be offered in a prison. Then they chose this prison, and invited me and Pornchai Moontri.

You likely know elements of this story from past posts about it, but there is a point that I must stress. Pornchai and I had, at the time, been through a series of grave disappointments and discouragement. It seemed at the time that prison was winning the battle for our souls and we felt powerless to interrupt it. We declined the invitation. In the days to follow, St. Maximilian Kolbe intervened, and we reluctantly agreed, but with my usual skepticism. There was, however, a nagging inner sense that we were being led to something of great importance.

It was the fall of 2013. The “33 Days” retreat ended with Mass in the prison chapel on the Solemnity of Christ the King on November 24 that year. It ended with our consecration to Christ through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a consecration I have renewed ever since on the Solemnity of Christ the King. Here is Fr. Michael Gaitley’s Consecration Prayer that we used:

“I,_____, a repentant sinner, renew and ratify today in your hands, O Immaculate Mother, the vows of my Baptism. I renounce Satan and resolve to follow Jesus Christ even more closely than before. Mary, I give you my heart. Please set it on fire with love for Jesus. Make it always attentive to His burning thirst for love and for souls. Keep my heart in your most pure Heart that I may love Jesus and the members of His body with your own perfect love. Mary, I entrust myself to you: my body and soul, my goods, both interior and exterior, and even the value of all my good actions. Please make of me, of all that I am and have, whatever most pleases you. Let me be a fit instrument in your immaculate and merciful hands for bringing the greatest possible glory to God. If I fall, please lead me back to Jesus. Wash me in the blood and water that flow from His pierced side, and help me never to lose my trust in this fountain of love and mercy. With you, O Immaculate Mother, you who always do the will of God, I unite myself to the perfect consecration of Jesus as he offers Himself in the Spirit to the Father for the life of the world. Amen.”

The Immaculate Conception

Why should anyone enter into such a personal consecration of the self? I have renewed this consecration on the Solemnity of Christ the King every year since 2013. Each time, I was carried back to that strange day at a New Mexico shrine in 1992 when Mary Herself knocked on the door of my soul. I have no other way to put it. Like Mary, I have since pondered these things in my heart (Luke 2:13), and they took over my heart.

The answer to why we should make such a consecration rests in the very identity of the Immaculate Conception. It is not a mere coincidence that at Mass for the Immaculate Conception, the Church chooses as the proclamation of the Gospel St. Luke’s account of the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38). I wrote of the same passage in “St. Gabriel the Archangel: When the Dawn from On High Broke Upon Us.”

In that exchange between the Angel of the Annunciation and Mary, Gabriel, one of the Angels who stands in the Presence of God, refers to Mary with a term never before used in all of Sacred Scripture. Never before had an angel referred to a human being with a title and not a name: “Hail, Full of Grace, the Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). When translating the New Testament Greek into Latin, St. Jerome interpreted the Greek title used by Gabriel as “gratia plena” which, in English is rendered “full of grace.” No English words can fully capture the meaning of the original Greek.

The term in St. Luke’s original Greek is “kecharitōmenē,” a title unique in Sacred Scripture. It refers to a vessel that is, and always has been, filled with divine life. St. Maximilian Kolbe developed a fascinating identification of the Holy Spirit as the “Uncreated Immaculate Conception” and of Mary as the “Created Immaculate Conception,” living in an interior union, from the first moment of her existence, a “union of essence” with the Holy Spirit.

Some Catholics (I was once one of them) and some fundamentalist Protestant Christians rebel against such an interpretation as assigning a state of divinity to Mary. That is not the case. Another Greek phrase used of Mary by the Church Fathers is “Theotokos,” the “bearer of God,” a term that identifies Mary as the New Ark of the Covenant. It makes complete sense that God, from the moment of Mary’s bodily existence, created within her a union with the Holy Spirit. The same Protestant Christians also stress vehemently the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture. There is simply no other way to interpret what the Archangel Gabriel says to Mary — and says to us about Mary — in Luke Chapter One: “Kecharitōmenē” — one who lives in a union of essence with the Holy Spirit. Among all human beings, Mary lives a unique existence in the Presence of God.

At the beatification Mass for Maximilian Kolbe on October 17, 1971, Saint Pope Paul VI addressed this: “A mysterious communion unites Mary to Christ, a communion that is documented convincingly in the New Testament ... The Church is faithful to honor Mary, her most exceptional daughter and her spiritual Mother.”

Our Patron and friend on this path, St. Maximilian Kolbe, gave Mary another name: The Immaculata. He honored her with his life, and he handed over that life in the horror of Auschwitz to free another prisoner. While writing this post, I spoke by telephone with Pornchai Moontri in Thailand who also has been pondering.

He told me that he knows he would not be free today — in every sense of that word — if not for me. And it troubles him greatly, he said, that I remain unjustly in prison. He is wrong about this. If Pornchai is free, so am I. I know without a doubt today that the powerful grace instilled in my heart was for this singular purpose. I know this for two reasons. On the Solemnity of Christ the King in 2013, when Pornchai and I first entered into Marian consecration, Marian Helper magazine editor Felix Carroll wrote of it in “Mary Is at Work Here”:

“The Marians believe that Mary chose this particular group of inmates to be the first. That reason eventually was revealed. It turns out that one of the participating inmates was Pornchai Moontri who was featured in last year’s Marian Press Title, Loved, Lost, Found: 17 Divine Mercy Conversions.”

However, the strongest hint came as I pondered all of this in my heart. It came as somewhat of a bombshell. I did a deep dive into the events I describe here and realized with astonishment that the inexplicable event I experienced at a New Mexico shrine in 1992 is what set this story in motion. It was during Holy Week in 1992. Just days before, some 2,000 miles away in Bangor, Maine, a desperate teenager fleeing a horror inflicted on him committed the act of despair that would send him to prison. Fourteen years later, our paths merged, and set us upon a road to Divine Mercy.

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A Note to readers from Fr. Gordon MacRae: Please share this post, and please visit our “Special Events” page to assist with an important Advent project and mission of Divine Mercy. This was the subject of my important Advent post, “A Struggling Parish Builds an Advent Bridge to Thailand.”

Marian Helper Editor, Felix Carroll invited me to write for the Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2016. That article, “The Doors That Have Unlocked,” is the featured post this week at “Voices from Beyond.”

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“O Come, Thou Key of David, come,

And open wide our heavenly home,

Make safe the path that sets us free,

And leads us on the road to liberty.

Rejoice! Rejoice! O Israel

To Thee shall come Emmanuel”

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Photo by Dennis Jarvis

The Holy Longing: An All Souls Day Spark for Broken Hearts

The concept of Purgatory is repugnant to those who do not understand Scripture, and a source of fear for many who do, but beyond the Cross, it is a source of hope.

All Souls Day

Twenty-four hours after this is posted, it will no longer be All Souls Day. I risk losing everyone’s interest as we all move on to the daily grind of living. But I am not at all concerned. We’re also in the daily grind of dying. Death is all around us — it’s all around me, at least — and never far from conscious concern. Death was part of the daily prayer of Saint Padre Pio as well:

“Stay with me, Lord, for it is getting late; the days are coming to a close and life is passing. Death, judgment and eternity are drawing near.”

— From “Stay with me, Lord,” a prayer after Communion by Padre Pio

I have never feared death. At least, I have never feared the idea of dying. It’s just the inconvenience of it that bothers me most, not knowing when or how. The very notion of leaving this world with my affairs undone or half done is appalling to me. The thought that Someone knows of that moment but won’t share this news with me makes me squirm. “You know not the day nor the hour” (Matthew 24:36) is, for me, one of the most ominous verses in all of Scripture.

But even when a lot younger, I never thought I would have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of this life and into the next one. I think it’s because I have always had a strong belief in Purgatory. It’s one of the most wonderful and hopeful tenets of the Catholic faith that salvation isn’t necessarily a black and white affair driven solely by the peaks and valleys of this life. I have never been so arrogant as to believe that my salvation is a done deal. I have also never been so self-deprecating as to believe that God waits for the extinction of both our lives and our souls.

It is the mystery of “Hesed,” the balance of justice with mercy that I wrote of in “Angelic Justice,” that is the foundation of Purgatory. In God’s great Love for us, and in His Divine Mission to preserve that part of us that is in His image and likeness — something this world cannot possibly do — God has left a loophole in the law.  It’s a way for sinners who love and trust Him, and seek to know Him, to come to Him through Christ to be redeemed. The very notion of Purgatory fills me with hope, and I’m hoping for it. It’s largely because of Purgatory that I do not fear death.

All Souls Day was first observed in the Catholic Church in the monastery of Cluny in France in the year 988. It was originally about Purgatory, and not just death. The monks at Cluny set aside the day after the Feast of All Saints — which began two centuries earlier — to devote a day of prayer and giving alms to assist the souls of our loved ones in Purgatory. In the Second Book of Maccabees (12:46) Judas Maccabeus “made atonement for the dead that they might be delivered from their sin.”

Purgatory itself has, since the earliest Christian traditions, been a tenet of faith in which the souls of those who have left this world in God’s friendship are purified and made ready for the Presence of God. The Eastern and Latin churches agree that it is a place of intense suffering, and I’m looking forward to my stint.

Okay, I’ll admit that sounds a little weird. It isn’t as though thirty years in prison has conditioned me for ever more punishment. I do not find punishment to be addictive at all, especially when I did not commit the crime. The punishment of Purgatory, however, is something I know I cannot evade.  The intense suffering of Purgatory is entirely a spiritual suffering, and it begins with our experience of death right here. The longing with which we sometimes agonize over the loss of those we love is but a shadow of something spiritual we have yet to share with them: The Holy Longing they must endure as they await being in the Presence of God. That Holy Longing is Purgatory. It is the delay of the beatific vision for which we were created, and that delay and its longing is a suffering greater than we can imagine.

Death, Drawing Near

Years ago, an old friend came to me after having lost his wife of sixty years. I could only imagine what this was like for him. After her funeral and burial all his relatives finally went home, and he was alone in his grief. When we met, he told me of the intensity of his suffering. My heart was broken for him, but something in his grief struck me. I asked him not to waste this suffering, but rather to see it as a part of the longing his dear wife now has as she awaits her place in the fullness of God’s Presence. I suggested that his longing for her was but a shadow of her intense longing for God and perhaps they could go through this together. I asked him to offer his daily experience of grief for the soul of his wife.

He later told me that this advice sparked something in him that made him embrace both his grief and his loss by seeing it in a new light. Every moment in those first days and weeks and months without her was an agony that he found himself offering for her and on her behalf. He said this didn’t make any of his suffering go away, but it filled him with hope and a renewed sense of purpose. It gave meaning to his suffering which would otherwise have seemed empty.

Though I could not possibly relate to his loss, I know only too well the experience of being stranded by the deaths of others. In early Advent one year, I wrote “And Death’s Dark Shadow Put to Flight.” The title was a line from the hauntingly beautiful Advent hymn, “0 Come, 0 Come Emmanuel” that we will all be hearing in a few weeks.

That post, however, was about the death of Father Michael Mack, a Servant of the Paraclete, a co-worker, and a dear friend who was murdered in the first week of Advent. It took place on December 7th. It was a senseless death — by our standards, anyway — brought upon this 60-year-old priest and good friend by Stephen A. Degraff, a young man who took Father Mike’s life for the contents of his wallet. A part of my share in his Purgatory was to pray not only for Michael Mack, but for Stephen Degraff as well.

On the evening of December 7, 2001, Father Michael Mack returned to his home after some time helping out in a remote New Mexico diocese. Saint Paul wrote that “the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2). For Father Michael, it did just that. But for me in prison 2,000 miles away, awareness of this loss took time. No one can telephone me in prison, and I can usually only be reached by mail. It turned out that Father Michael sat at a desk in his home and wrote a letter to me on the night he died — all the while oblivious to the danger lurking in a closet in that same room. Father Mike took the letter outside to his mailbox and then walked back inside and into the moment of his death.

Three days later, after prison mail call, I sat at a small table outside my cell with the letter from Father Mike in my hands. I was so glad to hear from him. As I sat there reading the letter with a smile on my face, another prisoner asked if I wanted to see the previous day’s Boston Globe. With Father Mike’s letter in my left hand, I absentmindedly turned to page two of the Globe to see a tiny headline under National News: “New Mexico priest murdered.” Father Michael Mack’s name jumped from the page, and a part of me died just there.

All the Catholic rituals through which we bid farewell and accept the reality of death in hope are denied to a prisoner. I had only that last letter describing all Father Mike’s hopes and dreams and renewed energy for a priestly ministry to other wounded priests. Then after he signed it and scribbled in a PS — “Looking forward to hearing from you” — he walked right into his death.

This wasn’t the last time such a thing happened. This is the 30th time I mark All Souls Day in prison, and the list of souls I once knew in this life — and still know — has grown longer. In “A Corner of the Veil,” I wrote of the death of my mother — imprisoned herself during three years of grueling sickness just seventy miles from this prison, but I could not see her, speak with her, or assure her in any way except through letters that could not be answered. She died November 5, 2006. Last week, I received a letter from BTSW readers Tom and JoAnn Glenn which included a beautiful photograph of my mother imprinted on a prayer card.  They found the photograph on line.  I had never seen it, and was so grateful that they sent this to me.

No news of death has ever come to me with more devastation than that of my friend, Father Clyde Landry. Father Mike Mack, Father Clyde, and I were co-workers and good friends, sharing office space in the years we worked in ministry to wounded priests at the Servants of the Paraclete Center in New Mexico. I was Director of Admissions and Father Clyde was Director of Aftercare. A priest of the Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Father Clyde had a Cajun accent reminiscent of that famous Cajun television chef, Justin Wilson — “I Gar-on-TEE!”

The Dark Night of the Soul

On that night of Gethsemane when I was falsely accused and arrested, it was Father Clyde who first came to my aid, and stood by me throughout. When I was sent to prison, Father Clyde became my lifeline to the outside world. I called him every Saturday. It became a part of my routine, like clockwork. It was through Father Clyde that once a week I reached out to the outside world for news of friends and news of freedom. He held a small account for me to help with expenses such as telephone costs, food and clothing, small things that make a prisoner’s life more bearable. Most important of all, Father Clyde volunteered to be the keeper of everything of value that I owned.

By “everything of value,” I do not mean riches. I never had any. He kept the Chalice that was given to me at priesthood ordination. He kept the stoles that were made for me, and the small things that were dear to my life and priesthood.

He kept the irreplaceable photos of my parents — both gone now — and all the things that were a lifetime’s proof of my own existence. Everything that I left behind for prison hoping to one day see again was in the possession of Father Clyde.

A year after Father Michael Mack’s tragic death, I received a joyous letter from Father Clyde. He had a new life in ministry as administrator of a very busy retreat center in New Mexico, and he was looking forward to starting. He had also purchased a small home near the center in a beautiful part of Albuquerque. It was the first time in his 52 years that he had owned any home. It was a sign of the stability that he longed for, and a sign of his great love for the retreat ministry he was undertaking.

Father Clyde’s letter was very careful to include me in this transition. He had packed all my possessions and would place them in his spare room which he promised would be available to me whenever I was released from my nightmare. His letter was the last he wrote from his vacant apartment, all his boxes stacked just next to him. He wanted me to know that by the time I received his letter he would be moved and settled and ready for my call the following Saturday.

I received Father Clyde’s letter on a Friday evening, and tried to call his new number the next day. I got only a recorded message that the number was disconnected. In prison, no one can call me and I am unable to leave messages on any answering machine or voice mail. So I called another friend to ask if he would please send an e-mail message for me. My friend fired up his computer and asked, “Where’s it going?” I gave him the e-mail address and started my message.

“Hello Clyde,” I said. “I hope you are getting settled.” Instead of hearing the clicks of my friend’s keyboard, however, I heard only silence. He wasn’t typing. I asked him what was wrong, and knew instantly from his hesitation that something was very wrong.

“Oh, My God!” he said. “You don’t know!” He then told me that my friend, Father Clyde, never made it to his new home. When he did not show up for the signing appointment with his realtor, a search was underway. Father Clyde was found in his apartment on the floor next to the last box he had packed. At age 52, he had suffered a fatal heart attack.

Father Clyde had been gone three days by the time I learned this. No one could reach me. With Father Clyde’s letter in my left hand, I was stunned as my friend described all he knew of Father Clyde’s death, which wasn’t much. It would be many days before I could learn anything more.

In the weeks and months to follow, I was stranded in a way that I had never experienced before. I was not just alone in my grief. I was alone in prison, 2,000 miles from the world I knew and the only contacts I had, and my sole connection with the outside world was gone. It would be another seven years before the idea of this blog  emerged, and I would once again reach out from prison to the outside world.

But for those seven years, I was stranded. On the Saturday after I learned of Fr. Clyde’s death, I recall sitting in my cell from where I could see the bank of prisoner telephones along one wall out in the dayroom, and I cried for the first time in many, many years. In the months to follow, everything that I once hoped one day to see again was lost. I do not know what became of any of Father Clyde’s things, or my own. I have come to know that this happens to many prisoners. Cut off from the world outside, our losses can be catastrophic.

But I came to know that grief is a gift, and I have offered it not only for the souls of Fathers Clyde, Mike, and Moe — and for my dear mother — but for the souls of all who touched my life, and in that offering I had something to share with them — a Holy Longing.

When I wrote “The Dark Night of a Priestly Soul,” it was about Purgatory. It was about my continued hope for the soul of Father Richard Lower, a brother priest driven to take his own life in a dark night all alone when all trust was broken and hope seemed but a distant dream. I have been where he was, and my response to his death was “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

At the end of “The Dark Night of a Priestly Soul,” I included a portion of the “Prayer of Gerontius” by Saint John Henry Newman. It’s a beautiful verse about Purgatory that calls forth the abiding hope we have for our loved ones who have died, and also recalls that one thing we have left to share with them — a Holy Longing for their presence, and, in their company, for the Presence of God:

Softly and gently, dearly-ransomed soul,
In my most loving arms I now enfold thee,
And, o’er the penal waters, as they roll,
I poise thee, and I lower thee, and hold thee.

And carefully, I dip thee in the lake,
And thou, without a sob or a resistance,
Dost through the flood thy rapid passage take,
Sinking deep, deeper, into the dim distance.

Angels, to whom the willing task is given,
Shall tend, and nurse, and lull thee, as thou liest;
And Masses on the Earth and prayers in Heaven,
Shall aid thee at the throne of the most Highest.

Farewell, but not forever! Brother dear;
Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow;
Swiftly shall pass thy night of trial here,
And I will come and wake thee on the morrow.

— John Henry Cardinal Newman, Conclusion, “The Prayer of Gerontius”

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading. Please share this post so that it may come before someone who is grieving. You may also wish to read these related posts linked herein:

A Corner of the Veil

Angelic Justice: Saint Michael the Archangel and the Scales of Hesed

The God of the Living and the Life of the Dead