Posted on May 9, 2021 View all news
Laudetur Jesus Christus! Gelobt sei Jesus Christus!
Sia lodato Gesù Cristo! Praised be Jesus Christ!
First of all, a very happy Mother’s Day to all of our Mothers. Thank you for choosing to be a mother and to care for your children in the way each of you did. I pray that the Lord generously blessed each of you on account of your own generosity in cooperating with God’s plan!
Please be sure to keep Deacon Edward Hoffmann in your prayers this week as he makes his final preparation for ordination to the priesthood this coming Saturday. His First Mass will be at Sacred Heart at 11:00 a.m. next Sunday. A reception will follow.
Please also remember to check the bulletin for the times for our Ascension Masses this coming Thursday.
Since Mary is the mother par excellence, please find the following excerpts from Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Have a blessed week ahead!
“God never does anything without exceeding preparation. The two great masterpieces of God are Creation of man and Re-creation or Redemption of man. Creation was made for unfallen men; His Mystical Body, for fallen men. Before making man, God made a garden of delights—as God alone knows how to make a garden beautiful. In that Paradise of Creation there were celebrated the first nuptials of man and woman. But man willed not to have blessings, except according to his lower nature. Not only did he lose his happiness; he even wounded his own mind and will. Then God planned the remaking or redeeming of man. But before doing so, he would make another Garden. This new one would be not of earth but of flesh; it would be a Garden over whose portals the name of sin would never be written—a Garden in which there would grow no weeds of rebellion to choke the growth of the flowers of grace—a Garden from which there would flow four rivers of redemption to the four corners of the earth—a Garden so pure that the Heavenly Father would not blush at sending His Own Son into it—and this “flesh-girt Paradise to be gardened by the Adam new” was Our Blessed Mother. As Eden was the Paradise of Creation, Mary is the Paradise of the Incarnation, and in her as a Garden were celebrated the first nuptials of God and man. The closer one gets to fire, the greater the heat; the closer one is to God, the greater the purity. But since no one was ever closer to God than the woman whose human portals He threw open to walk this earth, then no one could have been more pure than she…
There had to be some such creature as Mary—otherwise God would have found no one in whom He could fittingly have taken His human origin. An honest politician seeking civic reforms looks about for honest assistants. The Son of God beginning a new creation searched for some of that Goodness which existed before sin took over. There would have been, in some minds, a doubt about the Power of God if He had not shown a special favor to the woman who was to be His Mother. Certainly what God gave to Eve, He would not refuse to His Own Mother…
If you were an artist, would you allow someone to prepare your canvas with daubs? Then why should God be expected to act differently when He prepares to unite to Himself a human nature like ours, in all things, save sin? But having lifted up one woman by preserving her from sin, and then having her freely ratify that gift at the Annunciation, God gave hope to our disturbed, neurotic, gauche, and weak humanity. Oh, yes! He is our Model, but He is also the Person of God! There ought to be, on the human level, Someone who would give humans hope, Someone who could lead us to Christ, Someone who would mediate between us and Christ as He mediates between us and the Father. One look at her, and we know that a human who is not good can become better; one prayer to her, and we know that, because she is without sin, we can become less sinful…” – Archbishop Fulton Sheen