Faith

Looking Closer at the Hail Mary: OF

May 3, 2012 By Sarah Reinhard 1 Comment

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

A reflection on the word “OF”

By Lisa M. Hendey

My friend Sarah Reinhard has a permanent spot on my “superhero” list of friends – so gracious has she been with sharing her time and talents that I feel like I’ll never succeed in returning the many favors I owe her. But even more than Sarah’s ability to blog or podcast with such aplomb on a second’s notice, the thing that draws her so near to the center of my heart is the way in which she’s come to help me better know and love Mary, our Blessed Mother.

So when Sarah asks, I try to respond from the default position of “yes”. When she invited me to be a part of this special project, there was no reservation in my consent. She’s been generous with her patience in my taking every last second to meet my deadline – and here I am, virtual pencil sharpened, ready to take on the work of saying something completely earth shattering and inspirational about my word – “of”.

… And it’s not even the first “of” in the Hail Mary. My “of” is the second of four in this forty-two word prayer that has enkindled so many hearts. And you’ve already been gifted such a fabulous treatment of the first “of” by Carol Ann Chybowski (who holds a Master’s in English Literature for goodness sake!), that I find myself completely at a loss. Lacking Carol Ann’s literary style, my ponderings of the word “of” remind me of some of the best words I’ve ever heard on praying the Rosary.

If the following sounds familiar to you, it’s perhaps because I shared this same bit of wisdom in The Handbook for Catholic Moms in my chapter on Mary. Their author is my favorite Irish pastor, Msgr. Michael Collins, who I sincerely hope now has at least one little toe out of purgatory and into heaven. The following should be read with the lilting Irish accent of a 92-year-old parish priest who was about to meet his Maker:

Please say the Rosary. I’ve always been afraid of Hell, I don’t like Hell, but I’m convinced that if I’m true to the Rosary, which I have been – I’ve said the Rosary ever since I was a child, I’ve never deliberately missed the Rosary and I don’t say that as a boast, I say that as kind of an assurance that if I ask the Blessed Mother fifty times a day to be with me now and at the hour of my death she’ll be around somewhere to take me home.

Simple thoughts, a simple prayer made up of a handful of short, simple words. Yet when collected together, they hold the ticket to such profound grace. Yes, our Blessed Mother is there for us to lead us to the fruit “of” her womb: Jesus Christ.

What a blessing to know with such confidence as Father Collins did that she who loved –and continues to love – with such tenderness through so much pain, has unending patience with my shortcomings. Forty-two words, recited in a matter of minutes, and yet how often I rattle through them mindlessly, neglecting the grace of each syllable – even of that second “of”, or forget them all together in my busyness.

They deserve such awe, such reverence and such thanksgiving. Each of them, collected together in our hearts, and expressed in confident love, take us Home.

–

Lisa M. Hendey, founder and editor of www.CatholicMom.com, is the author of A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms and The Handbook for Catholic Moms. She has claimed the title of President of the Sarah Reinhard fan club. She is also one of the most amazing people I know and continues to inspire me with her ongoing faith and example.

image via Trendy Traditions

Filed Under: Faith, guest post, Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Looking Closer at the Hail Mary Tagged With: Catholic, Faith, guest post, Hail Mary, Lisa Hendey, prayer, Virgin Mary

Looking Closer at the Hail Mary: FRUIT

May 1, 2012 By Sarah Reinhard Leave a Comment

A reflection on the word “FRUIT”

By Pat Gohn

Bite into any lush, ripened, fresh fruit and you feel the gush of juices between your lips and running down along your tongue to the little well underneath. You move the pulpy flesh of the fruit around in your mouth, gliding it in place with your tongue to chew. Depending on the variety of fruit, you may experience momentary dripping down your cheek or lower dimples as you savor the flavor and enjoy that first full bite.

The fruit was where the trouble started. One taste of the fruit of the tree — the tree that God had expressly forbidden (Cf. Gen 2:2-3) — and Eve was in deep trouble.

One bite of the fruit and Eve was mesmerized. Her knowledge grew immediately, but in ways she did not expect. She expected to be like God; duped, instead she became a lesser mortal than before. The preternatural gifts she was endowed with by her Creator were shut down. No longer blessed with infused knowledge, she could not see the truth of her present situation. She gave the fruit to Adam.

The woman, the fruit-gatherer and eventual fruit bearer, unwittingly tasted decay and death disguised as a temporary tasty morsel that slid down the back of her throat. The mother of all the living had triggered the trap door leading to separation from God and eventual suffering and death. Her husband, unable to withstand the temptation, also acquiesced and took a bite.

We know the rest of the story.

The Divine Will and Providence of God so loved the man and the woman and their progeny — us!– that He sent them a Way out of their plight. But first God would cultivate a new fruit, and a new fruit bearer.

The Woman, the one that God envisioned from the start (Cf. Gen 3:15), would, one day, bear the fruit that saves humanity from its sins.

It was St. Irenaeus who taught, the knot Eve tied was untied by Mary. St Louis de Montfort also spoke a deep truth: “The salvation of the whole world began with the ‘Hail Mary’. Hence, the salvation of each person is also attached to this prayer.”

Only Mary, God’s pure and perfect creature, the masterpiece of Creation, could bear such good fruit, both in word and deed. Jesus, the offspring of the Virgin’s womb, was indeed the blessed fruit of a remarkable, holy union… the sign and promise of the wedding of God to his Creation.

We sing of it with every note of Ave Maria, and pray it with every syllable of “Hail, Mary!”

The fruit we sing of and adore in the center of this prayer is the vital and everlasting fruit of Mary’s womb, JESUS!

The fruit — Jesus! – would sweeten and strengthen humanity, answering every angelic prayer of heaven and longsuffering mortal supplication of earth since that fateful day in the Garden.

Not surprisingly, we can understand why the Fruit that is Jesus would one day be eaten.

Jesus would lay his own flesh down to be food and those who eat of it would partake of eternity (Jn 6: 35-58, Luke 22: 19).

Down through the ages the flesh of that miraculous fruit would feed apostles and martyrs, kings and saints, rich and poor, poets and psalmists, young and old, saints and sinners, you and me.

No longer would a fruit bring a curse. No longer would the thirst of sin go unquenched.

Blessed is the Fruit that revives the soul and restores true Life… the good fruit, the holy fruit… the succulent fleshy fruit of God’s own nature mingling with our own, its juice running down our chin, nourishing our bodies, transforming our lot with its precious wine.

–

Pat Gohn is a writer, speaker, and (my favorite) host of the “Among Women” podcast and blog. She holds a Masters in Theology, and a Bachelors in Communications. Her passion is working within Catholic adult faith formation and using media for evangelization and catechesis. Find out more at PatGohn.com.

image credit: MorgueFile

Filed Under: Faith, guest post, Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Looking Closer at the Hail Mary Tagged With: Catholic, Faith, guest post, Hail Mary, Pat Gohn, prayer, Virgin Mary

Looking Closer at the Hail Mary: THE

April 26, 2012 By Sarah Reinhard Leave a Comment

A reflection on the word “THE”

By Melanie Betanelli

“The” is a humble little word and that is what makes it so hard to write about. I am beset on all sides with temptations to pride. How can I make ‘the’ important? How can I make it shine and stand out? How can I make a wonderful, memorable point despite the seeming limitations of this so ordinary word?

At first I was going to write about how I am such a pedant. How my first reaction to the word ‘the’ was to retort that it isn’t even in the Latin version of the prayer. It’s just a piece of English grammar, it doesn’t have any real meaning. And yet I knew that path was one of intellectual pride: Hey, look at me, I studied Latin. Don’t I seem so important?

I saw that instead I needed to focus on ‘the’ as a call to humility. I recently read in a biography of St Anthony of Padua that “humility is the mother and root of all virtues”. Yes, humility is the soil in which all the virtues grow. “God resists the proud but shows Himself to and uses the Humble,” St Anthony proclaims.

And yet even with this resolution firmly in place, I keep experiencing mission creep. I want to write about the mystery of Mary’s perpetual virginity and her role as the Ark of the New Covenant. I want to ponder the mystery of the Incarnation. (Yes, in an earlier draft I somehow managed to drag poor little ‘the’ kicking and screaming into those waters which are really too deep for this humble word.) But that isn’t where this meditation is leading.

Instead I need to accept the very littleness of ‘the’. It is important, every word has a role to play or it wouldn’t be there, this in not a prayer with excess verbiage; but it is not a profound role. ‘The’ is a necessary bit of grammar; but it is a very humble, everyday sort of word. We use it without much thought or care. I mistype it a hundred times in a day ‘hte’ my fingers type, much to my great chagrin. And how often do I post a blog entry without even noticing that typo?

I’m working on accepting ‘the’ for what it is and not demanding that it be something more. I need to just let ‘the’ be itself.

Humility. Why is it so hard to accept smallness? Why is it so hard to be unnoticed, unimportant? Why do we want to stand out from the crowd? To follow Mary must be to follow her example of humility. She always points away from herself and toward someone else. She points toward her son.

So it is with “the”. Don’t notice me, it says. I’m not important here. Look at Him. He’s what really matters. Keep your eyes on Him. The blessed. The fruit. Jesus.

–

Melanie Bettinelli is a wife and mother to four small children. She writes at that temptation to pride, her blog, The Wine Dark Sea.

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Filed Under: Faith, guest post, Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Looking Closer at the Hail Mary Tagged With: Catholic, Faith, guest post, Hail Mary, Melanie Betanelli, prayer, Virgin Mary

Looking Closer at the Hail Mary: IS

April 24, 2012 By Sarah Reinhard 2 Comments

A reflection on the word “IS”

By Christine Johnson

What a daunting task, to contemplate the word “is.” How do you discuss the meaning of the verb “to be?” Have you tried defining it for a child? (Trust me, I’ve been homeschooling my girls for nearly nine years now, and defining this verb is no easy task.)

But here, in the middle of the Hail Mary, is this verb: is. To be. Conjugating the verb brings me up short, makes me stop in my tracks and realize something huge.

I am…

This is God. “I am Who I am.” The Great I Am. God, as Father Robert Barron puts it in his Catholicism series, has a nature of existence. His very nature is to be.

God has no beginning and no end. He is eternal. Alpha and Omega. These are things we hear and say, but to contemplate it is mind-numbing. I remember trying to understand this when I was a child. We were on a long trip from the Jersey Shore to Long Island to visit family, and I sat in the back seat of the car thinking about the eternal nature of God.

I gave myself my very first headache.

via Google Maps

But to contemplate it here in the Hail Mary gives us new things to think about.

First, the Eternal God, Creator of all things visible and invisible, became a Human Being. The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Who has no beginning, had a beginning to His human life, and it was the moment the Archangel Gabriel approached the Blessed Virgin Mary and heard her fiat.

But this portion of the Hail Mary comes not from Gabriel. This part is from St. Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin, who has been confined to home as she awaits the birth of her first child, who will become the Baptizer. Elizabeth greets Mary with joy, proclaiming, “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb!” (Luke 1:41-45)

And here is what sticks out to me: Elizabeth’s verb tense.

Blessed is the Fruit of thy womb!

Elizabeth doesn’t say, “Blessed will be the Fruit of thy womb.” She doesn’t use past tense, either, saying, “Blessed has been the Fruit of thy womb.” She uses the present tense: blessed is.

Jesus, new in Mary’s womb and yet Ancient of Days, is blessed. Blessed be the Name of God! Blessed be His Holy Name! We should be in continual praise of God, blessing His Name at all times. Every breath we have – every thought, word, and deed of our lives – should be given over to praise of our Creator! Elizabeth does just this here. She blesses God, gives Him praise and thanksgiving.

From http://www.baby2see.com/development/week8.html

The second thing that is brought to my mind as I look at this verb is that Jesus is present at that moment. Again, he is newly formed. When Mary receives word of Elizabeth being pregnant, it is already her sixth month. Mary would be traveling around 115 miles to get there. That’s a day trip for us, but on an ass there and back, it’s hardly an easy journey. But even if it took a month, Mary would only be about 6 weeks pregnant by the time she arrived in Hebron. This is a time when no one would be able to tell that Mary was pregnant just by looking at her. Jesus would be so tiny – less than an inch in length – that some people today would even question whether He was really a Baby yet.

Elizabeth uses the present tense verb to refer to Mary’s hidden Child. Jesus is present there – Emmanuel, God with us.

And this brings us to a final point: very often, we cannot see God with us. We look and find nothing. Our sorrows overwhelm us, and we fear drowning in our fears and anxieties.

But Jesus is with us. He might be hidden from obvious sight, as He was when Mary went to visit her cousin, but He is near. He is with us in a friend who calls just when you need someone to talk to. He is with us in the article you come across that speaks perfectly to your situation. He is with us in that tweet that makes you laugh in spite of your sadness. He is even with us in the smile of a stranger you pass in the store.

We only need to seek Him, and He will reveal Himself to us, often in very surprising ways.

It’s such a small word, but like the whispering wind in 1Kings (1Kings 19:11-13) that contained God, it’s not to be overlooked. After all, it’s Who God says He Is.

–

Christine Johnson blogs at Domestic Vocation and is active on Twitter as @catholicmomva. She’s one of those moms who I wish I was neighbors with so that we could have tea together in person. Because you know, she seems completely normal, despite the fact that she is so very amazing.

Filed Under: Faith, guest post, Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Looking Closer at the Hail Mary Tagged With: Catholic, Christine Johnson, Faith, guest post, Hail Mary, prayer, Virgin Mary

Sometimes, it’s just easier to be naked

April 21, 2012 By Sarah Reinhard Leave a Comment

I’ve discovered something about myself recently, and it came by way of a friend.

She recounted how, as she was sharing in front of a group of her fellow parishioners, she suddenly realized she might have been sharing too much.

“But it felt right,” she said. “The Spirit was at work. Suddenly, I felt so naked.”

I knew just what she meant. I find it myself, especially when I stand in front of my fifth-grade religious education class.

There they are, innocent and with so much life in front of them. They’re rowdy and energetic and ready to laugh in an instant.

They are tackling the big questions in life, and in the midst of the shrugs and rolling eyes, I catch a glimpse, now and then, of just how much they want to love their faith, of how passionate they long to be.

They see me, every week, make a fool of myself. I get fired up and heated and I have even been known to raise my voice.

I do the same thing, times ten, with a group of Confirmation students every summer. I can’t help it: I remember, so well, those years. I too wanted something to believe in. I too wanted something to grasp.

Do they know what to make of me? Will they remember anything we have discussed? For that matter, will they continue to Jesus in the Eucharist after these classes are a distant memory?

I’ve bared my soul to groups of adults too, but it’s far harder. Suddenly, I’m in a peer group. Suddenly, there’s a part of me worried about what they think. Suddenly, I wonder if maybe I’m wrong, if it’s not really the Spirit but some part of me.

There’s a distance we have thanks to the many screens in our lives. It’s not so hard to say what I think or feel when I’m just typing words to a theoretical world. But when I’m looking them in the face, when I’m feeling their reaction in person, it makes a difference in me.

That difference is hard, pushing me in ways I don’t want to be, pulling me closer to God if I let it. Sometimes, I think, it’s easier just to be naked in front of the crowd.

This “Finding Faith in Everyday Life” column originally appeared in The Catholic Times.

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Filed Under: Faith, writing Tagged With: Catholic Times, Faith, Finding Faith in Everyday Life, writing

Looking Closer at the Hail Mary: BLESSED

April 19, 2012 By Sarah Reinhard 2 Comments

A reflection on the word “BLESSED”

By Michelle Reitemeyer

“The graces obtained from the sacrament of marriage are vital,” I said firmly to my Catholic acquaintance. “I doubt my marriage would have survived so long without them. And I see many troubled marriages…Catholic friends…not married in the Church. It’s tough.”

A long time passed, perhaps a year. One day, this same acquaintance reminded me of that conversation. “You got me thinking that day,” she said. “I talked to my husband and we’re going to be married in the Church next month.” I had had no idea that her marriage of over a decade had been performed by a JP. Had I known, I might never have said what I did, not wanting to offend her.

I was humbled by her decision to obtain a sacramental marriage on account of my words. It wasn’t my work. It was the Holy Spirit. You never know when He might use you.

I have also been on the receiving end of casual words that haunt me. In fact, when Sarah assigned me my word – blessed – I instantly recalled a brief encounter from more than a year ago. I was having a bad day made worse by the necessity to drive to my husband’s office on a military post some twenty miles away. To get on post, you have to show your ID to a guard at a gate, and most engage in some typical small talk.

The woman on duty asked me, “How are you today?” and I answered, “Fine, thank you,” even though I didn’t really mean it. I asked her, “How are you?” because I am polite, and because I really do care, in a small way, and strive hard to recognize that it is a person and not an automaton with whom I am dealing.

And she answered, “I am blessed. Thank you for asking.”

These are words I have “pondered in my heart” frequently in the last year or more. I could never recognize that woman again, and I doubt that she would remember me. I suspect that here, once again, the Holy Spirit was at work.

Could Elizabeth have known, two millennium ago, the power of her words? “Blessed are you,” she told Mary, “and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” We have Scripture’s confirmation that her words were the work of the Holy Spirit and that Mary dwelt on, if not these particular statements, certainly many other conversations and events surrounding the Incarnation.

I do not know that Elizabeth expected her joyous exclamations to become the foundation of one of the most frequently recited prayers in history. I am confident, however, that Mary knew she was blessed. Unlike me, on that grumpy day a year ago, who was not feeling particularly blessed but who definitely needed a reminder, I think Mary was ever aware of God’s infinite Goodness. And I think it is this awareness that we are all called to emulate.

It is not always easy to feel God’s blessings. Many days, in fact, it is quite a challenge to find anything good in a particular situation. But this is not a trivial glass-half-full change of attitude. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging the difficulties that life is handing us; we don’t have to like our circumstances. But Mary’s response to a “crisis pregnancy” and an awkward social situation was not wailing and gnashing of teeth, rather, her spirit rejoiced in God her Savior, as Luke tells us.

This rejoicing in the midst of a difficult situation was a supreme act of humility. Mary could see that God was using her to fulfill His Divine Will, and she was grateful for the honor. None of us are called to such service, yet we each have our own small role in God’s plan. We can choose to be grumpy and ungrateful, or we can humbly accept God’s blessings in whatever form they come.

–

Michelle Reitemeyer blogs sporadically about her life as a military wife and homeschooling mother at Rosetta Stone. Future adventures will include simultaneously orchestrating an interstate move and giving birth to her seventh child without having a single meltdown.

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Filed Under: Faith, guest post, Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Looking Closer at the Hail Mary Tagged With: Catholic, Faith, guest post, Hail Mary, Michelle Reitemeyer, prayer, Virgin Mary

Looking Closer at the Hail Mary: AND

April 17, 2012 By Sarah Reinhard 3 Comments

A reflection on the word “AND”

By Ginny Kubitz Moyer

When I was single, signing birthday cards was a straightforward process. At the end of my message, I’d scribble “Love, Ginny,” and that was that.

Post-wedding, the process became a bit more complicated: “Love, Ginny” gave way to “Love, Ginny and Scott.” With the exchange of vows, I’d acquired not just a new last name but a longer written signoff.

Now, as the mother of two, signing a card is more complicated still: “Love, Ginny, Scott, Matthew, and Luke.” It’s no longer something I can dash off in three seconds; it takes more time, more space on the paper, and more muscle movement. Sometimes, when I’m feeling lazy, I just scrawl “Ginny, Scott, and boys.” When really pressed for time, I’ll make do with a quick “Ginny and Co.”

But regardless of which option I choose, there’s always an “and” in my signoff. I’m no longer just one person, but part of a unit. I’m part of a little family which, ten years ago, literally did not exist.

And I like that.

Admittedly, there are times when it’s not easy to be part of an “and.” On the rare days when we arrange a sitter and go to the movies, my husband wants to see the latest action flick while I would rather watch the movie about English women in bonnets and gloves. (Compromise ensues.) As a mom, I find that one of my kids invariably needs my attention just when I’m getting rolling on a writing project. Back when I was pregnant, the demands of being an “and’ were even more taxing; there was a little person inside me who ate everything I ate and drank everything I drank (goodbye alcohol, normal amounts of caffeine, and Brie).

But when I really think about this word, I can’t help but see it as a positive. “And” means more. It signifies abundance. It means that you are not alone, but part of a family or a community. It means sharing a past and present and future. It means having someone else there with you, by your side and on your side, through smooth sailing and through storms.

And when I think about Mary, it’s obvious that she knew all about being part of an “and.” In the Bible, we read about Mary and Joseph, Mary and Elizabeth, Mary and the beloved apostle, Mary and the apostles in the upper room. Throughout the Gospels, we catch numerous glimpses of a woman in relationship with others. Those relationships surely sustained her in moments of joy and wonder, in moments of confusion and uncertainty, in moments of excruciating pain – and in moments of astonishing new life.

Most of all, there’s the relationship that we see depicted on Christmas cards and in art museums all over the world. It’s the relationship between Madonna and child, Mary and Jesus, mother and son. It’s about two people, one who grew inside the other, sharing a connection that is universal and intimate and beautiful.

It’s the “and” that has changed the world.

–

Ginny Kubitz Moyer is the author of Mary and Me: Catholic Women Reflect on the Mother of God (which I highly recommend!). She blogs about faith, motherhood, and her serious book addiction at Random Acts of Momness.

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