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ACW Review No 91, December 2011
Catechesis on the Angels No 4 Angels Participate in History of Salvation Blessed Pope John Paul II
A homily for the Walsingham Pro-life Pilgrimage by Bishop O’Donoghue
ACW Review No 90, September 2011
Benedetta Bianchi Porro - Dom Antoine Marie OSB
Confessions of an Ex-Feminist - Marcia Segelstein
Full Texts
ACW Review No 91, December 2011
Catechesis on the Angels No 4 Angels Participate in History of Salvation Blessed Pope John Paul II
In his general audience of August 6th, Pope John Paul II noted that the modern mentality does not see the importance of angels. Yet in the encounter with the world of angels, man comes to see his own being not only as body but also as spirit.
In the recent catechese we have seen how the Church, illuminated by the light that comes from Sacred Scripture, has professed throughout the centuries the truth about the existence of the angels as purely spiritual beings, with the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, and has confirmed this in the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), whose formulation was repeated by the First Vatican Council in the context of the doctrine on creation:
"God at the beginning of time created for nothing both creatures together, the spiritual and the corporeal, that is, the angelic and the earthly, and thus He created human nature as having both, since it is made up of spirit and body" (Constitution De Fide Catholica, DS 3002).
In other words, God created both realities from the very beginning— the spiritual reality and the corporeal, the earthly world and the angelic world. He created all this at one and the same time (simul) with a view to the creation of man, constituted of spirit and matter and set, according to the biblical narrative, in the framework of a world already established according to His laws and already measured by time (deinde).
Together with their existence, the faith of the Church recognizes certain distinctive characteristics of the nature of the angels. Their purely spiritual being implies first of all their nonmateriality and their immortality. The angels have no "body" (even if, in particular circumstances, they reveal themselves under visible forms because of their mission for the good of men), and therefore they are not subject to the laws of corruptibility which are common to all the material world.
Jesus Himself, referring to the condition of the angels, will say that in the future life, those who are risen "cannot die any more, because they are equal to the angels" (Lk. 20-36).
As creatures of a spiritual nature, the angels are endowed with intellect and free will, like man, but in a degree superior to him, even if this is always finite because of the limit which is inherent in every creature. The angels are therefore personal beings and, as such, are also "in the image and likeness" of God.
Sacred Scripture refers to the angels also by using terms that are not only personal (like the proper names of Raphael, Gabriel, Michael) but also "collective" (like the titles: seraphim, cherubim, thrones, powers, dominions, principalities), just as it distinguishes between angels and archangels. While bearing in mind analogous and representative character of the language of the sacred text, we can deduce that these beings and persons, as it were grouped together in society, are divided into orders and grades, corresponding to the measure of their perfection and to the tasks entrusted to them. The ancient authors and the liturgy itself speak also of the angelic choirs (nine, according to Dionysius the Areopagite).
Theology, especially in the patristic and medieval periods, has not rejected these representations, seeking to explain them in doctrinal and mystical terms, without, however, attributing an absolute value to them. St Thomas preferred to deepen his researches into the ontological condition, the epistemological activity and will into the loftiness of these purely spiritual creatures, both because of their dignity in the scale of beings and also because he could investigate more deeply in them the capacities and the activities that are proper to the spirit in the pure state, deducing no little light to illuminate the basic problems that have always agitated and stimulated human thought: knowledge, love, liberty, docility to God, how to reach His Kingdom.
The theme which we have touched on may seem "far away" or "less vital" to the mentality of modern man. But the Church believes that she renders a great service to man when she proposes sincerely the totality of the truth about God the Creator and also about the angels.
Man nurtures the conviction that it is he (and not the angels) who is at the center of the divine Revelation in Christ, Man and God. It is precisely the religious encounter with the world of the purely spiritual being that becomes valuable as a revelation of his own being not only as body but also as spirit, and of his belonging to a design of salvation that is truly great and efficacious within a community of personal beings who serve the providential design of God for man and with man.
Let us note that Sacred Scripture and Tradition give the proper name of angels to those pure spirits who chose God, His glory, and His Kingdom in the fundamental test of their liberty, They are united to God by the consummate love which flows from the beatific vision, face to face, of the Most Holy Trinity.
Jesus Himself tells us this: "The angels in Heaven always see the face of my father who is in Heaven!" (Mt. 18:10). "To see the face of the Father always" in this way is the highest manifestation of the adoration of God. One can say that this constitutes the "heavenly liturgy," carried out in the name of all the universe; with which the earthly liturgy of the Church is incessantly joined, especially in its culminating moments.
Let it suffice here to record the act with which the Church, every day and every hour, in all the world, before beginning the Eucharistic Prayer in the centre of the Mass, makes appeal "to the angels and archangels" to sing the glory of the thrice-holy God, uniting herself thus to those first adorers of God, in the worship and the loving knowledge of the unspeakable mystery of His holiness.
According to Revelation, the angels who participate in the life of the Trinity in the light of glory are also called to play their part in the history of the salvation of man, in the moments established by divine Providence "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to serve, for the sake of those who are to possess salvation?,'' asks the author of the Letter to the Hebrews (1:14).
This is believed and taught by the Church, on the basis of Sacred Scripture, from which we learn that the task of the good angels is the protection of people and solicitude for their salvation.
We find these experiences in various passages of Sacred Scripture, like for example, Ps. 90 which has already been quoted several times: "He will give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone" (Ps. 90:11-12). Jesus Himself, speaking of children and warning against giving them scandal, refers to "their angels" (Mt. 18:10). Besides this, He attributes to the angels the function of witnesses in the last divine judgement about the fate of those who have acknowledged or denied Christ: "Whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man likewise will acknowledge him before the angels of God, but whoever denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God" (Lk. 12:8-9; cf. Rev. 3:5).
These words are significant because, if the angels take part in the judgement of God, then they are interested in the life of man. This interest and participation seem to be accentuated in the eschatological discourse, in which Jesus has the angels appear in the Parousia, that is, in the definitive coming of Christ at the end of history ( cf. Mt. 24.31; 25:31-41).
Among the books of the New Testament, it is especially the Acts of the Apostles that show us some facts that bear witness to the solicitude of the angels for man, angels for man and for his salvation.
Thus the angel of God liberates the Apostles from the prison (cf Acts 5:18-20 and first of all Peter, when he was threatened with death at the hands of Herod (cf. Acts 12:5-10). Or he guides the activity of Peter with regard to the centurion Cornelius, the first pagan to be converted (Acts 10:3-8, 11:1-12), and analogously the activity of the deacon Philip along the road from Jerusalem to Gaza (Acts 8:26-29).
From these few facts which we have cited as examples, we understand how the Church could come to the conviction that God has entrusted to the angels a ministry in favour of people Therefore the Church confesses her faith in the guardian angels, venerating them in the liturgy with an appropriate feast and recommending recourse to their protection by frequent prayer, as in the invocation "Angel of God." This prayer seems to draw on the treasure of the beautiful words of St. Basil: "Every one of the faithful has beside him an angel as tutor and pastor, to lead him to life"' (cf. St Basil, Adv. Eunonium, III, 1; cf. also St Thomas, Summa Theol. I, q.11, a.3).
Ministering Spirits
Finally, it is appropriate to note that the Church honours the figures of three angels with a liturgical cult; these are called by name in Sacred Scripture.
The first is Michael the Archangel (cf. Dan. 10:13-20; Rev. 12:7; Jude 9). His name is a synthesis that expresses the essential attitude of the good spirits. "Mica-EL" in fact means: "Who is like God?" In this name, therefore, we find expressed the salvific choice thanks to which the angels "see the face of the Father" who is in Heaven.
The second is Gabriel: a figure bound especially to the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God (cf. Lk 1:19-26). His name means: "my power is God" or "power of God," as if to say that the culmination of creation, the Incarnation is the supreme sign of the omnipotent Father.
Finally, the third archangel is called Raphael. "Rafa-EL" means: "God heals." He is made known to us by the story of Tobias in the Old Testament (cf. Tob. 12:15-20), etc.). which is so significant for what it says about entrusting to the angels the little children of God, who are always in need of custody, care, and protection.
If we reflect well, we see that each one of these figures, Mica-EL, Gabri-EL, and Rafa-EL reflects in a particular way the truth contained in the question posed by the author of the Letter to the Hebrews : "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to serve, for the sake of those who are to possess salvation?" (Heb. 1-14). Catechesis on the Angels was given at six general Audiences 9 July -20 August 1986.
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A homily for the Walsingham Pro-life Pilgrimage by Bishop O’Donoghue
Homily for Walsingham Pro-life Pilgrimage of Reparation and Prayer for the Sanctity of Life
Bishop O'Donoghue
We have come here to Walsingham because we want to draw closer to our Mother, like countless Catholics before us for more than a thousand years. Our Lady’s Shrine at Walsingham was once one of the major pilgrimage sites of Christendom. Think of the millions of Catholics from this country and from throughout Europe who came, like us, as pilgrims seeking to draw closer to the sanctity of Mary, the Mother of God.
I’ve mentioned the word ‘sanctity’ twice now, ‘the sanctity of Life’, the sanctity of human life, and the sanctity of Mary, the Mother of the eternally begotten Son of God.
What is sanctity?
Every Sunday we pray the Sanctus, the great hymn of praise of God’s holiness, ‘Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus’. `Holy, Holy, Holy.’ Sanctity is the wondrous presence of God’s holiness at work in human life, made in the image of God, and at work in the life of Mary, the immaculate image of God, through the grace of Christ. Sanctity is never abstract, it is always made real, through sacraments and sacramentals. sanctity that we draw close to here at Walsingham is not abstract, but has been made present through the Shrine of the House of Nazareth.
Tradition has it that a certain Richeldis de Faverchoes prayed that she might undertake some special work in honour of Our Lady. In answer she was led in spirit to the Holy House of Nazareth, where Mary, in conversation with the angel Gabriel, consented to becoming the Mother of Jesus. In turn Richeldis was invited to build a replica of the Holy House here in Walsingham.
The sanctity that draws us here to Walsingham is that of the Holy Home of Nazareth, the home that Mary created when she gave her consent to God’s mysterious plan, the home she created, through the power of the Holy Spirit, when she conceived the eternal Word of God in her virginal womb.
Listen to these words of St Thomas Aquinas about the sanctity of Our Lady and the conception of the Son of God:
`She was so filled with grace that from her soul grace poured into her flesh from which was conceived the Son of God’.
And here are the words of St Clare of Assisi:
`A Son whom the heavens could not contain, and yet she carried Him in the little enclosure of her holy womb and held Him on her virginal lap.’
This is why Walsingham is so important to the Pro-life movement in this country, and dare I say to the pro-life movement in the whole world, because the sanctity of Home is at the heart of pro-life.
Home is the making present, the making real of love, care, mutual self-sacrifice.
Home is where children are conceived, welcomed, and sometimes born.
Home is where children are cherished and raised
Home is where the sick are nursed and cared for.
Home is where we prepare for death, and where some of us die.
Yes, abortion, contraception, euthanasia, and assisted suicide destroy life, and they also destroy the sanctity of home. This is why there are so many broken homes in our country.
The shocking outbreak of rioting that occurred in England during the summer was a symptom of the broken homes that so many of these children and young people are growing up in. I’m sure that one of the causes of these broken homes is the fact that more than 5 million unborn children have been killed through abortion since the Abortion Act was passed in the late 1960’s..
I wrote about this link between violence among young people and abortion in my book Fit for Mission? Church.
“I am convinced that there must be profoundly damaging consequences for the family in a country were contraception and abortion are so widespread. No wonder so many children are suffering depression and mental illness in a country that is such a hostile environment for human life.”
I am convinced another cause of the wide-spread violence lies in the Abortion Act of 1967. For 41 years we’ve lived in a statesponsored culture of death that has killed 5 million children, and we’re now surprised that some of the surviving children have turned out violent with no regard for the sanctity of life?”
“How many children know that their mothers have had an abortion? What effect will it have on them knowing that they have been deprived of a brother or sister through abortion?”
“If a society holds human life so cheaply is it any surprise that young people will also hold life cheaply and engage in violence?”
This is why we have come on pilgrimage to Walsingham, to make reparation for the desecration of so many homes throughout Our Lady’s Dowry, homes that should have been reflections of the Holy House of Nazareth but have been broken by abortion, contraception and the culture of death.
We also come to. ask Our Lady to intercede for us that God continues to bless our homes with the life-giving grace of Nazareth, and to heal the broken homes throughout the UK that cause so much heart-ache and deprivation.
Pope Benedict, one of the world’s great teachers of the Gospel of Life, talks about the urgent need to promote and defend the ecology of man.
The word ‘ecology’ comes from the Greek word ‘eco’ which means ‘house’ or ‘home’. Pope Benedict is calling on Catholics to promote and defend the home of man that has its origins and principles in the creative will and purpose of God.
This is what Pope Benedict said about the ‘ecology of man’ during his State Visit to Germany last week:
“The importance of ecology is no longer disputed. We must listen to the language of nature and we must answer accordingly. Yet I would like to underline a point that seems to me to be neglected, today as in the past: there is also an ecology of man. Man too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will. Man is not merely selfcreating freedom. Man does not create himself. He is intellect and will, but he is also nature, and his will is rightly ordered if he respects his nature, listens to it and accepts himself for who he is, as one who did not create himself. In this way, and in no other, is true human freedom fulfilled.”
Earlier in 2008 Pope Benedict first introduced this concept of the `ecology of man’ and its importance to the pro-life movement:
`The Church must also protect man from self-destruction. What is needed is something like a human ecology, correctly understood.
“If the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman, and demands that this order of creation be respected, this is not some antiquated metaphysics. What is involved here is faith in the Creator and a readiness to listen to the ‘language’ of creation. To disregard this would be the selfdestruction of man himself, and hence the destruction of God’s own work.”
“Rain forests deserve indeed to be protected, but no less so does man, as a creature having an innate “message” which does not contradict, our freedom, but is instead its very premise.”
I think Pope Benedict is telling us something very important, that we need to set our defence of the sanctity of life within the wider perspective of ‘the ecology of man’ in order to proclaim the Gospel of Life to our contemporaries.
As never before mankind is aware of the awesome beauty and intricate complexity of the natural world. One just has to recall the photographs of our blue pearl of a planet taken by astronauts from space or the majestic, vivid images of galaxies and stars taken by the Hubble telescope.
The Second Vatican Council document Gaudium et Spes answers perfectly those who ask the question faced with these, ‘what is man’s place in nature?’ Gaudium et Spes 12 answers, ‘Man is the centre and crown of creation’ because created ‘to the image of God,’ man is capable of knowing and loving his Creator.
Gaudium et Spes 22 goes on to say that man is the centre and crown of creation because through His incarnation ‘the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man’
“He worked with human hands, He thought with a human mind, acted by human choice and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, He has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin.”
Let’s think about this for a few moments. Through taking on a human nature, a human body in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, the eternally begotten Son of God, has united Himself with every woman, man, and child on this planet. By sharing in the same human nature as Jesus every human being born is somehow joined to the divine-human life of the Son of God who took flesh in the immaculate flesh of Mary, the Mother of God.
This means that each human person conceived shares in a triple dignity:
- Made in the Image of God
- The centre and crown of all creation
- Joined to Jesus Christ, the eternal begotten Son of God, through his incarnation in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
- This is why all people that sincerely care about nature, and that seek to protect the environment from being destroyed should care about the destruction of the pre-born child by abortion. Every time a child is killed through abortion a person who is created by God as the centre and crown of all creation is destroyed. This is why abortion is the greatest crime against the natural world, against the environment.
This is why all Christians that sincerely care about human dignity and human rights should care about euthanasia and assisted suicide. Every time a vulnerable person’s heart is stopped by drugs or the withdrawal of fluids or food, a person who is united with the humanity of the Son of God is unjustly and sinfully tortured and killed. This is why euthanasia and assisted suicide is the greatest crime against humanity.
This is why all Catholics, and all people of good will, who defend human life through their support of the pro-life movement are the most radical environmentalists and most radical advocates of human rights. The most endangered ecosystem on the planet is the. mother’s womb and the most endangered human right is the right to life of our most vulnerable citizens. Protecting the ecology of. man from destruction by abortion and euthanasia should be the foremost concern of every human institution and government, in fact of every ecological group such as Green Peace and Friends of the Earth and every Human Rights group such as Amnesty International.
But tragically for the future of life on this planet, the ecological movement and human rights movement are often the loudest advocates of so called ‘reproductive rights’, which as we know is just a cynical euphemism for killing unborn children. The world needs reminding that Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognises the right to life of every person. All are entitled to the rights of Freedom set forth in this declaration without distinction of any kind. It is deplorable that so many states choose to allow the unborn child to be a victim and targeted for killing—a barbaric and evil practice. We must stand firm in our call for respect for human life from natural conception to natural death.
To conclude I want to return our attention to the fact that we have come here to Walsingham, the site of the Shrine of the Holy House of Nazareth.
The moment Mary gave her `fiat’, her consent to the Archangel Gabriel’s message that she was to be the Mother of God, she went in haste to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was pregnant with John the Baptist.
This is what Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta wrote of that meeting between the pregnant Mary and the pregnant Elizabeth:
‘And the unborn child, John the Baptist, rejoiced in Elizabeth’s womb. How wonderful it was—Almighty God chose an unborn child to announce the coming of His Son’.
And when Elizabeth felt her baby son rejoice in her womb, when she felt him announce the coming of God’s son, the longed for Messiah, she was filled with the Holy Spirit.
‘Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb’. (Luke 1:41-42)
In response to Elizabeth’s exultation of praise, the joy of baby John the Baptist, and her awareness of baby Jesus, the Son of God, in her own womb, Mary proclaims her great canticle of rejoicing, the Magnificat.
The thing to remember here is that Mary sings out her great hymn of praise in the presence of four others, Elizabeth, baby John, baby Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who—as we acknowledge in the Nicene Creed—is the Giver of Life.
As such, the Magnificat is one of the fundamental sources of the Gospel of Life and the pro-life movement. The Magnificat is God’s manifesto for a Marian revolution, for Mary’s revolution, which is more powerful, more dynamic, more radical than Karl Marx’s manifesto, or any other man-made, political manifesto.
This is what Archbishop Fulton Sheen wrote about Mary’s revolution contained in the, Magnificat:
‘It is remarkable how Mary begins her Magnificat with her personal experiences and soon passes on to identify herself with the whole human race. She looks ahead and sees what the effect of the birth of her Son will be to the world, how it will improve the whole condition of human life, how it will free the oppressed, feed the hungry, and assist the helpless. And when she said these words, her Son was not yet born—although one would think, from the joy of the song, that He was already in her arms. She is singing here a song of pure faith about something certain to happen because God will make it come true, not predicting the mere revolution of blind material forces.’
To begin to truly transform our society through this Marian revolution we don’t need to form a political party, or lobby parliament, we need to start with our own hearts, the way we live our lives.
Again, this is how Fulton Sheen puts it:
‘Happy are they who experience, within themselves, the expelling of pride and egotism, and in whom spiritual hunger is fed—who discover, before it is too late, that they are poor, and naked, and blind, and who seek to clothe themselves with the raiment of grace that her Son brings’.
Simply put, we need to make Mary’s Magnificat our own, our pattern for living life, so that the revolution of Mary transforms us and our families, our parishes and our dioceses.
Allow me to take three phrases from the Magnificat:
“He has used the power of His arm, He has routed the arrogant of heart”
For us to share in the life of Christ, and live like Him, is the death of pride. Pride was the first sin and the origin of all sin and it continues to be so. When we allow the Holy Spirit, through the sacraments, prayer and fasting, to place our lives beside the life of Christ, sin’s hold on our lives is loosened and we are freed. In Him we take on new life and become life.
We can only truly confront and challenge the evil of abortion and euthanasia, if we allow Christ to cast pride and arrogance from our hearts.
We long for Mary’s moral revolution.
“He has pulled down Princes from their thrones and raised high the lowly.”
There is no one more lowly in our society than the unborn child and the vulnerable sick and elderly.
There is no one more powerful in our society than the politician, medical professional, or journalist who is proabortion, and pro-euthanasia. They are the Princes of the Culture of Death that has been established in our country.
We know on whose side Jesus is don’t we! The unborn child abandoned by his or her mother and father. The sick and elderly abandoned by their family.
During these times when the culture of death seems unstoppable, we must ask Mary to give us a share in her hope that the Lord will pull down today’s Princes, and raise up to life all who are truly lowly.
We long for Mary’s social revolution.
“He has filled the starving with good things and sent the rich away empty.” A non-Christian society thrives on acquiring wealth and hoarding it—money, property, a good name, the so-called ‘good life’.
In this consumerist society human life has become a commodity, that can be bought and sold.
The abortion industry in this country makes £60 million a year from the Department of Health for killing 200,000 unborn children
Embryonic children have been killed and harvested to produce lines of stem cells for the pharmaceutical industry to make vast profits.
Thousands of teenage mothers are pressurised into having abortions by the State to ensure that they don’t claim social housing and benefits. Money is seen as being more important than a child’s life.
A Christian, fully human society is one that puts the needs of the most vulnerable first, that values human life more than the balance sheet.
We long for Mary’s economic revolution.
Let me finish by quoting from Blessed John Paul’s prophetic encyclical Evangelium Vitae, in which he writes about the Marian revolution that started when Mary met Elizabeth in the presence of baby John and baby Jesus:
`The value of the person from the moment of conception is celebrated in the meeting between the Virgin Mary and Elizabeth, and between the two children whom they are carrying in the womb. It is precisely the children who reveal the advent of the Messianic age: in their meeting, the redemptive power of the presence of the Son of God among men first becomes operative.’
Let us pray that the redemptive power of the presence of the Son of God that first became manifest at the meeting between two pregnant women, Mary and Elizabeth, may transform our lives as witnesses and teachers of the Gospel of Life.
And may Our Lady of Walsingham safeguard and defend our homes as sanctuaries for life.
We make our prayer through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
ACW Review No 90, September 2011
Benedetta Bianchi Porro - Dom Antoine Marie OSB
ONE day in the summer of 1955, at the faculty of medicine in Milan,
a female student showed up for a difficult exam at the end of her
second year. Without warning, the professor called on her for the
oral exam. At first, she didn’t respond, then she blushed and shyly
explained, “Professor, I am undergoing treatment for a disease of
the nervous system—I can’t hear anything... I hope to be healed...
Please have patience with me... Could you ask me the questions in
writing?” The students in the room began to laugh. Believing this
to be a bad joke, the professor yelled, “‘Patience, patience!’ What’s
this? Who ever heard of a deaf doctor?” As he threw the confused and
humiliated young woman’s grade book against the wall, she murmured,
“I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to offend you.” The professor remained
unyielding. Having been failed, the student left the room and told
a friend, who had seen everything and was crying, “It does not mean
anything. Listen—don’t say anything to my mother for now; I will tell
her tomorrow.” And it was she who sought to excuse the professor to
her mother. This student never earned a medical degree, but today,
from Heaven, she teaches countless “patients” the art of suffering
well.
Benedetta (Benedicta) Bianchi Porro was born on August 8, 1936 in
Dovadola, a village in the province of Forli, in the Emilia-Romagna
region of northern Italy. Her mother had a deep faith that she strove
to pass on to her six children. As an infant, Benedetta was struck
by polio. The disease was stopped, but her right leg was to remain
shorter than the other. One day, during a game in the schoolyard,
a boy whom the little girl had bothered, shouted to her: “Oh! The
cripple!” Her brother Gabriel took it badly, leading to a fistfight
between the boys. The mothers ran to separate them. But Benedetta
did not take offence: “He called me ‘the cripple'; what is wrong
with that? It’s the truth!” These words reconciled the two boys, who
resumed their game.
The great desires of a teenage girl
In 1942, the Bianchi family moved to Sirmione, on the shore of Lake
Garda. In 1946, Benedetta began to confide her thoughts in a diary,
in which the child often recorded her faults : “Mama told me that
I am unbearable... I am ill-mannered and naughty.” In 1949, she had
to start wearing a corset to avoid becoming hunch- backed. She wrote
that day: “I cried! The corset squeezes so hard under the arms ! Before,
I was carefree and felt almost like the others. Now, what a gulf separates
us. But in life, I want to be like the others,—a little more, perhaps.
I want to be able to become someone.” In school, the girl earned outstanding
grades. In 1953, she noted, “Today is Easter. How I would like to
rise from my sins and live only for God! ... Today, Gabriela and I
philosophized a little about God and the immortality of the soul.
What fools men are when they are ashamed to speak of these important
things!”
In an April 15, 2010 homily to members of the Pontifical Biblical
Commission, Pope Benedict XVI remarked, “Today all too often we are
somewhat afraid of speaking about eternal life. We talk of things
that are useful for the world, we show that Christianity also helps
us to improve the world, but we do not dare to say that its destination
is eternal life and that from this destination stem the criteria for
life. ... We must once again recognize that only in the great perspective
of eternal life does Christianity reveal its full meaning. ... [E]ternal
life exists, it is the true life and from this true life comes the
light that also illuminates this world.”
On February 15, 1953, questioned by her teacher in a Latin class,
Benedetta was unable to hear the questions. This hearing trouble happened
again. She commented in her diary : “What do I look like when this
happens? But what does it matter? Maybe one day I will no longer understand
anything that other people say, but I will always hear the voice of
my soul, and that is the true guide that I must follow.” In October,
by dint of hard work, she received her high school diploma with honours.
She then enrolled in the faculty of medicine in Milan. Her goal was
to “Live, struggle and sacrifice myself for all men.”
However, threatened with deafness, Benedetta experienced a period
of discouragement. She felt the vertigo of nothingness. She wrote
to her closest friend at the time “You know, Anna, it seems to me
that I am in an endless and monotonous swamp, in which I am sinking
slowly, slowly, without pain or regrets, unaware of and indifferent
to what will happen to me, even when the last ray of light from the
sky disappears and the mud closes over me...” “I am very often filled
with doubts and I sink into the deepest scepticism.” The greatest
danger that threatened the young woman was not disease, but the insidious
temptation to sink into nihilism and despair. However, it was precisely
at this moment that she began to be aware of the richness of the interior
life, a world so much vaster than that of the senses. A cry escaped
her that announced the future direction of her life : “How I would
like to live only for God!” Nevertheless, her personal encounter with
JESUS CHRIST would only come later.
Struggling with stoic determination against her handicap, Benedetta
successfully pursued her studies. She learned to read lips; in oral
exams, she answered questions in a flash, without letting on that
she was deaf. In November 1955, she received permission to retake
the oral exam from the summer before. This time, she was given the
questions in writing, and she passed with excellent grades. But that
very evening, she got a migraine and suddenly, her field of vision
narrowed. She immediately had a premonition: “No, my God! Not my eyes!”
One evening in 1956, the student showed a friend a medical treatise,
saying, “This is my disease.” She showed her the photo of a patient
stricken with neurofibromatosis (also known as von Recklinghausen
disease). This extremely rare and incurable condition forms small
tumors on the nerve centres, progressively destroying them. The auditory
nerve is the first to be damaged, followed by the optic nerve and
the other senses, and finally there is progressive paralysis. After
examination, the dismayed doctors confirmed Benedetta’s diagnosis.
Then began a long series of hospital stays and operations intended
to slow down the terrible process.
“A docile sheep in His hands”
On June 27, 1957, Benedetta underwent an operation on her head. Looking
death in the face, she confided to her mother : “How happy I am, Mama,
to be pure as I go to the Lord, without a mortal sin.” The words of
Saint Francis that she so loved came to her mind “Praised be You,
my Lord, for our sister bodily death, whom no living man can escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin, blessed those whom she will find
in Your most holy will, for the second death will not harm them” (Saint
Francis of Assisi, Canticle of the Creatures).
As they were shaving her head, she felt humiliated, but had recourse
to prayer : “While they were shaving me, I felt like a lamb being
sheared. I asked the Lord that I might become a docile sheep in His
hands.” As soon as she came out of anaesthesia, she touched her face
: “They cut my facial nerve.” The left half of her face was now paralysed.
The surgeon did not know how to ask her forgiveness for this professional
error; she simply told him “You did what you could; take my hand and
be at peace! It was something that could happen—you are not the Eternal
Father!”
Yet the great moral strength she demonstrated was no longer enough
for Benedetta to endure her situation. One day she wrote to her best
friend, Maria Grazia, from her seventh-floor apartment in Milan: “There are times that I would like to throw myself out the window.” However, she would not concede defeat to the disease. At the cost of tremendous effort, she successfully completed her fifth year of medical school in June 1959—she was only one year away from her degree! But soon, an operation intended to stop the progressive paralysis of her lower limbs ended in failure—she was
no longer able to walk at all. In 1960, she was forced to completely
give up her studies—a difficult trial for this young woman so gifted,
and eager to be active. But while her loved ones helplessly watched
her progressive physical destruction, they were also the stunned witnesses
to her spiritual growth. Cloistered in her room, she showed neither
sadness nor discouragement: “I live everyday life, but how full it
seems to me! Life itself seems a miracle to me, and I would like to
sing a hymn of praise to Him Who has given it to me.” And to her mother,
who gave her a bird in a cage with the remark, “It is like you”, she
replied, “No, Mama, I was never as free as I’ve been since I’ve been
immobilized here.” She was able to say to Maria Grazia, with her characteristic
sincerity: “As to my spirit, I am completely calm, and even much more—I
am happy. Don’t think that I’m exaggerating.” At the same time, she
became humble, realizing that she was indeed imperfect, a “sinner”
in the eyes of God, and she feared losing this interior joy of which
she felt herself unworthy.
Yet things did not always go smoothly. Peace was followed by periods
of interior agony. In 1960, Benedetta wrote to a new friend, Nicoletta,
who was already experienced in the spiritual life: “At the moment
I am going through a period of great aridity. I feel alone, tired,
somewhat humiliated, and without much patience... The worst is that
I am not at peace. Pray for me, pray for me... Why is this happening
to me? Why is God allowing this?” Her friend answered, “Don’t force
yourself to feel what you believe, or to understand why it is fair
that you suffer so much. Don’t panic if you seem to be rebelling—this
is not important in God’s eyes. He knows the truth... Before this
vast mystery, He wants only our ‘yes’; it doesn’t matter if we say
it badly.” Benedetta listened, and said her “yes”. And little by little,
she experienced the presence of JESUS CHRIST living in her. She was
able to write to Nicoletta: “Bless you for the joy you have obtained
for me, a joy too great for me, so unworthy. I was flooded with joy,
as though all the oceans were poured into a walnut shell.”
From this time on, Benedetta received suffering less as a burden to
be heroically carried, than as the mark of divine favour. JESUS called
her to share His cross so that she might identify herself with Him.
She let herself go, and found her strength in the Gospel, which she
read every day, in Saint Paul, and in the psalms. In his encyclical
on hope, Benedict XVI confirms the correctness of this attitude: “For
prayer to develop this power of purification, it must on the one hand
be something very personal, an encounter between my intimate self
and God, the living God. On the other hand it must be constantly guided
and enlightened by the great prayers of the Church and of the saints,
by liturgical prayer, in which the Lord teaches us again and again
how to pray properly” (Encyclical Spe Salvi, November 30, 2007, no.
34).
“Speak to the Madonna!”
In May 1962, Benedetta left for Lourdes in a train specially fitted-out
for the transport of the disabled. At the hospital, in the bed next
to hers was a 22-year-old woman, Maria, paralysed like her. In a situation
that was, humanly speaking, materially and morally hopeless, Maria
had come to Lourdes to ask the Immaculate Conception for a miracle.
She prayed constantly, but nothing happened. The day before they were
to leave, the two invalids found themselves side by side at the Grotto.
Maria was sobbing. Benedetta took her hand and pressed it in her own
hands, as though to pray in her place. “Maria, the Madonna is here,
looking at you! Speak to her, to the Madonna!” And all of a sudden,
Maria rose from her stretcher. She gently took a few steps, still
incredulous. And then, delirious with joy, she made her way among
the wheelchairs, weeping with emotion and gratitude. Benedetta, happy
for this miracle, nevertheless felt a pang of sadness in thinking
that it was another who had been its beneficiary. Then she regained
her peace and abandoned herself into the hands of MARY. One year later,
she would return to Lourdes, from where she would write, “I feel the
sweetness of resignation. For me, that was the miracle of Lourdes
this year... The Madonna gave me everything I had lost. She repaid
all that had been taken from me, because I possess the richness of
the Holy Spirit.” On August 20, 1963, a nurse found the patient in
ecstasy. Benedetta would confide to her that she had seen the Blessed
Virgin, adding, “How beautiful the Madonna is!”
Meanwhile, Benedetta underwent several operations on her head. Before
the last of these; on February 27, 1963, Benedetta admitted her fear
to Maria Grazia, who reminded her of this passage from Diary of a
Country Priest, a novel by Georges Bernanos : “if I am afraid, I will
say without shame, ‘I’m afraid,’ and the Lord will give me the strength.”
For a long time, Benedetta softly repeated this phrase, and bit by
bit, peace took hold of her. She thanked her friend effusively. The
day after the operation, she announced that she was now blind, but
she asked that no one tell the surgeon, so as not to sadden him. She
accepted this cross of blindness that in 1955 had terrified her, and
her soul was at peace : “There is nothing to do but trust in God,
with eyes closed. I am in the process of living simplicity, that is,
the stripping of the soul... How beautiful it is! One becomes so light
and free!”
Speaking of these great trials that seem humanly impossible to bear,
Benedict XVI sheds light on this secret that Benedetta discovered
: “It is important to know that I can always continue to hope, even
if in my own life ...there seems to be nothing left to hope for. Only
the great certitude of hope that my own life and history in general,
despite all failures, are held firm by the indestructible power of
Love, and that this gives them their meaning and importance, only
this kind of hope can then give the courage to act and to persevere”
(Spe Salvi, no. 35).
From that point on, for nearly a year, Benedetta was like an inaccessible
castle, with neither doors nor windows. Nevertheless, two little “peepholes”
remained open to the outside world—a weak voice to make herself heard,
and her left hand, which “miraculously” remained functional. With
the fingers of this functioning hand, her loved ones traced on her
face the letters of the Italian alphabet for the deaf, which she did
not see but could feel (for example, the “b” was formed with the tips
of the index finger and middle finger pressing together, resting on
the cheek)... She could thus communicate. Her room was besieged by
visitors who came to encourage her, but also to ask for her help.
Benedetta had the gift of spreading joy around her. She gave advice
and showed everyone the “narrow way” that leads to God. She told her
best friend, who could not bear to see her physically suffering so
much : “We must accept the mystery, Maria Grazia. What fills us with
anguish is asking ourselves ‘why’... The Lord gives us as much suffering
as we can bear—not more, not less.” Her friend would later testify,
“I then unexpectedly noticed something that had changed in her since
becoming blind. A great peace enveloped her, as though she felt completely
freed from fear and anxiety.” Don Gabriele, a priest who often brought
her Holy Communion, would receive this confidence : “If for a brief
instant, temptations arise, I call on Him, and even if I am pale with
fear I immediately feel the presence of the Lord, who consoles me.”
Benedetta took interest in everyone, especially in people who were
far from God. In May 1963, her mother read her by sign language a
letter from a young man, published in a weekly newspaper. Natalino
was suffering from a serious illness. Bewildered and without hope,
he was crying out for help. She wrote to him: “Because I’m deaf
and blind, things have become complicated for me... Nevertheless,
in my Calvary, I do not lack hope. I know that at the end of the road,
JESUS is waiting for me. First in my armchair, and now in my bed,
where I now stay, I have found a wisdom greater than that of men—I
have discovered that God exists, that He is love, faithfulness, joy,
certitude, to the end of the ages... My days are not easy. They are
hard, but sweet because JESUS is with me, with my sufferings, and
He gives me His sweetness in my loneliness and light in the darkness...
He smiles at me and accepts my collaboration. Adieu, Natalino life
is short, and passes quickly. It is a very short bridge, dangerous
for one who greedily wishes to enjoy oneself, but sure for one who
cooperates with Him in order to enter into the Homeland.”
On January 21, 1964, feeling that the definitive meeting with JESUS
her Spouse was very near, Benedetta made her confession and received
communion. During the night of the 22nd, she asked her nurse to remain
close by, because Satan was tempting her: “Emilia, tomorrow I will
die. I feel very ill.” In the morning, her mother noticed that a white
rose had opened in the garden. A rose in bloom, in January! She announced
her discovery to Benedetta, who replied, “This is the sign I was waiting
for!” She then reminded her of a dream she had had on the previous
All Saints’ Day: she went into the family burial vault and saw it
decorated with a white rose dazzling with light. A little later, stricken
by a haemorrhage, she died at the age of twenty-seven, murmuring,
“Thank you.
“I will no longer be alone with fear”
After her death, Benedetta Bianchi Porro’s influence has only grown.
Countless people faced with suffering find strength and courage in
reading the story of her life and her letters. Like Maria Grazia,
they can say to her: “I will no longer be alone with fear, for you
have taught me the value of prayer.” On December 23, 1993, Pope John
Paul II approved the decree of the heroicity of her virtues. The recognition
of a miracle obtained by her intercession is now required for Venerable
Benedetta to be proclaimed “Blessed”.
In his Apostolic Exhortation Salvifici Doloris (February 11, 1984),
Venerable John Paul II wrote these words, which can be applied precisely
to Benedetta’s spiritual journey: “[A]Imost always the individual
enters suffering with a typically human protest and with the question
‘why’. He asks the meaning of his suffering and seeks an answer to
this question on the human level.... Christ does not answer directly
and He does not answer in the abstract this human questioning about
the meaning of suffering. Man hears Christ’s saving answer as he himself
gradually becomes a sharer in the sufferings of Christ. The answer
... is above all a call. It is a vocation. Christ does not explain
in the abstract the reasons for suffering, but before all else He
says: ‘Follow me! Come! Take part through your suffering in this work
of saving the world, a salvation achieved through My suffering! Through
My Cross.’ Gradually, as the individual takes up his cross, spiritually
uniting himself to the Cross of Christ, the salvific meaning of suffering
is revealed before him... It is then that man finds in his suffering
interior peace and even spiritual joy” (no. 26).
On May 24, 1963, Benedetta confided, “I want to say to those who are
suffering, to the sick, that if we are humble and docile, the Lord
will do great things in us.” Following her example, let us ask JESUS
to make each one of us “a docile sheep in His hands.”
From the Newsletter 21 January 2011 of St Joseph de Clairval
Abbey reproduced with permission.
The Newsletter can be obtained free of charge from Abbaye St Joseph
de Clairval 21150, Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, France
----------------------------
Confessions of an Ex-Feminist - Marcia Segelstein
Feminism, women’s liberation, and the idea that men and women are
no different from each other have led many of us down dead-end roads
often away from faith.
Lorraine Murray, in her book, Confessions of an Ex-Feminist (Ignatius
Press, 2008), tells the story of her own walk down that road and back,
with many illuminating lessons on everything from abortion to the
anti-religious bias on college campuses.
Murray grew up in a Christian home, eagerly attending Mass at church,
and absorbing what she was taught in the Catholic schools she attended.
Against the advice of one of her teachers, she decided to study at
a secular college, and it was there that her faith and her values
began to unravel. As she describes it, up until then, she’d rarely
run into people who didn’t believe in God. In college, it seemed as
though no one did. She writes that she began to equate becoming an
adult with turning her back on God.
She lapped up feminist ideology and rejected the morality and values
she’d been taught, including those about abortion. Like most of her
peers, she began having relationships with men. But as an avowed feminist,
she couldn’t understand the emotional pain she suffered when the relationships ended. By her own admission, she was searching for Prince Charming, even though she knew she was supposed to be unconcerned with commitment.
After her mother’s death, Murray, while in graduate school, in her
own words, “launched a vendetta against God,” doing her best to convince
her students that God didn’t exist.
She offers interesting insight into how being a college professor
allowed her to do that. “As my philosophy students tackled topics
like the meaning of life and the existence of God, I knew that, ideally,
instructors are supposed to remain neutral. But I also recalled, from
my own college days, how skilfully some professors had dodged this
expectation.” She writes that there are innumerable ways professors
let their students know what they want to hear: “a chuckle, a grimace,
or a wink and a nod.”
Her attitude about politics was much the same. Having become a staunch
liberal, she writes that like many professors, she “assumed college
was the place to challenge and dismantle traditions. Conservative
thought, almost by definition, was the dragon to slay in the classroom,
and few students had the courage to disagree with a strongly opinionated
professor.”
Nonetheless, she writes that she believes the “Hound of Heaven” was
pursuing her, in ways large and small. She got married, and recounts
about a memorable experience she had while spending time with her
husband in Cedar Key, Florida. Anchored out in the gulf on a small
boat, they suddenly heard a loud splash and saw the heads of two manatees
pop out of the water. The manatees peered at them before disappearing
underwater again. “The atheist in the boat,” Murray writes, “stunned
by their eyes, which seemed so deeply innocent and mysterious, now
uttered a rather strange statement: ‘It was like looking into the
face of God!”’ Later she would write in her journal that she believed
she’d gotten a glimpse of God’s face here on earth.
After dinner one night, the image of a nearby church flashed into
her mind. She asked her husband to take a walk there with her to see it, and he did. Once home again, they talked about their childhood beliefs about God and religion. And she confided in him about her “perplexing feeling that ‘someone’ was calling me.”
Both of them decided they wanted to explore further, and they met
with a local Catholic priest. Kneeling in the church, Murray remembered
the story of the Good Shepherd going after the one lost sheep. That
night, for the first time in 20 years, she prayed:
“Help me to believe.”
Murray then movingly tells readers the story of the abortion she’d
had years before. “No one,” she writes, “had prepared me for the flashbacks,
which began about a year after the ‘procedure…’ I would relive the
experience…I started having upsetting reactions to babies…A question
started plaguing me: How old would my baby have been now?”
One night, her husband, Jef, encouraged her to attend an Advent penance
service, where confessions would be heard. It had been years since
she’d been to confession, but reluctantly, she went. With tears streaming
down her face, this former feminist and long-time defender of abortion
told the priest what she’d done. He explained that just as Jesus had
said on the cross, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they
do” (Luke 23:34), Jesus would forgive her, too.
Months later, however, Murray was still filled with self-recrimination
about her abortion. She believed that God had forgiven her, but couldn’t
forgive herself. She started meeting regularly with a woman from a
group called PATH (Post-Abortion Treatment and Healing), and after
many months, began to heal. Years later she came across a quote in
The Privilege of Being a Woman which reminded her of how this woman
had helped her: “Those who devote their loving attention to [women
who have had abortions] know that the wound created in their souls
is so deep that only God’s grace can heal it.”
She and Jef began working with four nuns from the Missionaries of
Charity, who had been sent to the U.S. to open a home for women with
AIDS. “The nuns were the furthest thing from self-centred and the
last people in the world to defend their rights or to assert themselves.
In my days as an ardent feminist, I would have scoffed at how meek
and unself-assuming they were. They weren’t concerned about goals,
accomplishments, or applause.” Another former radical feminist turned
Christian, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, helped Murray to understand the
incompatibility of the two belief systems. In a book review, [Fox-Genovese]
suggested that radical feminists balked at the possibility that one
could be both pro-woman and Catholic. She believed this was due to
an “inherent disconnect in feminism concerning the notion of service,
which is the core of Christianity for both men and women.”
The selflessness she’d seen in the nuns was antithetical to everything
she’d believed as a feminist. They were about putting others first,
not themselves. They were about service, not success.
Like so many of us, Murray took the tempting bait the world has to
offer. But, as she puts it, the “Hound of Heaven” kept tugging at
the line until finally she came home again.
© 2010 American Family News Network
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