The Body and Blood of Christ

Today’s great feast day of Corpus Christi, reminds us that the bread that he gives us, is not the stuff that fills our stomach. Christ feeds us through his eternal priesthood – by the sacrifice of his body and blood he offers to his Father on our behalf. This is what priesthood is ordered towards and does – offering sacrifice.    

The bread and wine that we place on this altar, counts for little – it is little.  But in the hands of Christ the eternal priest, it becomes his own life-giving body and blood – Christ becomes our food in the wilderness of the world. 

This is by no means allegorical, or a metaphor. Time and space as we experience it, blocks our vision of what angels and the saints of heaven perceive. From our perspective, we have only a temporal reference point to look towards - our bread and wine. But when we do what the Lord commanded us to do at his Last Supper, God reaches out through eternity and touches our offerings of bread and wine, bringing them into complete and perfected union with the resurrected and eternal Christ. In such a unique encounter between heaven and earth, between time and eternity, our bread and wine have no choice but to become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ who in all his power and glory intercedes for us before the throne of our heavenly Father. 

Even though from here, we can not see, nor taste this heaven on earth, when we eat and drink of the Eucharistic elements, our frail and broken bodies are guided, locked into communion with Christ's. This can be as painful as it is beautiful. Painful, because Holy Communion alerts us to our unworthiness, our sinfulness - we are imperfect, unfinished. It is beautiful because the gift of Holy Communion gives us hope that we, and all of creation, will be brought to our finality in Christ himself.

In the meantime, as a people of faith and hope, as children of Abraham we journey through this world with the expectation that it will blossom with new life. As we do so, let us be ever more conscious of humanity's deepest hunger for the Bread that feeds and satisfies angels and heavenly saints - the Bread of Eternity, Christ himself. As the Lord gives us His Body and Blood to nourish and sustain us, if we have been feed by Him, your own body and blood, now feed, nourish and sustain your brothers and sisters, through Christ our Lord.

Within God

The Most Blessed Trinity

During these past 10 days our parish has seen two of our sons ordained into Holy Orders - one as a deacon, the other as a priest. During each of their ordination Masses much attention was given to the ritual of the liturgy, the choice of Scripture, the power of the prayers, the laying on of hands, and the vesting with the sacred robes of office. However, one sacred action, very personal to each one of them, not only brought them to their knees - it ensured that each one of them would would literally collapse into the very gentle hands and the most loving embrace of the Almighty God.  

Before being ordained, both Deacon Chuck and Father Nathan had to lie face down before the altar - they had to abandon themselves completely to the overwhelming power and purifying love of God - and to do so, trusting - not in some cosmic or supernatural higher power - but trusting their lives in the hands of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit - a God who is Fatherly, a God who has a human heart, a God who is a secret intimate friend.

Of course, in our theological language, we identify God as a Trinity. "What" the Almighty is, is one God. "Who" the one God is, is the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. We can draw diagrams, use symbols and offer allegories to help explain the three distinct persons united in one God. But that's as far as we can go. Human language and imagination will never understand or fathom this divine mystery.

But, the Good News is that because our minds can only go so far, little by little, God gently reveals Himself to us, slowly unfolding for us the pattern of His unimaginable thoughts (Proverbs 8:22-33). We don’t have to be theologians or philosophers. Through the language of harmony and beauty that we sense in the universe, we gain some insight that God is the perfection of harmony and beauty, but so much more than our perceptions. (Psalm 8:4-9).

But proving his existence or trying to understanding what God is, is not our goal.  Experiencing God, is. Christ is God's very own self-portrait! But more than that. A portrait can be looked at from a distance. God, through Christ's humanity, from that first instant of His conception in the womb of Mary, brings us into direct union with Him. 

God, allowed Himself to be mothered (for our sake). God allowed himself to live in the limitations of flesh and blood, God with us, reaching out to us, wanting to draw us closer and closer into his divine life, talking to us directly with words we can understand, lives with us intimately in a love that we can experience, sharing in our joys, in our sorrows, in our pain and also our suffering. To know Christ is to know the love and compassion of God.

Christ is God being personal with you and me, inviting us even into His own experience of being God - the love between Father and Son.  Of course, our experience of this type of relationship is limited to our own experience or only as great as our best imagination. But Christ invites you and me into His very own perfect relationship that He enjoys with the Father - a relationship of the most perfect love between two persons that can ever exist, not contained or constrained by time itself. 

Christ invites all of us, all humanity, through His Body and Blood, into the very "divine life" of the One He dares to call “Father”, “Abba”. And that Divine Love - is not a force or a feeling - it has It's own personality - the Holy Spirit. A Christian, in that same Spirit also dares to call God, Father - "Abba".

So, don't try to get your head around this. Instead, get your heart around Christ and you will find and experience the greatest intimacy, the closeness that God desires to share and draw us into.

This is relational, not conceptual nor imaginative.  It is insufficient to simply bow down or even kneel before God. Like Deacon Chuck and Father Nathan on the day of their ordination, we too, and every day, must have the courageous faith to simply abandon ourselves into the very life of God, trusting in His power, His Heart and His life-giving love, on earth as it is in heaven!

Come Holy Spirit

"El día de Pentecostés (al término de las siete semanas pascuales), la Pascua de Cristo se consuma con la efusión del Espíritu Santo que se manifiesta, da y comunica como Persona divina: desde su plenitud, Cristo, el Señor (cf. Hch 2, 36), derrama profusamente el Espíritu.... La vida moral de los cristianos está sostenida por los dones del Espíritu Santo. Estos son disposiciones permanentes que hacen al hombre dócil para seguir los impulsos del Espíritu Santo... Los siete dones del Espíritu Santo concedidos a los cristianos son: sabiduría, entendimiento, consejo, fortaleza, ciencia, piedad y temor de Dios.”

For forty days after his resurrection from the dead, Our Blessed Lord showed himself, at various times and at various locations, that, not only was he alive, but that his work was not over - his mission would continue. 

And even though he would enter into heaven to take his place there at the right hand of his heavenly Father, he promised that he would be with us always, accompany us on our journey, until the end of time. How? Having prayed for his disciples, he promised to send them the Holy Spirit who would teach and guide them and keep them united in the truth about God.   

The Holy Spirit we talk about is not a spiritual force. In the same way as we speak of God the Father and God the Son, we likewise acknowledge that the Holy Spirit is God, distinct from the Father and the Son, but of the same God-substance. We address the Holy Spirit as Lord. The Holy Spirit is personal. And as God, we worship the Holy Spirit as we do our heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Let’s put the Holy Spirit in Context.

When the earth was formed, He was the breath of God the Father that swept over the first waters of the earth pollinating the great seas with life. The Holy Spirit filled the lungs of Adam and so breathed the first man. And in the gospel we read that Jesus, the New Adam breathed the Holy Spirit into the apostles, so that they might be his presence in the world. 

It is that same Holy Spirit who has been given to us when we were baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. What we now call Confirmation, seals us with the Holy Spirit we have received in baptism so that, in this sacrament, we become a new creation. 

And as such the Holy Spirit gives us strength and power to become authentic witnesses to our Catholic and Christian faith. As such, we can identify at least seven supernatural gifts in particular that the Holy Spirit gives us, supernatural gifts that are sealed securely and planted firmly in our Christian character. We identify them from the words of Scripture. The prophet Isaiah spoke of them as the identifying characteristics of the future Christ/Messiah (Isaiah 11) . As these characteristics will be given to you, you will be identified with the spirit of Christ - you will be His witnesses, his representatives to the world.  And what are those 

1. Understanding 2. Knowledge 3. Wisdom 4. Right Judgment 5. Reverence 6. Courage 7. Fear of the Lord.

1. Let me start first with Fear of the Lord. Not every fear is good. But when the Holy Spirit prompts us to turn away from sins because we can see and are afraid of the consequences of sin – that type of fear is holy and good. When we fear losing God, the Holy Spirit is at work in us.

2. The Holy Spirit’s gift of courage.  We need this divine gift of fortitude, of strength and courage to help us battle with sin, with evil and when our faith is tested or attacked. We would be fools to think that we can defeat the enemy of our souls and our faith by our own natural abilities. We need the divine armor of courage so that we might not cave in under intimidation. St. Paul reminds us of this when he boldly states, ‘I can do all things in him who strengthen me”.

3. The Holy Spirit gives us the gift of reverence, sometimes called Piety. Reverence is not simply formal respect for what is holy. Anyone can be respectful of sacred buildings and beliefs. Piety can also often be mistaken for attention to detail in religious devotion. This, of course can be self-motivated. Instead this gift of the Holy Spirit allows us to appreciate closeness to God as a son or daughter of our heavenly Father. It is in places such as a Church building we become aware of our sacred relationships with God and others through what we see and sense around us – that God is not distant. This gift allows us to sense the mysterious presence of God. So we give him his place and trust him more and more, even though he is shrouded in mystery.

4. And from this mystery the Holy Spirit can also give us the gift of understanding how God is truly involved in our lives and world. To Understand God, our souls must first be purified from sin so that our view of the world is not distorted. The Holy Spirit allows us to understand why God loved the world so much, why God loves me despite my sinfulness and resistance.

5. With this gift comes also the gift of Knowledge. The Holy Spirit can allow us to truly discern what there is in this world that brings us closer to God and to know also what gets in the way. By this gift, the Holy Spirit as an appraiser of the things we hold on to and teaches us not to be afraid of letting go, to be humble and to accept the true values of the things around us.

6. The Holy Spirit gives us the gift of Wisdom. Wisdom does not come from books. It is when God enlightens our mind and we can see the world from his perspective. To be truly wise is to be truly at peace trusting that God’s plan ultimately makes sense.

7. And finally we will also pray that the Holy Spirit will renew in us the gift of right judgment, so that we can make decisions that are right and true, even when doing so demands sacrifice. We ask the Holy Spirit to help us come to the knowledge of the truth through the formation of our conscience so that with the Holy Spirit’s help, our minds will always see clearly in order to make the right decisions about the direction my life must take.

The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit – let us pray that these gifts will be kept strong in your lives, confirmed and sealed with the Holy Spirit!  

He Ascended into Heaven

Not so long ago, I had the opportunity, a privilege, to offer the graveside prayers at our Catholic cemetery in San Diego. Founded in 1919, and located east of downtown San Diego, it is 40 acres of holy ground. In its 95 year history over 65,000 individuals have been buried in its consecrated soil or interned in or around the chapel.  One day, after I have breathed my last, I hope to have my body also buried in its holy ground in a section reserved for priests.  There, my body will wait for the final day where I will rise again. It is my hope that I will be in good company! But what will I see?

Many of us have a very poor imagination about the "afterlife". We often talk about our souls going to heaven, gladly leaving behind a world of pain and suffering. Death becomes for many the way to escape from all our burdens, from the cruelty and injustices of this world. We sometimes say that someone has "gone to a better place".  We are often tempted to imagine heaven and earth as two different locations - one place is spiritual where everything is eternal, and the other is physical where in time things get older and eventually decay and crumble.

But it may come to you as a surprise, that nowhere in the Bible does it actually say that after our death, our souls go on to another world and there, in that other place, we live on as spiritual beings for all of eternity.

Even though, the Gospel tells us that Jesus, resurrected from the dead in a glorified body and after forty days is lifted up into heaven beyond our sight, the message given to us is not that we are to wait it out on earth and then "jump ship" to follow him to the better place of heaven.  Instead, we are told, wait "here" on "this" earth - wait "here" because He will be returning.  And when He has returned, what will He bring? He will bring heaven.

Just when we think that we have to wait for this to happen sometime in the future, and in the meantime learn and practice the Ten Commandments and be good so that one day we can "graduate" from boot camp and move up to the next level - the Good News of Jesus Christ is that He is already bringing heaven to earth, right now, right before our eyes even though we might not be able (at this time) to always see it.

If we have the Spirit of Jesus breathing through every cell of our body, does not our faith assure us that somehow we are already living life "on earth as it is in heaven"?   When we enter into the Sacraments of the Church and encounter Christ's true and substantial presence in the Eucharist, are not heaven "and" earth  full of His glory"?  When we live Christ's Sermon on the Mount and embrace the Beatitudes in our everyday lives, we do not pray "get me out of here"! We instead say, "Thy Kingdom come".

Yes, of course there is a difference between heaven and earth, and at times they can seem so far apart. But that's not God's doing. That's ours! We push heaven and earth away from each other 
- when we concentrate on spiritual needs and neglect physical needs, or the other way around 
- when we are more interested in doing good things at the expense of being good ourselves 
- when we are all faith and no works, or all busy without allowing God's grace to keep us humble.

Hell is the stomping ground of  "Jackal and Hyde". Heaven is the perfect union of the human and the divine in one person.  That person of course is Christ himself. And where is He to be found? [Hint: "The Lord be with you...  And...] Can I say with St. Paul, "it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me". And can I hear Christ say, "as long as you did it to the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me?"

So after I die and my mortal remains are laid to rest, and then in the twinkling of an eye, I rise up from my grave in a new and glorified body, what will I hope to see? I look forward to a new heaven and a new earth, recognizable from the tiny glimpses I have already been privileged to see (through little slits in the vale) - of a paradise restored - as it was in the beginning, is now and ever will be, a world without end. Amen.

Sixth Week of Easter - Time to upgrade!

John 14:15-23


Our smart phone seems to be that device we hold onto, keeping it close. It has become a necessary conduit to keep our connection open with family, friends and colleagues. When we do not see them, we do not want to loose touch. Even when they are miles away, even overseas, we go to great lengths to secure we are still, in some way connected.

To bring home this point, if you have ever lost your phone containing all your contacts, or forgotten your password or log in details, it can sometimes produce much anxiety and even panic! Even though you might have access to another phone, maybe a landline, it is often difficult to immediately recall someone's exact number. Scurrying around for lost scraps of paper is terrifying and searching for a 2000 page telephone directory is, for the most part, a thing of the past.

In the same way as our deep and intimate relationships with family and friends evolve first through our physical presence and personal encounters, so does our relationship with Christ. However, our connection with Him does not depend on having His private number, an access code or password which can easily be forgotten or lost.

This was, no doubt, a difficult lesson for the first disciples.  With His death, they feared they had lost Him for good. They were stuck. They didn't know how to go forward without Him. Christ had been so much a part of their lives. Up until His arrest and crucifixion, they had shared so much of His life.  For three days, they were without any connection. The whole world for them had crashed. Until on Easter morning, He stood before them and all was made new again. New again, but not the same!

From His wounded but Resurrected body, He shared with them the invitation to accept God’s mercy and forgiveness. They had to accept this personally. Tired, exhausted, hungry and drained, they needed to experience the upload of God's mercy and forgiveness in their own lives.  For the most part, they had abandoned their master to his death on the cross. They experienced the darkness of isolation.  But now the disciples, having restored their friendship with Christ during these forty days after his resurrection, they would have to get ready to proclaim with their very lives, a restoration - an unbreakable connection, the unique and divine power of God's mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation to the whole world.

As wonderful as this was, it was also much to take in. But Christ would now be soon returning to His place in heaven. We will commemorate that event next week.  His disciples, so used to seeing him, listening to His voice, holding on to Him and feeling safe in His presence, would now have to find the strength and confidence to take His place before the world, to be themselves the visible point of reference – to be a living and credible witness of Christ to the whole world.  It was easy to hide behind Him while we walked before them. Now Christ, who would be ascending to His heavenly Father, did not assure His disciples had He would call them every so often, or drop them a note. Instead, He would be presence through, with and in them - He is our soul's SIM card that can never be lost, activated by His promise to send us the Holy Spirit.

Even though Jesus is now beyond our sight and touch, the Holy Spirit, which He has sent to us for our comfort, surrounds us, touches our souls, gives eternal meaning to all our relationships, sends our prayers to heaven and assures us that Christ is always near even when we do not see Him.

In this Holy Mass Christ's Holy Spirit penetrates through every fiber of our offering of bread and wine, changing them at their most deepest reality into the new reality of the Risen Lord of heaven and earth. What we see before us is only the sign, the signal. The reality is that Christ, the Lord of heaven and earth stands before us.

Even though we may sin and fail in our Christian discipleship by losing His number, forgetting your password or deleting His details, all is restored through the sacraments. It's as simple as handing ourselves over to His mercy and reinstalling His love in our hearts. This is how we re-enkindle and hold onto our deep and intimate friendship with the Lord despite getting lost in the crazy world or when we feel cut off from everyone, even at times, from God.

We must always ask the help of the Holy Spirit to reawaken our soul and keep our heart always searching for a deeper friendship with Christ, who will never forget or abandon His friends who call His name.



"For the Only Begotten God Himself, desired no difference to be felt between Himself and the Holy Spirit in the faith of believers and in the efficacy of his Works because there is no diversity in their nature". St. Leo the Great, Letter 16.4

Fifth Week of Easter - Hide and Seek

Just when the disciple is so used to having Christ in close proximity, someone to run to, our counselor, our defender, our guide - now He tells them that He must vanish from their sight.  Are they ready for that? Do we think that we are too old and wise for a game of "Hide and Seek"?


Maybe its like the security we can feel when we are inside a church. We are comforted by so many assurances that God is here.  But what when we leave here and return to the the world outside these walls?

Sometimes we might feel the security of Christ's presence when we carry our rosary beads, wear a crucifix or medal, or surround ourselves with religious books and memorabilia, gravitating towards likeminded people who share our religious convictions.

But what about when we are engaging the world in the everyday tasks of life - at work, at school, in the market place, in the restaurant or with coworkers and the atmosphere is completely different - no sacred images on the wall, conversations far from sacred, when we find ourselves surrounded by the cosmetics of a secular world.

Christ tell us in today's Gospel, that it is best that He departs from our visible spectrum, so that through the Holy Spirit, we can find Him again. Of course, Our Lord, is substantially present to us through the Blessed Sacrament, radiating with heavenly intensity, the hidden attributes of His heart and soul that seeks communion us. But why does He seek us in such a hidden way? 

Holy Communion with Christ is not simply the invisible Christ entering into our immediate space. Remember, He was substantially present, body, blood, soul and divinity in the presence of pharisees, tax collectors, crowds and onlookers, and many were unmoved by His presence before them. 

Christ is never content "only" to be substantially present, to simply stand in our midst. Our Lord seeks so much more. He seeks to join His sacred heart to my heart, to influence my own hidden thoughts, my feelings and my attitudes with His own. If my own heart is hardened, if it has not been cleansed by His mercy, softened and moulded by His Spirit, I might as well be in Holy Communion with a statue, an image, a symbol or a holy book!  Remember, after His resurrection from the dead, when Christ literally walked alongside the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus, what was the effect of His Real Presence before them - "Did not our hearts burn within us as He talked to us along the way?"

1.  We have before us Jesus hidden yet present in the Holy Eucharist. When we leave this building, know that you will also find Our Lord hidden yet present in the wounds of our brothers and sisters who are sick and suffering. 

2.  We will have before us at this altar and we will worship the resurrected Body of Christ -  
When we return to our neighborhoods and along the way, we will encounter the wounds of His Body in those we will see and meet along the way. 

3.  In this sacred building, we will adore Christ's Body which, although now Risen, still bears upon it the scars of the Cross. 
Where will we find Him when we return back into our secular world? He is present in the hidden wounds, suffering, pain and loneliness of our brothers and sisters, our friends and neighbors, the stranger and the passerby.

Our Blessed Mother who when she thought she lost Him for three days, found Him in the Temple. We do likewise. But Mary did not keep Him there or lock Him up in His room so as not to venture out from the house again. But when the time was right, without fear, she opened the doors and allowed Him to venture out into a dangerous world.  

May we too, like Our blessed mother Mary, continue to seek Him out again, but not always in the predictable places like the Temple where, of course, she knew He would often be preaching and teaching. 

Our Lady also had to seek Him out, as so must we, in the midst of a crowd of strangers, sometimes having to send word through others that we belong to His family and wish to see Him (Matthew 12:47).  

But ultimately, as Mother Mary did, and we too must follow - to seek and find her Son where no one else would dare to seek the face of God - on Calvary (John 19:26). 

This must be our greatest desire, like hers, to seek and find Him among the abandoned, the outcast and the suffering.  If we say we have devotion to the Virgin Mary, it must be to her Immaculate Heart, which is the heart of a mother whose heart is alway united with the Sacred Heart of her Son.   

Mary, gave God a face. May we always recognize that face. May Mother Mary also see the face of Christ her Son in you and me.   

Centenary of the Fatima Message

May 13, 1917

Centenary of the Fatima Message

"Unless you become like little children..."

“Throughout history there have been supernatural apparitions and signs which go to the heart of human events and which, to the surprise of believers and non-believers alike, play their part in the unfolding of history. These manifestations can never contradict the content of faith, and must therefore have their focus in the core of Christ's proclamation: the Father's love which leads men and women to conversion and bestows the grace required to abandon oneself to him with the devotion of a son or daughter. This too is the message of Fatima which, with its urgent call to conversion and penance, draws us to the heart of the Gospel.” (Tarcisio Bertone, SDB. Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith)

The apparitions of Mary at Fatima in 1917 rest, not so much in the many miracles associated with the events. Instead it offers the specific Christian response necessary to save humanity from a downward spin into self-destruction.

In 1916, God sent an angel to prepare the three children to whom Our Lady would soon appear. The children’s names were Lucia and her cousins, Francisco and Jacinta. The angel identified itself as the Angel of Peace and spoke to the children about the loving hearts of Jesus and Mary. The angel also told them to pray and make sacrifices to make up for the sins of others and for the conversion of sinners. The angel appeared on one occasion with the image of a chalice and the Holy Communion host, and bowing before these outward signs paid homage to the Heavenly Body and Blood of Jesus Christ presented before the children in these sacramental forms.

When, in the following year, beginning on May 13, 1917 our Blessed Mother appeared to the three children, she did so at a time in history when socialist governments where persecuting and mocking the Church, both locally in the town and villages and through out the world. Our Lady promised that the whole world would be in peace, and that many souls would go to Heaven if her requests were listened to and acted upon. She reminded the children that war is the consequence of sin. Failure to turn to God, to do penance for sins and pray for the conversion of sinners would ultimately lead to wars, hunger, persecution of the Church and persecution of the Holy Father, the Pope.

To convince the world that Our Blessed Mother’s message was from God, she told the children she would affect a miracle that everyone would see and therefore believe. News of this spread like wildfire throughout Portugal, unbelievers sneering at the prediction and those hostile to the Church calling it a hoax in the making. Before 70,000 witnesses who came from all over the country, including secular newspaper reporters and atheistic government officials, on October 13, 1917, believers and non-believers alike witnessed the sun dance, it rotated, got large and small, it spun down towards the 70,000 people, then shot back up into the sky. In the sight of this miracle of the sun, thousands on that day dropped to their knees begging God to forgive their sins.

Of the three children Our Blessed Mother appeared to, little Francisco and Jacinta were both victims of the Great Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918-20. They died at the tender ages of nine and ten years old. Pope Francis has traveled to Portugal, not only to commemorate the centenary of the Fatimas apparitions, but also to declare as saints, the little children Francisco and Jacinta.  Lucia, when she later became of age, entered a convent becoming a nun and later became a close confident of the late Pope, St. John Paul II who attributes Our Lady of Fatima with the saving of his life from the assassin’s bullet on that fateful day in St. Peter’s Square, also on this date May 13th, in 1981.

There are countless reports, stories and books written about the apparitions and events of Fatima in 1917. In the dialogue between Our Lady and the children during the apparitions, the constant theme is the need to foster a life of prayer, to do penance in reparation for the sins against God, to pray in particular for the conversion of sinners and to recite the Rosary very day, drawing from it the great resources of God’s grace as we meditate and contemplate on the mysteries of the life, death and resurrection of our Blessed Lord, Son God and Son of Mary.

The message of our Lady of Fatima is very relevant today as it was 100 years ago.  The apparitions took place when anti-catholic and socialist governments were set on destroying the Church and eroding her influence in public life. Of course, the laws of any country might proclaim freedom of religion, but through an entanglement of lawyers and constitutional amendments and court room challenges, we can see how a hostile legalistic environment that prevents religious faith expressing itself in public, might be used to prevent it influencing the minds and hearts of ordinary men and women who might, in turn, be convinced of the truth of the Gospel message.

In many respects, the hostility of many to the Catholic faith comes from a fear of hearing the call to conversion, repentance and to live a life faithful to the Commandments of God.  Our loving Creator's desire is always to protect our freedom, while securing our human dignity. This, we should never be afraid of.

When our Blessed Mother appeared to the children, and entrusted them with visions and heavenly secrets, she told them not to be afraid. Because Jesus, from the cross, asked us to take Mary as our Mother into our homes, we too, now as her children, must listen to her voice which points us to prayer, penance for our sins and those of the whole world. 

If this message could be entrusted to three little children who braved every obstacle to live in their own lives the call to conversion and who were not afraid to do so, let us hope that we too can be courageous in living our own faith in every circumstance and through every challenge. 

Let us hope that we will do so in such a way that our own example, our thoughtfulness and devotion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ will be reflected, not only in our lives, but through our public witness to gently transform the culture we live in, into a place where , regardless if there be a separation of church and state, there can never be a separation between heaven and earth (through Jesus Christ our Lord).