Rejoice, Mary, rejoice, Mother!
You bore his body in your virginal womb, you bore within you the God-man. And then you brought him forth on the night of Bethlehem, you bore him in your arms as a child. You bore him into the temple on the on the day of his presentation. Your eyes – more than the eyes of anyone else – saw the Incarnate Word. Your ears heard him, from his very first words.
Your hands touched the Word of life (cf. John 1:1). Regina caeli laetare! "He whom you bore has risen." You bore him, even more than in your arms, in your heart. Particularly during those last hours, when you had to stand beneath the cross, at the feet of the divine condemned One. Your heart was pierced by the sword of sorrow, in accordance with the words of the aged Simeon.
And you shared the sorrow as you associated yourself, with your maternal soul, in the sacrifice of your son. O Mother! You consented to the immolation of the victim whom you had borne (cf. Lumen Gentium, 58). You lovingly consented, with that love which he planted in your heart, with that love which is stronger than death and stronger than sin, in the whole history of man on earth.
And then, when he had breathed his last and they had taken him down from the cross, he rested once more in your arms as he rested so many times before as a child ... And then, they laid him in the tomb.
Christ, whom you bore is risen! Pray for us!You who were present in the deepest possible way in the mystery of Christ, behold. The whole church today looks to you, O Mary. Even through we do not see you among the people about whom the Easter accounts tell, we all look to you. We look to your heart.
They took him from your maternal arms and gave him back to the earth; they closed the tomb with a stone ... And behold, now the stone has been rolled away, the tomb is empty... "Christ, whom you bore, is risen, alleluia!" "Regina caeli laetare." This is the day of the Church's Easter joy. We all share in your glory, O Mother... Everyone, the whole church of your son, the whole church of the Incarnate Word.
Could any narrative record the moment of the resurrection of the son in the heart of his Mother? Yet we fix our gaze on you. The whole church shares in your Easter joy; the whole church knows that on this day the Lord has made you "go before" in a singular way the pilgrimage of faith in the paschal mystery. Pray for us! ... Be present along all the paths of the people of God, paths upon which shines the light of Christ. Let this light never leave anyone, this light of the new life which is He himself, the Risen One!
Regina coeli laetare, Alleluia,
Quia quem meruisti portare. Alleluia,
Resurrexit sicut dixit, Alleluia.
Ora pro nobis Deum. Alleluia.
Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia:
For He whom you merited to bear, alleluia,
Has risen, as He said, alleluia.
Pray for us to God, alleluia.
(An excerpt from a prayer by Pope John Paul II)
Comments
“People have realized that the complete removal of the feminine element from the Christian message is a shortcoming from an anthropological viewpoint. It is theologically and anthropologically important for woman to be at the center of Christianity."
This is just another of the unintended consequences of the cultural acceptance of contraception and abortion! Men's sexuality has been robbed of its creative essence. It is now viewed as something that imposes a burden on women (when conception happens to occur), something used to control women or something that is purely recreational. Why would men bother?? In taking away their responsibility, we've also robbed them of their significance! In the big picture of humanity, men have been made into nothing more than a nuisance women have to figure out how to control in order to bring about the next generation. Men don't see it as their task to protect the vulnerable because they see themselves as the vulnerable ones. A few well preserved vials of sperm would make men entirely obsolete in the world's ethos today!!
That is astounding Robin, and good for you for standing up. At the heart of that matter, I think, is even worse than a gender mixing message. There is an increased sharper and sharper focus on the "self." Solid Catholic teaching returns our focus away from ourselves to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The original sin, Eve denied her womanhood when she desired to be like "gods." Since the only god she knew was the Father. Where was Adam? He stood impotent... in other words, they were divorced. There's a young girl at Robin's son's high school who was just told that she is the center of the universe and it's a tragic disservice to her.
Ditto what Mary said! A lot of high schools have very poor math and science depts, for boys and girls. I also am educated as a chemical engineer, but chose to teach the two years before we had children because its hours were more suited to spending time with children. (I was looking ahead). When it came time and I was pregnant with our first, I realized that I did not want to leave him with someone else, and was able to stay home full time. I am not sure it would have been that easy if we were used to another engineering income and not just a private school teacher income. Also some of my first job offers were out on oil rigs - I had no interest in that at all even though I enjoyed my engineering classes and did well in them. No one discouraged me from an engineering job, on the contrary I got a lot of flack for my decision not to pursue an engineering career.
I've been lurking, but this is one that irritates me. Beats the heck out of me what these "barriers" are. I was educated as a chemical engineer, where 1/3 of our class was women. However, in electrical engineering, only 1 or 2 out of 30 were women. Is it possible that women are Just Not Interested in some areas? Nah, it must be The Man keeping us down so we must legislate (and, I agree -- when they say "legistlate", I hear "quota"). And actually, I have a friend that was also a chemical engineer. When she lost her job, she decided not to go back into engineering and started working from home so she could spend more time with her 3 kids. Also, if nothing else, there are all kinds of incentives for women to enter science and engineering -- scholarships not available to men, guaranteed housing on campuses that do not guarantee housing to the general population, etc. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that schools in general are not preparing students for the hard sciences. It is truly a sad state of affairs, the lack of science education these days.