Ordinary Time 32
November 10, 2024
Empty Hands
There is
a famous legend of how the poinsettia plant became associated with Christmas.
Poinsettias are native to Mexico, but according to the legend they used to be all
green – no red or white flowers. One day a very poor girl was walking to church
at Christmastime. She wanted to see the manger scene with Baby Jesus. She also wanted
to bring some flowers to decorate His crib, but she was too poor to afford any,
and in late December there aren’t too many wildflowers out. So this poor girl
picked a handful of leaves from a large green weed and continued to church,
hoping and praying that God would accept her meager offering. She laid them
before the Christ Child and prayed that God would see her heart and not the
weeds she was offering. She got up to go and at the door of the church, she
gave one more glance at the manger scene, and was shocked to find that her
green leaves had turned a brilliant and beautiful shade of red. Hence, the poinsettia
has become the standard Christmas decoration worldwide.
“Love is
self-gift,” said Pope St. John Paul II. When we love someone we want to give to
them – our time, a gift, an encouraging word, a smile, an act of service. So
when we love God, we also want to give to Him – but what can we offer to so
great a God? How could we ever come close to expressing our gratitude and love?
Our lives are just a pittance, a tiny drop in the ocean of human history, just
two small coins in the midst of an overflowing treasury.
But
genuine love wants to give more! St. Bernard once said, “It is true that the
creature loves less because she is less. But if she loves with her whole being,
nothing is lacking where everything is given.” So this should give us hope,
that as we offer our lives to God, even if our lives and our prayers and our
efforts are small, if we are giving Him our all, then this delights Him.
But
those who truly love God want to give more than our own meager efforts! We can
do that in an easy way – by consecrating our lives to Jesus through Mary.
After
all, what pleases the Father the most? It is not us; it is Jesus Christ. Our
Second Reading from Hebrews speaks about the offering that delights the Father –
not the blood of calves and goats, which were offered under the Old Covenant,
but the Blood of Jesus, offered once for all on our behalf. It’s as if someone
wanted to make a million-dollar gift to a noble person, and they asked us to contribute.
All we could contribute is a dollar, but the gift is given as if it was equally
from both of us. Likewise, Jesus paid a gift that literally infinite – in His
Precious Blood – but He invites us to offer a tiny amount, united to His, to
make a beautiful gift to the Father. The Father will see our tiny self-gift as pleasing
as Jesus’ infinite gift.
We do
this by consecrating our life and our actions to Jesus through Mary. It is good
to begin every day, and every task throughout the day, by consecrating it to
Jesus through Mary. Many people have done a 33-day or a 40-day consecration to
Jesus through Mary by using one of the popular “consecration prayers” from St.
Louis de Montfort, St. Maximilian Kolbe, or Fr. Michael Gaitley. And those are
great, but it doesn’t have to be so elaborate. It could be simply a prayer like,
“Lord Jesus, I give You this day. I give you every thought, word, and action. I
give you all my joys and sorrows, my labors and my recreation. Let is all be
pleasing to the Father, and let it be for Your glory. I offer all this through
Mary our mother.” Or even easier: “For You, Jesus – through Mary.”
Why
through Mary? Mary is sometimes called the “Mediatrix (multiplier) of All Graces.”
All graces from God pass through Her hands, because God loves to use small,
humble servants to accomplish His plan. But conversely, all of our good works
and prayers, when given to Mary, become amplified and purified before they are
presented to the Father. It’s much like if we wanted to bring a flower to the
Great King, but all we could find is a dandelion. Mary takes that dandelion and
places it in a bouquet of lilies and roses and other fragrant and striking
flowers, and then brings it to the King, in our name.
True
love wants to give. If we truly love God, we want to give Him more. We hunger
for more time with Him in prayer, more sacrifices, more good works of charity.
But in the end, all of our gifts to God are miniscule compared to the one Gift
of Jesus Christ’s Blood, which has made all of us righteous. We can unite our
small lives to His by consecrating ourselves and our ordinary lives to Jesus
through Mary, which makes our small gift something so pleasing to the Father!
No comments:
Post a Comment