Lord, teach me not to hold on to life too tightly. Teach me to take it as a gift. To enjoy it, to cherish it while I have it, but to let go gracefully and thankfully when the time comes. The gift is great, but the Giver is greater still. You are the Giver and in You is a life that never ends. Amen. Such a simple prayer but it helps to maintain our focus throughout our days on this earth. Our obsession for created things very often is the biggest obstacle to a more fulfilling relationship with God. How often do we cling to things that will certainly go away when we have died? It is the gift of everlasting life that is most important. It is the time we will spend in eternity with God that should drive our passions. God does not want us to be destitute, merely to realize the place that created things have in our lives. As we approach the Lenten season, it is a great time to focus on the Giver. I hope the prayer above brings you as much comfort as it has given me over the years.
The spiritual climax of the Gospel of John, as Father John Waiss points out, occurs at the foot of the Cross, where Jesus utters his parting words: “Woman, behold, your son!” and “Behold your mother!” (John 19:26-27). While these words were addressed to the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the Church has long understood this moment as a universal adoption. To truly image Christ, we must share in His parentage; if we embrace God as our spiritual Father but reject Mary as our mother, we treat Christ as a half-brother rather than our "firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). As Origen noted as early as the third century, the profound depths of the Gospel are only accessible to those who, like John, rest their heads on Jesus’ breast and receive Mary into their own homes. This maternal role is deeply rooted in biblical typology, positioning Mary as the fulfillment of the great mothers of the Old Covenant. She is the New Eve , the mother of all the living according ...