Franciscan at Home

There’s something particularly mysterious about the motherhood of Mary. Her fiat that shook the whole world as the uncontainable God chose to be contained within her womb.

“He’s just too small,” sobbed a woman we had just met. It was a sunny summer day, and the pastor, transitional deacon, and I were out knocking on doors within our parish boundaries. This woman’s door was within eyesight of the rectory, and it happened to be the first one we had visited. The conversation had started off just as awkwardly as one would imagine. She answered the door hesitantly, but smiled as we introduced ourselves. She was a parishioner and relaxed when she saw the pastor standing at the back of our group. We explained that we were out introducing ourselves and the parish to the neighborhood. When we asked if there were any intentions we could pray for, she took a deep breath and said yes. She then began to tell us about her unborn grandson and how her daughter’s pregnancy was not going well. She asked us to pray for the baby boy, who was just too small.

We could have just as easily not been there. That same morning, I had offered a training for any parishioners who wanted to learn about door-to-door evangelization. The idea was to walk them through a basic script at the parish and let them shadow those of us with more experience as we knocked on doors in the surrounding neighborhood. Nobody came.

Door-to-door ministry is a frightening prospect for many Catholics, and it is a frightening ministry to organize. Yet, there are overflowing graces to be had, both for the evangelist and the evangelized. Consider my opening story: What would have been lost if our team had gone home after the failed training seminar? Within eyesight of our parish was someone who needed Jesus’ comfort and the only way we could bring it to her was by following Christ’s own counsel: “Ask, . . . seek, . . . knock” (Mt 7:7).

I have been engaged in door-to-door evangelization since 2017. In that time, I have knocked on countless doors and said countless prayers. I have been invited into living rooms and have been cursed from behind locked doors. I have interrupted drug deals and witnessed spontaneous neighborhood prayer meetings. Through it all, I have become convinced that this style of ministry does have a place in the Catholic Church.

Historically, door-to-door ministry has been the near-exclusive province of Protestants, Latter Day Saints, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Frankly, there have been times that, after seeing two men in white dress shirts and ties walking through my neighborhood, I suddenly decided there were errands I needed to run. Undoubtedly, the first pitfall to be overcome in this ministry is its perception. The very words “door-to-door” conjure up images of tract-wielding zealots and vacuum cleaner salesmen. The only way to change this perception is to do the ministry a different way. What if door-to-door evangelists were like those servants of the master who went out into the streets and through the city inviting all they met to the great wedding feast (see Lk 14:15–24)?

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Back in 1989, when I first began working as a parish catechetical leader, I remember becoming alert to a pattern that unfolded regularly in our church parking lot. Two nights a week, our empty parking lot would become quite busy for two short periods of time. A line of cars would begin to form at 6:45 p.m. that would slowly inch along as parents dropped their children and teens off for parish catechesis. Then the lot emptied except for the dozen or so cars of the catechists. And then, an hour and a half later, the methodical line would predictably form again and creep along as parents retrieved their kids.

I had never been particularly attentive to this until that night. My alertness came about because of a contrasting pattern I had noticed for the first time in a church down the street. The previous week, I had noticed just how different the experience was in the evangelical Christian church parking lot. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, that church also had many cars entering the lot. But these cars were parked and remained for several hours until their drivers exited together at around 9 p.m. In that community, the adult drivers got out of their cars and entered, and then, surprisingly, remained in the building. As their kids went to Bible studies, so did their parents and other adults; whereas in our Catholic parish, the adult-chauffeurs immediately departed as their kids were catechized. In one church, the idea of studying and growing in an understanding of God’s Word was normative adult Christian life. Yet in the other—in ours—catechesis was an activity meant for the kids.

When it comes to the Catholic parishes with which each of us might be most familiar, what age level receives the most focused catechetical attention?

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The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a beautiful dogma of the Church that conveys to the faithful the importance of the Blessed Mother. In 1950, the apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus (The Most Bountiful God) was promulgated by Pope Pius XII. It declared that Mary was assumed into heaven—body and soul—at the end of her earthly life. Many traditions gathered from ancient sources tell us of Mary’s life after the scriptural conclusion of the apostolic age. The whole Church, in both in history and in contemporary times, has perceived the bookends of Mary’s life to be remarkable—a woman born without sin would also be free of the earthly demands of conventional human death. Supported by the patriarchs, the prophets, her Magnificat, the Marian visionaries, bishops, clergy, the lay faithful, and especially her relationship to her Son, Pius XII was moved to establish this dogma to help us know the fullness of Mary ever better.

But how can an artist depict something as mysterious and glorious as an event like this? As in images depicting many other glorious parts of the narrative of salvation, an artist is called to stretch the imagination, to conceive of a design that amplifies our meditation instead of bringing it “down to earth.” Certainly, composing a simple, factual scene of a woman flying into the sky would be insufficient. The Assumption by Masolino is an image that does more than show a literal historical event. It is painted in the International Gothic style—a post-Medieval, pre-Renaissance mix of realism and imaginative idealism. In art, realism depicts what the neutral eye naturally sees, whereas idealism is a vision of what the mind would like to see based on invisible ideas, usually something better than what we find when looking at the world. Realism and idealism are found throughout the history of art in both secular and religious images. Artists who create sacred art often use forms that are “more than real” in order to convey the mysteries of our faith. Masolino is one of those artists.

In many depictions of the annunciation, Mary is pictured as having been interrupted by the angel Gabriel in the midst of study. Whether she has a book open in her lap or tossed aside, a scroll in her hand or on a nearby stand, it is clear that, before this event, she was reading. Art historians have proposed interesting cultural interpretations of this motif, and these interpretations have their place. However, it seems that this motif, and the idea of Mary as an intellectual in general, has the potential to serve a pastoral purpose when investigated scripturally and spiritually. When viewed in light of the Gospel scenes that follow the annunciation, it becomes clear that Mary’s fiat could only have come from a woman who was steeped in the Scriptures and the religious tradition in which she found herself. The knowledge she displays of her place in the cosmic plan of salvation and her identity as a handmaiden of the Creator of the universe had to have been the fruit of deep study and contemplation.

Beautifully, the opportunity for deep study and contemplation is exactly what is on offer to university students. When considering the formation of these students and the call of Ex Corde Ecclesiae for Catholic universities to serve students “in their pilgrimage to the transcendent goal which gives meaning to life,” pastoral strategies that assist students in integrating their intellectual lives with their spiritual lives are essential.[1] Thus, Mary, when viewed as an intellectual, can be a tangible image, mentor, and friend to students who are fighting to integrate their relationship with God with their call to study. Here I will flesh out the pastoral potency of this view of Mary by first exploring an instance of scriptural evidence of Mary’s intellectual life. Then I will reflect on A. G. Sertillanges’ writings on the spirit of prayer in the intellectual life. Finally, I will examine Caryll Houselander’s view of the relationship between Mary’s vocation and our own, concluding that Mary can not only be an example of the call to the intellectual life but can lead students to Christ through their study in meaningful ways.

I come here often. Sometimes I come in gratitude. Other times I come here to beg. I come alone. I come with my wife and our kids.

Growing up, it took thirty minutes to get here. Back country roads. Flat. Everything level and straight. Fields speckled with the occasional woods, a barn, a farmhouse. It was practically in my backyard. But then I moved. Now, it takes about three hours. I drive up the long interstate to those familiar country roads that lead into the village.

The sleepy, two-stoplight town is something of a time warp. Life just moves slower in Carey, Ohio. The rural way of life is simpler than the suburban variety.

I stay for hours, or for twenty minutes. Being here is all that matters.

Yes, I come here often. It’s in my blood.

I am a pilgrim.

Basilica and National Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation

In June of 1873, Fr. Joseph Peter Gloden was entrusted with the mission in Carey, Ohio: thirteen families and an unfinished church building. The people were discouraged. But Fr. Gloden rallied the small band of Catholics, and the nascent congregation finished the construction of the church. It was given the title Our Lady of Consolation, for, as Gloden said, “We are not yet at the end of our difficulties and we need a good, loving and powerful comforter.”[1]

After the church was dedicated, Gloden, originally from Remerschen, Luxembourg, sought to obtain a copy of the statue of Luxembourg’s Our Lady of Consolation. The statue was made of oak and adorned with a fabric dress. The replica of the statue from the Cathedral of Luxembourg arrived in Carey in March 1875. To give Our Lady’s statue a most solemn entrance into her new home, Fr. Gloden and his parishioners decided on a seven-mile procession to the church in Carey from the nearby parish in Frenchtown, Ohio.

The big event was to take place on May 24, 1875. The day before, a heavy storm swept through the area. On the morning of the proposed procession, another storm threatened. Lightning could be seen across the horizon. Gloden urged the crowd not to scatter, calling out, “Let the procession proceed; there is no danger.”[2] And so they charged into a thunderstorm. The rest is history. Rain poured all around the procession, but nobody in the procession got wet. Once the statue reached the church and was safely inside, the rain pelted the earth.[3] From the beginning, the whole thing was viewed as a miraculous event—a light prelude to events that would happen in Fatima some decades later. On that day in rural Ohio, Mary protected her beloved little ones from the elements.

Many were the attempts made in Europe during the nineteenth century to redefine and refashion human existence. Significantly, over the same period there were three major apparitions in which Mary, Mother of the Redeemer, was present: Rue du Bac in Paris, France (1830); Lourdes, France (1858); and Knock, Ireland (1879). Taken together, these offer the answer to humanity’s searching. Let us look particularly at Mary’s eighteen apparitions to Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes.

In February 1934, one year after Bernadette’s canonization, Msgr. Ronald Knox preached a sermon in which he compares the young girl’s experience with that of Moses, even suggesting we might see Lourdes as a modern-day Sinai.[1] We should note that the events on Sinai are at the heart of biblical revelation, whereas those in Lourdes were private revelations later acknowledged by the Church to be for our good; yet, Knox finds many similarities between the two. Both, for example, took place on the slopes of hills; Moses and Bernadette were shepherds at the time; for both, a solitary experience resulted in the gathering of great crowds. Moses took off his shoes out of reverence for holy ground; Bernadette removed hers to cross a mill stream. Each was made aware of a mysterious presence demanding their attention: for one, by a fire that burned but did not consume; for the other, at the sound of a strong wind that did not move trees and the sight of a bright light that did not dazzle.

Moses was to lead the people out of bondage, though the Hebrews fell back to the worship of a golden calf. Knox writes that Bernadette was also “sent to a world in bondage,” a bondage in which it rejoiced. He finds significance in the fact that her visions took place in the middle of the Victorian age, when material plenty had given rise to materialism, “a spirit which loves . . . and is content with the good things of this life, [which] does not know how to enlarge its horizons and think about eternity.” Bernadette “was sent to deliver us from that captivity of thought; to make us forget the idols of our prosperity, and learn afresh the meaning of suffering and the thirst for God.” “That,” Knox uncompromisingly affirms, “is what Lourdes is for; that is what Lourdes is about—the miracles are only a by-product.” The preacher has no doubt of our own need for this message: “We know that in this wilderness of drifting uncertainties, our modern world, we still cling to the old standard of values, still celebrate . . . the worship of the Golden Calf.”

In Evangelii Nuntiandi (EN), Pope Paul VI, of sainted memory, said something that has become almost a banner that we fly above our apostolic work today, both in our evangelization and our catechesis. “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.”[1] This is often taken to mean that teaching, both the act and its content, are somehow to be considered a second-rate concern for our mission today.

The almost ubiquitous line is, “Well, doctrine is important, but . . ..” In statements of this kind, the implication is that what follows the ellipsis—whether it be encounter, the heart, the personal dimension, or, as in Pope Paul’s statement, Christian witness—is primary, and that doctrine is secondary. Unfortunately, in some cases these statements are really intended to communicate that content isn’t very important at all.