Eucharistic Tent of Meeting

Domine quo vadis? Lord with are you going, asked Peter as he was running away from Rome to escape death.
Jesus met him on the way and replied:
Peter, I go to Rome to be crucified again.
Peter understood that the Christ who promised to be with us until the end was suffering in the mystical body which is his people.

Despite the storms and the scandals of our times, we have this blessed assurance that the Lord is still with us—until the end of time. If we are experiencing crucifixion, the Lord is enduring in the midst of us. He is meeting up with us.

Tent of Meeting
And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting… and all the people would rise up---each at his own door and observe. Whatever we meet up with as the ground seems to be taken from under us in so many fields -- sacred and secular we have this inner tent—this inner meeting place with the Lord. This is where we go when we sit and meditate each morning and evening.

Living in the Presence of God
For the Jewish people the big question was not the Existence of God, whether there is a God or not, but whether God was with them or not. Speaking to the successor of Moses, the Lord said: As I was with Moses, so I will be with you: I will never forsake you. That means : Behind you, supporting and encouraging you, going before you, as a Pillar of fire by night and as a Cloud of Glory by day.

The word to the Prophets and Leaders always was: I the Lord am with you. To Mary: Hail full of grace, the Lord is with you.

Little wonder that this promise and blessing has found it way into the Eucharist: Dominus Vobiscum. And we keep in mind the words of Paul: If the Lord is with us, who can be against us!

This is one of the characteristics of love: to stay around. A small boy came home and told his Mammy about his Grandad who was sitting alone crying. “But its all right now,” he continued: “I sat with him and helped him to cry.”

This is what gives us security and inner peace and lets us sit still in meditation. We know that the Lord himself sits with us, gathers up our tears and enfolds in his love. We do like that small boy, we sit with each other and live in the presence of each other.
Fr. Gabriel: Dominican Priory, Tallaght, Dublin 24, Ireland.
EMAIL: hartygabriel@yahoo.co.uk

The Tent of Meeting

Domine quo vadis? Lord with are you going, asked Peter as he was running away from Rome to escape death.
Jesus met him on the way and replied:
Peter, I go to Rome to be crucified again.
Peter understood that the Christ who promised to be with us until the end was suffering in the mystical body which is his people.

Despite the storms and the scandals of our times, we have this blessed assurance that the Lord is still with us—until the end of time. If we are experiencing crucifixion, the Lord is enduring in the midst of us. He is meeting up with us.

Tent of Meeting
And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting… and all the people would rise up---each at his own door and observe. Whatever we meet up with as the ground seems to be taken from under us in so many fields -- sacred and secular we have this inner tent—this inner meeting place with the Lord. This is where we go when we sit and meditate each morning and evening.

Living in the Presence of God
For the Jewish people the big question was not the Existence of God, whether there is a God or not, but whether God was with them or not.

Speaking to the successor of Moses, the Lord said: As I was with Moses, so I will be with you: I will never forsake you. That means : Behind you, supporting and encouraging you, going before you, as a Pillar of fire by night and as a Cloud of Glory by day. The word to the prophets and leaders always was: I the Lord am with you. To Mary: Hail full of grace, the Lord is with you.

Little wonder that this promise and blessing has found it way into the Eucharist: Dominus Vobiscum. And we keep in mind the words of Paul: If the Lord is with us, who can be against us!

This is one of the characteristics of love: to stay around. A small boy came home and told his Mammy about his Grandad who was sitting alone crying. “But its all right now,” he continued: “I sat with him and helped him to cry.”

This is what gives us security and inner peace and lets us sit still in meditation. We know that the Lord himself sits with us, gathers up our tears and enfolds in his love. We do like that small boy, we sit with each other and live in the presence of each other.

You can write to me at Dominican Priory, Tallaght Village, Dublin 24, Ireland or email: hartygabriel@yahoo.co.uk

Motherhood of souls

Motherhood of souls is Mary’s essential function. Without participation in that, there can be no real union with her. True devotion comprises the service of souls. It is not enough to praise, we are called to imitate, identify with Mary herself. She is a Queen Mother with a family as extensive as the whole Kingdom of God. Just as it is not enough to pray, thy kingdom come ,so we have to work to bring about that Kingdom. We have to play an active part. St. Paul used the daring expression: I fill up in my body what is wanting to the passion of Christ. Without our Legion apostolate of sharing in the motherhood of Mary, there would be something wanting to our devotion.

A mere verbal offering of our services to Mary can be as empty. Apostolic duties will not descend from Heaven on those who content themselves with waiting passively for that to happen. Those who stand idly by will continue in their state of unemployment. The only effective method of offering ourselves as apostles is to undertake apostleship. We have just to take the first simple step in faith and love and at once Mary embraces our activity and incorporates it in her motherhood.

How could the Virgin so powerful be dependent on the aid of persons so weak? It is a part of the divine arrangement which requires human co-operation. Mary's treasury of grace is superabundant, but she cannot spend from it without our help. If she could use her power according to her heart alone, the world would be converted in the twinkling of an eye. But she has to wait till the human agencies are available to her. Deprived of them, she cannot fulfil her motherhood, and souls starve and die.
Legionaries are no dead instruments of Mary's action. There is question of a living and life-giving co-operation with her for the purpose of enriching and ransoming souls. Where the spirit of this partnership is honoured, Mary is never be found wanting. The fate of the enterprise may be said to depend entirely on the legionary, so that he must bring to it all his/her intelligence and strength, perfected by careful method and by perseverance.

One must pray as if all depended on that prayer and nothing on one's own efforts, and then one must strive as if absolutely everything depended on that striving.
There is nothing lost of anything which is committed to the hands of the careful housewife of Nazareth. The legionary looks to Mary to supernaturalise the natural. She who is full of grace will see it that our human endeavour walks hand in hand with the grace of God