March 25, 2024

Dear John,

As we enter Holy Week, our hearts turn toward the profound themes that define this sacred time in the Christian calendar.

In today’s newsletter, we embark on a journey of reflection, exploring the timeless themes of love, sacrifice, redemption, and renewal that permeate the days leading up to Easter Sunday. From Mary’s “Yes,” celebrated today through her Annunciation, to Jesus’ journey to the cross, we have models for our lives.

Join me this week and let us walk this path of contemplation, drawing closer to the heart of our shared spiritual journey.

There’s still time to enhance your Lenten observance through a gift to Franciscan Media. This ministry is supported by donors like you. Your gift goes to work creating the rich resources you’ve come to depend on. Please consider making a donation today.

Blessed Holy Week,

Christopher Meyer
Director of Development 

Saint of the Day for March 25: Annunciation of the Lord

The Story of the Annunciation of the Lord

The feast of the Annunciation, now recognized as a solemnity, was first celebrated in the fourth or fifth century. Its central focus is the Incarnation: God has become one of us. From all eternity God had decided that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity should become human. Now, as Luke 1:26-38 tells us, the decision is being realized. The God-Man embraces all humanity, indeed all creation, to bring it to God in one great act of love. Because human beings have rejected God, Jesus will accept a life of suffering and an agonizing death: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).

Mary has an important role to play in God’s plan. From all eternity, God destined her to be the mother of Jesus and closely related to him in the creation and redemption of the world. We could say that God’s decrees of creation and redemption are joined in the decree of Incarnation. Because Mary is God’s instrument in the Incarnation, she has a role to play with Jesus in creation and redemption. It is a God-given role. It is God’s grace from beginning to end. Mary becomes the eminent figure she is only by God’s grace. She is the empty space where God could act. Everything she is she owes to the Trinity.

Mary is the virgin-mother who fulfills Isaiah 7:14 in a way that Isaiah could not have imagined. She is united with her son in carrying out the will of God (Psalm 40:8-9; Hebrews 10:7-9; Luke 1:38).

Together with Jesus, the privileged and graced Mary is the link between heaven and earth. She is the human being who best, after Jesus, exemplifies the possibilities of human existence. She received into her lowliness the infinite love of God. She shows how an ordinary human being can reflect God in the ordinary circumstances of life. She exemplifies what the Church and every member of the Church is meant to become. She is the ultimate product of the creative and redemptive power of God. She manifests what the Incarnation is meant to accomplish for all of us.

Reflection

Sometimes spiritual writers are accused of putting Mary on a pedestal and thereby, discouraging ordinary humans from imitating her. Perhaps such an observation is misguided. God did put Mary on a pedestal and has put all human beings on a pedestal. We have scarcely begun to realize the magnificence of divine grace, the wonder of God’s freely given love. The marvel of Mary—even in the midst of her very ordinary life—is God’s shout to us to wake up to the marvelous creatures that we all are by divine design.

Find a deeper understanding of pain and healing from Ronald Rolheiser, OMI.

Ronald Rolheiser, one of the most influential spiritual writers of our day, offers profound reflections on the central mystery of our Christian faith. His meditations on the passion and the cross invites you to a new understanding of redemption and offers insight into the meaning of your own suffering.

The Joy and Suffering of Love

Because of our free will, we cannot be controlled into loving God back in response to the unconditional love God has for us. God’s very love for humanity and the rest of creation resembles our own experience of love and suffering in our human relationships. The very love that has brought us into creation, into existence, and into the possibility of loving at all provides the condition for God’s surrender of control. There is perhaps no better example than the cross to highlight this truth.

The love of Jesus Christ that leads to his willing embrace of the crucified earthly destiny that appeared before him is both a model for how we are called to love and a revelation of God’s self-offering of control out of love. This model for how you and I are to love is not an invitation to masochism or some sort of foolhardy and dangerous behavior. Instead, it is an example of our willingness to accept both the suffering and the joy that comes with love.

—from the book The Last Words of Jesus: A Meditation on Love and Sufferingby Daniel P. Horan, OFM

Monsignor Vincenzo Peroni, master of ceremonies for Pope Francis, takes pilgrims on an unforgettable tour of the most important sites in the Holy Land through guided meditations and prayerful reflections.

Eighteen original watercolor drawings by Alessandro Alghisi capture the beauty and sacredness of these places.

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