Preparation for Total Consecration

WEEK 3:
KNOWLEDGE OF OUR LADY

Our Lady is a superb person to help us come alive to what it means to be baptised. Graced as she is by the Holy Spirit, always reflecting the glory of God on the face of Christ, her authentic living of the Gospel can only help us too if we open ourselves to what she now sees.

Third Day: Mt. 9: 16, 17

REVOLUTIONARY GOSPEL

Parable.No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; if it is, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.

Reflection.The domestic detail of this parable Jesus could have learnt at home. But his noting the inadequacy of the old to contain the new will take him far from home. Geographically perhaps he did not move far, but the revolutionary Good News that he was preaching would so challenge the leaders among his contemporaries that they would try to resolve the tension by his death. That pattern is still found today where the authentic Gospel is preached and lived.

The Mother of Jesus would grow in that world. No doubt there were hours of family discussion before and after Jesus' rejection at Nazareth - 'Where did this man get all this, the carpenter, the son of Mary?' (Mk. 6:2,3).

No one, it was said, ever spoke as Jesus did, yet children found him so approachable as 'he took them in his arms and blessed them' (Mk. 10:16). The surface appeal and interest would attract many, as there was always something happening in his company. But the underlying meaning of who he was and what he was trying to do would be caught by the relatively few.

The open, trusting, unpretentious nature of the small child was needed to receive what Jesus came to give. The heart of his Mother, open to God from the moment of her conception, would offer that as she matured in faith. She can help me grow too.

Prayer.Lord Jesus, you would never have been crucified if what you said and did was only mildly inconvenient. Your words and deeds were an explosive mixture, too much for some. So it is today. May they never be too much for me.

May your gracious Mother, herself shown asking, 'Son, why have you treated us so?' help me never to domesticate your Gospel, and be open to puzzlement, surprise, and wonder.

Montfort.'Virgin most faithful, make me in everything so committed a disciple, imitator, and slave of Jesus, your Son, incarnate Wisdom, that I may become fully mature' (LEW 227).