Daily Gospel Reflection
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December 16, 2019
When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”
Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”
And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.”
And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”
At the Thanksgiving table, my father-in-law was attempting to teach my 1st grader a life lesson, telling her, “making mistakes is how you learn, people who make the most mistakes in life often find the most happiness.” Not missing a beat, my daughter replied, “well, God doesn’t make any mistakes and he is the happiest of all!”
I was struck in this moment by the pure faith of children. She doesn’t question, she just knows, without any doubts, that God is perfect. I’m not sure when some of us lose that in our faith journey and begin to question God’s plan. Like the elders and priests questioning God’s authority, we question God’s intent, especially when faced with sadness in our own lives or in the world. Yet, like my daughter’s response reminded me, God doesn’t make mistakes and, although we may not understand everything, it doesn’t make God’s plan for us any less than the vision God intends. This Christmas season I pray that we all remember just how pure God’s love for us is. God is perfect in everything he has done and will do for our lives here on earth and our eternal life in heaven.
Prayer
Protect me from desiring an authority that masks my fear and selfishness. Guard me from the seduction of power and importance. Save me from clinging to my needs and direct my spirit to move with the authority of your son’s love.
Saint of the Day
Blessed Mary of the Angels was a mystic nun from the 18th century whose life was marked by a number of supernatural experiences.
She is a distant cousin of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, and was named Maria Fontanella when she was born in Turin in 1661. As a child, she was drawn to the religious life. At one point, she made a plan with a brother to run away and live in the desert. She began to receive visions in her dynamic prayer life.
At the age of 12, she entered a community of Cistercian nuns, but when her father died soon after, she returned home to help her mother. Still, she felt called to religious life, and at the age of 16 she joined a community of Carmelites in Turin and took the name Mary of the Angels.
She found life in a community of religious sisters to be difficult—she was very homesick and did not get along well with her novice-master—but she persevered. After seven years in the convent, she began to experience desolation in her prayer life—she was even attacked by demonic manifestations. She had a very capable spiritual director who helped her through this period, however, and after several years, she began to find peace and enter into even deeper levels of prayer.
Eventually, she was chosen to lead aspects of the community, and to become prioress of the convent. She established a new house for the community in another city, and wanted to move there, but the people of Turin would not hear of it. They valued her wisdom and would regularly consult her for advice.
She had a deep devotion to St. Joseph, and dedicated the city of Turin to him after his intercession helped save the city from being destroyed in a war with the French. She is depicted in this stained glass window asking St. Joseph for help.
One of the gifts of her faithfulness was a distinct odor that accompanied her in the last 20 years of her life. People described it as a scent of sanctity—it came from her body and spread to things she touched. The scent was a permanent condition after 1702, and was even difficult to remove from things that she had contacted. Her spiritual director, who later became archbishop, described it as a scent “neither natural nor artificial, nor like flowers or aromatic drugs or any mixture of perfumes, but only to be called an odor of sanctity.” Some of her relics still retain this scent today.
Blessed Mary of the Angels died on this date in 1717. Her relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica, and she is depicted there in these stained glass windows. The foundry that created the stained glass windows of the Basilica was located in a former Carmelite convent in Le Mans, France—in the window shown here, the artists who adorned the Basilica pay homage to the community that gave the world holy people such as Blessed Mary of the Angels.
Blessed Mary of the Angels, you literally smelled like holiness and spread that scent to things you touched—pray for us!