The Queen of Broken Bread

I once was a sower. Sowing seeds.
I planted in heaven. My own needs.
There once was a Lady. She came to see.
From a Kingdom of Sowers. Who were we.

My name is happiness. I said to her.
I carry a yoke. Too heavy to bear.
The land is barren. The water is poor.
The harvest is thin. The weather unsure.

I am a Woman of such those things. Said she.
From a Kingdom of Seeds. Came her to me.
Do you know me? This Woman asked of me.
A kindly dressed maiden from across the sea...

Saint Maximilian taught me my Marian spirituality.

Honestly though, I am far from being the Marian Knight that my Patron Saint is - in service to the Queen of Heaven and Earth. So very far...

Our Lady filled the skies above my soul with stars.
She is the Queen of Broken Bread.
She magnifies Christian joy.

Knowing her is to understand an easy kind of splendor unmatched by any Saint...

A magnificence so pure and awesome yet sweet, 
kindly relenting to souls of much lesser brightness.

God broke me before I came to know religion. Religion was for me, an mere extension of myself - a way to project ego. It was a kind of power that made me feel good about myself.

All of this happened mostly unnoticed by my mind numbed and distorted by sin and vice. It was a fearful thing when I think about it now. Terrible. It exposed me to dangers everywhere, seen and unseen.

I was a self-righteous ass. Stubborn as a mule. This was the me deep inside of me - and above my soul was nothing. My soul was dead to itself, it saw not, it heard not, and it lived for nothing.

I wasn't all that bad. All that time, I strived to be good. I tried my best to be better. But always fell short. I was never truly happy about anything I did. Nothing seemed to stay on.

I think as human beings we instinctively understand that doing good is good for us. Animals instinctively understand it too. But to us humans, there is a bit more - for we seek a happiness animals shall never either understand or desire.

In all ages, all our attempts at society everywhere have ebbed and flowed with this same basic human desire for happiness in mind.

Animals are content to be content. But human beings wish for the power to dictate how it is that we shall be content - we desire a freedom which is simultaneously a happiness and we desire it in perfection. 

This perfection to us is blessed felicity. At the same time, it is a time honored impossibility.

Neither Man nor his society alone may satisfy what we all ultimately want. Thus, we warred and fought and died in droves through the ages. Terrible.

Now, this need to be happy and this want for a perfect happiness is also in me.

But as I was yet unbroken, I received a lot of pounding from Providence indeed. And it was Mama Mary who gave for me that one final blow that broke my ego.

She made me realize she was a reality apart from my own reality. That she was separate...

It might sound simplistic right now. But at the onset of it all, it was terrifying to me... Many of my old selfish notions were overturned - much like the tables of the sellers in the Temple.

I had our Lady's support though. And she made it so that I also had the support of more than a few good friends, seen and unseen, who helped keep me sane though it all.

In letting go of old molds, I understood the character of lasting friendships - that connection that in the Gospel our Savior mentioned is as brother, sister, and mother all in one - the friendships of angels.

That we are like a sky, night and day, full of multitudes - shining for God.

Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, through those years it had pleased our Lady to teach me to see each my relationships and their connections in a wholly different light. Suddenly, the skies above my soul were not so empty after all.

It was this one whole sky that led me to Jesus and to God.

After all, can one navigate the night of the soul without light or sight of any kind?

One can pretend as I did. Or one can know. We can pray.

I am not perfect still. I don't think I ever will in this life. The difference now is I know joy. I am no orphan to joy. At the core of me, there is joy. Amidst my problems and my struggles, there is joy.

And it all began with the Queen of Broken Bread.

It is just like Pope Francis said, those of us who neglect loving and knowing Mary are like orphans...

God never intends for any of us to be orphans though - in more ways than we may know. Isn't this joyful in itself? The embodiment of all of that reflecting in our humanity - is Mary, our Mother.

I think that is what Marian spirituality is really all about - being joyful.

And of finding ways to share Christian joy through works our faith teaches us, that our Savior taught us.

Not being dour and overly solicitous about the complexities of life and of being trustful as a child, even in the midst of the roaring lions of everyday problems that seek to devour our little hopes.

So today is Mama Mary's birthday. Let us be joyful for her that we may in ourselves discover how simple it is not to be complicated in a complicated time.
---<--@

St. John Paul II, 
Pope of my heart, my Holy Father most memorable.

You were to the Church in the world, our Good Shepherd during the formative years of my life.

And saw my generation through those tumultuous years.

Help us build a better, brighter, safer world.

Lead us on today...

Help us to know Mary. Help us comprehend Christian joy and see in loving others as Christ did the wealth neither tyrant nor thief may remove from our souls.
---<--@ 

O How Long the Wait

How long shall I wait in weakness, my God?
How long shall the brokenness of sin
haunt my shadow, my LORD?

I live in wait and suffer to offend
Thou Whom I love
by my sins.

O forsake me not, my God,
and have mercy on my poor soul!

O my Savior, save me -
O my Jesus, deliver me.

And so I weep with scornful tears
at my failures before thee,
O Mother of my God!

For numerous are my offenses
and before me my sins persist
like dark tomorrows.

O Mary Ever Virgin,
and Ever Chaste Queen,
though doubts rise and hopes fall,
I will cling to you!

O my Savior, save me -
O my Jesus, deliver me.

---<--@

The Silence of Man

...who was with her...

- Genesis 3: 6

I wonder about the silence of Adam.

The Serpent at the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil, did not represent evil, though - in that very particular - it carried an evil will.

Not all Serpents, however, are evil inspired - the Seraph Serpent in the Sinai at the time of the Patriarch Moses, was raised to save many lives.

The Tree itself was not representative of an evil in the Garden of our common origins but of a good. For all things at the time were indeed, very good.

The command of the LORD about the Tree itself which is complete allegiance to God represented "the Knowledge" that was represented by the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil as the not partaking of it, was truth itself.

And in the symbology of Genesis, I am convinced, the Serpent represented the strangest of strangers to Man - the creature most unlike himself. And woman, the most familiar... In fact, the only one, the ONLY one who is like Man, the only living soul (i.e. a soul congnizant of its cognizance of itself) in all of creation Adam could identify with - his faithful helper upon whom he could depend, his loyal friend unto whom he could trust, and his beloved wife whom he was destined to love and to hold as one - forever.

So Adam just looked by as the Strangest of Strangers whispered into Eve's own heart? We all know the result - for we all know of it's inescapable pains. Why was Man silent in Woman's most desperate hour?

I know I wouldn't. The Man in me would most definitely revolt at the sight and would very probably have intervened in some way.

This strange silence, it seems to me, had something to do in the suffering of Woman through the ages just as much as the Fall of our First Parents had something to do with the death of our common humanity from the Original Truth we were once completely alive unto in the LORD and in All living creation.

BUT at the Cross of our Redemption, our blessed Lord, Jesus Christ, was NOT silent in Woman's most desperate hour.

In that most tender and loving of moments, as our Savior waited in agony for the embrace of death, He gave unto each of us through Saint John, His Mother - the Blessed Virgin Mary - to be our Mother - the Mother of the Church - and just as importantly - afterwards, our Savior gave Adam back to his Eve and Eve back to her Adam - making peace whole again between Man and Woman - eternally.

"Qui Tacet Consentire" - "Who is Silent Gives Consent".

Can Man afford to remain silent again?
---<--@

There is no weaker sex, only the perception of weakness wrought by the division that the sin of the Devil had also placed between the man and his most faithful helper.

There is only man and there is only woman. And there is only man and woman joined together by God in their particular strengths to form the nucleus of every human family.

Salutation #172 - The Parity of the Sexes

A Prayer to Mary, Queen of Peace

O Immaculata!

My Mother and Queen of my Heart,

I love thee but do not deserve thee.
For it is the boundless mercy of God,
O Blessed Virgin Mary,
that made thee my Mother
and I thy unworthy son.

O Refuge of Sinners,
without whom I would perish,
I am thankful to God for thee!
O dearest Lady,
may my love and appreciation for thee grow,
by special grace of God,
with each day I walk this life with thee
in the path that our Savior has chosen for me.

O great Mother of God!
I humbly beseech thee,
give me strength against thy enemies
and allow me to praise and honor thee.
O glorious Leader!
Help of Christians, lead us to victory -
toward a new age of peace and renewal for our world
through the Eucharistic reign of Christ
in the hearts of all Christians
in the Name of the Father
and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit.

AMEN.

---<--@

(produced 20110304)

Salutation #150

A Christian without prayer is like a soldier without a rifle.



(Rosary of Hope)

My people -

Do not be afraid
neither be confused.

Dark have our times become
so we have to let the darkness be...

Let us busy ourselves
not with the darkness.

Let us busy ourselves
with the things of the light.

And learn
of the coming of the morning
even in the midst of the night.

In these times,
we have a need to shine
ever as the stars promised of old
to our Father Abraham -
together this time.

Therefore,
I will share each with you
(though I feel most unworthy to do so),
my brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
the horizontal aspect of the vertical rosary -

The rosary of hope.

   I need your help in praying this rosary.

   Let us intercede for each other
   with the Blessed Mother.

   Let us pray as a nation.

For
we now
have reason
under this season
to pray harder,
hope brighter,
love kinder,
and believe truer
than we ever
have before.
---<--@

Rosary of Hope (condensed)

I have gleaned from this rosary
many of the things I have come to know
about our undertaking of Country
in relation to our own nation
and in relation to our kindred nations
though I am not perfect in my prayer habits.

This is so
because God is merciful
and our Lady loves this nation
and through our nation wills to extend this love
to all the nations of the children of Mankind
through the liberation of the human heart in prayer
   (the ultimate expression of which
   is the Eucharistic Reign of Jesus Christ
   in and across all Christian hearts)
and the gradual strengthening of the human spirit
in and across all our kindred nations,
making us all one human family - in hope.

Begin with the intention to begin:

Lord Jesus, let me offer to You, this rosary of hope.

+Sign of the Cross

The Apostle's Creed -
meditate on Christian unity
and harmony among the churches.

The First our Father -
meditate on the unity of the LORD, our God.

The first three Hail Mary's -
meditate on the distinct Personages
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The first Glory be -
meditate on the glory of God;
the culmination of all our faith,
the realization of all our hopes,
the perfection of all our love -

Identify (intimately) with the Kingdom in thee,
seek to bring it forth into the darkness of the world.

The Five Meditations

1st Meditation - True Self
2nd Meditation - Family
3rd Meditation - Friends
4th Meditation - Nation/s
5th Meditation - Mother Church

The our Father -
obedience and submission
to the will of God for you.

The 10 Hail Mary's - lineages of hope -
here you will take your petitions with our Lady
into the Presence of God, our Father.

The Glory be
meditate on the glory of God;
the culmination of all our faith,
the realization of all our hopes,
the perfection of all our loves -
here you will now lovingly surrender
the fruit of thy thoughts
with our Lady
into the hand of Jesus Christ,
our one Savior.

After each Meditation pray:

"O my Jesus
zealous for souls
thirsting for the love of Mankind
Come, Lord Jesus,
be Thou the God of my heart
and accomplish in me Thy will of Peace."

Here you will take
positive personal responsibility
to freely act on the fruits of thy prayer.

You may finish with a Salve Regina
or any Marian Salutation.

Remember,
the rosary is a house.
It is the house of the Immaculate.
Respectfully thank our Lady for allowing us 
entrance into intimacy of her home.

+Sign of the Cross

Gradually come out of your mediation...

Some Personal Notes:

When people ask you for your prayers
or when your heart is inclined by the Spirit of God
to intercede in behalf of other people,
needful as thou art needful,
you can now include these
in a particular mediation in this rosary.

Prayer requests feed into this rosary.

If you pray them
in the atmosphere of each meditation
with an open and loving heart,
you will gain certain insights
on the hopes that other people bear
for self and for others like the self
and these insights will serve to strengthen
your own sense of charity.

This likewise holds true with your own hopes.

You must never again
say yes to a prayer request
without meaning yes!

Never offer to pray
for the hope of another
without will or understanding.

Remember,
prayer is in your spirit
it is an attitude of thy heart -
as far as your soul is concerned
it is the first thing and the last thing 
for it begins not and it ends not
you feel it motion when you are still
and when you are disturbed, it is calm
stirring up only the darkness in thee
that you may soon remember
that you may soon know
that you may soon be.

So always give thanks 
to the Holy Spirit Who loves us 
to no end.

A Sample Schedule:

Mon - Joyful
Tue - Sorrowful
Wed - Glorious
Thu - Luminous
Fri - Hope
Sat - Hope
Sun - Hope/Holy Mass

Click on the Label "Rosary of Hope" below for further reference.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Salutation #149

THERE IS a fundamental strength in the heart of our humanity. It is a strength often obscured by many divisions and many sins.

Yet it is still there... 

We may at times forget it but it may never forget us.

The Assumption of our Lady reveals to us this strength; the ultimate triumph of a fully human life.



(Assumption Day 2012)

The Blessed Virgin Mary
loves the Philippines!

But not by name alone,
she does not draw herself close
to the heart of our nation simply because
we choose to call ourselves
such and such.

Let us be proud to be Filipinos
and to call ourselves Filipinos!

Our heroes
and their noble lineages
were never shy of the name.

But let us never forget
the essential spiritual values
that create and re-create
in and through our generations,
the spirit of the nationhood
in each ourselves.

Let us not just be,
as if everything relied on externals,
let us become - and strive together
to always, always become.

For every appearance on the earth
draws its existence from the spiritual
to imbue it with virtue and purpose
and to give it motion and form.

So let us be a prayerful people,
a nation not unfamiliar with gifts of mystery -
pondering the invisible, indescribable, undeniable
things of God in our hearts.

Lest a false sense of ruinous pride
overtake our people and subvert our peace,

turning our Country into ashes from within.

- selah -

Our Lady is Queen.

And her sense of compassionate responsibility
is universal among the nations of the children of Mankind.

She loves the Filipino heart
because it is a heart of humanity.

Within the abode
of each our heart dwells a spirit
that is exuberant, patient, obedient and attentive,
willing to always listen and to learn.

It is much like her own heart.
For our nation's heart is child's heart.
It is ever youthful and brave.

It is a trustful heart
that naturally recognizes,
not in spite of all our diversity
but all throughout,
the Providential Hand of God,
our Father.

It is a heart
that is valued very, very much
by her Son, our Savior Jesus Christ.

The Gospel bears this witness
to our nationhood - unity is eternal.

The fruit of this unity is peace.

In every generation
to the last of our generations,
the residue of this nationhood is love;
a love reserved for all, and a love shared by all.
Its every action is a spiritual action
that ascends to glorify the God of Peace -
as our Lady did as we commemorate her this day,
her Assumption Day.

No matter
our distinctions, differences,
disagreements, or difficulties,
if we always remember
this most fundamental peace
we share amongst ourselves
and with other nations like ourselves,
we will never be far off
from the Kingdom of the LORD, our King -
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Our sense of maturity
as an undertaking of Country
relies not on its physical ages in time
but on a timeless remembrance of these!

When we are faithful to our remembrances,
this spirit of nationhood is revealed to us,
and we are able to shine 

as the stars.

Even as the stars of our Father Abraham!

Mabuhay!
---<--@



We are a human nation; a Country endowed by the LORD, our God and King, not just with a distinct Roman Catholic heritage, but with a rich Christian, Islamic, and Jewish heritage.

These as well as those other traditions of honorable religion, allied to each other in peace and good will, is a primary source of our unity.

All have contributed to the diverse and colorful fabric of Filipino culture and life.

If we sacrifice these in the name of War and in the spirit of division, what kind of a people are we?
---<--@

Here in the Philippines, the Feast Day of the Assumption of our Lady is August 15. Today is the Feast Day of Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe.

Salutation #126

One does not need
to look at the sun - to see -
the day that is all around us.

Likewise -

One does not need
to see the LORD - to know -
that God is and He is God!
---<--@



(The Miracle of the Sun)

The manifestation of the sun
at the closing of the Fatima visitations
- was a visible herald -
of the manifestation of the Light
here, in our own times.

- selah -

We are in a spiritual darkness.

Our world is caught fast
in the depths of an invisible night.

And
just as the sun
was the chosen instrument
that sealed the miracle at Fatima,
this Light is
Who shall seal for all the miracle
that shall mark for each of us the closing
of the last great age of War.

For this Light is
as the sun in those days.

For just as the sun shines
to give sight to the eyes of our body,
this Light shines
(being the true seeing in our seeing)

to restore sight to the the eye
in the heart of Man.

For this Light is the Holy Spirit. 

The Spirit of the LORD consuming with fire
come to transform our world and bring our nations
out of the darkness and into the Light!
---<--@



My brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ -

The message of Fatima

does not have to be read again to us.

Nor its miracles again be sent
to spur our memory of things above
and beyond our earthly plane;
of things true and Divine.

Suffice it for us to know today 

we have a choice again.

We have a choice again to make
- here in this, our century -
to determine the nature and reach
of the next hundred years.

- selah -

We have a choice again to make
- as nations dreaming together this time -
even at the crossroads, here and now,
at the threshold of another thousand years.

And the things of the last century,
if not the burden of the last 2000 years,
should have prepared us to make this choice.

So let this choice be one for Mother
and let this choice be one for peace.

Let this choice be one for us,
and the common generations of life.

(This is the best mother's day gift
we can offer to our Lady, our Queen Mother Mary,
who is so solicitous for the common welfare of our humanity
this close to the closing of another age.



May peace be to all our mothers, across all our nations in time,
as we remember the universal heritage of motherhood
this Mother's Day 2012.)
---<--@

Prayer for Peace to Mary, the Light of Hope

Immaculate Heart of Mary,
help us to conquer the menace of evil,
which so easily takes root
in the hearts of the people of today,
and whose immeasurable effects already
weigh down upon our modern world
and seem to block the paths toward the future.

From famine and war, deliver us.

From nuclear war, from incalculable self destruction,
from every kind of war, deliver us.

From sins against human life from its very beginning,
deliver us.

From hatred and from the demeaning of the dignity
of the children of God, deliver us.

From readiness to trample on the commandments
of God, deliver us.

From the loss of awareness of good and evil,
deliver us.

From sins against the Holy Spirit,
deliver us.

Accept, O Mother of Christ,
this cry laden with the sufferings of all individual human beings,
laden with the sufferings of whole societies.

Help us with the power of the Holy Spirit to conquer all sin:
individual sin and the "sin of the world,"
sin in all its manifestations.

Let there be revealed once more
in the history of the world
the infinite saving power of the Redemption:
the power of the merciful love.

May it put a stop to evil.

May it transform consciences.

May your Immaculate Heart
reveal for all the light of hope.

AMEN.


by Blessed John Paul II

Salutation #106

My beloved brothers and sisters,

I would be remiss if I did not share with you my praise

of the Queen of Heaven and Earth!

(The Queenship of Mary)

The Queenship of Mary

is not one of power over Man

but of responsibility

over the nations of the children of Man.

This is important to understand

because a lot of hearts seem to revile

this most tender of all Marian titles

- perhaps out of an unfounded fear -

of being controlled or dominated over.

Mary is Queen of Heaven and Earth!

Hers is a dominion of peace and unity;

she cares over a realm of pure relationships

unto which we are all made free

and into which all Mankind

is destined to belong.

- selah -

It was Mama Mary

who freed me from the egoism of my past self!

It was she

who made me realize

- the great reality -

of other living truths

(starting with her own)

that exist separately from my person

who do not depend on my reality

for their own reality to exist

(and my heaven burst forth with stars!).

This painful awakening

further freed me to be able to experience Beauty

and through Beauty, the Divine Reality.

If I, who am most unworthy of all her sons,

am loved so much by the Queen of all our hearts with Jesus -

how much more you, Beloved of God?

So must you, O Christian soul,

run to our Mother Mary today!

---<--@

Mama Mary, Queen of Peace, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

Mama Mary, Help of Christians, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

Mama Mary, Refuge of Sinners, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Patron Saint of the Suffering Addict and Refuge of the Recovering Addict, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

Blessed Jacinta Marto of Fatima, courageous for sinners, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

Glorified be God forever in all His Angels and in all His Saints, alleluia, alleluia!

O my Mother with Jesus

O my Mother with Jesus
and Glorious Queen of my heart,
I call with my heart upon you, dear Mother -
Recall me again to your most certain reality;
bring me to where you are present in my life.

O dear Mother,

be here with me in my heart!
For I am in need of your care and protection.

I am but a child in my heart with dear Jesus
and delighted for my God to dwell in my heart
yet I am frailest of all - against His enemies -
and I want to keep His Love so very much!

So I harken to you, dearest Lady!
O Immaculata, chief terror of hell,
give me strength against your enemies
and allow me to praise and to honor you!

Arouse me to the truths that endure forever,
recollect me to the presence of all my friends
- and bring me back -

to the foot of the Cross with you
there when the tide of all things have turned
and the serpent of this world was defeated;
his dominion of evil over humanity overthrown!

O bring me back to where it all began anew
at the greatest moment of God's triumph over evil
and the awesome price He paid for our liberation
to awaken our needful souls to the terrible evil of sin.

Ascend with me to the unity of His Peace
and awaken in me a hatred of all that is false.
Teach me virtue that I may stand steadfastly with you

against the countless evils that have been afflicted
not only to my own soul, wounding me so deeply,
but also to all the souls of our suffering humanity
- who are all victims in the first principle -
to that one lie that have wrought so much of our pain
born from that one sin that gave birth to the spirit of War
giving rise to the countless divisions that now rage

within every human heart -
a timeless conflict waged against life,

and against the God of All life;
a War to overthrow God's dominion over this world
upon His Kingdom founded in the heart of Man.

O dear Mother,

make me alive to the love of my Savior
for all things that begin in love begin with my Jesus.

Truly, truly, Blessed Virgin Mary

no evil in this world can ever convince,
nor sin in this world ever bear false claim
to what reality God's love has wrought in my life
as He hung dying on a Cross two thousand years ago
for the blade of His truth reached far across time
to cut me loose from the bonds that held my heart
that I may work out the fruits of my repentance
in loving gratitude and willing obedience to Him.

I want to keep His Love, dear Blessed Virgin Mary
I want to keep His Love and ascend to His one Peace
in prayer and in truth, in peace and in temptation
to serve God faithfully all the rest of my days.

AMEN.

---<--@

(20080615)