Mary’s Family
Deacon Michael had a big heart. He wanted to take care of everyone. I used to tell him that he was meant to be a patriarch over a large family even when we were dating, and after we were married as well. After his conversion, his thinking was transformed. His caring heart grew more generous. With his ordination he became, in a way, the head of a very large spiritual family. He loved his family very much.
And he loved the Blessed Virgin Mary, our mother and his mother, very much indeed, but that came with the passage of time. When he heard me talking about waking up in the middle of the night feeling the need to pray the rosary, he didn’t understand. I used to say, when that happened, that a crisis was on the way. He was appalled to find that it was true! That reaction changed, and he, too, woke up during the night needing to find strength and comfort for his life as well. He also prayed the rosary during the night, and early in the morning, and whenever he felt called to prayer.
We both attributed this calling to prayer to their guardian angels. Our angels sometimes served as our spiritual alarm clocks, calling us to prayer.
The more he prayed, the more his love for his Heavenly Mother grew. Mary took tender motherly care of her ordained son, Michael, her deacon.
written by Laura Weston, widow of Deacon Michael
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The Feast of the Presentation of Mary
I have to admit I really love the image of Jesus reaching out his hand and saying, "These are my brothers and my sisters, these are my mother." I just love that. The image of the people being around and with Christ and following Him and having that Man, who is also divine, the Savior of the World, the Son of David, doing that. Oh, it chills me.
But it is a very, very important reality, because that's exactly what we are. And if we are his brothers and sisters, Mary is our mother. And in the contemplation of Jesus, and especially going up and then culminating in the fourth century, they dealt with the issue of "who do you say Jesus is?"
If He's wholly human, hey, a lot of you people have, you women have, children. Eh, no big deal. If He's wholly divine, eh, look at Zeus and those things, that happens. But if He is wholly human and wholly divine, Mary was something special. Without a doubt, she was very, very special. She is the one who is the great "Amen", that she said, "Yes. Thy will be done unto me." The Annunciation. All of those great things.
That then leads, and remember what we are dealing with is a society where memories are not limited like they are now. Memories in our situation now, "Well, I put it in my computer. I don't have to remember it any more. I can look it up later." Memories are, "I saw a television show … it's gone."
Memories are generational. That I would know what my father did, my great grandfather, my grandmother, great grandmother, their families, and I would know things about them. I would know special things about them.
So when you come to the recognition, this recognition that was developing over time, that Jesus is wholly human and wholly divine, the reality is you go, "Oh, if He's wholly human and wholly divine, then His mother is the mother of God."
And there were people there, who could go to where they knew He was, they knew where she was, and very easily go, "Hey, do you know anybody, remember Mary," and give the proper description, and someone would go, "Yeah, three generations ago she lived in the village here and we knew her." or "My brother knew Him." Goes back probably hundreds of years. And there are societies today that do exactly the same thing.
And the story of Mary would be told, because you're talking about a society… if you read the Old Testament it's very much like this… a society of stories.
And the stories would be, "Oh yeah, I remember, there was always that story told about her. One, she was always just so good." It’s always kind of in the context of, "Yuck, that was kind of disgusting. She was just perfect all of the time. But I remember the story that I always found fascinating was that when she was born, her mother and father had a hard time having children. She was born and they brought her to the Temple and presented her to the temple as a girl. I always remember the story of Samuel (who was also presented to God as a child and lived in the Temple). I remember the stories from the Old Testament. I remember how this can be done and we’ve always known that there was something really, really special about this woman. And as we learned about Christ or we heard about Christ, we were able to relate it back to her."
So the story of the presentation (of Mary), it is very likely that it occurred. It is a further acknowledgement and recognition of the importance of the Blessed Mother and the importance of Jesus Christ, her Son.
But for our purposes in talking about the Blessed Mother, we refer to her as the Blessed Mother, is that she's family. And in this context, she wasn't given, Jesus did not go up on the cross and say, "John, here's your mother and by the way 2000 years from now there is this guy who's going to be a deacon, don't worry about what a deacon is at this point, there's this guy named Michael and she's going to be his mother as well. No. It's all his disciples, for all of us. And it changes the perspective. Again I love to talk about how everybody is important because they are made in the image of God. They are created by God in His image. And everybody is important because Jesus Christ went on the cross.
But there is another aspect of this. It is that everyone is important because we have the same spiritual mother. We are all brothers and sisters because in Christ we go back to the same mother. We go back to the same mother that Christ has, the Blessed Virgin Mary. And that in that very real sense of in addition to the fact that you deserve, even as a woman, the dignity, I'm picking on... you're not even smiling today… I'm picking on Mayve… even as a woman you have the dignity of being made in the image of Christ. Even as, I don't know what, someone who likes to read books, you have the dignity of Christ dying on the cross for you. But moreover, you are my brother and my sister. There is a familial relationship through the Blessed Mother.
So the unity of Christianity, the unity of Catholicism, comes from Our Blessed Mother in a very real sense. So that when I see someone in the world, that person isn't "her" or "him", it's my sister and my brother.
And we see in this memorial today the celebration of the humanity of the Blessed Mother. The humanity of she being so important to her parents that she brought the presentation in the Temple. That she was given to God as a small child. Very similar to the way that we give children to God through Baptism, First Communion, Confirmation. These are things that occur all of which are designed, beyond the other aspects of the humanity of Christ and the divinity of Christ, it is all that is to be part of the same family that is represented by the Body of Christ, His Holy Catholic Church.
So when we celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, it is really important to give thanks to be part of the family of Our Lord Jesus Christ through His mother, the Blessed Mother, through His father, God our Father, and to recognize in each and every one of us and everybody that we encounter, it is my brother and my sister that we encounter.
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