MSA Writings

Jesus did not suffer in our place so that we might not have to suffer, nor did he die in our place to dispense us from dying.  Inspired by love and faith, he suffered and died so that our sufferings and death might become like his: an entrusting of ourselves into the hands of the Father, a complete opening of ourselves to a Life that is unending.   There is only one victory over death, and it is won by loving as Jesus loved.  This love makes a man able to give his life for those he loves, because such love […]

Our age has witnessed a profound reaction against the excesses of Marian devotion.  Our contemporaries, especially the women, are irritated by any bias in favor of the exaggerated, the extraordinary, the privileged.  Books and sermons on the Blessed Virgin have long tended to inflated terminology and exaggerated praise (“Mary is almost divine;” “Her power is almost infinite;” “She is almost part of the godhead”).  Such a style disgusts a clear-thinking listener: Is not the truth about Mary beautiful enough, without people thinking they must improve on it if they are to do her honor?   It might be thought that many […]

BLESSED ARE YOU AMONG WOMEN (Luke 1, 42) A woman near to us, like us Mary! A married woman who lived and shared the love of a man  in the bosom of a home Mary! A believer who knew, as we know, how hard it is to believe  but who when the moment came, told God “yes” without hesitation. Mary! A mother who, like all mothers,  worried when the child had caught cold or when the adolescent failed to return home at the expected hour Mary! A mother who accepted not being the only or the first  in the heart of […]

“… one of the Pharisees, a lawyer, in an attempt to trip up Jesus, asked him, ‘Teacher, what commandment of the Law is the greatest?’  Jesus said to him: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and first commandment; the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments, the whole law is based and the Prophets as well.’“     (Mt 22, 35-40)   Such is the law.  Christ’s law.  The Christian law.   How is man – in […]

The Revolution of Love by Father Eusebe Henri Menard, OFM Founder of the Holy Apostles