Friday, May 31

Today, we celebrated the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth. Today also marked the fifth anniversary of the beatification of Blessed Mother Esperanza of Jesus, the foundress of the Merciful Love family, which is hosting the Chapter here in Collevalenza, Italy. 

Today’s Mass was presided over by Fri­ar James McCUR­RY, the Min­is­ter Provin­cial of the Province of Our Lady of the Angels in the USA. Fri­ar Jude WINKLER gave the homi­ly; in it, he high­light­ed Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant. Mary brings God’s mer­cy to the world through her Son, Jesus. We must pray to Mary our Moth­er to help us lead our lives and to bring us God’s mer­cy dur­ing these dif­fi­cult times.
The Capit­u­lars start­ed work in the Aula by con­grat­u­lat­ing Fri­ar Leo PAYYAPPILLY, the Min­is­ter Provin­cial of the Province of St. Max­i­m­il­ian M. Kolbe in India on his 46^th birth­day. They also con­grat­u­lat­ed Fri­ar Stanisław STROJECKI for his 39^th anniver­sary of priest­hood and they offered best wish­es to the Province of St. Max­i­m­il­ian M. Kolbe in Brazil on the 16^th anniver­sary of its founding.
Today’s vot­ing con­cerned Chap­ter VI of the Gen­er­al Statutes: “The Gov­ern­ment of the Order”. The dis­cus­sion focused most­ly on the norms for the Gen­er­al, Provin­cial and Cus­to­di­al Chap­ter, in par­tic­u­lar, on how those with vot­ing rights should be chosen.
There was a great deal of debate on the sub­ject of the canon­i­cal vis­i­ta­tion. More specif­i­cal­ly, the Capit­u­lars asked that the Min­is­ter Gen­er­al or his del­e­gate vis­it the Provinces at least once every four years. They asked that he make an eval­u­a­tion one year after his vis­i­ta­tion, to con­firm that obser­va­tions and requests have been addressed.
Once the vot­ing on the Statutes was com­plet­ed, alter­na­tive texts and iux­ta modi were dis­cussed. A text on the con­di­tions nec­es­sary to estab­lish a Provin­cial Cus­tody was pre­sent­ed for dis­cus­sion. The Capit­u­lars decid­ed the prospec­tive Cus­tody must have at least four fri­aries and fif­teen solemn­ly pro­fessed mem­bers. At the same time, the Capit­u­lars approved a norm call­ing for the juridi­cal rede­f­i­n­i­tion of a Provin­cial Cus­tody, if it should have less than four fri­aries and fif­teen solemn­ly pro­fessed members.
The day end­ed with a Mar­i­an prayer in the crypt of the Shrine of Divine Mer­cy. The Capit­u­lars want­ed to reded­i­cate our fra­ter­ni­ties and all the peo­ples of the world to Mary, Moth­er of God and our Mother.

Fri­ar Aure­lio ERCOLI, Chronicler

 

Today we cel­e­brate the Feast of the Vis­i­ta­tion.  The read­ings are rich and pro­vide so much infor­ma­tion upon which we could med­i­tate.  I would like to take only one line from the Gospel, the sto­ry of the Vis­i­ta­tion, for the source of our meditation.
At the end of the Gospel pas­sage, we hear that Mary stayed with Eliz­a­beth for three months and then went home.  In the next verse that is not part of today’s Gospel, we hear about the birth of John the Bap­tist.  It almost seems as if Mary went home before John was born.  Why does Luke state it that way?
Tra­di­tion­al­ly, we holy that the vis­i­ta­tion occurred at Ein Kerem just out­side of Jerusalem.  Across the val­ley is the vil­lage of Abu Gosh.  This is the vil­lage where David left the Ark of the Covenant when one of his sol­diers was struck dead for touch­ing the Ark.  He left it there for three months.
In a sub­tle way, Luke is telling us that Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant.  As God appeared over the Ark to man­i­fest his pres­ence to the peo­ple, so Jesus, the Son of God, would come from Mary. 
St. Fran­cis reminds us that we all must be like Mary, bear­ing the pres­ence of Christ to the world.  We, too, must be like the Ark which holds and man­i­fest what is most pre­cious, the Son of God and the Son of Mary, Jesus, our Lord and our All.