CELEBRATING GOD’S LOVE AND TENDERNESS
Yesterday, 8 of September, we celebrated the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of Jesus. In Lamego, my home Diocese, this feast is celebrated and dedicated to Our Lady of Remedies. The whole region goes up the stairs and flocks to the shrine on the top of the hill, rejoicing with Mary and recognising with her God’s love and tenderness.
As a child, with my sisters and my parents, year after year, we went to the same shrine, joining the crowds in feast. My father liked to go in the evening to see the fireworks. With my sisters, we went once to see the procession, very famous in this region of Beira Douro. This year, passing a few days with my classmate Fr. Adriano, I had the privilege of participating in the Eucharistic celebration, presided by the Bishop, and in the afternoon, I made the experience of the procession, with the representation of biblical scenes, ending with the image of our Lady of Remedies, carried on a four wheel oxen cart. A good number of people made nearly three hours walk, a walk of faith with Mary. We must remember that the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God, is highly respected in Portugal and in times of trouble many people run to her, looking for assistance, deliverance and peace, and that’s why they address her as Our Lady of Remedies. She is a powerful intercessor and a great witness of God’s love and tenderness.
In the morning, as I opened my Facebook page, someone had posted with repulse a clip showing a muslim holding an image of our Lady, which he threw to the ground, breaking it to pieces. It was so shocking, and so unthinkable in this twenty first century. The radical and fundamentalist muslims are turning the clock back to barbarian times, mainly to the way of the Vandals, killing and destroying everything that is a cultural manifestation. They forget that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the only woman talked about in the Quran, with the Sura 19 dedicated to her.
Mary leads us to Jesus Christ and in him we discover God’s love and tenderness. In his homily, the Bishop stressed this central message of the Gospel, and he quoted a passage from Dostoyevsky, in his book The Brothers Karamazov, where in the lips of Father Zossima, he speaks of love and loving humility, which has the power to transform the world.
LOVE ALL GOD’S CREATION
“Brothers, have no fear of men's sin. Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love. Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble it, don't harass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't work against God's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to the animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you—alas, it is true of almost every one of us! Love children especially, for they too are sinless like the angels; they live to soften and purify our hearts and as it were to guide us. Woe to him who offends a child! Father Anfim taught me to love children. The kind, silent man used often on our wanderings to spend the farthings given us on sweets and cakes for the children. He could not pass by a child without emotion. That's the nature of the man.
At some thoughts one stands perplexed, especially at the sight of men's sin, and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that once for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvellously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.”
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