Contemplative programme of Divine Love and the salvific meaning of suffering:

"In the messianic programme of Christ, which is at the same time the programme of the Kingdom of God, suffering is present in the world in order to release love, in order to give birth to works of love towards neighbour, in order to transform the whole of human civilization into a "civilization of love". In this love the salvific meaning of suffering is completely accomplished and reaches its definitive dimension."(Pope John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris)

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS CHRIST(THE PASCHAL LAMB)

"God desires that if we are going to please him and receive his great favors, we must do so through the most "Sacred Humanity of Christ," in whom he takes his delight. Many, many times have I perceived this truth through experience. The Lord has told it to me. I have definitely seen that we must enter by this gate, if we desire his sovereign Majesty to show us great secrets. (If our nature or health doesn't allow us to think always about the Passion, since to do so would be arduous, who will prevent us from being with him in his risen state?) (St Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church, "Life,"22,6)

"Catherine(of Siena) built for herself a cell not made with human hands, helped inwardly by Christ, and so was untroubled about losing a room made with walls built by men. I remember that whenever I used to find myself pressed with too much business, or had to go on a journey, Catherine would say again and again, 'Make yourself a cell in your own mind from which you need never come out.'(Raymond of Capua)

...

Do we find that the desire for "justice," and for "punishment" of wrongdoing and evil are part of our present life in this world? In like manner, we can be assured these principles are part of the Life which created the world and the universe, the Life Which sent a Loving Son into the world to undertake payment for evil and wrongdoing, and the Life in which we shall share following our life in this world.

Do we find our life in this world comprised of "relationships" between persons, and do we find that our love for others fills us with joy, precisely in knowing that our love is returned by the "other." In like manner, we can be assured that these realities and this "Relational Love" is, in an eminent degree, part of the Life which created man in its own Image.

Divine union is the goal of the spiritual journey in both the East and the West. We use the same words but mean very different things. The divine union in the Hindu Eastern tradition means the real loss of one's everyday distinct self, in the process of realizing one's transcendent self, i.e., God. In such union, in terms of being, there is only one being, i.e., God. For the East, ontologically, it has always been this way, but the experience of union means that one is now "awakened" to this selfless reality. In Buddhism, a derivative of Hinduism, the goal of the spiritual life is an end to natural suffering through elimination of one's separate self, or ego, along with all its desires. When this is fully accomplished, there is a sudden awakening to the realization of one's greater true self, the same as the Self of God, which is the realization called "enlightenment."

This enlightened state can be achieved by wholly natural practices and does not, in itself, involve perfection of one's spirit by supernatural grace, or other than natural means. In the Christian tradition, on the other hand, the goal of divine union means going beyond the natural, even the enlightened natural, to the supernatural, through faith, and the perfection of the natural self, by the Holy Spirit, through supernatural transformation from the old selfish man inherited from Adam, to the new self-sacrificing man in conformity with the Will of Jesus Christ. In terms of being there remain two distinct beings, i.e., the person of the transformed man and the Person of the Living God.

The authenticity of this unitive transformation in Christianity is attested to by "the fruits of the Spirit" being manifest in the life of the new man, not by any "experience," such as the Eastern bliss of God-Consciousness. Some of the fruits of the Spirit are: humility, kindness, patience, long-suffering, charity, and love of those neighbors which were heretofore unlovable. This new experience of being able to "love unloveable neighbors," as well as anyone else, is one of the key fruits that shows the presence of God's Holy Spirit working through one's own spirit. If this "personal" love of neighbors is absent, says St Teresa, one can be assured that one has a way to go, although one may be a contemplative, on the road to the fullness of transforming union or sacntity. These fruits are not found in the enlightened Hindu or Buddhist, unless he has sought to go beyond self-realilzation and enlightenment to the self-giving love of neighbor and God, which is the fruit of grace made available to the world by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

The Son Who came forth into the world told us of the Relational Mystery of the Persons of the Trinity, Who Manifest the kind of personal love we find all about us in the world God created: distinct persons and "the relational love" they generate for each other. Be not deceived by the current New Age messengers proclaiming God as an Impersonal, Isolated, Cosmic Being Existing in Self-Absorbed Bliss. This is the God of the modern seeker after "instant contemplation" who, influenced by Eastern Religion, thinks he is, himself, really this God. However, the True, "Living God," in whose image we are made, is a Personal God of Mercy, Humility, and Kindness Who is concerned about every hair on our heads. And as He promised through several thousand years of prophesy, He came physically among us in Jesus Christ, the "True Light" that enlightens every man who comes into the world!

We have an example of such prophesies in the following excerpt from the prophet Jeremiah:

"Behold the days shall come, saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Juda: Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt: the covenant which they made void...saith the Lord."

"But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, saith the Lord: I will give my law in their bowels, and I will write it in their heart: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."(Jeremiah 31:) In the new covenant, the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, teaching through the Church, His Body, will directly enlighten the souls of individual baptized believers, who make up the Body of which He is the Head.

And again, Malachi tells us:

"I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts: and I will not receive a gift of your hand For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts."(Malachi l:ll)

For in the providence of God, the Temple of the Old Covenant, made by man, in which the priesthood of Levi sacrificed its animal offerings, was but a figure of that which was to come. Animal offerings could not satisfy sins against God. Only an Infinite offering could do that. So the Old covenant gave way to the New, in which the Infinite "Living Temple," Jesus Christ, destroyed by man thorugh God's permissive will, was offered for the infinite sins of the world, and was raised up again in three days. He was the High Priest who gave Himself as a worthy offering. And even now, thorughout the whole world, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, "Like a sure and firm anchor, that hope extends beyond the veil through which Jesus, our forerunner, has entered on our behalf, being made high priest forever, offering Himself, a pure and spotless oblation, for the sins of the world. " (Hebrews 6:20)

For our High Priest, who offers Himself to God for the sins of you and me, is holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens. And His saving grace is a contract between Him and us, born through the gift of faith, which is strengthened directly by Him during the Sacrifice of the Mass. He is our Mediator in heaven. And having once offered Himself, and the grace available to all men through His Personal Sacrifice, He is always there for those who trust in Him.

FAITH BEGINS AND ENDS WITH THE SACRED HUMANITY

And we must ever remember tht Our faith, and the increase in grace provided us from participation in the Mass and Communion, cannot be reduced or diminished by the sins of the man who offers the Mass, or who fails to measure up to his share in the Prieshood of Christ. For it is Jesus, Himself, who is the Victim, and who offers the Sacrifice of Himself for us before the Father in heaven, regardless of the state of soul of the priest. And it is Jesus, Himself, who gives the increase in grace and charity to our hearts from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. So why should we fret about those sinners not living up to their clerical calling? We should rather pray for them. For no one but we, ourselves, can separate us from the Love of Christ! "And is not Jesus always able to save those who approach God through Him, since he forever lives to make intercession for them."(Hebrews 7:28)

Outside the temple one day:

Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If a man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes im me, streams of living water will flow from within him."(John 7:35)

What a strange thing to say. For here was something that could be tested and proved for oneself. No one but God could cause "streams of living water" to flow within the spirits of those who believe in Christ. And yet, God has fulfilled this promise of Jesus in the experience of many believers, not to mention the saints. In acknowledgement of the truth of this promise, all shout with one voice, "This is truly the Son of God, for belief in Him, through His Church and sacraments, leads exactly to the experience of "living water flowing from within," and most powerfully through the perceived union with Christ in contemplative prayer. There has never been a man like this one. This man delivers what He promises, and His words are one with "Truth."

Scriptures tell us that "Without faith it is impossible to please God"(Hebrews 11), and, in like manner, it is impossible to receive the gift of contemplative prayer from God. Why? Because faith, imbued with charity, is a supernatural gift from God, by grace, just as is contemplative prayer, in which we enter the previously closed supernatural order, into a personal relationship with God. And infused contemplative prayer is an increase in Charity through the activity of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, completely within that same supernatural order. Through this gift of faith we embrace God's Commandments and the Self-Revelation conveyed to us by His Holy Spirit through the doctrine of His Church. Faith is the movement of man's intellect, prompted by the grace infused first into his "will" to "receive" this Revelation.

"If you do not believe, you will not understand" (Isaiah 7:9, LXX), "The light of natural knowledge does not show us the object of faith, since this object is unproportioned to any of the senses. Yet, we come to know it through hearing, by believing what faith teaches us, blinding our natural light and bringing it into submission. St. Paul states: Fides ex auditu (Rom 10:17) This amounts to saying that faith is not a knowledge derived from the senses, but an assent of the soul to what enters through hearing. Faith, manifestly, is a dark night for man, but in this very way it gives him light. The more darkness it brings upon him, the more light it sheds. For by blinding it illumines him, according to those words of Isaiah that if you do not believe you will not understand, that is, you will not have light.(St John of the Cross)

That's why "intellectual pride" blinds us to the truth of the Faith. For all those who have such a habit of will, amounting to a loving, idolatrous attachment to the power and achievement of their "intellects," are in no spiritual condition to ask for, nor to "receive," the gift of faith. For that supernatural gift does not arise through the strength of competitive natural power by which such individuals got the "good things" they "love" that life has, up till now, yielded to them. Faith is not something the natural intellect can seize and conquer by its own power like other worldly possessions and, therefore, something infinitely more powerful and significant is required for its reception, i.e., a spiritual sea-change from dependence on one's intellect, to the graceful humility of spirit, characteristic of God's Spirit, and such as that shown by a little child, a loving person, or one who admits their need and "seeks" divine help for their faith:

Jesus said: "I confess to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to the little ones. Yea, Father; for so hath it seemed good in thy sight."(Matthew ll:25)

We see the importance of faith throughout the Scriptures in many of Jesus' parables, as when He asked His disciples, "Who do men say that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, "Thou are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. (Matthew l6). Simon was blessed, not because of natural knowledge, but because through faith He participated in the Father's vision of His Son within the Dynamic Exchange of Spiritual Love which forms the essence of the Life of the Holy Trinity. For faith takes hold of God's Being, God's Son, and God's Revealed Truth, and sees all the being of the universe through "the Eyes of God, " and knows all things through "the Wisdom of God," and loves all things through "the Power of God."

So perfect contemplative prayer can only take place in the perfection of pure faith imbued with charity. For perfect contemplative prayer means perfect union with God, and, as St John of the Cross teaches us, faith is the proximate means of union with God. Infused "unknowing" in apophatic contemplative prayer, becomes, within a life dedicated to Jesus Christ and His Truth, the road by which, with our cooperation, faith is most perfectly exercised and purified leading to the prayer of union. Such union takes place where there is a mutual likeness of Unselfish Love, and such likeness we can only learn through the doctrines of Jesus handed down through His Church.

Perfect faith also means one's will is void of all possessions, and lives in perfect hope in that which one does not possess in a natural manner, but rather receives from moment to moment in a supernatural manner. Perfect faith means perfect freedom, the freedom to make acts of "the will" that are not dependent on any "desire" for possessions or personal glory, or selfish agendas. Such freedom is required for perfect, supernatural love. It is a full exchange of Ecstatic Self-Giving, and Unselfish, Joyous Jubilation in knowing and receiving the Goodness of the Life of the Other coming to us in His Holy Spirit. It can only take place in a spirit that has "emptied itself" of all other lesser loves than God.

The ultimate possession that one can give-up is attachment to one's life in this world, as shown by Christ on the Cross, by the heroic Christian saints and martyrs, and by Christ's own words, "Greater love than this no man has than that he lay down his life for a friend!" The "Way" for Christians is, therefore, the dying to our selfishness that comes when we embrace the Cross. It is ultimately the Cross of brokenness and failure that we must embrace as our own, which wounds our self-love at its core, and keeps it open to the way to profound, ongoing transformation in humility and faith in the Goodness of the Supernatural Other with Whom we are united in Love. Dying is the "Way" to contemplative union, which is also the Way to Resurrection in the Fullness of God's Life, for He said, "I am the Resurrection and the Life!"

Such is the transformation from the Old to the New Man brought about by the regular participation in Christian contemplative prayer. And the relationship between the perfection of the soul in charity, and the operation of the gift of Wisdom "on" charity, during contemplative prayer, is the reason that contemplation is never a waste of time, in itself, even though the soul may seem, to itself and others, to be doing nothing significant in terms of using one's time in profitable Christian service to others. In mansion four, the beginning of infused contemplation, St Teresa tells us one is aware of great spiritual progress due to this contemplative infusion, by itself, i.e., "...having grown so mucn in all the virtues,(from initial contemplation) the person will infallibly continue to grown in them unless he returns to deliberate mediocrity and neglect." "We should note," says Fr. Dubay, "that this growth is not chiefly the result of discursive deliberations together with an active plan of action. Imperceptibley and often with no explicit thoughts about the matter, one finds in oneself greater hmility and patience and love and detachment and all else. Infuse contemplation is indeed transformative of the person."('Fire Within,' p. 89)...And mystical theology tells us that transformation through contemplative prayer is the result of Holy Spirit action, through the Gift of Wisdom, on the infused virtue of charity, raising its influence over the soul as it increases in power and intensity in itself, and in the action of all the virtues. So, instead of being a waste of time, the pracitce of contemplative prayer intensifies the act of charity by which we love both God and neighbor.

Therefore, perfect Faith, imbued with perfect charity through contemplative prayer, becomes perfect union with the Spirit of God. It lives in perfect hope since, by accepting our own woundedness, personal failure, and poverty, we illuminate, by contrast, the reality of God's providential power which is always "successful" in our life in overcoming evil, and making all things work for the good. And we find we are producing good fruit for the world by our actions, in, with, and through God, even though we see that, by ourselves, we are wounded creatures capable of little or nothing.

Perfect faith means perfect humility, or complete dependence on God for everything, even though we do what we can, or are capable of doing at the natural level. It means perfect charity, since the acceptance of the truth of our ongoing woundedness implies the lack of all Pride, possessions, and selfishness which could impede the Spirit of God from filling our spirits with His Spirit of Supernatural, Self-Giving Love. So the Way Jesus showed us when He said, "Come follow Me," is the Way of a real death for our self-centered natural man, a death on the Cross. It leads, however, as He also showed us, to the Glory of the Resurrection, or our New Life in Jesus Christ, a union with God through contemplative transformation. It leads to the promised fullness of the "Abundant Life" of the Spirit, and "the Peace of God," which is another name for our ongoing participation in God's Trinitarian Life, the Life of the contemplation of the Father and the Son in the Love of the Holy Spirit.

OUR CREATED SELF IS AN ETERNAL SELF

"Every one therefore that heareth these my words, and doth them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock, And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock.(Matthew 7:24)

And as we stated above, no matter how advanced one may become in the contemplative life, there is no "loss of self" by the contemplative as some of those influenced by Eastern Religion would like to believe. Man never becomes God, and can't walk on water or move through solid objects, raise the dead, or perform miracles on command, even if he wants to. (Only One Man, Who is God, was ever able to do these things.) Rather than losing his "self" in the transformation of prayer, the contemplative becomes aware that there is, during the act of contemplation, a Second Consciousness within his consciousness. And within this union of consciousnesses, he is free to dwell in his own natural self, or he can "let go" and lose himself in the Supernatural Self.

Blessed John of Ruysbroeck makes the point that one never loses the distinction between one's created self and God, over and over, in his writings on "Supreme Truth:

"And this was well understood by St Paul, when he said that he had A desire to depart and to be with Christ. But he did not say that he had a desire to be Christ Himself or God; as is done by some unbelieving and perverse men, who say that they have no God, but that they are so wholly dead to themselves, and united with God, that they have themselves become God."(Blessed John of Ruysbroeck, "Supreme Truth," Ch. III)

TWO STREAMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS ARE MANIFEST IN THE ADVANCED CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE

For in the contemplative, this supernatural stream of consciousness is a deeper and purer consciousness, unchanging, and without successive events. The contemplative finds his sense of selfhood, as well as the ten thousand things of the external world, are part of his first, natural stream of consciousness. The new stream draws him into it by means of its quality of Self-Giving Humility, Tenderness, Charity, and subtle bliss and begins the gradual process of transformation into the New Man. As the contemplative takes up residence in this new consciousness, which, to be theologically correct, is always a union of both streams, his self is not annihilated, rather it is transformed, and greatly overshadowed by the Indwelling Higher Consciousness. In the perfecting of the character of the Old Man, he becomes more and more a New Man, remade in the image of Jesus Christ. The New Man's consciousness is no longer self-seeking. It is self-giving, other oriented. It is predominantly God-centered, as he surrenders his total self to the service of his Beloved, and tends to dwell very little on his existence separate from God.

Fr. Jordan Aumann points out that there is a natural and a supernatural organism in the believer. This gives theological support for the experience of two levels of consciousnesses in contemplative prayer:

"The supernatural order constitutes a true life for us and has an organism that is similar to the natural vital organism. As in the natural order we can distinguish four basic elements in human life -- the living subject, the formal principle of life, the faculties or powers, and the operations of those faculties -- so we can find similar elements in our supernatural organism. The subject is the soul; the formal principle of supernatural life is sanctifying grace; the faculties are the infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit; and the operations are the acts of those virtues and gifts."(Fr. Jordan Aumann, Spiritual Theology, "The Supernatural Organism")

THE NATURE OF TRANSFORMATIVE LOVE

So the Christian clearly understands, contrary to what Eastern spirituality teaches, that it is not by the acquisition of knowledge, by "sudden insight," or by enlightenment experiences of true-self, or of our "oneness" with God, that we are united with God's Spirit. Rather, it is by transformation of our "will," in a likeness to the Self-Giving Love conforming to the Will of Christ, that such union takes place. And this gradual transformative process, as contrasted to the sudden awakening of enlightenment, imbues our spirit with the qualities of kindness, humility, charity, love of neighbor, and mercy found in Jesus Christ.

Our will is moved toward sanctity, and the perfection of Charity by our efforts at virtue, and by our cooperaton with grace and the action of the Holy Spirit. It is not by satori, knowledge, or natural enligtenment that we are united to God. For God is Love, and we participate in the perfection of Love, and sanctity, as our will is transformed from the Old Man to the New Man in Jesus Christ. And that transformation takes place through many years of contemplative prayer in which our spirits are "deified," by the actuation of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, raising our love and our charity, by the Wisdom of God's Power, to heroic levels of self-giving and perfection.

From the very beginning of the Age of Man in the Garden, the proud angelic consciousness has tempted mankind by suggesting that we are divine and there is, therefore, no Creator to worship. In line with this temptation, there is also no evil or sin, only ignorance. And therefore, it says, salvation for man, and transformation, comes through man's own efforts at spiritual study, scientific enlightenment and the knowledge revolution, rather than through self-giving Love. It looks proudly at man's scientific achievements as evidence of power through intellectual effort and the accumulation of knowledge. For it says that through knowledge and education, man will eventually realize his divinity and all the world's problems will be solved. According to this deception, our time on this planet has nothing really to do with love, it is more like, "school time." And according to the angelic spirits that come to those who participate in seances and channeling, we will all continue to go to school in the next life, as we advance from one level to the next in spiritual knowledge, finally coming to the knowledge of our divinity.

This attitude of mind, practices an arrogant science, and knowledge seeking reductionism, breaking all reality down into smaller and smaller components until all meaning, purpose, and transcendence has been eliminated from the world. The pathology of such reductionism is currently underway with all truth, whether it be found in religion, history, literature, Scripture, language, theology, knowledge, and so on. The beauty and wonder of a human baby, for example, is lost in the physiological minutiae of cells, blood vessels, neurons, and synapses. A glorious sunrise or sunset is just "the earth spinning on its axis." All the mystery of human life and existence is reduced to atoms, electrons, and the smallest particles common to all things that exist. In the process, man gains more and more control over nature in terms of bigger, faster, and more powerful. At the same time, since his heart is not changed one whit, he comes closer to blowing the whole world up through monster weapons, destroying it through terrible pollution, and making all men miserable through the demands placed on them by the frantic, machine-like pace of modern life.

Now what could be more seductive, and what would have greater appeal to the ego's inclination to pride, than to tell men they are God? And if one is God, then "I shall not serve!" becomes the banner cry, in one form or another, of all those proud modern souls who secretly worship man through involvement with Eastern and New Age practices. And blinded by their pride in human accomplishment, they erect an egotistical attitude of mind that becomes a permanent barrier to "the Truth." They do not recognize the One Who comes to give them "Life," for they prefer "self-aggrandisement," and to "get knowledge," rather than "self-sacrifice" and to "give love." And they, therefore,never know, and never participate in the self-giving, supernatural love which comes only through abondoning pride and self-centeredness through humility and the recognition of the True Divinity found only in the Creator God, the One who made them, along with their intellect, in the first place.

For Jesus came, in fulfillment of thousands of years of Messianic Prophesy, to save all of mankind, and by His teaching and example, He made clear that the chief natural enemy of the human race is "pride," which becomes the source of our "failure to love," in its many self-centered manifestations. For pride is self idolatry, which amounts to the abomination of worshipping false gods. For through pride, our capactity to love is firmly attached to our self, our intellect, our will, our time, our opinion, our choice, our rights, our needs, our desires, and our way of doing things. We must always be "in control" of events and relationships so that we can be sure that we are not dethroned from our self-deification.

And it is on this arrogant, ego-centered aberration of personality, the sin of Pride, that the Contemplative fires of the Spirit perform a holocaust of transformation. These fires bring low the hautiness of man through suffering, self-abnegation, and obedience, so that the hard wall of isolation protecting our spirit from God and others might be burned down, and the flag of Truth, the Mystery of Self-Giving Love, might be planted in the heart of every believer. And such is the Revelation of Love proclaimed from the Mount by Jesus Christ, who trampled the self-righteousness of man beneath his feet, and kept company with the poor, the lame, the outcasts, the lowly, and the sinners contemptuously rejected by the "upright" members of society. For He made it crystal-clear that the neighbor we must love is "everyman," including the very human beings, rich or poor, whose attitudes, practices, and beliefs seem most odious to us.

And this Revelation was no easy ideology limited to the mouthing of pious phrases. For Christ proved his words by deeds, by His voluntary Self-Sacrifice and Death for the benefit of the world, including His own executioners. For when from the Cross He said, "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do," he showed the world the "Merciful Heart" of this Perfect Love to which He was calling mankind. At the same time, He demonstrated its Awesome Power by His Glorious Resurrection from the Dead and by the release of the Holy Spirit which, through the Church and the Sacraments, even now, brings New Life and Transformation to the world. Such Extreme Love and Sacrifice, even for one's enemies, is a stumbling-block, and a scandal to our pride of life and sense of justice, and remains the Ultimate Revelation, Which overthrows all our human expectations, and exposes the infinite chasm between God's Self-Giving Love and the reasonable compassion taught by other religions. And this same Radical Love, which split human history in two, as the God of the Universe allowed the Pride of Mankind to subject Him to the dereliction and humiliation of death on a Cross, is the nature of our experience of His Spirit in Contemplative Prayer.

TODAY'S CHURCH, JESUS CHRIST, AND THE LITTLE WAY

And today, the Church is especially calling the laity to the perfection of contemplative prayer, a contemplation, based on the Love between the soul and Jesus Christ, and filled with the Presence of the same Jesus. Only those whose life and prayer is directed in, with, and through Jesus to the Holy Trinity, through direct intent or baptism of desire, as evidenced by their life of obedience to His Commandments, can truly advance in contemplative prayer. Those who attempt to go around Jesus Christ and His Commandments, including ongoing self-mortification and asceticism, and to achieve oneness with Divinity through repetition of a holy word or mantra, will end in illusion, and will never reach the goal of true union, which is after-all a union of self-giving likeness, for they have refused "the Way" to that likeness with God.

St Teresa says the following about the current mistaken prayer forms seeking some form of invisible divinity "within" based on repetition of a word or mantra:

"As far as I can understand, the door of entry into this castle is prayer and meditation: I do not say mental prayer rather than vocal, for, if it is prayer at all, it must be accompanied by meditation. If a person does not think Whom he is addressing, and what he is asking for, and who it is that is asking and of Whom he is asking it, I do not consider that he is praying at all even though he be constantly moving his lips. True, it is sometimes possible to pray without paying heed to these things,(as by consecrated Christian religious, or lay persons whose lives are already dedicated to Jesus Christ) but that is only because they have been thought about previously; if a man is in the habit of speaking to God's Majesty as he would speak to his slave, and never wonders if he is expressing himself properly, but merely utters the words that come to his lips because he has learned them by heart through constant repetition, I do not call that prayer at all -- and God grant no Christian may ever speak to Him so! At any rate, sisters, I hope in God that none of you will, for we are accustomed here to talk about interior matters, and that is a good way of keeping oneself from falling into such animal-like habits. (Interior Castle, Ch. l)

And for those of us who feel that perfection is beyond us because we are sinful and weak human beings, the Church is pointing to God's Mercy embodied in "The Little Way" of St Therese of Lisieux. (The Little Way) And this call of the laity is not something new. For many years, through the Secular Institutes and Third Orders, such as those of St. Dominic(of which St Catherine of Sienna was a contemplative member), St Francis, and the Third Order of Mt Carmel, the Church has provided the path to perfection for those persons living and working in the secular world. We mention only three of many, all of which lead to apostolic activity in the world based on the practice of contemplative prayer. The Carmel Secular Order for the laity, with members in the priesthood, specifically calls for a half hour of "contemplative prayer" each day, in addition to meditation on the Word of God, for its members, most of whom are married people. Several lay members of this Order have their cause for beatification as saints on file with the authorities in Rome.

And as that great Doctor of the Church, St. Teresa of Avila has told us, those at the summit of contemplation and spiritual perfection, in the state of unitive perfection, who have built a prayer life based on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ, never cease to walk in His Presence, experiencing the awesome wonder of His Self-Giving, Unselfish Love. For the practice of the apophatic, Via Negativa, contentless contemplation taught by many Christian spiritual traditions, including the contemplative teachings of St. John of the Cross, paradoxically, in advanced stages, brings one to a supernatural Contemplation "filled" with "the Presence of the Resurrected Savior, Jesus Christ." For Jesus Christ is not one of the many objects selfishly possessed by the will of man which must be "let go" in the Via Negativa in order that the will may be free to Love God. Rather, as John of the Cross makes clear, in those pages of his "Spirtual Canticle" dealing with transforming union, Jesus Christ is the Beginning, Middle, and Conclusion of the process. He is the One Thing Necessary, and a never-ending mine filled with the deep veins and mysteries of God. He is the Person of the Word Who introduces us to the love of the Father and the Holy Spirit, and to Whom we are eternally joined in a likeness of Love, through the ego-stripping spirituality of the Via Negativa.

And in considering the perfection of our spiritual life, in the Beatific Vision of Glory, we find that we receive the Vision through no other than the Person of the Word, Jesus Christ:

"The Fathers of the Church never spoke of the beatific vision in terms of any created light; rather, the intelligible species in which the blessed see the divine essence is the Word, and the interior power by which they see the divine essence is the power of the Holy Spirit. Fr John Arintero follows this line of thought:(Fr Jordan Aumann, "Spiritual Theology,")

'What, objectively, is this divine idea, this faithful expression of the divine essence, but the yery Word of God? What is the Word but the most perfect and adequate image, the eternal idea, the living word, the very face of God and his substantial manifestation? He is the eternal splendor of the Father and the figure of his substance; light of light, light of glory on whom the angels love to gaze, the sole luminary in the city of God where none other is needed. (Fr. John Arintero)

"And here the bride therefore says, that after she has entered in within... the spiritual marriage...her soul united with the divine wisdom, the Son of God, she will then understand the deep mysteries of God and Man(the Incarnation), which are the highest wisdom hidden in God..., for there are in Christ great depths to be fathomed... He is a rich mine, with many recesses full of treasures, and however deeply we may descend we shall never reach the end, for in every recess new veins of new treasures abound in all directions...In like manner, St Paul tells us that in Christ are hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (St John of the Cross, "Spiritual Canticle," Stanza XXXVII)

So Jesus Christ neither impedes nor hampers Contemplative Prayer at any level of spiritual perfection. In apophatic Contemplation, we maintain our intellects in a passive mode, intuitively receiving direct spirit to Spirit communication from the Person of Jesus Christ, the Word, in the Bosom of the Trinity. In cataphatic Contemplative Prayer, our intellects are engaged with the form and image of Jesus Christ, and are raised by God through the form to the passive reception of the Life of the Person of Jesus Christ, the Word, dwelling with the Father and the Holy Spirit, in the Unity of the Triune God. So the personal spiritual goal of Christian Contemplative Prayer is not the abyss, nor the apophatic God of infinite emptiness, but rather it is a Transforming Union, in a likeness of Love, with the Person, Jesus Christ, in the Bosom of the Trinity.

To get the proper understanding, it is well to remember that the Sacred Humanity of Christ is the instrumental cause of all the graces we receive, either through the sacraments, or outside of them. And this includes the grace of contemplative prayer at all stages. "Some delude themselves, pretending to reach union with God without continual recourse to our Lord, (Jesus Christ). They will scarcely attain any but an abstract knowledge of God. They will not reach that delightful, living, quasi-experimental knowledge, as well as an elevated practical knowledge, called wisdom, which makes the soul see God and His providence in the most insignificant things."(Fr. Garrigou-Lagragne,O.P., "Three Ages of Interior Life," p.118)

Concerning individual contemplative prayer and its connection with grace flowing continuously to the whole community from Christ's Sacred Humanity, i.e., through the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Body and Blood in the Mass, Fr. Henri Nouwen says the following:

"One of my most joyful discoveries was how the experience of daily contemplative prayer unconvered for me the transforming power of the daily celebration of the Eucharist. The Eucharist becomes for me a deep experience of intimacy, a special moment and a special place from which I draw light, hope, and strength. I have come to realize that our most private times of contemplation are not only good for us individually, but are also, in the fianl analysis, a service to the whole community."("Clowning in Rome," p.79)

APOPHATIC AND CATAPHATIC CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER

The gifts of wisdom and understanding coming to us through infused contemplative prayer, give us a loving insight into the Life of Christ and the mysteries of the Incarnation, subjects of our spiritual formation during the earlier stages spent in meditative prayer. The prior meditation on His Life imprints the Spirit of Christ within the archives, memory banks, and parameters of our spirits. It implants the proper attributes in our spirit, those which underlie the formation of Christ's Personality, which keep us on the correct Spiritual Path of His Invisible "Way," leading us to the safe haven of transforming union.

Without this prior meditative formation, our apophatic contemplation, the most purely supernatural, and most highly transformative prayer, tends to depart from the Truth, and to imbue all of our spiritual life with an inhuman, excessive otherness, void, and emptiness. A spiritual life wholly comprised of Pre-contemplative mantra-chanting is just one form of this aberration. And from this wasteland, it is only a short step to religious syncretism, and the inter-religious aberration where all relgions are held in equal esteem at the level of "true spirituality," or the Void.

A spirituality based on this excessive application of the otherness of God, has no need of Revelation. It gives us an apophatic god who has no parameters, and who is so "other" that he has nothing in common with the Incarnation and the Trinity, and, for all practical spiritual purposes, might as well be Buddism, Hinduism, the Superman god of Fascism, the all powerful, infinitely intelligent Evolution-god of Communism and scientific secularism, or some other man-made deity. Such a god has no connecton with morality and commandments, and, as we all know too well from the contemporary scene, the god of this way leads to religious and moral anarchy. Therefore, in order to stay on the correct path, it is necessary to have built on meditative truth connected with Jesus' teaching and Life, and all through the Contemplative walk, to practice both "cataphatic"(prayer aided by Gospel truths and images) and "apophatic"(imageless prayer-unknowing) forms of prayer. Both forms, depending on God's Will, may be "contemplative," i.e., freely begun and ended by God through actuation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Wisdom and Understanding, in a supernatural mode.

Apophatic contemplative prayer, as taught by St John of the Cross, is the most powerful contemplative relationship between the human spirit and the Divine Spirit, because it is direct, spirit to Spirit intuitive contact, with no involvement of intermediate forms. During this form of prayer the natural faculties are supspended, by the gift of infused passivity, in favor of surrendering ourselves completely to the Personal Presence of Jesus Christ for transformation and loving cooperation with Divine Action. During actual apophatic prayer time, our active intellect is, under the influence of infused grace, voluntarily suspended and, therefore, our contemplative contact with the Holy Trinity, through the Person of the Word, comes in intuitive, non-conceptual, ineffable experiences.

Cataphatic contemplative prayer, on the other hand, involves coming to God through elimination of secular images, thoughts, and distractions, and dwelling on a religious form connected with Revelation and created realities, including crucifixes, pictures of Jesus, life of Christ in the Rosary, reading Scriptures, icons, images, music, beauty, and other created vehicles leading to worship of the Person, the Word of God. To the extent that it involves religious media, cataphatic contemplation is less intensely transformative, compared to apophatic contemplation, since the intellect and will are, to a minimal extent, involved with finite, created realities. However, it is true "supernatural" contemplation in the same category as apophatic contemplation.

In this manner, through the gifts of Wisdom and Understanding, we are given supernatural enlightenment in connection with the truths of Faith and Revelation, or the truths hidden in created forms, concepts, images, and intermediaries. For example, while looking at an image of Jesus, God might, through actuation of the gifts of Wisdom and Understanding, show us the transcendent aspects of Love, Mercy, Goodness and Glory hidden in His bleeding wounds in the image. Or, during a Charismatic Service, the Gifts and the "Touch" of the Holy Spirit might raise us to ecstatic verbal prayer, or lead us to praise in the prayer language of "tongues."

That great Doctor of the Church, St John of the Cross, told us, as did St Teresa of Avila, that we must never abandon our guide and good Companion, Jesus Christ, in His Humanity as well as His Divinity. Moreover, we must not forget that St John of the Cross, St Teresa's contemporary in the Carmelite reform, and the Doctor of apophatic contemplation as it is taught to many today, had his whole life steeped in Jesus Christ from beginning to end. It was only through Jesus and His Holy Spirit that John came to know all about the ineffable "Living Flame of Love". His apophatic prayer was planted, watered and grew within the doctrine and teaching of the Catholic Church. He did not teach apophatic practices in a spiritual vacuum, as do those contemporary souls who claim to follow his teaching, seeking spirituality and "the divine" through pre-contemplative, mantra-chanting. As St Teresa demonstrated in her own spiritual life, there is ample time for both image-filled and image-less forms of prayer, no matter what might be the stage of Contemplation to which one has arrived:

"Were you at the summit of contemplation," writes St. Teresa, "take no other road than that of regarding the holy Humanity of Jesus. One walks with assurance along that road. Our Lord is for us the source of every good; He Himself will teach us. Look at His life; He is the best Model." And the saint adds: "If instead of taking the habit of having (in prayer) this holy Humanity ever present before us - and would to God it was ever present - we purposely and deliberately do precisely the contrary, once again that is what I disapprove of. To act thus is to walk on air, as they say. And in fact, however full of God a soul may believe itself to be, it lacks a point of support. Being men, it is very advantageous to us, as long as we are in this life, to consider God made man." And St Thomas Acquinas reminds us, thatas a result of the Incarnation:

"The honor given to an image reaches to the prototype," i.e. the exemplar. But the exemplar itself--namely, Christ--is to be adored with the adoration of "latria"; therefore also His image. ... because in the New Testament God was made man, He can be adored in His corporeal image." (Summa Thologica, III, 25)

CONTEMPORARY CONTEMPLATIVE GROUPS AND JESUS CHRIST

Many contemporary mantra groups claim to practice a pre-contemplative form of prayer, which conveniently side-steps the necessary recognition of two things: 1)Jesus Christ; and 2)that Contemplative Prayer is not under the control of man or any technique.

They ignore Jesus Christ by saying He, or His Humanity, is "presupposed," right from the beginning of one's prayer life. And then, since He is presupposed, after He has been given initial lipservice mention, He is never mentioned again in any meaningful way. For to do so might upset all those present who worship at the same dead-end church, and who feed off the same, syncretistic, no-rules, no-content god, who thrives in a no-morality environment, and who is often just the afterglow of self-induced psychic phenomena. In addition, they claim, in Contemplative Prayer Jesus is hidden, or present as "Divinity" or "Subjectivity." Therefore, He and His Humanity are properly absent from their prayer life. These practitioners take people who are just starting out in prayer, call their prayer the road to "Contemplation," and never mention "Jesus," after paying Him initial lipservice. And they base their prayer on Eastern mantra practices, and on the fact that some people, like St John of the Cross, or consecrated Christian contemplatives, who have spent a lifetime meditating on the Life of Jesus Christ, do not form a mental image of Him, or anything else during the time they are practicing "apophatic," Contemplative prayer.

Now why are people who are starting out in prayer with "mantra chanting," and "actively" starting to seek God in prayer, confusing their prayer with "apophatic contemplation?" For apophatic contemplation is "passive prayer," where the human cooperates by silencing the faculties so as not to interfere with the predominant activity of "Divine Action." And contemplation can only to be practiced by those persons whom God has raised to that level of Divine Activity, and whom are called to it with specific "signs," and who have spent years, and are currently, daily fortifying their spirits with the Humanity and Divinity of Christ.

Again, by confusing their "active" natural prayer with "contemplation" they end up undermining the value of the union with the Person of Jesus Christ throughout their chanting practice. And when pinned down on this issue, they say, "But we're not practicing contemplative prayer. Rather, we're preparing for it in pre-contemplative prayer." And if that's the case, how do they justify creating a vapid pre-contemplative Christian spirituality, withhout the Person of Jesus, based on the theology of contemplative "infused apophatic passive prayer?" But they are happy with this since they have incorporated Eastern practices and ideology into their Christian spirituality, and Christianity without Jesus makes "Spirituality" and the adoption of Eastern practice so much less complicated since the sacramental "Bread of Life," and "stumbling block" has been neatly removed!

Many of those who have abandoned Jesus, opting to practice the so-called pure spirituality of apophatic prayer, or various forms of pre-apophatic mantra-chanting, and nothing else, have lost their Way in lukewarm spirituality built on strange aberrations of doctrine and non-transformative practices. And many have left the Church altogether. For they did not believe Him when He said, "I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life!" and when He said, "I am the Vine, you are the branches, Without Me you can do nothing." They thought they had found a somehow "higher truth" through a subtle form of pride which "exalts" one spiritually through an overemphasis on the "otherness" of apophatic prayer, within the context of this age's need for an easy-going, watered-down, one world religion.

They failed to understand that the contemplative state must retain a balanced use of both apophatic and cataphatic prayer, since we are privileged to know and worship God in, with, and through Jesus Christ, the apophatic/cataphatic Godman. And they failed to take on-board the "Ultimate Truth" that the Resurrected Savior, the New Adam, "is" our spiritual life, and that that life, and all contemplative graces, come to the world through the Holy Spirit of His Sacred Humanity operating sacramentally within the Visible Church and the Invisible Mystical Body.

"The Incarnation 'perfects the whole ontology and aesthetics of created Being', using it at a hitherto unheard of depth as a language and means of expression for the Uncreated Reality." (Fr Aidan Nichols, O.P.)

And they failed to perceive that we do not spend eternity in heaven with an ethereal, apophatic, "Ultimate Reality," but rather we spend it with the Lamb of God, in company with the host of heaven, in the Ecstatic Glory of the Truth, Beauty and Goodness of the Beatific Vision, Which comes to us through the Word. And therein, through the Gifts of Wisdom and the Understanding, we will sound the depths of Christ's Incarnational Mysteries, in the Love of the Father and the Holy Spirit, and enjoy all the creative realities of a New Heavens and a New Earth. For Scripture reveals we shall be glorified citizens of the "the Holy City, the New Jerusalem," blissfully happy, and beloved heirs to the Kingdom, keeping company with the Blessed Virgin Mary, angels, and millions of members of the Church Triumphant.. And a primary source of Light and Bliss for all the citizens of this Celestial City shall come through Intimate Companionship with Jesus Christ, the Lamb, the King Who Loved them so much He abandoned His Throne and Hung on a Cross for them, Eternally Beloved of the Father, True God and True Man!" (And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven...and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them...Revelation 21:2-3)

Father Jordan Aumann tells us:

"Christ is the realization and the fulfillment of all that had been promised and signified by the word and action of God in the history of salvation from Adam to the last of the prophets. Christ is, therefore, the embodiment of authentic spirituality and, quite logically, from our point of view the spiritual life must be a participation in the "mystery of Christ." Consequently, Christ is for all times -- yesterday, today and forever -- and any attempt to construct a spirituality that is "more contemporary" or "more up-to-date" is purely an illusion."

"This does not mean, however, that we should consider the spiritual life as Christ-centered to such an extent that we would fail to give proper emphasis to God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and the Trinity of Persons dwelling in the soul through. grace... Nevertheless, having made this precision, we can repeat that the spiritual life is centered in Christ and is, in fact, -a participation in the mystery of Christ. To know what this life is, it is necessary to understand as much as possible about Christ..."(Fr Jordan Aumann, "Christian Spirituality," Ch.I)

For before we are capable of Contemplating the Mystery of the Mercy and Compassionate Wisdom characteristic of Christ's other-worldly, Supernatural Godhead, we must first gain experience of mercy, humility, and compassion in this world. For He is the only Reliable Guide capable of showing us the proper coordinates and the true shape of the landscape of Ultimate Reality. Without Christ as our Companion and Guide, our intrusions into Ultimate Reality will leave us "lost in space!" And that's where so many of today's Christian practitioners of pre-apophatic "Instant Divinity" and "Ecumenical Spirituality Without Christ," have ended up: "Lost in space, with no guide, and no transforming spirituality!" {"...He who rejects me, rejects Him Who sent me.(Luke 10:16)}

For Jesus Christ is our Good Teacher. We must have our hard, pride-encapsulated egos softened through the exercise of His humility in our own life as revealed to us by meditating on His Life and Sacred Humanity in the Gospels and the teachings of the Church. We must follow Christ's admonition regarding the ways of God, as He tells us, "Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice." For through the Mercy of God in His Incarnation, the "adoration" due to the Sacred Humanity of Jesus Christ has become the stumbling block scandalizing the world, as it did on the Cross, and as it does by Its absence from the doctrine and practice of those who preach an easy ecumenical, Contemplative spirituality, based on Eastern mantra-chanting, "acquired contemplation," and a strange, "no content, no rules," Cosmic God.

Therefore, Contemplative Prayer for the Christian magnifies Jesus Christ at all stages of the spiritual journey, beginning, middle, and end. This is affirmed by St Teresa in the following comment about the ultimate spiritual state of perfection: "But what passes in the union of the Spiritual Marriage is very different. The Lord appears in the centre of the soul, not through an imaginary, but through an intellectual vision,...just as He appeared to the Apostles, without entering through the door, when He said to them: "Pax vobis". (St Teresa, "Interior Castle," VII Mansion) And any Christian Contemplation that, by human choice and design, presumes to ignore or bypass His Sacred Humanity, runs the serious risk of bypassing Almighty God, Himself, and the perfect love for which we were created, made visible to the world in Jesus Christ.

Actually, much of the modern mantra-chanting spirituality, claiming to be Catholic without Jesus, reflects an anti-human sophistry, coming out of an excessively apophatic spirit, resulting in religious anarchy, and based on a form of the heresy of "Quietism." As Father Garrigou-Lagrange tells us, the following statement is one of the errors of this Quietist heresy, i.e., "Contemplative souls lose, in certain states, the distinct, sensible, and reflective view of Jesus Christ."(Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, Three Ages of the Interior Life, p. 293)

The above statement, as it stands, is incorrect because excessive, and overstated. It is true, that during the Night of Sense, one's "affection" for Jesus, as well as religious sentiment in general, moves from a sensuous orientation to a more solid foundation in the spirit. And until this growth process is completed, one has a sense of loss connected with former affective ways of worshipping Our Lord. However, even during this process, "Jesus remains a distinct identity, and at the center of one's Catholic worship."

In the words of Cardinal Ratzinger:

"To grasp the depths of the divine," the Christian meditates on the earthly life of Jesus. God reveals these depths "through the human-earthly dimension." When the Christian sees Jesus, he sees the Father (jn. 14:9); he grasps "the divine reality in the human figure of Jesus, his eternal divine dimension in its temporal form."

And the Catholic Encyclopedia tells us:

"The human nature of Christ, united hypostatically with the Divine nature, is "adored" with the same worship as the Divine nature. We adore the Word when we adore Christ the Man; but the Word is God. The Person of Christ is adored with the cult called latria. But the cult that is due to a person is due in like manner to the whole nature of that Person and to all its parts. Hence, since the human nature is the real and true nature of Christ, that human nature and all its parts are the object of the cult called latria, i. e., adoration." (Catholic Encyclopedia, "Incarnation," III, 2).

THE VIRGIN QUEEN

Moreover, when souls prayerfully consider the mystery of the "adoration" of the Word hypostatically connected with the Sacred Humanity of Jesus Christ, they begin to penetrate the mystery of the awesome love and respect due the Sinless Vessel, the Human Mother, the Ever-Virgin Soul of Humility and Gracious Beauty, who humbly bore that same Divine Person, sharing her sinless, physical life with His Sacred Human Life, within her body, and physically and lovingly feeding and nurturing His Life as a baby, and guiding Him through early childhood and on into manhood.

For those souls who honor the Virgin Mother, find that she brings with her the key to the awesome mystery of "Divine Incarnation," wherein God's Infinite Heart of Love is wounded by the reflection of Itself found in the heart of a Sinless Virgin Maid. And through the Infinite Power of this Love, the Divine and the human become One in the womb of this gracious creature's humility. For the radiant beauty of the Queen of Heaven gives visible homage to the Mystery of Eternal Beauty and Feminine Perfection, Eminently Present within the Being of Godhead!.

So Hail Mary, Beautiful Virgin Queen, for in humble acquiescence thou has fulfilled Jeremiah 21:22; "The Lord has created a new thing upon the earth: A woman shall compass a man." And to the humbling astonishment of man, thou hast glorified womanhood forever, as from your virginal womb a new thing took place on the earth, as you "compassed" man, conceiving the Humanity of the Saviour of the world, "without the co-operation of man!" And by your Virginal "fiat," you fulfilled God's promise in Genesis, that the defeat of the serpent would come, not through the pride of man, but through the humility of "woman," as He proclaimed for all generations that "she shall crush your head!"

For salvation began for mankind through the fiat of a woman, the new Eve, even as it continues around the world today, in large part, through the efforts of valiant female souls. For women have blessed mankind many times over through their efforts at holding families together, and teaching the children the Faith, and, sad to say, all too often without the help of men. For it is women who take on the thankless tasks which keep the parishes running around the world, and who fill the churches with their presence and that of their children, while so many of the men, unfortunately, attend to the other "more important" matters relating to sleep and sporting events.

"...and we would have to admit that the weaker sex is also the more devout sex, because women generally are vastly superior to men in their abnegation and generosity in the service of God."(Fr Jordan Aumann, "Spiritual Theology," Discernment of Spirits)

And so with her smile, the Holy Virgin draws the people of the world to herself, and to her Son, today; for it is like angel-song, with an etherial fragrance of roses, filled with all the mystery and lovliness of womanhood. And the Beautiful Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, looks at Jesus with motherly adoration, and, in self-abnegating deference to the Spirit of God, rejoices within herself, as her smile and her gaze fall upon each of us. And today, she turns with open arms to lovingly embrace us all, especially the Children of Israel, the Children of the Middle-East, the Children of Asia, and the children of Arabia. And in words which cause all of Creation to tremble, she humbly proclaims the awesome secret of her divine maternity and radiant joy:

"This is my Beloved Son, hear ye Him!".

And the prophet Daniel was privileged to see the Virgin's Son in a vision hundreds of years before His Incarnation:

"I saw One like a "son of man" coming, on the clouds of heaven; When he reached the Ancient One and was presented before him, He received dominion, glory, and kingship; nations and peoples of every language serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not be taken away, his kingship shall not be destroyed.(Daniel 7)

So, Hail Mary full of grace, the light streaming from the humility of your soul informs the goodness of your beauty as it reflects His Glory...the Glory of the Only-Begotten Son of God. ...And hail Mary full of grace, crowning glory of womanhood, mother of mankind, mother of Jerusalem, mother of Fatima and Guadalupe... the fragrance of your presence humbles the hard heart of mankind, as you employ all the power of your gracious beauty to draw the children of every land to the Sacred Humanity of your Son, so there might be an end to fear and hatred, and so all might know the peace of God, the nature of True Divinity, and the certain path leading to Eternal Life!

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