Near the cross, stood Mary

This Homily of Rev. Thierry de Roucy was held for the Sending Forth Mass of mis­sion­ar­ies in Ourscamp, (France) on September 15, 1991.

Dear Missionaries, Beloved broth­ers and sis­ters,

Your Sending Forth Mass prov­i­den­tial­ly takes place on the feast day of Our Lady of Sorrows, called Our Lady of Compassion in the Oriental Church. This very feast, even if the Sunday li­tur­gy pushed it to the back­ground, sheds a per­fect light on your mis­sion. Moreover, it gives so much mean­ing to our mis­sion that I pro­claim it to­day pa­tronal feast of the Heart’s Home Organization.

I ask you to join Mary along the “via Crucis” and at the foot of her Son’s cross. It doesn’t mat­ter that you can’t join her phys­i­cal­ly; the im­por­tant thing is to go and dwell in her heart. The mis­sion of a mis­sion­ary is noth­ing but to stand here, beside all the slums and des­ti­tu­tion of the world, and to share the suf­fer­ings of the peo­ple, to con­sole them, to of­fer them the most beau­ti­ful lov­ing smile. To quote this won­der­ful sen­tence of Pope Paul VI, the mis­sion is “to be in the cen­ter of the Church, just like a manome­ter, an in­stru­ment that gauges the pres­sure, the wounds of the Christ’s body, let’s say of the suf­fer­ing hu­man­i­ty”. Thus “We are con­vinced that our com­pas­sion con­soles the hu­man­i­ty that goes through this long pas­sion” (March 27^th 1964.) Mary is stand­ing here. Her pas­siv­i­ty and, at the same time, the in­cred­i­ble in­ten­si­ty of her pres­ence as­ton­ish us. She is some­times por­trayed as kneel­ing at the foot of the cross, break­ing down and cry­ing. The apos­tle John, true wit­ness of this in­ef­fa­ble mys­tery, tells us that she is stand­ing. We can’t imag­ine any­thing else. She is tend­ing to­wards the heart of her Son, so as to be a chal­ice col­lect­ing His whole blood. She is tend­ing to­wards His eyes, so as to pen­e­trate His soul. She is tend­ing to­wards His mouth, so as to lis­ten to the depth of His cry, hear­ing the ul­ti­mate si­lence of the Word. She is unit­ed with Him, shar­ing His suf­fer­ing, and, bet­ter, shar­ing love with Him. She there­fore achieves the per­fec­tion of com­pas­sion.

She doesn’t do any­thing. She doesn’t shout, she doesn’t beat the guards up so that they free Him. She fol­lows the plan of the Father en­tire­ly, com­fort­ing her Son with the very sim­ple love of her heart. Nothing else could have con­soled him in such a per­fect way. She ful­ly hopes. She doesn’t do any­thing. But noth­ing helps her Son more than the full­ness of her pres­ence. She doesn’t say any­thing. But noth­ing ex­press­es her love more per­fect­ly than this gaze to­tal­ly out­stretched to­wards Him, which in­finite­ly con­soles Him. Mary re­mains si­lent, and this si­lence of the cross is the truest and strongest dec­la­ra­tion of love ev­er. Mary re­mains si­lent and this union is the strongest union ev­er. Her si­lence is a per­fect of­fer­ing of her­self and full re­nun­ci­a­tion. The wound­ed in­no­cent Christ gives Himself up to the Church. The Church, through Mary, gives it­self up to its Spouse, re­nounc­ing to­tal­ly its own will: “fi­at vol­un­tas tua!” Hence, this union, qui­et­ly, even with­out any ges­ture, is the most fruit­ful of all unions ev­er.

Dear mis­sion­ar­ies, you are about to leave. Whether you go to India, Colombia or Romania, you will ar­rive at the same des­ti­na­tion: Golgotha. We tried to teach you the lan­guages of the chil­dren whose lives you will share, but pri­mar­i­ly we do not ex­pect words from you. Instead, we ex­pect from you an elo­quent pres­ence, a com­fort­ing gaze, a full re­nun­ci­a­tion of your­selves. To quote Genadios Mourany, Lebanese mar­tyr, we ex­pect from you that “all your apos­to­late work may be summed up in this way: to live out of love”. You will see that, pro­vid­ed that you love -love in­tense­ly, love at all times, love con­sid­er­ate­ly- very few acts or words will be nec­es­sary to com­fort those liv­ing in dread­ful, in­hu­man or brutish con­di­tions. Remember this shout of Dona Gertrude -our friend from the rub­bish dump of Lixo, El Salvador- “It is not be­cause we rum­mage in rub­bish that we are dogs or pigs. We are hu­mans, and God does not cast us away. Don’t we have a heart?” You will do noth­ing else but re­mind this truth to those who, un­like Dona Gertrude, have for­got­ten it. I im­plore you to seize any op­por­tu­ni­ty to look with love. I im­plore you to “ex­ag­ger­ate love”, to quote Paul VI again. I im­plore you to come close to the cross of our friends, jux­ta crucem, so close to it that those hanged on it feel that you are hanged with them, that you to­tal­ly share their des­tinies. And, in fact, this is true, as we are of the same flesh and blood: the blood of God our sav­ior. This is true, as all of us are broth­ers and sis­ters, in an in­cred­i­ble way. No one is closer to any hu­man than any other hu­man, as no one is closer to any hu­man than God. No one is closer to any suf­fer­ing per­son than an­oth­er suf­fer­ing per­son, as no one is closer to any suf­fer­ing per­son than God, who was made flesh to share all the suf­fer­ings of hu­man­i­ty.

In the end, go­ing to Golgotha along with Mary is like liv­ing a per­ma­nent Mass. The Eucharist will be the cen­ter of your hous­es, your lives, your hearts. I quote this won­der­ful pas­sage from a let­ter writ­ten by Isabelle, a mis­sion­ary, that en­light­ens us about the role of ado­ra­tion in ev­ery Heart’s Home: “ A time of ado­ra­tion is very im­por­tant if we want to re­ly on God. Which is all the more true as we live in a con­tem­pla­tive com­mu­ni­ty. The more I “con­tem­plate,” the more I meet Him “in the ap­pear­ance of chil­dren”; the more I con­tem­plate, the more I look for Him with­in the faces of those I meet, the more He re­veals him­self in the heart of des­ti­tu­tion. The more I con­tem­plate, the more I find the peo­ple I en­coun­ter beau­ti­ful, in­finite­ly loved, in­finite­ly sought after, in­finite­ly lov­able. The more I con­tem­plate, the more I feel in­finite­ly loved, and on­ly those who know they are in­finite­ly loved can freely give ev­i­dence and man­i­fest this in­finite love to all. The more I con­tem­plate, the more I be­come an in­stru­ment of mer­cy, com­pas­sion and con­so­la­tion. The peo­ple here don’t need the pres­ence of a Missionary, but of God. So, if I can let my­self be filled with His pres­ence in con­tem­plat­ing Him, I’ll be able to serve the chil­dren, my arms will be­come His arms, and my gaze on them will be­come His gaze… And all this is not a mat­ter of hav­ing my head in the clouds. It takes place in ex­treme­ly con­crete si­t­u­a­tions, in very lit­tle things.”

These times of ado­ra­tion that you’ll spend ev­ery­day with Mary will pre­pare you for the sac­ri­fice of the Mass, when you will of­fer up to God all the des­ti­tu­tion of hu­man­i­ty and all your own des­ti­tu­tion, let­ting Him trans­fig­ure your lives and the lives of your friends. Then with the eyes of faith your slums will not be slums any­more, but al­ready a part of the Kingdom, as the love you’ll ex­pe­ri­ence there is the same as in heav­en. Eventually, you may not long so much for liv­ing in beau­ti­ful palaces where in­dif­fer­ence and cold­ness pre­vail. Rather, you will know how an im­age which reach­es the depths of your heart can trans­fig­ure your vi­sion of the uni­verse!

Dear Missionaries, the­se slums will be­come the Kingdom, be­cause they are places where you’ll dis­cov­er and adore the pres­ence of Jesus; where you’ll im­plore Mary to be pre­sent, just as this mis­sion­ary re­mark­ably did: “On our way back from the hos­pi­tal where we have vis­it­ed Geraldo to­geth­er, I in­vit­ed Suely to at­tend Mass with me. She ac­cepts joy­ful­ly, although she feels tired. During the Mass, she is re­al­ly moved, and cries twice. On her way out of the church, she col­laps­es in­to a chair, feel­ing dizzy and hav­ing ter­ri­ble stom­ach cramps. The di­ag­no­sis is clear: “Fame” (hunger.) Antonieta, the doc­tor of the parish, in­tends to in­ject her with a painkiller and take her back home. But Suely shouts with pain and moans “Oh, meu Deus! Oh, Mahia!” Since Geraldo is in hos­pi­tal, she has not eat­en any­thing, and, be­fore, she used to have on­ly bread and cof­fee! So I take her in my arms, and she snug­gles her head up on my shoul­der. We are the same age, but she seems to be 15 years old­er than me. I’ll re­mem­ber her shout forever: “Oh, Mahia! Oh, Mahia!” Hearing this, I re­mem­ber the let­ter to the mis­sion­ar­ies about the rosary: “Y­ou de­cid­ed to go where, some­times, noth­ing is bear­able but the pres­ence of a moth­er…” “Oh, Mahia!” It’s no more time for end­less speech­es about hunger or long prayers, but for shout­ing. I feel as if I were hold­ing a lit­tle child in my arms. In my hands, I feel this wom­an con­tort­ed by pain. My face is wet with her tears, and her shout makes my heart quiv­er. Along with Suely, I call upon Mary, and I shout: “Oh, Mahia… Oh, Mahia… Oh, Mahia…” And, near the cross, stood the Mother. It’s doubtless. With the Mother of ev­ery man, stand beside ev­ery man to tell him he is in­finite­ly loved.