2024 December Kansas Monks Newsletter by kansasmonks

kansas monks

December 2024

Dear Friends in Christ,

As we enter this Advent season, we in the Church turn our hearts toward the Blessed Virgin Mary, especially as we celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, one of the great holy days honoring our Blessed Mother. Normally celebrated on December 8, this feast is a profound reminder of God’s grace in preparing Mary to be the Mother of the Savior. This year, however, the liturgical calendar places the celebration on Monday, December 9, as the neighboring Sunday of Advent takes precedence.

Although the date has shifted, we wanted to honor this feast with no less prominence than it deserves in this edition of our newsletter, highlighting Mary’s unique role in salvation history through several perspectives. Brother Maximilian has written (on page 4) about how his monastic patron, St. Maximilian Kolbe, was drawn to Our Lady under her title of the Immaculate Conception. St. Maximilian pondered the mysteries of her purity and devoted himself entirely to spreading the message of her love and intercession.

Brother Karel shares a reflection (page 5) on how the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception fits into the array of blessings and privileges God bestowed upon Mary, preparing her for the singular role of bearing Christ into the world. His piece helps us understand this feast not only as a celebration of Mary’s unique purity but also as an invitation to live our own lives in light of God’s grace and mercy.

Finally, I have written a reflection of my own on a Marian devotion close to our community’s heart: Our Lady of Bavaria. We keep a statue in the Abbey cloister, a cherished reminder of Mary’s maternal love and protection over our monastic community, a devotion rooted in our Benedictine heritage. In this Advent season of expectation and joy, we remember Mary’s readiness to receive God’s will and pray for her intercession that we too may welcome Christ with open hearts. May these reflections draw us closer to the Mother of the Savior, and may her prayers guide us in preparing for his coming.

Blessings to you all, and may each of you have a joyful Advent and a very Merry Christmas.

In Christ.

Abbot James R. Albers, O.S.B

IN THIS ISSUE

Feature | Younger than Sin . . . . . . . . . . . . pages 4-5

St. Maximilian Kolbe’s Devotion to Mary Up Next | The Art of Living: Truthfulness . . Page 2 Reflections on the Book, Part IV of IX

The Art of Living: Truthfulness

Reflections on the Book

Part IV of IX in a series about Dietrich von Hildebrand’s work on moral virtue.

By Reid Bissen, Obl.S.B.

“What is truth?”—the infamous words of Pontius Pilate to Jesus ring with a similar dissonance to modern skepticism. But was his question evidence of a merely intellectual reservation, or a lack of moral integrity? Surely handing over Jesus to the crowd was not the first time Pilate caved to outside pressures and acted in morally inconsistent ways. Leading up to this moment was a pattern of behavior towards reality that favored himself over what is true. Attitudes such as this one can color our entire approach to everyday realities, which means the ramifications to our moral lives are tremendous.

One might argue that all moral failures are created by lies. When I do harm to another, it is because I lied in believing that he is less than a person with an equal

dignity to myself. But why do we lie? The willingness to lie in words, thought, or in an inconsistency in the way we act, is at its root the desire to use another person for one’s own gain. If I want someone to think well of me, I could act in a way that is inconsistent with who I really am. This is deceitful because the other person consented to those beliefs on false pretenses. I manipulated them into committing to a belief that benefited me. I used them for my own benefit. So goes the logic of other vices as well.

Apart from those who consciously lie for their own gain and those who like the Pharisees lie to themselves to deny hard truths they do not want to face, there is another kind of transgressor against truth that is even more sly and perhaps more common in Christian circles. Often, without realizing it, we can slip into fabricated and inflated behaviors or emotional states that find their end in self-seeking. This isn’t so much a lie as conventionally understood; it is a lie in the sense that it is a disregard for reality as it is, and by extension myself as I am. Ironically, the cause of this disregard is self-obsession. When we turn in on ourselves, we rarely look at the self as it really is, but at either an idealized or underappreciated version of ourselves. When the way we look at ourselves lacks truthfulness, we think and act in ways that are not in accord with reality. Instead of responding to reality, we respond to the distorted image of ourselves by enacting an equally distorted personality. Thus, we can very easily become fake, either by the way of inflating or deflating ourselves.

If we live in this space of self-obsession, then the way we interact with reality becomes distorted across the board. For example, when someone shares regretful news and asks for prayers, my reaction of sorrow and sympathy is exaggerated. I take pleasure in how

Ge, Nikolai. “What is truth?” (1890). Oil on canvas.

compassionate I am. Perhaps later I say a single rushed Hail Mary. How was I actually affected by that news? When I experience strong consolations in prayer, do I relish the fact that they are happening to me, inflating the joy of feeling close to God to the extent that I lose sight of God Himself? In both of these scenarios, there is a discrepancy between the “input” that reality gives me, and the “output” that I generate in thought, word, and deed. When this becomes a habit, I live in a fantasy where everything is about me, and the world as given to me by God is manipulated for my own benefit. By lying, I live in a lie.

The antithetical attitude is a genuineness that springs from a deep respect for reality. I don’t feel the need to make reality any bigger or smaller than it is. I allow myself to be moved in proportion to my experience. What sustains this respect is an affection for what is. I must recognize that to think, act, and speak in accord with the truth is fundamentally to give witness to God as Creator and Lord. Because of this, the truthful man finds posturing and flattery repulsive. We all have insecurities. We have the choice to accept them or to compensate for them. The humble man realizes that he cannot be anything else except what he is in the current moment and is able to accept his limitations. “Humility is truth”, as St. Teresa of Avila attested. Humility will not allow us to lie. Pride, on the other hand, will attempt in vain to wrangle and distort reality into an image that best suits my own interests. Meanwhile, I stand afar off from reality—from others, from God—because I am no longer in contact with what is real.

These deceptions deny others the right they have to know the truth about who you are and who they are. In other words, to know the truth about reality. We ought to respect others so much that we would never present a false image of ourselves to another person, and neither would we mirror back to another person a false image of themselves. Likewise, we ought to respect ourselves enough not to make ourselves the center of the universe. And finally, we ought to respect God by choosing to receive reality, especially the reality about ourselves, as it is given by Him in love. 

Next Month: Continue reading the series with Part IV of IX.

Br. Maximilian Mary explores his namesake St. Maximilian Kolbe’s love of Mary under the appellation of the Immaculate Conception.

of Grace ............................. 6

Mary is hailed for her sinlessness, her virginity, her divine motherhood, and her glorious assumption. Learn more about the Blessed Mother’s special graces.

Living the Liturgy ........................ 7

Reflect on the readings for this month’s Sunday and Holy Day masses. In December, we focus especially on Advent as a season of endings and new beginnings.

Faith Can Influence Culture Through Devotion ................................ 10

How devotion to Our Lady of Bavaria shapes the monastic culture of the Kansas Monks.

The mission of St. Benedict’s Abbey is to glorify God by seeking him through joyful self-sacrifice, by embracing fully the monastic and apostolic ideals, and by leading others to encounter Jesus Christ, who brings us all together to eternal life.

The Kansas Monks newsletter is a monthly publication of the monastic community of St. Benedict’s Abbey to help fulfill this mission. Read our archives at www.kansasmonks.org/newsletter

An archangel was sent from heaven to say to the Theotokos: Rejoice!

Rejoice, O flower of incorruption!

Rejoice, O crown of chastity!

Rejoice, O shining symbol of the resurrection! Rejoice, O reflection of the life of the angels!

from the akathist hymn to the mother of god

Younger than Sin

The Holy Innocence of Mary

St. Maximilian Kolbe was deeply devoted to Mary under her title of Immaculate Conception. Read on to see how the sinlessness of Mary inspired his mission as a priest and his sacrifice as a martyr.

By Br. Maximilian Mary Anderson, O.S.B.

St. Maximilian Kolbe is probably best known for dying in the place of a married man with children who had been chosen for the starvation chamber of Auschwitz. It is, perhaps, slightly less known that Kolbe was also extremely devoted to Our Lady. He was also a gifted intellectual, teacher, and writer. He gave considerable time and energy to praying, thinking, and teaching about Mary and the mysteries of her life. One question that dogged him up to the very day of his arrest by the Gestapo was

“who are you, O Immaculate Conception?”

Here we will explore the background of this question, Kolbe’s startling answer, and what it has to do with us.

The apparition of Our Lady at Lourdes came as a confirmation of a teaching that the Church had only recently declared dogmatically in 1854. St. Bernadette had her visions at Lourdes about four years after this declaration in 1858; she saw a Lady who said “I am the Immaculate Conception.” The timing is difficult to pass over as merely coincidental and was in no way lost on Kolbe. He pondered these words for years as a friar. As he stated in the theological reflection he wrote the day of his arrest, he noted that “[these] words fell from the lips of the Immaculata herself. Hence, they

https://marytown-press-gift-store.myshopify.com/products/ st-max-kolbe-icon-holy-card

must tell us in the most precise and essential manner who she really is.”

December 8 is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, commemorating the fact that Mary was immaculately conceived, i.e. preserved from any and all stain of sin by the grace of her Son’s sacrifice. If this is the case, why at Lourdes did Bernadette not hear “I was immaculately conceived?” This would have been

true and less perplexing for identifying herself with the grace she received sounds tantamount to claiming divinity. How can Mary say this about herself, humble as she is? Kolbe puzzled over this a long time before arriving at a solution: there is more than one Immaculate Conception and one of them is divine. This title fits perfectly with the Holy Spirit since the Holy Spirit springs forth—is conceived, if you will—from the exchange of love between the Father and the Son. This exchange is so full and fruitful that it is itself the third person of the Trinity. This is imaged by the family where the exchange of love between husband and wife is so full and fruitful as to result in an entirely new person coming into the world. So, from all eternity, the Holy Spirit is the uncreated Immaculate Conception while Mary is the created Immaculate Conception, born at a particular point in history.

This clarifies for us that the name Immaculate Conception needn’t be off-putting for sounding too much like a claim to divinity. It is a claim to divinity that applies to the Holy Spirit. This question remains: why does Mary take this and apply it to herself? Kolbe makes a connection that indicates what sort of relationship or union Mary has with the Holy Spirit. He says “it is above all an interior union, a union of her essence with the ‘essence’ of the Holy Spirit.” He notes that between humans “the union brought about by married love is the most intimate of all.” This union between the Holy Spirit and Mary in her soul is more intimate still and more fruitful, for by it she was able to conceive and bring forth God Himself in the flesh while mysteriously preserving her virginity. Kolbe highlights that if in married couples the wife takes her husband’s name “because she belongs to him, is one with him, becomes equal to him and is, with him, the source of new life” how much more should Mary take the Holy Spirit’s? Her relationship with the Holy Spirit is at once closer, fuller, and more fruitful than any earthly marriage. There is no comparison. What does all this mean for us? A quotation from Diary of a Country Priest can begin to help us understand. As one priest is encouraging another in a particularly low spot, he gives a long meditative

reflection on Our Lady after asking if the other prays to her as he should.

“The eyes of Our Lady are the only real childeyes that have ever been raised to our shame and sorrow… to pray to here as you should, you must feel those eyes of hers upon you: they are not indulgent—for there is not indulgence without something of bitter experience—they are eyes of gentle pity, wondering sadness, and with something more in them, never yet known or expressed, something which makes her younger than sin, younger than the race from which she sprang, and though a mother, by grace, Mother of all grace, our little youngest sister.”

The Holy Spirit, God himself, who dwells most intimately within Mary is Beauty, ever ancient and ever new. This could be what Bernanos alludes to here. Whatever he means, we must also pray to her as we should. She is too close to God to be incapable of conquering anything for us, however great; we are too dear to her for her to dismiss any prayer of ours, however small. 

Sources:

Gaitley, Michael E., MIC, 33 Days to Morning Glory: A Do-It-Yourself Retreat In Preparation for Marian Consecration. Marian Press, 2012.

Bernanos, Georges, Diary of a Country Priest. Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2002.

THE HOLY INNOCENCE OF MARY

Br. Maximilian, O.S.B. is a former FOCUS missionary (and current monk). He recently became vocations director for the Abbey.

Full of Grace

The Four Privileges of the Blessed Mother

All that we believe about Mary points to her relationship with her son, Jesus Christ, and the salvation he worked in her soul through her special graces reflect the redemption he promises to us all.

By Br. Karel Soukup, O.S.B.

God blessed the Blessed Virgin Mary with four unique gifts by which she played a singular role in the economy of salvation. The Church teaches: 1) that Mary is the Theotokos, the Mother of God; 2) that she was conceived without sin; 3) that she maintained perpetual virginity; and 4) that, at the end of her earthly life, Mary was assumed, body and soul, into heaven. These Four Privileges of Mary, while particular to her role in God’s plan of salvation, are not merely admirable peculiarities, but a promise of the marvels God wants to work in the soul of each Christian. For, “what the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ” (Catechism of the Catholic Church #487), and what is true about Christ is true about his Body, the Church and her members.

Mother of God

The most sublime and ancient of the Church’s Marian dogmas is that she is the Theotokos, the God-bearer, the Mother of God. This teaching was formally declared at the Council of Ephesus in AD 431, and it is from this dogma that all other teachings about Mary follow. This is not only a Mariological doctrine, but a central Christological doctrine arising from controversies within the early Church regarding the nature of the person Jesus Christ. By affirming that Mary was the Mother of God, the Church affirmed that Jesus was both man and God.

Each Christian shares in the vocation of Mary to receive the Word of God and bear it forth into the world. Jesus himself exhorts us: “Who is my mother? […] Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my […] mother” (Matthew 15:48–50). When we meditate and the Scriptures and the truths of our faith, we imitate Mary, who kept and pondered everything in her heart, and we receive God’s Word. And when we give our Fiat, our Yes to the Father and do his will and we make Christ flesh in the world

The Immaculate Conception

On December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX formally decreed the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in his Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus. Mary, he proclaimed, was “ever absolutely free of all stain of sin” in order to be prepared as a fitting mother for God’s only son. Pius IX’s decree is not an innovation in the faith of the Church, but an articulation of what the Church has always believed about Mary: the liturgical celebration of Mary’s Immaculate Conception dates back as far as the 5th century in the Eastern Church and was adopted by the Western Church by the 8th century. The scriptures testify to Mary’s unique sinlessness when the Archangel Gabriel greets her: “Hail, Full of Grace” (Luke 1:28).

Of course, Mary did not merit her immaculate conception. Her preservation from the stain of original sin was a singular act of God’s mercy, through the merits of his Son, Jesus Christ. St. Thérèse of Lisieux, meditating on the Gospel story of the woman who loved much, because she was forgiven much, pondered how she could love God very much at all, since her sins were so few.

Continued on page10 >

Living the Liturgy

Commentary on the Liturgical Year

Reflect on the readings for this month’s Sunday and Holy Day masses. In December, we focus especially on Advent as a season of endings and new beginnings.

By Tom Hoopes

Advent and Christmas: The World’s End Leads to Our Beginning Christmas makes more sense if you’re expecting the end of the world.

There are always two strains in Advent Masses: The slow preparation for the appearance of the Christ Child and the noisy proclamations that everything is about to suddenly end.

It can almost seem like the two are at cross-purposes, as if the Church is doing a bait and switch, making dark promises about the end of time, and then saying, “Surprise! What the ominous timpani roll was really leading up to was … ‘Away in a Manger’.’

God and his Church found it fitting that Christmas would be celebrated on December 25, when nature does the very opposite “bait and switch.” Before electric lights, the sun was our main source of light and mankind had a high awareness of how long the days and nights were. People knew very well that December 21 was the Winter Solstice, the shortest day and longest night of the year—the long night after which each day is brighter than the day before.

But the fact that the days get longer doesn’t mean the weather gets better. In fact, it gets worse. As the sun rises earlier and earlier, the winter fights back harder and harder so that as the light gains ground, the weather takes it all back. At first, anyway. Eventually, winter will surrender and the sun will win; but it won’t be easy.

The Church is great at “rebranding” the joys and difficulties of our lives. The Church’s calendar leans into this reality and helps us cope supernaturally with what nature throws at us in Advent and Lent, so that, as the nights last longer than we can bear, the Church reminds us that Jesus is coming. Then, when Jesus does arrive, the weather reminds us that his final victory will take longer than we may have hoped.

The Church calendar thus teaches us the paradox of life with God-made-man: It teaches us to have the faith to proclaim in the darkness that the dawn is on the way; the hope to rejoice when times are hard; and the love to be unselfish when everyone is in need.

So join the Church in waiting out the long dark nights that remind us that the present world will end one day in a perpetual night, and burn the Advent candles to witness to the light that the powers of darkness will never overcome.

SMALL BEGINNINGS

December 1 | First Sunday of Advent, Year C

Advent begins with Jesus issuing a radical wake-up call—just as the world is celebrating coziness and safety. The contrast couldn’t be greater.

On the one hand, you have the sparkling lights and sleigh bells of Secular Christmas Season. On the other, you have the Advent Gospel promising that “There

will be signs in the sun, the moon and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay.”

While Hollywood offers Hallmark holiday warmth, Jesus says, “People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

Clearly, Jesus knew he would have to shout to be heard in our December.

How do we resist the tide? The First Reading shows

LIVING THE LITURGY

how: “I will raise up for David a just shoot,” Jeremiah says. From this fragile plant “Judah shall be safe and Jerusalem shall dwell secure.”

With God, a tiny start ends in a giant result. Let that be our Advent rule of life: Do small things now with love to get great gains later.

JOHN THE URGENT

December 8 | Second Sunday of Advent, Year C

The Gospel describes a very specific time (“the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar”) and place (“Herod was tetrarch of Galilee”) when a particular prophet was chosen (“John, the son of Zechariah.”)

It’s hard not to notice that we, too live in a dark time in a compromised place, and that we too have been chosen by God like John the Baptist — in fact, “he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than” John, Jesus said.

The Church gives us Advent to show us how to act in our situation as John did in his. We can learn the message he learned from Isaiah: “The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

Do we live in a dark time? Sure. But we also live in a time of grace with as many John the Baptists as there are Christians, and Jesus Christ is with us every single day in the sacraments.

All we have to do is witness as he did. If se do, as St. Paul puts it this Sunday, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it.”

THE ADVENT WOMAN

December 9 | Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today the Church celebrates the singular grace by which Mary was preserved from original sin from the very beginning. But don’t get the idea that this meant Mary’s life was untroubled by sin or that she wasn’t tempted. In fact, it means that she was in the situation Adam and Eve were in before original sin.

In the First Reading, after that first sin, God tells the serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.” The

Church understands that Mary is the woman who would be attacked by the evil one, but overcome him in her offspring

But the Second Reading tells us that we, too, have been remarkably blessed, “with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.” Mary was the mother of God; but we are his family members also, since, “In love, he destined us for adoption to himself.”

So, if you want to know how to live your Advent, look to Mary; she did it first.

JOHN THE MODERATE

December 15 | Third Sunday of Advent, Year A

This Sunday is Gaudete Sunday, “Rejoice Sunday”— and if the first two readings don’t give you a reason to rejoice, the Gospel should.

In it, the crowds flock to the radical reformer John the Baptist, and ask him, “What should we do?” and then brace for the worst. What would he say? Would they have to live on desert bugs like he did?

But John doesn’t say “Give up your coats as I have done.” He says: “Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none.” For tax collectors, his advice is: “Stop collecting more than what is prescribed.” For soldiers: “Do not practice extortion, do not falsely accuse anyone, and be satisfied with your wages.”

We can breathe a sigh of relief that John’s answers aren’t impossible. But they aren’t easy, either. His advice is the height of discretio—the difficult virtue of discernment and balance St. Benedict praises as essential.

So, rejoice! The Gospel is “normal.” The radical desert dweller was just as moderate in his advice as the cave dweller St. Benedict was.

DESTROYING EXPECTATIONS

December 22 | Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year C

At the time of Christ, after centuries of Salvation history, the Jewish people may have felt a little underwhelmed: Abraham’s descendants still didn’t number as the stars; Solomon’s Temple had been destroyed and rebuilt smaller; and the exiled Jews returned home only to be ruled by the Romans.

This Sunday’s Mass describes how all those low expectations were shattered.

In the First Reading the prophet Micah looks at Bethlehem and finds it “too small” but then prophesies that “from you shall come forth” one whose “greatness shall reach to the ends of the earth.”

In the Gospel, Elizabeth sees Mary, a carpenter’s wife, weary from travel, and says, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

St. Paul says we have a high priest who simply says, “Behold, I come to do your will, oh God,” and outdoes all the sacrifices and offerings of the Old Testament.

May our expectations be destroyed, too, as we pray, in the Entrance Antiphon: “Drop down dew from above, you heavens, and let the clouds rain down the Just One; let the earth be opened and bring forth a Savior.”

HAVE A FAITHFUL CHRISTMAS

December 25 | Christmas

I love what the Second Reading on Christmas Day says: “In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets; in these last days, he has spoken to us through the Son.”

That means you can “hear” what God has to say by looking in the manger.

There you will see a newborn baby who can’t speak or gesture or stand. God—the one who is not in the earthquake or the fire, but in a whisper—is telling you

that the power of his presence is all he offers, and that is enough.

In the manger you will also see Perfect Beauty —because what is more beautiful than a newborn baby?—and the Pure Goodness of perfect innocence. God, in his manger, says “God is love”—because, as a newborn baby, he is nothing but a vulnerable gift, like love itself.

If you get no other gift this Christmas, what you see in the manger is more than enough.

DECEMBER’S FAMILY DAY

December 29 | Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,

On the Feast of the Holy Family, we hear the story of the Finding in the Temple, and it’s easy to put ourselves in Mary and Joseph’s place.

They lost Jesus in the holy days in Jerusalem, and “journeyed for a day” thinking he was with them. We can lose Jesus in our holidays, too, when we take him for granted. They “looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances” to no avail. We look to others for what we need, too.

Finally, they went to the place where they were guaranteed to find God: For them, it was the Temple; for us, it is the tabernacle. If we go there we will find him just like they did, listening and asking questions and giving “astounding answers.” 

Angelico, Fra. Nativity (1423-1426).

Faith Can Influence Culture Through Devotion

By Abbot James R. Albers, O.S.B.

The European culture has been grounded in the Catholic faith for centuries. While this identity is sadly waning, the faithful still hold to many traditions that drive the day-to-day of the culture. An example of this is the solemnity we celebrate this month of the Immaculate Conception. While Advent has already begun, in Italy this liturgical feast of the gift given to Mary is another intentional turn for the faithful toward the Incarnation of the Son of God. Not only is it a holy day of obligation—as well as a national holiday when no schools are in session—it is also a celebration that encourages gatherings of communities marked with elaborate processions.

The American culture—a vast gathering of nationalities and varied heritage—while Christian at its roots, has not retained many of these expressions of faith in the culture on the national level. For example, few know that the Immaculate Conception of Mary is the patronal feast of the United States.

A particular cultural celebration that has been lost to the vastness of the American culture, a very particular devotion within the Bavarian heritage from which sprung St. Benedict Abbey, is the Feast of Our Lady of Bavaria, celebrated in Germany on May 14. Our Lady of Bavaria, or Our Lady of Altötting is commemorated in a shrine in Altötting, which was constructed around the year 700.

The shrine, known as Herz Bayerns—“Heart of Bavaria”—is a place to which more than a million pilgrims flock every year to seek the intercession of Mary, Our Lady of Bavaria. Around 1330, the statue of Mary was placed in the chapel, with pilgrimages beginning in 1489 after a particular miracle occurred of a drowned boy being resuscitated. For the pilgrims, they seek Mary’s maternal intercession, confiding in her their joys and pains, difficulties and sufferings.

One of the five “Sanctuaries of Europe”—together with Lourdes, Fatima, Czestochowa, and Loreto—it was also a place of pilgrimage for the late Pope Benedict XIV, who grew up less than ten miles from the shrine. Throughout the shrine are mementos of request and offerings of thanksgiving for miracles prayed for and miracles received.

A statue of Our Lady of Bavaria is usually of carved wood painted and gilded—though, the famous statue of this devotion in the Marienplatz in Munich is gilded all in gold. In Mary’s left hand, she holds a scepter and stands on a crescent moon signifying her reign as Queen of Heaven. The Child Jesus rests on her right arm holding a “celestial sphere” representing the omnipotence of God and the cosmic reality of the Divine taking on human flesh.

Saint John Paul II made a pilgrimage to the shrine in 1980, and Pope Benedict XIV made a pilgrimage to Altötting during his pastoral visit to Germany in September 2006. After time in prayer at the statue of

Our Lady of Bavaria, Pope Benedict placed on the scepter of Mary his pastoral ring given by his two siblings in 1977 on the occasion of his episcopal ordination in Munich. Pope Benedict XIV offered the following thoughts there in 2006:

“Mary leaves everything to the Lord’s judgment. At Nazareth she gave over her will, immersing it in the will of God: ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ And this continues to be her fundamental attitude. This is how she teaches us to pray: not by seeking to assert before God our own will and our own desires, however important they may be, however reasonable they might appear to us, but rather to bring them before him and to let

Full of Grace

him decide what he intends to do. From Mary we learn graciousness and readiness to help, but we also learn humility and generosity in accepting God’s will, in the confident conviction that, whatever it may be, it will be our, and my own, true good.”

Since the year 2000, with the gift of a statue of Our Lady of Bavaria—Our Lady of Altötting—the monks of St. Benedict’s Abbey have had the opportunity to reconnect with this heritage of its founders. In particular, to ask for the intercession of Our Lady of Bavaria, that the monastic community possess the humility and graciousness to serve the Lord.

Our Lady of Bavaria, intercede for us to your Son! 

Continued from page 6 >

She realized, however, that the Father’s mercy went before her and forgave her even before she sinned. “He has forgiven me,” she wrote, “much MORE than he forgave [Mary Magdalene].” The Dogma of Immaculate Conception is the Church’s unwavering proclamation of God’s great mercy and his unending desire to give us more than we deserve.

Ever-Virgin

The Church has since her very beginning, believed that Jesus Christ’s birth was a divine act surpassing natural biological reproduction. Around the year AD 110, St. Ignatius of Antioch affirmed in his letter to the Smyrnæans that we believe that Jesus Christ is the “Son of God according to the will and power of God, truly born of a virgin.” This is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son” (Isaiah 7:14). The Council of Constantinople decreed in AD 553 that Mary’s virginity was perpetual: before, during and after Jesus’ birth. Because Mary’s conception of the Christ Child was entirely virginal, we see that the Incarnation was wholly a work of God’s initiative. God comes to meet us in our lives solely because he desires to be with us, and we are made his children “not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). Mary’s perfect receptivity is the instrument he used to bring that about.

We imitate Mary’s virginity by emptying ourselves of everything that is not God to be ready to receive God. It is an imitation and following, too, of Christ who emptied himself, and was exalted (Philippians 2:6–9).

The Assumption

Pope Pius XII solemnly decreed the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary of November 1, 1950. In his apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus, he defined the Church’s belief that “the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls Mary’s Assumption “singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection” (#966). Jesus said: “I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again” (John 10:18). That power is a divine power, something no mere human can claim, and our belief in Mary’s Assumption again underscores God’s initiative in the plan of salvation. We cannot manufacture our own salvation; we can only participate and cooperate with the work God wants to do in us. 