The 20th Anniversary of MDM

Pilate said to Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?” This gospel that the Lord gives us today shows Pilate, a man of the world in front of a mystery. Jesus isn’t dressed as a king, He doesn’t have an army, He doesn’t have riches, is alone, abandon, condemned.  He seems defeated, maybe seems like a failure. And yet Pilate senses that there’s something mysterious, more than meets the eye. And yet he has an opportunity for Pilate. But he misses the opportunity, he rejects the opportunity. And this shows us that God often hides His mysteries. Under very poor appearances, Jesus, the great king, seems in such a miserable condition. And that’s what we have right here in the Eucharist, we celebrate the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord in what appears to be just a little wafer of bread. And this is the Gospel that God’s providence gives us, as providentially we celebrate these 20 years at the Mission of Divine Mercy. If someone asked me to express in one word, what the mission of Divine Mercy is, but what would you say? I mean, just keep it to yourself, what would you say? Maybe strange, weird, funny, little ramshackle. There’s a whole lot of words that come to your mind. For me, there’s one word that stands out after these 20 years, mystery, a mystery. St. Paul says that we have this treasure of God and earthen vessels. And I think that applies to the Mission Divine Mercy, we’re the earthen vessel that you can see with all our defects, with all our human sinfulness. And yet, in this sinful earthen vessels, the Lord has placed a treasure, which is not from us, it’s from Him. And so, I wanted to share with you a little bit today, a little bit this mystery, but it’s a mystery I don’t understand at all myself. But I want to try to give you like a little look behind the scenes at the Mission of Divine Mercy. Because I think the Mission Divine Mercy, the treasure that I think the Lord has given us, is precisely for these very difficult times that we’re going through right now. And even more so for the times that are coming. The Mission of Divine Mercy is for these times. And then, it’s for you. It’s not just for the little bunch of us that dress funny, it’s for all of you. Our mission is to share this with all of you because this is for the world today. And so, I want to try to share this with you. And as I go on, feel free to take a little nap as I ramble after these 20 years.  So, first of all, what is this treasure? What is this treasure that’s here at the Mission of Divine Mercy? And I want to go back to a key moment. This was in 1992, myself with the other members of the brothers of St. John, we’d been sent to Monterrey, Mexico, to start a house there, at the request of the Cardinal of Monterey, and after some time, we’d been there, we were in a poor inner-city parish. And two ladies called to make an appointment, two ladies that I didn’t know.  So, they showed up one day.  I met them there, two pleasant middle-aged women. They introduced themselves and said, we’ve been experiencing interior locutions, which means interior messages from the Lord. And they said, and the Lord gave us a letter for you. So, my eyes were kind of popping, probably because I wasn’t used to getting letters from the Lord. And I tried to act not as surprised, but I was really surprised and I began reading this letter that they shared with me. And it was the Lord saying that he wanted to begin a great mission of evangelization and mercy and that He was sending prophets.  And these two women were two of His prophets and that seemed very funny to me. For me prophets were old guys from the Old Testament, long beards and long white robes and not these two women who look like they could be here at the Mission of Divine Mercy.  And so that’s a funny word, prophets. And then the letter said that He was asking me, well, actually, it wasn’t asking – I was supposed to be their spiritual director it said.  And then it said, that there’s so many things that the Lord wanted to do today for the Church, but the big obstacle that He was facing, (so what’s the big obstacle that God is facing?), it said, is the lack of faith on the part of His pastors.  So, I get this letter and I have to discern, is this just two crazy, ladies? Is this two people lying and wanting attention? Is this the devil, very cleverly using this?  And so, I turned to my brother priests, in our community we have a community of brothers who have had a lot of studies. And later on, I turned to the Bishop. But the base for most of them, the response I got was not help in discerning, it was basically just stay away from all this crazy stuff. You don’t want to get messed up, and I’ll give you some pro tips. As a priest, if you’re a priest, who wants to get someplace, stay away from his stuff, because it’s not very helpful for your career.  But I had to make a decision, I was the one on the spot, I had to make a decision. What was helpful to me was to go back to the gospel, to go back to Scripture. And who are the heroes of Scripture? It’s not the skeptical, cynical, learned experts. It’s the people of simple faith. And reading through the Gospels, there are so many things which were helpful to me to make a discernment. And as I got to know these two women, now I’ve known them forever, for over 20 years, and seeing their humility, their suffering and their patience, I became convinced that it was from the Lord and that they had, they were receiving other messages. But today, I don’t want to focus so much on them, but just as one example, of a larger point that the Lord dragged me into.  This wasn’t something I was looking for. I wasn’t interested in this, but the Lord dragged me into this, saying, this is important, pay attention to this.  And it was the topic of prophecy. And you know, the readings today that the Lord gives us have two great examples. We have the great prophet Daniel from the Old Testament, and then the Book of Revelations and a great book of prophecy that’s given to John. But this is a very controversial topic – prophecy. And I want to recommend today, a book that my Uncle, Father Edward O’Connor wrote, I asked him to write it. It’s a book called, “I Am Sending You Prophets”, of words from Jesus in the Gospel. And it helps to show the place of prophecy in the history of the Church, in the life of the Church. And we’re going to have some copies available for sale today, down at the reception, but it’s also available from the publisher, Queenship publication, or probably Amazon also has it. But I think it’s very helpful to help situate this grace. And today just want to mention two key points. One, that prophecy continues to exist today. It’s not just something, as I used to think from the Old Testament.  St. Thomas Aquinas says that in every age of the Church, God continues to give the grace of prophecy, not for new doctrine, not to change doctrine, but to guide action, to help us know what to do, to encourage us, sometimes to correct us. One great example is St. Faustina, for our times a prophetic message for our times.  So, the first point is the prophecy continues to exist. And the second point is that it’s not insignificant. It is very important. St. Paul says, “Do not extinguish the Holy Spirit.” And what’s the next thing he says after do not extinguish Holy Spirit? “Do not despise prophecy.” And I think that’s a big problem in the Church, especially among us pastors is despising prophecy. There’s so much potential for good when we listen to God and those He sends, and so much tragedy when we don’t. Like one example of good is Our Lady of Guadalupe and all the graces which flowed from Juan Diego’s response. And then the bishop’s response to that. This tragic examples like in a Sacred Heart, the revelations of St. Margaret Mary, where the king of France that rejected it, and that it looks like much of the tragedy, especially in the French Revolution, has its origin in that rejection. Another example would be Fatima, and our Blessed Mother is telling us that World War II could have been avoided and the spread of communism, if we had listened to her prophetic message given to the three little children. And there’s so many other examples. Father O’Conner lists many of them in his book. So, this is a difficult topic, it needs also prudent pastors to help discern and guide.  St. Faustina had an example Father Sopocko, her confessor and spiritual director. We have another good example, in St. John Paul, in his example, of prudence and discernment, and with his openness. So, prophecy, which, as I said, the Lord has shown us that it’s important for the Church today in these difficult times, but it’s part of a bigger picture. And what is that bigger picture? So, we know that we’re going through a time, a lot of problems, terrible problems. And so, we have to be realistic, and practical, because these problems are causing so much suffering. And we need the humility to recognize that we can’t solve these problems by ourselves. And that’s a danger even in the Church to act as if it all depended on us. Only Jesus Christ, our King can save us, there is no other savior. And the good news is, He wants to save us. He’s the only solution to the problems. And that’s the great revelation of Divine Mercy, God’s desire to pour out His mercy on our times. What scripture shows us is a God who is not distant and absent. It shows a God who acts. We have like the great example of the Exodus when God liberated hundreds of 1000s of people from slavery. And at the core of our faith, there’s God who becomes flesh, who becomes God with us, not far away, but so near, one of us, for the redemption. And the Acts of the Apostles shows the Holy Spirit acting powerfully in the Church. And I just mentioned some more examples of how throughout the history of the Church, especially in the lives of the saints, in the great and so many of the great devotions of the Church, like the Rosary, the scapular, the great apparitions in the Church, but also God acting here today, in this great Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, changing the bread and wine into His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.  A God who is close, a God who is acting today, but if God is close and acting, why is the world still such a mess? What’s wrong? Because it’s not only God wanting to act and pour out His mercy, but He also is calling for our cooperation. St. Paul says that we are called to be God’s coworkers. And I love that sense that very practical, realistic sense of coworkers with God. And for me all these 20 years with the Mission of Divine Mercy has been like a long apprenticeship of learning to work with God. But it’s very mysterious, to work with God. It’s very mysterious. God is very mysterious. The Gospel today shows us an example of that, where the mystery of God who is this great king, that we see Him as a crucified criminal. So what God calls for is our cooperation. He calls above all, first of all for our faith. And that’s the charism of the mission, faith so that God can act. And as Jesus says so often, to St. Faustina, His mercy, to be able to pour it out, it needs our trust, our faith. But faith and trust, as you know, is not always easy, because sometimes God seems absent. We say, Lord, how can you let this happen? Are you even here? Are you, do you even care? Are you even listening? Faith is difficult. But that’s the great cooperation that He is asking from us. And faith leads us, and this is key, to seek His will. Because our tendency is to seek our own will. And faith leads us to try to obey, to seek His will. So, to be attentive to the ways that God manifests His will. I mentioned prophets is one. But there’s many other ways, to Scripture, to the teacher, the Church, to circumstances, so many ways that God is guiding us. But it’s up to each one of us to decide if we’re going to be attentive to Him. And the great example, we have, of course, is our Blessed Mother, who God was able to act. Why as, as Elizabeth, moved by the Holy Spirit says of her, “blessed is she who believed that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled.” That is what Elizabeth is praising, what the Holy Spirit is praising to Elizabeth, is not just Mary’s belief in the Old Testament, but Mary’s believing what the Lord had said personally to her. Which didn’t have the stamp of any Church authorities or any temple authorities, Mary had to make that act of faith on her own. And because of her faith, God was able to act. So that’s very basic, faith so that God can act, it’s very basic, but unfortunately, it’s too lacking. So, after trying to follow this path, in the community, which I was in a good community with a lot of good persons, a lot of good priests, and brothers. But after trying and sensing it, this was not something they were open to.  I got permission to try in another community that didn’t work out. So finally, it was in January of 2001, that I got permission to do something, which I had been resisting for a long time, but finally, I felt if I kept resisting, I’d be resisting the Lord, which was to start a new community, which I didn’t want to do. January 2001. And so, then we came up to New Braunfels, 20 years ago, and we lived happily ever after. I wish, I wish. So, 20 years later, it hasn’t quite always been happily ever after. So just three points. Looking back, the first, it’s been very hard. Very hard, I don’t recommend it, very hard. It feels to me like, this little mission feels like a little boat, way out in the sea. The boats riding very low in the water in these big waves. And the boat is always on the point of being, you see it’s a wave, do you think well, that’s it, that’s the last one. And it’s been like that for pretty much 20 years. You have to be very careful in your boat like that. Because it’s you know, it’s not easy. And with all that’s going on in the Church, it’s not easy. It’s been faith, that’s nice faith, you can say real fast, faith so God can act, sounds great rah, rah. But faith is essential in the process. It’s often a dark night. And the trials of our little mission haven’t been physical suffering so much. We’ve had plenty to eat, we’ve had good housing. But they’ve been trials, terrible trials of faith, of obscurity of seeming contradiction, sometimes feeling stabbed in the back by God, which is not a good feeling. And so, what’s helped me, it was again, to turn to Scripture. Let’s see, for instance, the long passage through the desert, Abraham has been very helpful for me.  Abraham, who was old and sterile, when the Lord calls him and promises him an immense, an immense descendants. And the mission of Divine Mercy. in many ways, I feel that because we have very few vocations for different reasons. But I think the main reason is, it’s not yet God’s time. And so, Abraham had to respond, decide how he was going to respond to what God said to him, to God’s promises. He didn’t know when God was going to respond. He didn’t know how God was going to respond. And so, Abram was already 75 years old, and God tells him this, and it’s many, many years, over 20 years, and no sign of God’s response. He had to wait on the Lord. And so much of the trial of our little Mission of Divine Mercy has been learning to wait on the Lord. So much of Scripture actually, and it’s helpful for me to see, is about waiting on the Lord. And it was through that faithfulness, and waiting that Abraham bore great fruit. Another thing that’s helpful for me to understand the mystery of the God’s path for us, is the hidden life of Jesus. So many years in which He didn’t seem to be doing anything about the urgent needs of His people.   He was just living this simple little life of a carpenter in Nazareth, when there were so many needs, and He’s God, and He could do everything. And I think in many ways, the Mission of Divine Mercy, still living, living that hidden life, waiting for God’s time. Another thing, of course, is Jesus’ path, Jesus, the King, His path of the cross, the path of the cross, which is a path of humiliation, and a sacrifice, in which a great mystery is hidden. So that’s the first point, that has been very hard. The second point, as I look back over these 20 years, is discerning, because I’ve had to ask myself many times, is this really from God? Was I just mistaken? Is this my idea, did I get off on the wrong track sometime. And now I’m also responsible for other people who are crazy enough to also be part of this, this path? That’s a lot of responsibility. So that’s been for me discerning all these 20 years, always trying to make sure is this from the Lord? Yeah. And how does Jesus tell us to discern? He says, by its fruits, but a key thing for me has been that Jesus doesn’t say by the quantity of the fruits, because the quantity is often not yet visible. Like St. Therese when she died, it would have seemed like her life hadn’t born much fruit, but quantity is often hidden. But Jesus says to discern, by the type, by the quality of fruit, are they good fruits or bad fruits? And that’s been so for instance, it’s occurred to me. I mean, just today, again, a person has told me how much peace and solace she feels when she comes out to the mission. We hear that all the time, people saying how much peace I’ve experienced, you’re sensing God’s presence. And we say, it’s good that you’re feeling peace, because the rest of us are not.  Y’all are soaking up all the peace, and we’re left with the struggle, though we’re glad that you’re getting the peace. We’re getting the Purgatory, you’re getting the peace. That’s good. So, it’s good, but that so many over the 20 years, so many signs of graces that people are receiving of God’s fruit. And so, the helpful thing to me looking back after 20 years, there is a track record, which makes it easier to discern. And really, I can say, I have proof that the Mission of Divine Mercy is from God. Because if it has survived for 20 years with someone like me, that must be God’s help. I think of Don Gobbi, who was asking our Blessed Mother, why did you choose me, and the response from her was, if I could have chosen, if I could have found someone less competent, I would have chosen them. But I needed them to show that this is from God, and not from man. So, discernment, this time of 20 years looking back at the chance for discernment. The third point is, it’s an opportunity for Thanksgiving. We’re just a few days from our great national feast of Thanksgiving. And so, it’s a time of great Thanksgiving. For so many gifts, it has been very hard. There’s also been so many signs from the Lord and especially the contribution of so many people. Thank you, first of all, of the community members of Mother Magdalene, and Sister Amapola, who have been with this crazy journey from the start, and Maria Felicitas whose service and sacrifice contributed so much to this mission until she went to be with the Lord. And Father Moses, who also played such an important part in this critical early years before he was led elsewhere. We just had a very good visit from his parents a couple of weeks ago. And then brother Mikael came, and then years later, brother Daniel, and then two consecrated lay persons, Peter, and Susanna, and then Ramundo, who had been with us at the very beginning and now the Lord has called him back.  All of them know, each one of them, how difficult this path has been, and so on. God bless them for hanging in there. And they Amici Christi, who are the members who bring this out to their different states, situations in the world, like the legs, and feet of the mission, bring it out to their families and situations. And all our families, I have my mom here, present all our families who where our vocations first took root. And the staff and volunteers of this mission, the mission would not be possible, would not be able to function, we’re so small, without so much dedication, so many sacrifices from our staff, and volunteers who each day share in the spirit and struggles as a sharing in the vocation in the mission of MDM.  And then there’s all the Bethany members, all the friends of the mission, all of you. I often hear people ask me, how does the mission support itself? I often ask myself, how does this mission support itself, because we have no regular source of income for 20 years, the mission and all that’s happened here, and you know, things are not cheap. All that’s happened here has been through a continuous miracle, of generosity, of time, of service, of expertise, and financial support, other valuable gifts. And it makes sometimes it makes me think of the generosity that Jesus just spoke to us, of the widow giving all that she had. Also, the friendship, which is so important. The friendship in this difficult path, the prayers and the sacrifice, that only God knows how much you all have contributed.   So, this mission survived because so many people have been a part of it. That’s why we call it the Bethany Association because Bethany represents where those three siblings (who are such good friends of Jesus,) Lazarus, Saint Mary Magdalene, and St. Martha lived. Because so all of that is part of the mission of Divine Mercy. All the saints, all the holy souls in Purgatory, all the angels. And with our Blessed Mother, especially God Himself, it’s God’s providence, which has brought us to this little corner of the Texas Hill Country. I have to say that God and I are sometimes barely on speaking terms. Because I haven’t been always too happy with some of the things. So many times, I’ve said to Him, remember, Lord, this was your idea. I didn’t want to do this. But looking back, looking back, it’s helpful to look back on this long path and see so many signs of His hand. So many signs of His love. And so, in conclusion, conclusion, that’s a good word, right? Finally, I’m going to stop.. So, the first – what was the first one I said? Mystery, mystery. First word, (prophecy is a good word too,) but mystery, mystery. But I want to leave you with a second word, which I think is foundational for this mission. And it is hope, hope. In these very difficult times of trial and tribulation that we’re going through, in which the Church often seems like Jesus, in the Gospel today before Pilate, abandoned and betrayed even by its own ministers, by its own pastors, seemingly defeated, seemingly dying, condemned by the world. And yet the prophetic words we heard in Scripture today, give hope. And so, with our Blessed Mother, let us hear those words from Daniel, who sees in his vision of the night, “one like the Son of man, coming on the clouds of heaven, who received dominion, glory and kingship, His dominion is an everlasting dominion, that shall not be taken away, His kingship shall never be destroyed.” And then St. John, who received the apocalypse for our times, for our Church, and he also has a great vision. And he says, “These are the words, his words of prophecy. Jesus Christ is the faithful witness. To him be glory and power forever and ever. Behold, He is coming. Amid the clouds Behold, He is coming.” St. John says He is coming soon. Soon. Lord, that’s been a long time.  Soon every eye will see Him. I am the Alpha and the Omega says the Lord God, the One who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. The sufferings of these times are actually the labor pains of a new birth. The Triumph the Lord has announced of His mercy and all of us, and I think this little MDM, and all of us are called to be a little part of His great reconquest, the great triumph of His mercy. Jesus Christ is the King of kings. Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen.