Yesterday, 22 August, was the Feast of the Queenship of Our Blessed Lady; I love this feast day for a specific reason.  In the 1950’s a brave Jesuit priest, called Fr. Maria, escaped at the risk of his life from Communist Czechoslovakia; he had actually been secretly ordained a bishop, unknown to almost everyone, except a few in the Church. Czechoslovakia was the most oppressive of all the communist regimes – so it is said – and, after his escape, he came to the West to find an antidote to the evil communist regime that he described as “The Mystical Body of Satan”.

People being shot escaping – Museum of Communism in the modern Czech Republic.

 In his search for this ‘antidote’, he realised he needed to find “The Mystical Body of Christ” as something real, and not just something to fit a vague theory. Eventually, he was led by events to the first ever Mariapolis, at Tonadico in the Dolomites; it was there that he realised that what he saw, with his own eyes, (cf 1 John 1), was a true expression of the unity that brings Jesus to birth among us.  He had found the answer to his search. Mystically, Mary the mother of God, was bringing Jesus to birth again – in a new way – and  in our world. A book could have been written of his adventures.

First Mariapolis at Tonadico in the Dolomites 1949

On this day, but in another year of the 1950’s, a group of laity, religious and diocesan priests made a pact in which they wanted to be – if God so willed it – the ‘Mystical body of Christ’ that would overcome the evil that Fr. Maria had described as “The Mystical Body of Satan”. 

Nowadays, communism is dead for a large part of humanity, though not for China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam; however, Satan is very much alive and is doing his level best to make the society in which we live intolerant to the presence of God and all the values associated with God: truth, beauty, purity, trust, forgiveness, mercy, joy – all leading to love – the raison d’être of all human beings.  In our world, without communism, we still need to live as a community in which God is born again; “The Word can be made Flesh in our time” –  “The Mystical Body” – whether we call it of Christ, himself, or of Mary, who brings Christ to birth. 

Jesus, Forsaken on the Cross, and Mary, Desolate, come into this picture.  For anyone to live in God, and with others, then, personally, and, everyday, he is invited to take up his cross (Luke 9: 23). Jesus Forsaken, we find in ourselves, in others, and in many circumstances.  When he was forsaken by God, and by man, he showed his Love the most. So when we meet him like this, he is our true friend, the one we can love the most. For me it is still taking time to absorb and understand what all this means; I think it will be a life-long journey of discovery. It reads as a negative experience that happens from time to time, and is simply a part of life, though a very distressing part. At the same time, it can be the ‘springboard’ to new life!

On the Cross – A Painting of Jesus Forsaken by God and Man

When I am feeling lost, betrayed, a failure (through my own fault or the fault of others – it matters not); when I am ‘cornered’ in despair, or just weary and utterly’ fed up’, it is my friend showing himself to me.  I meet him then, forsaken, and it is never – humanly speaking – easy, but it is Jesus in his forsakenness, who is my / our only good.  When I let that sink in, and then go out to be a loving person, in all the circumstances of life in which I find myself, then Jesus is able to show himself to me if I am open to him. It is his gift of grace.  I meet THE ONE, who is THE LOVE of my life. This personal choice is made all the more true and ‘enlightening’ when I have a community of faith with which to share, to share with others.  I do not share the details of the suffering, but share the fruits of overcoming those sufferings, by his grace, when and if, those fruits occur. I know they will occur even though it may not be immediate, and these are the virtues of hope and of faith, leading to love. God is Love! (1 John 4: 8). What more do I need if God is one with me?

 The ‘Pieta’ by Michelangelo

However, sometimes, I am left alone; sometimes, I feel alone;  sometimes, I feel lonely.  When that happens, it is necessary to take on the virtues as lived by Mary, Desolate. She was alone, and lost, many times in her life, but she always hoped, and always lived the virtues of patience, purity, meekness, long-suffering and so forth.  Basically like Jesus, she did not sin, but had all the temptations to do so, and she needed, consciously, to turn away from sin, even though she was immaculate. 

Living our spiritual lives in the ‘Mystical Body’ day by day, is living in that heaven-sent space between our two great friends, Jesus, Forsaken and Crucified, and Mary, Desolate, whose greatest loneliness was at the foot of the cross. That is where she was utterly desolate – expressed for me in art by the finest image of her – in Michelangelo’s ‘Pieta’.  This may sound like a pious exercise; in fact, it is a very strong human experience – one that leads to a person growing into the human being he, or she, is meant to be. 

If I can manage this challenge, and find others who live the same challenge, then God will truly allow me to live as a member of the Mystical Body, that ‘engine’ which ‘generates’ the presence of the Lord, in whose mystical body we live. In heaven, and on earth, that Mystical Body has Mary as its Queen, the great feast celebrating her Queenship falling on 22 August, each year.

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