In today's Gospel, our blessed Lord and Savior places above natural relations those that
are supernatural. In other words, we are all the brothers and sisters and mothers of the
Lord if we do the will of God. And again, this is one of those passages that our Protestant
brethren would say is a way of our Lord to show us that Our Lady is not really very important
because when He was informed that our...
Our Blessed Lady was outside with His brethren, His cousins, not His brothers and sisters
necessarily, but His cousins and relatives, that He instead turned this into a teaching
moment, so to speak, and sort of ignored His mother and went on to sort of raise the dignity
of each and everybody there.
But the point, in fact...
If we take it in context, in the context of the rest of our Lord's preaching and the way in which
the Apostles treated the Blessed Mother and the way our Lord treated the Blessed Mother,
we would know that what our Lord is saying is that we're being raised into the dignity of our
Blessed Lady is really what it is. Our Lady is most pleasing to Jesus not because she is His mother
in the physical sense of the word. She is His mother in the physical sense of the word. She is His mother in the physical sense of the word.
Although that is her greatest dignity, being truly the Mother of God.
But rather, she is pleasing to the Lord because she hears the word of God and puts it into practice.
She does the will of God. And the fact that she did the will of God is the reason why salvation came into the world.
Our Lady didn't cooperate with the grace that she had been given by God to be His mother.
Then there would be no salvation.
So our Lady becomes the Mother of God and the instrument of our salvation precisely because she does the will of God.
Today we celebrate the feast day of St. Angela of Marici, who was a Third Order Franciscan and eventually
founded the sisterhood of the Ursuline Company of St. Ursula, or the Ursuline Sisters,
who are dedicated to the Mother of God.
Today is St. Angela's birthday.
St. Angela's birthday was recorded in 1205 A.D.
and came into the education of poor girls.
But before God gave her the inspiration to enter religious life and found this community,
she and two of her companions decided to go to the Holy Land.
And they went on their journey.
And when she got to Crete, the island of Crete,
she was here before a crucifix.
And while she was praying, she was struck blind.
And of course she was very frightened.
and disturbed and her companions were very concerned. And they just assumed, her companions,
that they would turn back and go back to Italy to tend to her needs and see what they could
do for her. But instead she said, no, no, we're going to go on because this is what
we set out to do and this blindness of mine is clearly the will of God. So they did. They
went forward and they went to the Holy Land. Then her two companions led her around blind
to all the holy places. They went to the Holy Sepulchre and to Nazareth and Bethlehem and
all the holy places that pilgrims traditionally went. And she went into each of the shrines
being led by her two companions, completely blind.
And unable to, on a natural level, enjoy the shrines which she visited. But she did make
it to the holy places and venerate the places where our Lord had walked and lived and taught
and suffered and died. Then they left the Holy Land. They went back on their journey
with her two companions, guiding her along the way. When they got back to Crete, which
was more or less halfway on the journey.
They went to that same church where she had been struck blind and she knelt down in front
of the crucifix and gave thanks to God for all the graces she had received. And God restored
her sight at that same crucifix where she had been struck blind and then she went back
to Italy and went on to found the Ursuline sisters. But in this extraordinary miracle
associated with the life of Saint Angela
We have an illustration of someone who was willing to accept the will of God in all circumstances
and found even in suffering and difficulty an occasion to give praise to the Lord
and to be at peace and to give thanks.
And all of us have that opportunity, and this is what makes us pleasing to God.
This is why our Lord took this moment when our lady and our Lord's relatives arrived where he was
to teach them about the things that are most important.
And we always have the ability to do the will of God.
Wherever we are, whatever we're doing, whatever the circumstances, whatever the sufferings or obstacles,
that is one thing that we can always do.
We may not be able to do it.
We may not be able to overcome certain crosses.
We may not be able to have things go our way.
We may not be able to solve other people's problems or even our own problems,
but we can always do the will of God.
That is something that is always with us.
The opportunity is always there.
By fulfilling the duties in our state in life, by being faithful to the moral law,
by being obedient.
By being obedient to our superiors, by accepting our crosses and by recognizing divine providence
in the situation in which we find ourselves.
That is where God's grace is and that is where we find his gift and our salvation.
And so we can turn to our blessed lady who always did the will of God and ask her that we might
in her heart and in her own heart, in her own heart, in her own heart, in her own heart,
in her own humility and obedience, that we might find a way always to do his will and
find our peace and happiness, not only in the next life, but even right now.
Amen.
Et estum benedictum fructum ventris tuum.