Day 31 - Jesus, Head of the Body

[MariaChristi]

Dearest Brothers and Sisters,

The First Mass Reading for this Tuesday of Holy Week is again from Isaiah the prophet, and in these words inspired by God, we can hear both Jesus, Head of His Mystical Body the Church, foretold, and we can hear ourselves, members of His Body, and members of one another. As we near the end of our 33 Day Journey of preparation to consecrate ourselves totally (or to re-consecrate ourselves more totally than ever before), let us, by God’s Grace, continue to pray fervently to the Holy Spirit and our Mother Mary, to “see” by faith, all God is revealing to us in His Word:

Reading 1 IS 49:1-6

Hear me, O islands,
listen, O distant peoples.
The LORD called me from birth,
from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.
He made of me a sharp-edged sword
and concealed me in the shadow of his arm.
He made me a polished arrow,
in his quiver he hid me.
You are my servant, he said to me,
Israel, through whom I show my glory.

Though I thought I had toiled in vain,
and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength,
Yet my reward is with the LORD,
my recompense is with my God.
For now the LORD has spoken
who formed me as his servant from the womb,
That Jacob may be brought back to him
and Israel gathered to him;
And I am made glorious in the sight of the LORD,
and my God is now my strength!
It is too little, he says, for you to be my servant,
to raise up the tribes of Jacob,
and restore the survivors of Israel;
I will make you a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

The responsorial psalm touched me also, as these words made me remember Mary as Icon of the Church. The Baptismal Font has been called the “womb” of Mary, for it was in the waters of Baptism we were born again – out of the sin of Adam and Eve and into the Life of Christ:

…On you I depend from birth;
from my mother’s womb you are my strength (Ps. 71:6).

The Litanies of the Holy Spirit and of the Holy Name of Jesus with the Ave Maris Stella need to be prayed daily.