Mary, The Cause of Our Joy! - Spring/Summer 2024

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Taken from this issue of the the Mary, Cause of Our Joy Newsletter:

Letter from Father Hewko


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Spring 2024

Dear Friends of the Cross,

The triumph of the Cross of Christ is surrounded with “Alleluia’s” in Paschal time, like a shining trophy encircled by wreaths and flowers. Christ the King died on the Cross and was buried, rigor mortis having set in. But He Who is Life Itself, by dying, gave us life. He was the first to rise from death at His triumphant Resurrection! Forty days later, at the occasion of Our Lord’s Ascension into Heaven, He escorted millions of saints into the Heavenly City from Limbo. Truly, Christ’s Immaculate Flesh washes and cleanses sinful man’s flesh by His Most Precious Blood, and frees him from the chains sin, death, and eternal punishment. Here’s what a verse of the Vespers Hymn of the Ascension chants:

Tremunt videntes Angelo
Versam vicem mortalium:
Peccat caro, mundat caro
Regnat Deus Dei caro.

Which means:

The Angels tremble as they
see the change in Man’s destiny.
Flesh had sinned. Flesh washes
away that sin and God made flesh
reigns as God!

Then, fifty days after His Resurrection, God the Father and the Son sent the Holy Ghost upon the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Apostles, and one hundred twenty disciples. With fiery tongues He inflamed their hearts and minds with wisdom and zeal and they began to fearlessly preach the Holy Faith, when before, they took cover and trembled “for fear of the Jews.”

Now we bask in the sunlight and the lush fruits of the Holy Ghost in paschaltide and the outpouring of the excess of the love of the Holy Trinity. The Feast of the Holy Trinity crowns the entire Church year. Then we can enjoy these fruits with the Feast of Corpus Christi, which is the sweet Fruit Who has come down to us from Heaven, born of the Virgin Mary, “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus!” He becomes our Food to eat! “I am the Living Bread which hath come down from Heaven” (St. Jn. 6:51).

Eight days later, as specifically requested by the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Himself, to St. Margaret Mary in the 1600’s, Mother Church inflames us to adore and honor the Kingly Heart of Jesus. When someone gives their heart it symbolizes that they give all they can possibly give. This eight day Octave, and both feasts at the start and end, namely, Corpus Christi and ending with the Feast of the Sacred Heart, highlight this very point; that the Holy Eucharist is none other Christ the King, Himself, giving us His Burning Heart in Holy Communion!

“The Eucharist is the supreme proof of the love of Jesus. After this, there is nothing more but Heaven itself!” said St. Peter Julian Eymard.

We mustn’t underestimate the fruitfulness of spiritual communions, which all the saints practiced and encouraged to be always united to the Heart of Our Lord.

St. Leonard of Port Maurice had this to say, “If you practice the holy exercise of Spiritual Communion a good many times each day, within a month you will see yourself completely changed.”

And Padre Pio, “Go to the Tabernacle in spirit when you are unable to do so physically, and there pour out your ardent desires, talk, pray, and embrace the Beloved of our souls, even more than if you have been permitted to receive Him sacramentally.”

Psalm 33:9 says: “O taste and see that the Lord is sweet; blessed is the man that hopeth in him!”

Often, we are left these days with no Tabernacle to visit the Divine Prisoner, infrequent Masses and confessions, but, in spite of all this, these absences can be supplied and made up for, by the enlarged desire to receive Our Lord, to be forgiven of our sins and be inflamed with His grace. St. Augustine urges us to open our hearts wide for Our Lord, Who is so good, and wants to fill it with His treasures. The Heart of Jesus expresses this in Psalm 80:11: “For I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide and I will fill it!”

As we celebrate the upcoming solemnities and feast days of the saints in June, July, August, and September, with all the miracles and teachings of Our Lord in the Gospels of the Sundays after Pentecost, let us beg the Holy Ghost to till our souls like a garden, where God the Heavenly Farmer, (“My Father is a farmer…” St. Jn. 15:1), will help us eradicate the weeds of our sins, water it with prayer, give it black soil of humility and contrition, and shine the warmth of His abundant graces on us! So that He may effectively make it produce many fruits of virtues and the Gifts of the Holy Ghost in our souls!

“But let him ask in faith, not wavering!” (St. James 1:6).

And from the authoress of Story of a Soul, “We can never have too much confidence in the good God…As we hope in Him, so we shall receive. I am certain that even if I had on my conscience every imaginable crime, I should lose nothing of my confidence; rather I would hurry, with a broken heart with sorrow, to throw myself into the Arms of my Jesus!” (St. Therese of the Child Jesus).

“Let us come with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and may find grace in seasonable aid!” (Hebrews 4:16; Introit for Mass of the Immaculate Heart on August 22).

In Christ the King,

Fr. David Hewko

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