‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ Sunday Reflections, The Baptism of the Lord, Year C

Baptism of Christ, El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Note: In each of the above you will find an alternative First Reading, Responsorial Psalm and Second Reading that may be used in Year C. The Gospel below is always used in Year C.

Gospel Luke 3: 15-16, 21-22 (New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition)   

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah,  John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened,  and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

The Baptism of Christ, Francesco Mochi [Web Gallery of Art]

The Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.

At our baptism the Father spoke the same words to each of us, his beloved sons and daughters. At Mass last Tuesday these powerful words of St John were read: God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:9-10).

At our baptism, as at the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan God's love was revealed among us. What greater assurance can we have of God's love?

In 1984 a young person in Belgium full of anger towards everything connected with religion wrote a letter to an older person, a layman, expressing his feelings. The older man replied, in part:

When I was still a teenager, I discovered that God, in the person of Jesus, loved us and loved me with a love that is foolish, but very real. He suffered the most excruciating torture in order to save us, to save me, to save each one of us personally from the grip of evil, and to enable us to share, if we so will, in his divine life. That, if we accept him, his Father will become our Father, my Father. That Mary, his mother, will also become my mother, our mother.

From that day on my life changed. By that I mean my way of looking at things, because I'm afraid I'm still the same poor chap, with the same faults as before. But my weaknesses don't discourage me any longer: on the contrary, they provide me with a reason for trusting totally in the all-powerful strength of my Father who is also your Father.

The ‘same poor chap’ who wrote that letter was the late King Baudouin of the Belgians who died suddenly in 1993. In it he was taking to heart the words of the First Letter of St John: In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

And in recognising that he himself is still the same poor chap he is acknowledging that Jesus is not ashamed of him, no more than Jesus was ashamed of the sinners he lined up with to be baptized by John, even if he himself was utterly sinless.

King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola, 1969 [Wikipedia]

King Baudouin wasn't ashamed of his subjects or of those who came to his country from elsewhere. The London newspaper, The Independent, carried an astonishing story about his funeral (I've highlighted some parts):

A former prostitute paid an emotional homage to King Baudouin at the funeral Mass. One of a handful of people chosen to deliver orations, Luz, a Filipino, praised the King for his fight against the international sex trade. She stood in silence as a writer, Chris de Stoop, read aloud the words she had written. She had met the King when he paid a highly-publicised visit to a brothel in Antwerp, and De Stoop said both the King and Queen had wanted her to address the funeral. This was her homage:

Now my friend passed away, who else can help us? I come from Manila. My family is very poor. I was promised a nice job in Europe. But Belgian men put us in a sex club. Belgian men put us in prostitution. We cried and we refused. But nobody could help us. We were forced. We were treated like slaves. When I could run away, I was arrested by police. I had many problems. 

Last year the King came to see us in Antwerp. We were five girls there. We cried again but it was different tears. The King was holding my arm. He listened to me. Only the King listened to us. He was shocked. There are too many victims here. From Manila. From Bangkok. From Santo Domingo. From Budapest. From eastern Europe. All looking for a better life in the West. All pushed into prostitution. The King was fighting against this sex trade. He was standing up for us. He was a real king. I called him my friend.

Mary Magdalene in Penitence, El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

King Baudouin, living his faith in Jesus Christ, brought hope into the lives of people on the margins, the hope that Jesus brought into the world by standing with us sinners in the River Jordan. The King himself had suffered much in his lifetime. His mother, Princess Astrid of Sweden, died in a car accident when he was only five. He, his sister and brother, with their father King Leopold III were under house arrest during World War II and spent part of it in Germany. In 1951 Leopold, a cause of bitter division in Belgium because of his surrender to Nazi Germany in 1940, abdicated and his elder son took over, not yet 21.

In 1960 the young king married Doña Fabiola de Mora y Aragón from Spain. To their great sorrow, they had no children. Queen Fabiola had five miscarriages.

In 1990 King Baudouin asked the government to declare him temporarily unable to reign so that he wouldn't have to sign a bill legalising abortion. The government agreed. The King's stand was one of principle, though he was unable to stop the law coming into force.

King Baudouin went to Mass every day and to confession regularly. The baptism of Jesus by St John the Baptist might spur each of us on to avail of the sacrament of reconciliation often and to us priests to make ourselves available for it. The King would write a 'thought for the day' in his pocket diary, a text from the Mass.

And in that diary, after his death, this prayer was found:

Lord, make us suffer with the suffering of others. 

Lord, let us never again keep our happiness to ourselves. 

Make us share the agony of all suffering humanity. 

And deliver us from ourselves, if that is in accordance with your will.

Cardinal Leo Joseph Suenens [Wikipedia]

The king’s biographer, Cardinal Suenens, Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and close friend of the king, writes that Baudouin once confided to a friend his purpose in being King:

To love his country, 

to pray for his country, 

and to suffer for his country.

King Baudouin lived out his baptism as a disciple of Jesus, knowing that through baptism he was a brother of Jesus and of the Belgian people he was called to serve. He lived out the sacrament of matrimony by his great love for his wife and queen, Fabiola. He truly believed that Jesus loved him with a deep personal love.

Though none of us is a king or queen, Jesus, the beloved Son of the Father, loves each of us with that same personal love and draws us into the love of his Father as our Father. And we can adapt King Baudouin’s words in expressing his purpose in being king as our purpose in living out our baptism:

To love our family, community, country, 

to pray for our family, community, country, 

and to suffer for our family, community, country.

Baptistry, Basilica di San Marco, Venice [Web Gallery of Art]

Baisteadh

Leis An Athair Pádraoig Ó Croiligh

Nuair a chaoineann páiste ag an Bhaisteadh

Deirtear go bhfuil sé sona.

An é go dtuigeann an páiste ag an aois sin

An bhaint idir Eaglais agus céasadh Chríost?

Nó an dtuigeann an páiste an chiall

Atá le sagartacht, ríogacht and fáidheoireacht

An uair a chuirtear an ola ar a cheann?

Éide bhán, ola agus coinneall,

Ní mó iad ná an t-uisce a dhoirtear ar a chloigeann.

Agus is comhartha cinnte arís é

Pobal na clainne atá bailithe timpeall.

Umar an bhaiste a aontaíonn an páiste

Le Corp Chríost agus le saol na hEaglaise

Tionchar an phobail agus críonnacht na muintire

A chuireann fás faoin saol úr i gCríost.

From Brúitíní Creidimh published by Foilseacháin Ábhar Spioradálta, 2005.

Baptism

By Fr Pádraig Ó Croiligh

My non-poetic, literal translation from the Irish.

When a child cries during Baptism

It is said to be happy.

Is it that the child at that age understands

The connection between the Church and the Crucifixion of Christ?

Or does the child understand the meaning of

Priesthood, kingship and prophecy

When it is anointed on the head?

A white garment, oil and candle,

None more important than the water poured on its head.

And again, a sign that is certain is

The family community gathered around.

The baptismal font that unites the child

With the Body of Christ and the life of the Church.

The influence of the faithful and the wisdom of the community

Bring growth to this new life in Christ.

Kyrie eleison, Mass of John Paul II

by Polish composer Henryk Jan Botor

100th Death Anniversary of Fr William Doyle SJ

Fr William Doyle SJ

3 March 1873 - 16 August 1917

Today is the one hundredth anniversary of the death of Fr William Doyle SJ, an Irish Jesuit who served as chaplain to Irish regiments in the British Army during the Great War (1914-18) later to be known also as the First World War. 

There is a beautiful post today on Remembering Fr Willie Doyle SJ, the blog of Dr Patrick Kenny, a blog that nourishes one's Catholic Christian faith, with writings by or about Father Willie each day. There are three other posts on the same site today: here, here and here.

Here I simply copy and paste what I posted six years ago. Fr Doyle was killed in Belgium during the Third Battle of Ypres, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele.

This account of Father Willie Doyle's death in Ypres/Ieper, Belgium, while serving as a chaplain in the British Army during The Great War is from Father William Doyle S.J. by Professor Alfred O'Rahilly and taken from the blog Remembering Father William Doyle SJ. Fr Doyle was from Dalkey, County Dublin.

Fr. Doyle had been engaged from early morning in the front line, cheering and consoling his men, and attending to the many wounded. Soon after 3 p.m. he made his way back to the Regimental Aid Post which was in charge of a Corporal Raitt, the doctor having gone back to the rear some hours before. Whilst here word came in that an officer of the Dublins had been badly hit, and was lying out in an exposed position. Fr. Doyle at once decided to go out to him, and left the Aid Post with his runner, Private Mclnespie, and a Lieutenant Grant. Some twenty minutes later, at about a quarter to four, Mclnespie staggered into the Aid Post and fell down in a state of collapse from shell shock. Corporal Raitt went to his assistance and after considerable difficulty managed to revive him. His first words on coming back to consciousness were: “Fr. Doyle has been killed!” Then bit by bit the whole story was told. Fr. Doyle had found the wounded officer lying far out in a shell crater. He crawled out to him, absolved and anointed him, and then, half dragging, half carrying the dying man, managed to get him within the line. Three officers came up at this moment, and Mclnespie was sent for some water. This he got and was handing it to Fr. Doyle when a shell burst in the midst of the group, killing Fr. Doyle and the three officers instantaneously, and hurling Mclnespie violently to the ground. Later in the day some of the Dublins when retiring came across the bodies of all four. Recognising Fr. Doyle, they placed him and a Private Meehan, whom they were carrying back dead, behind a portion of the Frezenberg Redoubt and covered the bodies with sods and stones.

On 14 August Remembering Fr William Doyle SJ carried a photo of his last letter to his father, written two days before his death. Read the full post here.

I first learned about Father Willie Doyle from Sister Stanislaus, the Irish Sister of Charity who was principal of the boys' kindergarten I attended in Stanhope St, Dublin. She also prepared us for First Holy Communion. I learned mor about him in my first year in St Columban's College, Dalgan Park, when I entered the seminary there in September 1961. Remembering Fr William Doyle SJ is a blog that is a work of love and a reminder to me of what a priest is called to be.

Prayer for Priests by Fr Doyle

O my God, pour out in abundance Thy spirit of sacrifice upon Thy priests. It is both their glory and their duty to become victims, to be burnt up for souls, to live without ordinary joys, to be often the objects of distrust, injustice, and persecution.

The words they say every day at the altar, 'This is my Body, this is my Blood,' grant them to apply to themselves: 'I am no longer myself, I am Jesus, Jesus crucified. I am, like the bread and wine, a substance no longer itself, but by consecration another.'

O my God, I burn with desire for the sanctification of Thy priests. I wish all the priestly hands which touch Thee were hands whose touch is gentle and pleasing to Thee, that all the mouths uttering such sublime words at the altar should never descend to speaking trivialities.

Let priests in all their person stay at the level of their lofty functions, let every man find them simple and great, like the Holy Eucharist, accessible to all yet above the rest of men. O my God, grant them to carry with them from the Mass of today, a thirst for the Mass of tomorrow, and grant them, ladened themselves with gifts, to share these abundantly with their fellow men. Amen.

'I was able for once to offer the Holy Sacrifice on my knees.' Sunday Reflections, The Transfiguration, Year A

Transfiguration of Christ, Paolo Veronese [Web Gallery of Art]

As the Feast of the Transfiguration is a feast of the Lord  it is celebrated today instead of the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel Matthew 17:1-9 (New Revised  Standard Version, Anglicised CatholicEdition) 

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!’ When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’ And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, ‘Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.’

Father Willie Doyle SJ, in a letter, writes about the Mass he celebrated on Monday 6 August 1917 in the trenches during the Third Battle of Ypres, Belgium, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele.

For once getting out of bed was an easy, in fact, delightful task, for I was stiff and sore from my night’s rest. My first task was to look round and see what were the possibilities for Mass. As all the dug-outs were occupied if not destroyed or flooded, I was delighted to discover a tiny ammunition store which I speedily converted into a chapel, building an altar with the boxes. The fact that it barely held myself did not signify as I had no server and had to be both priest and acolyte, and in a way I was not sorry I could not stand up, as I was able for once to offer the Holy Sacrifice on my knees.

It is strange that out here a desire I have long cherished should be gratified, viz. : to be able to celebrate alone, taking as much time as I wished without inconveniencing anyone. I read long ago in the Acts of the Martyrs of a captive priest, chained to the floor of the Coliseum, offering up the Mass on the altar of his own bare breast, but apart from that, Mass that morning must have been a strange one in the eyes of God's angels, and I trust not unacceptable to Him. 

British trench, Battle of the Somme, 1916

One keeping watch while the others sleep [Wikipedia]

It is clear that Fr Doyle, an Irish Jesuit who had volunteered to serve as a chaplain in the British army during the Great War (1914-1918) and who was assigned to Irish regiments - the whole of Ireland was then part of the United Kingdom - had a profound sense of the presence of God as he celebrated Mass in the tiniest of spaces in a trench unfit for human habitation. He had a deep sense of being graced by God with a deep inner silence despite the noise of shells being fired by both the German and British armies. It was, in a sense, a Transfiguration moment for him.

Peter, James and John got a brief glimpse of the divinity of Jesus Christ when he took them up the mountain. It was a grace for the present and for the future. This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him! It was a grace from God the Father that gave them the courage to preach the Gospel after Pentecost and, for Peter and James, to lay down their lives for the it.

Stretcher bearers, Passchendaele, August 1917 [Wikipedia]

Fr Willie Doyle was more than familiar with scenes such as that in the photo above. He spent much of his days and nights trying to reach wounded and dying soldiers, sometimes including Germans, in order to anoint and give them absolution, to speak a last word of comfort, to assure them that God was not absent from the hell that the First World War was. More than three million soldiers died and more than eight million were wounded in the fighting on the Western Front, of which the Battle of Passchendaele was part, between 1914 and 1918.

One of those who died was my great-uncle, Corporal Lawrence Dowd, an older half-brother of my maternal grandmother, Annie Dowd Collins. He was killed on the day that Father Doyle celebrated Mass in his trench and that he wrote about above, the feast of the Transfiguration, and in the same area. So this Sunday is the 100th anniversary of his death. I do not know if Uncle Larry and Father Willie ever met but my uncle must have known who this heroic priest was as he was known and loved by all the Irish soldiers, Catholic and Protestant, fighting in Flanders.

Fr William Doyle SJ (3 March 1874 - 16 August 1917)

Fr Doyle was killed ten days after my great-uncle. To Raise the Fallen, compiled and edited by Patrick Kenny  and very recently published by Veritas, describes what happened: The precise details surrounding Fr Doyle's death are unclear. But at some time in the late afternoon of 16 August 1917, a group of soldiers led by Lieutenants Marlow and Green got into trouble beyond the front line, and Fr Doyle ran to assist them. It seems that Fr Doyle and the two officers were about to take shelter when they were hit by a German shell and killed. His body was never recovered.

Mass in an Austrian military hospital, 1916 [Wikipedia]

Sir Percival Philips, a war correspondent, wrote in the Daily Express (London) in August 1917: The Orangemen (members of a Protestant organisation, mainly in what is now Northern Ireland) will not forget a certain Roman Catholic chaplain who lies in  a soldier's grave in that sinister plain beyond Ypres. He went forward and back over the battle field with bullets whining about him, seeking out the dying and kneeling in the mud beside them to give them absolution, walking with death with a smile on his face, watched by his men with reverence and a kind of awe until a shell burst near him and he was killed. His familiar figure was seen and welcomed by hundreds of Irishmen who lay in that bloody place. Each time he came back across the field he was begged to remain in comparative safety. Smilingly he shook his head and went again into the storm. He had been with his boys at Ginchy and through other times of stress, and he would not desert them in their agony. They remember him as a saint - they speak his name with tears. (To Raise the Fallen, page 187).

To the hundreds of Irishmen who lay in that bloody place - and to wounded and dying Germans he encountered - Fr Doyle's presence was something of a 'Transfiguration experience'. Through this brave Catholic priest they saw something of the divinity of a loving God, that loving God that he had experienced so many times in unexpected ways and places, the loving God whose presence he was so conscious of as he celebrated Mass on his knees in a muddy hole in a trench ten days before his death.

If we have eyes to see and ears to hear we can see flashes of God's divinity in the actions of those around us, sometimes in the midst of tragedy, of evil, sometimes in the midst of very ordinary events of daily life, sometimes in the midst of joyful circumstances. May God open our eyes and ears to those flashes of his divinity.

At the grave of my Great-uncle Lawrence Dowd in Potijze Chateau Cemetery, Ieper, Belgium, September 2001. Uncle Larry, my maternal grandmother's older half-brother, was killed on the Feast of the Transfiguration, 6 August 1917. I was the first relative to visit his grave, in September 2001.

Our Lady of Beauraing, Our Lady of Banneux, Pray for Belgium

St John Paul II in Beauraing, May 1985 [Source]

In August 1961, a few weeks before I entered St Columban's College, Ireland, to prepare for the missionary priesthood I went on a pilgrimage of the Archdiocese of Dublin to Beauraing, Belgium. We also visited Banneux, not too far away.

Fernande (15), Gilberte (13), and Albert (11) Voisin with Andree (14) and Gilberte (9) Degeimbre [Source]

Our Blessed Mother appeared to five young people aged between 9 and 15 in Beauraing (in photo above) 33 times between November 1932 and January 1933. In February 1943 the Bishop of Namur authorised devotion to Our Lady of Beauraing, also known there as the Virgin of the Golden Heart. The Vatican gave its approval in 1949.

Our Lady of Banneux [Wikipedia]

Our Lady appeared to 12-year-old Mariette Beco in Banneux, Belgium, on eight occasions between 15 January and 2 March 1933. She told the young girl that she was the Virgin of the Poor. Mariette was mocked by many, even members of her own family, but the Bishop of Liège approved the veneration of the Virgin of the Poor in 1942 and the Vatican gave its final approval in 1949.

Mariette Beco at the time of the visions [Wikipedia]

One of my memories of our morning stop in Banneux was serving Mass for a very old priest - he seemed to me to be in his 90s - in a tiny, round chapel. I had never served Mass before but offered my services. I was familiar with the Latin responses as Mass in those days was entirely in Latin but I know that I confused the poor man at the Offertory when I poured water over his fingers before I was supposed to!

Our Lady of Banneux, the Virgin of the Poor, according to Mariette, said, I come to relieve suffering. May she relieve the suffering of the people of Brussels after the bombings yesterday, 22 March. 

May Our Lady of Beauraing and Our Lady of Banneux obtain a renewal of the Catholic faith in Belgium, where it has largely disappeared, though up to two generations ago it was vibrant and with a strong missionary thrust.

Fr Donal McIlraith, Regional Director of the Columbans in Fiji, pointed out to me that in all the apparitions of Our Lady that have been approved by the Church she appeared to poor people.

'Do whatever he tells you.' Sunday Reflections, 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C (Outside the Philippines)

Marriage at Cana (detail), Paolo Veronese, 1571-72

Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, Germany [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel John 2:1-11 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.  Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

A production of the Lumo Project.

Feast of the Santo Niño

On the third Sunday of January the Church in the Philippines celebrates the Feast of the Sto Niño, the Holy Child. These Sunday Reflections focus on the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C. You will find Sunday Reflections for the Feast of the Sto Niño here.

I used this material for the same Sunday three years ago. I have made one or two small changes here. I do believe that the lives of King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola can speak to all Christians no matter what their state of life or social positions are.

Last Sunday I featured the late King Baudouin of the Belgians. This week I feature him again, with Queen Fabiola, who died on 5 December 2014. The King died suddenly on 31 July 1993. The story of how they met is quite remarkable and the late Cardinal Suenens tells the story in his biography of the King, Baudouin, King of the Belgians, The Hidden Life.

The video above has as background music an Irish song that I learned in Grade Three, The Dawning of the Day, in Irish Gaelic Fáinne Geal an Lae, the version I learned. (The singer in the video is Mary Fahl). An Irish song is not at all inappropriate as the matchmaker of the marriage of Baudouin and Fabiola was an Irish woman, Veronica O'Brien. 

Veronica was envoy of the Legion of Mary to France and some other European countries. Much 'cloak and dagger' work was involved in finding a wife and queen for the young king. Much more importantly, much prayer was involved too, prayer that was basically a searching for God's will. They became formally engaged in Lourdes, France, King Baudouin travelling incognito, as he always did when he went there. (There are references online in obituaries of the King and elsewhere to Veronica O'Brien as 'Sister Veronica'. She was not a religious but a lay person. Members of the Legion of Mary address each other as 'Brother' and 'Sister' only during Legion meetings, not elsewhere).

The couple were married in Brussels on 15 December 1960. The video shows photos of both the civil and church ceremonies. In a number of European countries a separate civil ceremony is required by law and takes place before the church celebration. The King wrote in his spiritual diary for that day: Normally we are awake by day and dream at night, but this time it's as if I'm in a dream all day.

On 8 July 1978 Baudouin wrote in his diary: My God, I thank you for having led us by the hand to the feet of Mary, and every day since then, I thank you, Lord, that we have been able to love each other in your Love, and that that love has brown each day.

And Queen Fabiola wrote to Veronica: I knew Our Blessed Lady was a Queen and a Mother, and all sort of other things, but I never knew that she was a Matchmaker!

Quoting the Queen led Cardinal Suenens to quote a Spanish verse:

Cristo dijo a su Madre 

el dia de la Asunción 

no te vaya de este mundo 

sin pasar por Aragón.

Christ said to his Mother 

on the day of the Assumption: 

do not leave this world 

without passing through Aragón.

Before her marriage the Queen was Doña Fabiola de Mora y Aragón.

King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola of the Belgians [Wikimedia]

The Cardinal quotes freely from Baudouin's diary about Queen Fabiola.

Fill Fabiola with your holiness. May she live her life in your joy and your peace. Teach me to love her with your own tenderness . . .

Fabiola is so loving; she warms my heart. Her silent, yet active presence is a source of great joy to me. My God, how you have spoiled me!

Thank you, Jesus, for having nurtured in me an immense love for my wife. Thank you for having given me a spouse whose love for me is second only to her love for You. May we both grow in you, Lord.

When Veronica O'Brien met Fabiola in Spain she asked the young woman, who had no idea why where things were leading, why she had never married. She replied, What can I say? I have never fallen in love up to now. I have put my life into the hands of God. I abandon myself to Him, maybe he is preparing something for me.

Veronica recounted all of this in a letter to the King and concluded, It was utterly astounding, because I knew exactly what God was preparing for her.

Thirty years later the King wrote in his spiritual diary: Mary, show me what I should do so as not to miss an opportunity of loving, of denying myself for your sake, of living the present moment to the full, as if it were my last, and of loving my darling Fabiola infinitely more. yes, Mother, teach me to love her with tenderness, gentleness, thoughtfulness, respect, and teach me to have faith in here . . .

And Baudouin, addressing the Lord, wrote, Teach me too to respect her personality with its differences and its inconsistencies. Jesus, I thank you for having given me this wonderful treasure.

Both King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola in these extracts reflect the spirituality of a book that Cardinal Suenens had given the King before he met his future queen and wife,Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade SJ. One English translation of this masterpiece has the title The Sacrament of the Present Moment, which captures the essence of the book, that God's will is in the present moment.

Shortly before he left for Motril, Spain, in 1993, where he died suddenly, King Baudouin confided to Cardinal Suenens and Veronica, I love Fabiola more and more each day: what an inspiration she is to me!

This led the Cardinal to quote Jean Guitton, the first lay person to be invited to Vatican II as an observer, Love is always fruitful, were it only because it transforms those who love.

Children's Games, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1559-60

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna [Web Gallery of Art]

One of the great sorrows in the life of Baudouin and Fabiola as a married couple was that they had no children. The Queen had five miscarriages. Reflecting on this, the King said to a group visiting the Palace, We have pondered on the meaning of this suffering and, bit by bit, we have come to see that it meant that our heart was freer to love all children, absolutely all children.

In a letter to a young mother the King wrote about a children's party that he and the Queen had hosted at the Palace: In one corner there was a group of handicapped children, several of them with Down's syndrome. I brought over a plateful of toffees to a little girl who had scarcely any manual control. with great difficulty, she succeed in taking a toffee but, to my astonishment, she gave it to another child. then for a long time, without ever keeping one for herself, she distributed these sweets (candies) to all the healthy children who could not believe their eyes. What a depth of love there is in those physically handicapped bodies . . .

One by one the children left. We really felt as if they had become in some sense our children. I think they felt it too. It was a very special afternoon; the presence of the Lord was really tangible. There was such peace and joy. that was pure gift!

I have read Baudouin, King of the Belgians, The Hidden Life, a number of times and each time I am moved by it. I see in it a reflection of what's in today's gospel: his gratitude to God, like the gratitude of all at the wedding feast, not mentioned explicitly but clearly there; his and Fabiola's submission to God's will through Mary: Do whatever he tells you; and the extraordinary generosity of Jesus, God and Man, turning water into  the equivalent of about 500 or 600 bottles of the best wine, a generosity that led Baudouin and Fabiola, who couldn't have children of their own, to see that our heart was freer to love all children, absolutely all children.

When we allow him, Jesus can turn the very ordinary in our lives into the extraordinary, just as a little girl with physical and mental disabilities revealed the presence of God to the King of the Belgians, just as Fabiola, his wife and queen, was a daily revelation of God's loving presence to him.

God has the same desire to reveal himself to each of us every day, specifically in the present moment. And He has given us his Mother, who is our Mother also, to guide us with her words of absolute faith, do whatever he tells you.

The Grotto in Lourdes [Wikipedia]