The liturgy of the Lenten season gives precedence to the week days of Lent over the celebration of those saints who would otherwise be celebrated as memorials or optional memorials. They become "commemorations". And I miss these celebrations of saints ....
Yesterday (9th March) would have seen the celebration of St Frances of Rome. MAGNIFICAT included as its "Meditation of the Day" an extract from an address by Pope Benedict XVI during a visit in 2009 to the monastery of the order of Benedictine oblates founded by St Frances. I was particularly struck by the following section, which reflects the charism of St Frances which is both prayerful and charitable. It is the connection of the gift of a motherhood to that of religious self-gift that caught my attention.
..... I wish to emphasise the feminine dimension: women, who belong wholly to God and wholly to their neighbour; women who are capable of recollection and of generous and discreet service in conversation with Christ and in first-hand experience in the area of charity, assistance to the sick, to the marginalised, to minors in difficulty. This is the gift of a motherhood that is one with religious self-gift, after the model of Mary Most Holy. Let us think of the mystery of the Visitation. Immediately after conceiving the Word of God in her heart and in her flesh, Mary set out to go and help her elderly kinswoman Elizabeth. Mary's heart is the cloister where the Word continues to speak in silence, and at the same time it is the crucible of a charity that is conducive to courageous gestures, as well as to a persevering and hidden sharing.
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