by Sister Lilla Marie Lottinger

What a gold mine we have been given in the Catholic faith. We’re sitting on a goldmine and only a small remnant are really aware of it.

Our present Holy Father, John Paul II, has been trying to anchor the Church to the two pillars of devotion to Mary and the Eucharist, as was prophesied in St. John Bosco’s dream in 1862: “There will be chaos in the Church. Tranquility will not return until the Holy Father succeeds in anchoring the Church to the two pillars of devotion to Mary and the Eucharist.”

John Paul II, at the beginning of this new millennium wrote us a letter, Novo Millenio Inuente, and in it he said, “Duc en Altum!” encouraging us to “cast out into the deep” in our relationship with Christ and through Him with our Triune God – by contemplating the “face of Christ.”

Then he sent us another letter which he said was a “Marian compliment” to Novo entitled Rosarium Virginis Mariae, and in it he said to contemplate the face of Christ especially through the heart of His Mother who knows and loves Him best.

Then he sent us another letter entitled Eucharistia de Ecclesia, and in it he said “To contemplate the face of Christ, and to contemplate it with Mary, is the ‘programme’ which I have set before the Church at the dawn of the third millennium…To contemplate the face of Christ…above all in the living sacrament of His Body and His Blood.”

Our present Holy Father, the vicar of Christ on earth, has set out a programme for the Church that will help us to grow and flourish in the fullness of what we are called to be as the “spotless bride”—and thus enter into the “new springtime.”

Key ways of responding to this programme and anchoring to these two pillars are: praying the Holy Rosary, consecrating our lives to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, frequenting the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist and spending time in Eucharistic adoration to get to know Jesus ever more personally.

So strong is his appeal for us to pray the rosary that John Paul II says in his letter: “I turn particularly to you, my dear brother bishops, priests and deacons, and to you, pastoral agents in your different ministries: through your own personal experience of the beauty of the Rosary, may you come to promote it with conviction…

"I look to all of you, brothers and sisters of every state of life, to you, Christian families, to you, the sick and elderly, and to you, young people: confidently take up the Rosary once again. May this appeal of mine not go unheard!

As a means of growing in devotion to these two pillars, we are called to enter into a more personal and intimate relationship with our Heavenly Mother and our Eucharistic Lord.

First of all, devotion to the two pillars is devotion to the two Hearts. Jesus and Mary are so alive and present in our midst, and Their Hearts are so clearly living and beating among us. This is why we see statues and pictures of Mary crying – not only regular tears, but at times tears of blood. Her heart is alive and loves us so intensely, that she weeps even tears of blood. This is why we see more Eucharistic miracles of Jesus, where the Sacred Host bleeds, now more than ever before. He’s telling us in a very concrete way, “my Sacred Heart is living and beating among you!”

May we all have the grace to turn to our Eucharistic Lord and our Immaculate Mother who so long for us to enter into a filial, personal and intimate relationship of life with Them. They long to embrace us and become one with us in order to draw us into the Father’s eternal embrace.

Their Hearts ache when we are not open and receptive to their love.

The Scriptures tell us of the stance we are to have with God and with our Heavenly Mother:

“As a child has rest in it’s mother’s arms, so my soul rests in You my God” (Isaiah).

“Oh that you may suck fully of the milk of her comfort, that you may nurse with delight at her abundant breasts!” (Isaiah) (In this Scripture “her” is referring to the “New Jerusalem” who represents the Church and Mary in a sense. The Scripture expresses in a symbolic way our call to a stance of such openness, vulnerability, receptivity and thirst for the Living God.)

July 2004

Return to archive page