USCCA12- Episode 12- Mary: The Church’s First and Most Perfect Member
Archbishop Lucas offers insights on the US Catholic Catechism for Adults Chapter 12:
The Second Vatican Council remains us that Mary is a member of the Church who “occupies a place in the Church which is the highest after Christ and also closest to us” (LG, no. 54). She is the first and the greatest of all the disciples of Christ.
The Most Reverend George J. Lucas leads the Archdiocese of Omaha.
We wish to thank the USCCB for the permissions granted for use of relevant material used in this series. Also we wish to thank Fr. Ryan Lewis for his vocal talents in this episode.
4Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.25So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”o26Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”p27Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”28*q Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”29* Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?rBlessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”
Msgr. John A. Esseff is a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Scranton. He was ordained on May 30th 1953, by the late Bishop William J. Hafey, D.D. at St. Peter’s Cathedral in Scranton, PA. Msgr. Esseff served a retreat director and confessor to Blessed Mother Teresa. He continues to offer direction and retreats for the sisters of the missionaries of charity around the world. Msgr. Esseff encountered St. Padre Pio, who would become a spiritual father to him. He has lived in areas around the world, serving in the Pontifical missions, a Catholic organization established by Bl. Pope John Paul II to bring the Good News to the world especially to the poor. Msgr. Esseff assisted the founders of the Institute for Priestly Formation and continues to serve as a spiritual director for the Institute. He continues to serve as a retreat leader and director to bishops, priests and sisters and seminarians and other religious leaders around the world.
To obtain a copy of Msgr. Esseff’s book by visiting here
One of our all-time favorite conversations, one of our all-time favorite books…Anthony DeStefano’s “A Travel Guide to Heaven”! (Has it really been 10 years since this was published?) Filled with “Of course, that makes sense…” moments, this is a gem for the ages. A timeless read that I revisited recently that brought such encouragement and joy to my heart, that I wanted to share it, along with this classic discussion with Anthony, with all those who come to Discerning Hearts. Anthony is as much fun to talk to as he is to read! Enjoy!
Using the Bible as his guide, the author notes that heaven is not only a spiritual place, but also a physical place, a fabulous “luxury resort” more sumptuous than any on Earth. The residents are real, their bodies transformed into their most perfect selves—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. By making a spiritual subject immensely physical, the book provides a picture of amazing places to visit, things to do, luxuries for pampering—not to mention deep, abiding joy.
Combining the clarity and logic of C. S. Lewis with a terrific sense of fun and adventure, DeStefano creates a brilliant, reassuring portrait of heaven, a place that has intrigued and puzzled humankind throughout history.
Msgr. Esseff reflects on the Ten Commandments, The desecration of the Temple, and the resurrection of Jesus. How are these things connected and related to our lives today?
Since the Passover of the Jews was near,
Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves,
as well as the money changers seated there.
He made a whip out of cords
and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen,
and spilled the coins of the money changers
and overturned their tables,
and to those who sold doves he said,
“Take these out of here,
and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”
His disciples recalled the words of Scripture, Zeal for your house will consume me.
At this the Jews answered and said to him,
“What sign can you show us for doing this?”
Jesus answered and said to them,
“Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”
The Jews said,
“This temple has been under construction for forty-six years,
and you will raise it up in three days?”
But he was speaking about the temple of his body.
Therefore, when he was raised from the dead,
his disciples remembered that he had said this,
and they came to believe the Scripture
and the word Jesus had spoken.
While he was in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover,
many began to believe in his name
when they saw the signs he was doing.
But Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all,
and did not need anyone to testify about human nature.
He himself understood it well.
Msgr. John A. Esseff is a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Scranton. He was ordained on May 30th 1953, by the late Bishop William J. Hafey, D.D. at St. Peter’s Cathedral in Scranton, PA. Msgr. Esseff served a retreat director and confessor to Blessed Mother Teresa. He continues to offer direction and retreats for the sisters of the missionaries of charity around the world. Msgr. Esseff encountered St. Padre Pio, who would become a spiritual father to him. He has lived in areas around the world, serving in the Pontifical missions, a Catholic organization established by Bl. Pope John Paul II to bring the Good News to the world especially to the poor. Msgr. Esseff assisted the founders of the Institute for Priestly Formation and continues to serve as a spiritual director for the Institute. He continues to serve as a retreat leader and director to bishops, priests and sisters and seminarians and other religious leaders around the world.
To obtain a copy of Msgr. Esseff’s book byvisiting here
Archbishop Lucas offers insights on the US Catholic Catechism for Adults Chapter 11:
“In the earliest professions of faith, the Catholic Church identified herself as “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.” We find these words in the Nicene Creed professed at Sunday Mass. Traditionally, they refer to what are known as the four marks of the Church, traits that identify the Church before the world.”
The Most Reverend George J. Lucas leads the Archdiocese of Omaha.
We wish to thank the USCCB for the permissions granted for use of relevant material used in this series. Also we wish to thank Omar Gutierrez for his vocal talents in this episode.
17. “Coeli enarrant gloriam Dei.” 101 This is what the heavens are telling: the glory of God.
Since my soul is a heaven in which I live while awaiting the “heavenly Jerusalem,” 102 this heaven too must sing the glory of the Eternal, nothing but the glory of the Eternal.
“Day to day passes on this message.” 103 All God’s lights, all His communications to my soul are this “day which passes on to day the message of His glory.” “The command of the Lord is clear,” sings the psalmist, “enlightening the eye. . . .” 104 Consequently, my fidelity in corresponding with each of His decrees, with each of His interior commands, makes me live in His light; it too is a “message which passes on His glory.” But this is the sweet wonder: “Yahweh, he who looks at you is radiant!” 105 the prophet exclaims . The soul that by the depth of its interior gaze contemplates its God through everything in that simplicity which sets it apart from all else is a “ radiant” soul: it is “a day that passes on to day the message of His glory.”
18. “Night to night announces it.” 106 How very consoling that is! My weaknesses, my dislikes, my mediocrity , my faults themselves tell the glory of the Eternal! My sufferings of soul or body also tell the glory of my Master! David sang: “How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good He has done for me?” This: “I will take up the cup of salvation.” 107 If I take up this cup crimsoned with the Blood of my Master and, in wholly joyous thanksgiving, I mingle my blood with that of the holy Victim, it is in some way made infinite and can give magnificent praise to the Father. Then my suffering is “a message which passes on the glory” of the Eternal.
We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series
Anthony Lilles, S.T.D. is an associate professor and the academic dean of Saint John’s Seminary in Camarillo as well as the academic advisor for Juan Diego House of Priestly Formation for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. For over twenty years he served the Church in Northern Colorado where he joined and eventually served as dean of the founding faculty of Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. Through the years, clergy, seminarians, religious and lay faithful have benefitted from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity. After graduating from Franciscan University of Steubenville, he completed licentiate and doctoral studies in spiritual theology at the Angelicum in Rome. In 2012, he published Hidden Mountain, Secret Garden: a theological contemplation of prayer by Discerning Hearts. Married with two young adult children pursuing their careers and a teenager still at home, he has settled in family in Oxnard, California.For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles
18. “Night to night announces it.” 106 How very consoling that is! My weaknesses, my dislikes, my mediocrity , my faults themselves tell the glory of the Eternal! My sufferings of soul or body also tell the glory of my Master! David sang: “How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good He has done for me?” This: “I will take up the cup of salvation.” 107 If I take up this cup crimsoned with the Blood of my Master and, in wholly joyous thanksgiving, I mingle my blood with that of the holy Victim, it is in some way made infinite and can give magnificent praise to the Father. Then my suffering is “a message which passes on the glory” of the Eternal.
19. “There (in the soul that tells His glory) He has pitched a tent for the Sun.” 108 The sun is the Word, the “Bridegroom.” If He finds my soul empty of all that is not contained in these two words— His love, His glory, then He chooses it to be “His bridal chamber”; He “rushes” in “like a giant racing triumphantly on his course” and I cannot “escape His heat.” 109 He is this “consuming fire” 110 which will effect the blessed transformation of which St. John of the Cross speaks when he says: “Each seems to be the other and the two are but one”: 111 a “praise of glory” 112 of the Father!
We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series
Anthony Lilles, S.T.D. is an associate professor and the academic dean of Saint John’s Seminary in Camarillo as well as the academic advisor for Juan Diego House of Priestly Formation for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. For over twenty years he served the Church in Northern Colorado where he joined and eventually served as dean of the founding faculty of Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. Through the years, clergy, seminarians, religious and lay faithful have benefitted from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity. After graduating from Franciscan University of Steubenville, he completed licentiate and doctoral studies in spiritual theology at the Angelicum in Rome. In 2012, he published Hidden Mountain, Secret Garden: a theological contemplation of prayer by Discerning Hearts. Married with two young adult children pursuing their careers and a teenager still at home, he has settled in family in Oxnard, California.For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles
20. “And they do not rest day and night, saying, Holy holy , holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who will be for ages unending. . . . And they fall down and worship Him and they cast down their crowns before the throne, saying, Worthy are you, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power. . . .” 113 How can I imitate in the heaven of my soul this unceasing occupation of the blessed in the Heaven of glory? How can I sustain this uninterrupted praise and adoration? St. Paul gives me light on this when he writes to his followers his wish that “the Father would strengthen them inwardly with power through His Spirit so that Christ would dwell through faith in their hearts, and so that they would be rooted and grounded in love.” 114 To be rooted and grounded in love: such, it seems to me, is the condition for worthily fulfilling its work as praise of glory. The soul that penetrates and dwells in these “depths of God” of which the royal prophets sings, 115 and thus does everything “in Him, with Him, by Him and for Him” with that limpid gaze which gives it a certain resemblance to the simple Being, this soul, by each of its movements, it aspirations, as well as by each of its acts, however ordinary they may be, “is rooted” more deeply in Him whom it loves. Everything within it pays homage to the thrice-holy God: it is so to speak a perpetual Sanctus, an unceasing praise of glory!
Anthony Lilles, S.T.D. is an associate professor and the academic dean of Saint John’s Seminary in Camarillo as well as the academic advisor for Juan Diego House of Priestly Formation for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. For over twenty years he served the Church in Northern Colorado where he joined and eventually served as dean of the founding faculty of Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. Through the years, clergy, seminarians, religious and lay faithful have benefited from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity. After graduating from Franciscan University of Steubenville, he completed licentiate and doctoral studies in spiritual theology at the Angelicum in Rome. In 2012, he published Hidden Mountain, Secret Garden: a theological contemplation of prayer by Discerning Hearts. Married with two young adult children pursuing their careers and a teenager still at home, he has settled in family in Oxnard, California.
21. “They fall down and adore, they cast down their crowns. . . .” First of all the soul should “fall down,” should plunge into the abyss of its nothingness, sinking so deeply into it that in the beautiful expression of a mystic, it finds “true, unchanging, and perfect peace which no one can disturb, for it has plunged so low that no one will look for it there.” 116
Then it can “adore.” Adoration, ah! That is a word from Heaven! It seems to me it can be defined as the ecstasy of love. It is love overcome by the beauty, the strength, the immense grandeur of the Object loved, and it “falls down in a kind of faint” 117 in an utterly profound silence, that silence of which David spoke when he exclaimed: “Silence is Your praise!” 118 Yes, this is the most beautiful praise since it is sung eternally in the bosom of the tranquil Trinity; and it is also the “last effort of the soul that overflows and can say no more . . .” (Lacordaire). 119
“Adore the Lord, for He is holy,” 120 the Psalmist says. And again: “They will adore Him always because of Himself.” 121 The soul that is absorbed in recollection of these thoughts, that penetrates them with “this mind of God” 122 of which St. Paul speaks, lives in an anticipated Heaven, beyond all that passes, beyond the clouds, beyond itself! It knows that He whom it adores possesses in Himself all happiness and all glory and, “casting its crown” before Him as the blessed do, it despises self, loses sight of self, and finds its beatitude in that of the adored Being, in the midst of every suffering and sorrow. For it has left self, it has “passed” 123 into Another. It seems to me that in this attitude of adoration the soul “resembles those wells” of which St. John of the Cross speaks, 124 which receive “the waters that flow down from Lebanon,” and we can say on seeing it: “The impetus of the river delights the City of God.” 125
Anthony Lilles, S.T.D. is an associate professor and the academic dean of Saint John’s Seminary in Camarillo as well as the academic advisor for Juan Diego House of Priestly Formation for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. For over twenty years he served the Church in Northern Colorado where he joined and eventually served as dean of the founding faculty of Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. Through the years, clergy, seminarians, religious and lay faithful have benefited from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity. After graduating from Franciscan University of Steubenville, he completed licentiate and doctoral studies in spiritual theology at the Angelicum in Rome. In 2012, he published Hidden Mountain, Secret Garden: a theological contemplation of prayer by Discerning Hearts. Married with two young adult children pursuing their careers and a teenager still at home, he has settled in family in Oxnard, California.
22. “Be holy for I am holy.” 126 Who then is this who can give such a command? . . . He Himself has revealed His name, the name proper to Him, which He alone can bear: “I am Who Am,” 127 He said to Moses, the only living One, the principle of all the other beings. “In Him,” the Apostle says, “we live and move and have our being.” 128 “Be holy for I am holy!” It seems to me that this is the very same wish expressed on the day of creation when God said: “Let us make man in Our image and likeness.” 129 It is always the desire of the Creator to identify and to associate His creature with Himself! St. Peter says “that we have been made sharers in the divine nature”; 130 St. Paul recommends that we hold on to “this beginning of His existence” 131 which He has given us; and the disciple of love tells us: “Now we are the children of God, and we have not yet seen what we shall be. We know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him makes himself holy, just as He Himself is holy.” 132 To be holy as God is holy, such is, it seems, the measure of the children of His love! Did not the Master say: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”? 133
Elizabeth of the Trinity (2014-07-24). Elizabeth of the Trinity Complete Works, Volume I: I Have Found God, General Introduction and Major Spiritual Writings (Kindle Locations 3339-3353). ICS Publications. Kindle Edition.
Anthony Lilles, S.T.D. is an associate professor and the academic dean of Saint John’s Seminary in Camarillo as well as the academic advisor for Juan Diego House of Priestly Formation for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. For over twenty years he served the Church in Northern Colorado where he joined and eventually served as dean of the founding faculty of Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. Through the years, clergy, seminarians, religious and lay faithful have benefited from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity. After graduating from Franciscan University of Steubenville, he completed licentiate and doctoral studies in spiritual theology at the Angelicum in Rome. In 2012, he published Hidden Mountain, Secret Garden: a theological contemplation of prayer by Discerning Hearts. Married with two young adult children pursuing their careers and a teenager still at home, he has settled in family in Oxnard, California.
