THE WORLD'S GREATEST SECRET
John Mathias Haffert
table of contents
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MOTHER OF THE SECRET
As we draw near the end of
this very much condensed version of the most dramatic and repercussive belief
in history, the writer dares to intrude a personal reaction as a prelude to
what must now follow. Many amazing things came to light during the seven years
of this book's preparation, but to the writer the most amazing of all was the
frequency of a symbol around the tomb of Saint Peter that was rarely mentioned
and is little known. The greatest expert on the graffiti around Peter's tomb
says that this one frequently repeated symbol was usually found in conjunction
with the symbols of Christ and the Eucharist. It was the symbol of the Virgin
Mary. And this is surprising because there is hardly any mention of her in the
Gospel. True, she had remained behind after the Ascension and was perhaps the
center of the new Church on the stunning day of Pentecost. And she must have
meant a great deal to the early Christians because of her intimacy with Christ
and because He performed His first miracle (the one which prefigured the
Eucharist) at her request: It was the transformation of water into wine at the
marriage at Cana. And He performed that first miracle even though He said that
His time had not yet come. But it must be evident that if we could speak of
"Eucharistic Saints," as we did in the last chapter, beginning with
the boy-martyr, Tarcisius, then the Blessed Virgin must be explained as the
Eucharistic Saint par excellence.
2 This attitude of the early
Christians is borne out by the inscription on the tomb of Abercius found in
Hicropolis in Asia Minor: "Faith everywhere led me forward and everywhere
provided as my food a fish of exceeding great size and perfection which a Holy
Virgin drew with her hands from a fountain and ever gives this to its friends
to eat, wine of great virtue, mingled with bread." From the whole
inscription it is certain that the fish is used acrostically and means
"Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior." The fountain is the Church. And
of the conclusion there can be no doubt: the Holy Virgin gives the Eucharist.
Even today few Christians would place this much emphasis on the Blessed Virgin
in relation to the world's greatest secret. Apparently something, over the
centuries, has been lost.... Something that was contained almost entirely and
exclusively in tradition. (See pp. 66-68.) At first glance she may not seem a
Eucharistic saint at all. Her role in God's plan is closely bound up with
other mysteries of Faith, notably the Incarnation. Yet she is the Eucharistic
saint above all others for one big reason she gave the Lord a body. It was she
who gave Him flesh and blood, the very same flesh and blood which comes to us
in the Sacrament. She can truly be called "the Mother of the
Eucharist." Since the embryo she conceived was of the Holy Spirit, she,
as no other mother of the human race, could say as she held her Infant in her
arms: "This is my body. " Saint Peter Julian Eyntard, through whose
intercession have occurred miracles as great as any recorded in previous
pages, called her Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament.
3 And Saint Pius X,
"the Pope of daily Communion," called this "the most
theological of all Mary's titles after that of the Mother of God." Saint
Peter Julian's Congregation received the privilege of celebrating a feast on
May 13th in honor of Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Subsequently, Our
Lady appeared at Fatima as though to verify the title. Rays of light streamed
from her hands upon the three children who saw her, and illumined by God's
grace, they exclaimed: "0 Most Holy Trinity, I adore Thee! My God, my
God, I love Thee in the Most Blessed Sacrament! " Later the children said
that as the light from Mary's hands engulfed them they felt "lost in
God" and they felt impelled to give the Eucharistic prayer of praise
mentioned above. The authenticity of the Fatima vision, as we mentioned
previously, was confirmed by a public miracle performed at a predicted time
and place and witnessed by some 100,000 persons "so that all may believe.
" May 13th, Feast of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, is now also the
Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima, celebrated in Fatima. in 1967, Pope
Paul VI flew to Fatima On this day and prayed in the company of hundreds of
thousands for world peace.
4 And
in 1982 Pope John Paul II did the same. It would seem that the Popes were
anxious to fulfill within their own century the great and consoling prophecy
Of St. John Bosco* that following an Ecumenical Council great storms would
arise, but when the Sover`1911 Pontiff succeeded in anchoring the baroque of
Peter to the twin columns of devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to the
Blessed Virgin, the storms would subside and the great era of unity and peace
would follow. By 1967 Pope Paul VI had made five historic journeys all related
directly to devotion to the Eucharist, to the Blessed Virgin, and to Unity and
Peace. He was the first Pope to ride in a helicopter when he flew to Orvieto
for the Centennial of the Miracle of the Bleeding Host. He was the first Pope
after Peter to go to the Holy Land and beyond into India to participate in a
Eucharistic Congress.*
5 His
major encyclical on the Eucharist is appended to this book, and on the
occasion of his pilgrimage to Fatima on May 13, 1967, he issued a major
encyclical on the true meaning of the devotion to the Blessed Virgin whom he
had proclaimed during the Ecumenical Continue to be "Mother of the
Church." Pope John Paul 11, closing his address on the Eucharis at a
seminary in the Archdiocese of Milan on May 21, 1983 prayed: "May the
Virgin Mother, who through the act of the Spirit formed the physical body of
the Savoir and as Mother of the Church, accompanied the establish and
development of the Mystical Body, help all priests seminarians to learn deeply
the [Eucharistic] secret of the life of the Son who became our brother.
"This is the reason for faith and for hope for the near future of the
Church and of the world."' To understand Mary's role better, a diagram
might help. Admittedly, it is only a slight help for it is only a remote
analogy. After all, we cannot draw pictures 0 God. First God existed alone. We
draw Him as a triangle.
6 Then outside of Himself He
created man "in his own image." giving him free will and allowing
His light to flow freely to him. We represent man attached to the triangle,
full of divine light. Man, wanting to be equal to God, decided to disobey Him.
This sin of futile and prideful defiance must have been the greatest evil of
all time, because man in his pristine state of enlightenment was able to see
the disruptive horror of the evil more clearly than any man has since been
able to do. Also he was closer to God than perhaps any saint (with the
exception of Mary) has ever become since, and yet he chose to separate himself
from God. So now we draw him separate from God, separate from his source of
light. He was in lonely darkness. I Foreseeing her extraordinary fidelity, God
then preserved one member of the human race from the black shadow of the first
sin by the merit of the redemption to follow. This preservation and this
privilege we call the Immaculate Conception of Mary. We draw her attached to
the triangle, full of light and giving forth light. Through this immaculate
person faithful to God where Eve had been faithless, the second Person of t. h
Blessed Trinity was united to human nature. He came earth and spent
thirty-three years enlightening m "The light shines in the
darkness," (Jn. 1:5) - and then instituted the Blessed Eucharist to
restore more light to man.
7 So
now we draw man once again united to God d but inside a new triangle, because
God has become mail' Though man never did, and never will, recover his first
shining clarity of intellect, and though the propensity to sin and
concupiscence remains as the result of original sin, God now gives the poor
myopic creature greater light and grace than under the Old Law - and He gives
it in a special way in the Eucharist. Instituting the Eucharist, Christ prayed
that all might be one as He and the Father are one. Mary's role, as we see,
began before Christ was born, and we must love her because by bearing Christ,
she gave back to humanity the hope of salvation that the first "'other
lost for us. She is really our mother, the mother of Our supernatural life.
8 Mary's role also continued
through Calvary, and it continued afterward. Indeed, we should use the present
tense, for it continues in the Eucharist. We see that Christ loved her on
Calvary and provided for her before He died by placing her in the care of St.
John. We love her then, because He did. Moreover, we love her because He gave
her to us through John: "Son, behold your Mother." Surely also we
love her because everything that she did for human souls, she did with
tremendous generosity, With wholehearted abandon she placed her life and her
very being quite simply in God's hands to use as a tool or an instrument as
suited His purposes. Whatever He wanted, she wanted with every fiber of mind
and heart. What does God want? What does God always will? St. Paul tells us
succinctly: "This is the will of God, your sanctification. " Our
Lord Himself emphasized this one day when someone interrupted Him with the
announcement that His mother was outside. His love for her was well known. He
had remained alone with her until He was thirty years of age, and He performed
His first miracle, before His time, at her mere suggestion. Now He profited by
this interruption to show that He loved her not just because she was His
mother, but because she fulfilled God's will. "And who is my mother and
who are my brothers?" He asked. "Those who do the will of my Father
in heaven." So Mary by all that she did brought Christ to the world and
to souls. Today she is still bringing Christ to the world and to souls, and
souls to Christ, especially Christ in the Eucharist. And this is
demonstrable.
9 We can go to any one of
her shrines throughout the world to Pompeii, Fatima, Lourdes, Pontmain, to
Guadalupe near Mexico City, and so on and on. In any of these places where she
has appeared and a shrine has been established in her honor, we find major
activity centered on the same reality: the Mass and the Eucharist so obviously
Mary continues to lead man to one Person and to one place: to Christ in the
tabernacle. Strange? Not at all. We have seen that she herself was the first
tabernacle. She was the first to carry the body of Christ (though it was not
then called the Eucharist) on an errand of mercy when she went to her cousin,
Elizabeth As soon as she entered the house, Elizabeth cried out: "And how
is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" Saint Alphonsus de
Liguori asks: "Why does Elizabeth not say, 'Why is it that the Incarnate
God comes to me?' Why does she say, 'How is it that the mother... comes to
me'?" Alphonsus answers his own question by saying that Elizabeth knew
that in welcoming the mother she was welcoming the Son; and the miracle of her
own unborn child's pre sanctification* proved it. If doubts about the
Eucharist sometimes plague our minds, we can think of the tabernacle of the
young mother of Nazareth. Is it any more remarkable that Jesus should be in a
tabernacle than that He was in an embryonic state in Mary's womb? Is it any
more remarkable that a box-like structure should contain Him than should a
microscopic egg? Just above we spoke of Mary's shrines and her role as
guide-to-Christ in these places.
10 Today this is something
that a person need not merely read about, or argue about or wonder about.
Today any body can see for himself. How far away are Lourdes and Fatima?
Thanks to modern transportation facilities, these places are only hours away,
and for some people reading these lines, perhaps less than an hour away,
perhaps "minutes." All of these places are filled with crowds who
begin to, pray at the spot where the Virgin supposedly appeared, but who end
up before the Eucharist. We repeat that the acts of worship provided at all
these so-called "Marian" shrines are the Eucharistic sacrifice or
the Mass, and the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Among the crowds are
invalids who arrive clamoring: "Lord, that I may walk! Lord, that I may
see!" But (despite many miracles) comparatively few of these invalids
receive physical help. Instead, they receive spiritual help. Suddenly, they
are awakened as though from a drugged sleep. Their spirit soars. They know a
new calm, and a joy, and a peace beyond understanding. Their lives are
renewed. They feel like different people. How? Why? Even the casual observer
can see that they have received an increase of faith and love and an
indefinable glow which one can only call the light of the Eucharist. Yes, that
is what a visitor to a Marian shrine sees in others and experiences himself:
light. It is not the kind of light that we turn on when we flip a switch, but
the kind of light which must have shone from the face of Moses when he
descended from the mountain after talking with the Lord; Scripture says that
his face appeared horned with rays of light. Or is it the kind of light which
artists see aureating the face of a holy person and which they portray on
their canvases a halos?
11 A person who has never
seen such light radiating from another's face has missed one of life's most
memo rable experiences. "Oh, if only the sinner in the darkest, blackest
nigh only knew enough to call on Mary!" exclaimed Saint Alphonsus.
"He would at once find light." This eminent churchman whose books
have helped many a struggling Christian, avers that the whole world would
change quickly enough if enough people would turn to Mary, our prime
intercessor with Christ. Other saints also recognize this role of Mary's. Before
Communion St. Therese often pictured herself as a little girl with a soiled
face and grimy clothes who ran to her mother asking to be made ready to meet
the king. Of course we too can always go to Mary and ask her to prepare us for
Christ. We can do this even if we cannot visit her shrines. After all, few
Christians, percentage wise, ever get to shrines. True, space is shrinking but
that fact does not provide dollars for travel. Fortunately, there are many
ways of reaching Mary, and through her, her Son. Saint Louis de Montfort,
author of True Devotion to Mary, tells us that the best way to adore Christ in
the Blessed Sacrament is to place our hearts spiritually in the Immaculate
Heart of Mary. In essence, this French saint says that the only true devotion
to Mary is the one which relates to Christ and relates us through her to Him.
He advocated devotion to Mary as a sure, easy, safe way to reach union with
Christ. Any devotion to Mary for its own sake he labels false. " Pope
Paul VI made this thought the central message of his encyclical Signum Magnum,
issued on May 13, 1967, when His Holiness went in pilgrimage to Fatima.
12 A wise and imaginative
man who had the same notion expressed it this way: "Have you ever tried
to drink water without a glass, or without putting it in a container? It is
just as awkward and difficult to try to drink from the fountain of life
without using Mary as a vessel." And that this was understood by the
early Christians is confirmed by the tablet of Abercius. Perhaps some of us
are inhibited by the feeling that if we pray to Mary we may be taking some
honor from God. But when we use the glass as a drinking vessel so that we
won't spill any of the water, do we offend the water? As we go to Communion we
can ask Mary to lend us her Immaculate Heart in which to receive her Son; we
can ask her to adore Him in us and for us and in union with us. Surely Christ,
Who comes to us in the Eucharist, will be pleased to find not just sinful,
unworthy creatures like ourselves, but at least our awareness and our love for
His mother in our hearts. At first to think of me and Mary and Christ
simultaneously seems complicated, like learning to swim. To learn to swim
properly we must learn separately how to breathe, how to move the arms and how
to move the legs. When we first try to swim we may wonder if we are ever going
to learn to coordinate the separate functions. Then suddenly the day comes
when we roll for breath automatically, arms and legs fall into rhythm, and we
are able to enjoy the sheer freedom of motion as we speed almost effortlessly
through the water. We have, conquered a new element. So when we first start to
pray as St. Louis de Montfort teaches us, and as we are instructed to do at
Fatima, we may expect to feel slightly awkward.
13 When some persons first
try to swim they may almost drown and be afraid to try again. Others may waste
much time envying the swimmers who have mastered the technique but may never
really try themselves. But in learning to go to Jesus through Mary we have a
constant teacher: Christ. He gave us Mary. He set the example by obeying her
Himself for thirty years. He performed His first miracle at her request. He
gave her to the whole human race through John on Calvary. Have we forgotten
these truths? The early Christians had them ever in mind, As we see in recent
archeological excavations in the Mediterranean area, the early Christians
frequently engraved in the stone walls of their subterranean havens the M
along with the X and the P. The man who wanted to leave a memento of his faith
spoke not only of the fish, but of the fish "which a holy Virgin drew
with her hands from the fountain and ever gave its friends to eat, wine of
great virtue, mingled with bread." Is it any surprise that many who
rejected Mary's intercession after the sixteenth century, ended up also by
rejecting Christ in the Eucharist?
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