Week of 12/9-14/2024: Notre Dame, Mother Mary & Our Lady of Guadalupe

December 9, 2024: Notre Dame Rising from the Ashes, Part II
We continue to explore the symbolism of the restoration of Notre Dame at this time. Author, Henry Adams tells us that in the 11th century there was a martial religion of “predominate masculine energy” but Mary blessedly represented “the assertion of the supremacy of love over force.” Said Adams: The Virgin of the twelfth and thirteenth century had not only the powers of Eve and Demeter and Venus; she was also the mistress of all the arts and sciences, was afraid of none of them, and did nothing, ever, to stunt any of them…. Says Matthew: It seems the Divine Feminine might have something needed and necessary to say to our times. Maybe the resurrection of Notre Dame de Paris might assist us in taking in that wisdom. If we choose to listen.

December 10, 2024: Speaking of Notre Dame AND Trump, A Report from Andy Borowitz
Satirist Andy Borowitz has offered his view on things with this very timely post in his The Borowitz Report entitled “Reopening of Notre-Dame Marred by Appearance of Antichrist.” (You can read it HERE.) He said: Beelzebub, who had travelled from Palm Beach, was heard loudly complaining that he had come “all the way to Notre Dame and there was no football game.” Matthew wrote a letter to Borowitz in which he said: Dear Mr. Borowitz: Thank you for your fine treatment of the antichrist at Notre Dame.  Though you are a satirist and I am a spiritual theologian, we are on the same page. 

December 11, 2024: Good People, Bad People, Democracy & Spiritual Warriorhood
One person whom Matthew spoke with recently told him that his takeaway from the recent election was shock that the majority of Americans are not good people. This has totally altered his view of America. This begs the question: Can someone who voted for Trump be a good person? A good person cares about goodness and truth, both things not in evidence in the candidate who somehow won the election. The winner on November 5 was not truth or light or the Christ, in any way, shape, or form. No wonder people are sad and grieving and dropping out. But people are also organizing to resist and gather and speak truth to power. Maybe this upswell of awakened spiritual warriors will be our saving grace.

December 12, 2024: Our Lady of Guadalupe Feast Day, 2024
Today we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. She is many things to many people, but the basis of her story is that she appeared to a 14-year-old Aztec boy in 1531. At that time, supposedly “Christian” Spaniards tore into his and other indigenous tribes in the Americas with a passion, a vengeance, and violence fired by imperial ambitions, racism, greed and power-over energy. In Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ powerful book Untie the Strong Woman: Blessed Mother’s Immaculate Love for the Wild Soul, Pinkola Estés offers a poem called “Guadalupe Is a Girl Gang Leader in Heaven.” Here are the opening lines: The Virgin Mary is a girl gang leader in Heaven. She is a Hell’s Angel and she rides a Harley. This I know for I come from people who think axle grease is holy water….

December 13, 2024: Our Lady of Guadalupe Feast Day, 2024, Part II
We continue our exploration of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Like Mary, she embodies love and compassion. Clarissa Pinkola Estés recalls her beautiful words: Have you forgotten? I am your mother. You are not alone. You are under my protection. Anything you need, ask me. Do not worry about anything. Am I not here—I who am your mother? Have you forgotten? I love you, and you are under my protection. Pinkola Estés also praises Father Gustavo Gutierrez, known as the father of liberation theology, for not “romanticizing the poor.” He says, “Poverty is not a condition, but an injustice.” She praises him for elevating the Holy Mother who models the reaction most warranted for growth: trust in the sacred…not the paltry-sweet, but the fiercely intelligent, wholly miraculous reality. 

December 14, 2024: The Magnificat: The Fierce Feminine in the Gospel of Luke
The other day, thinking about the season, Matthew was reminded of the Magnificat, the poem associated with Mary, Jesus’s mother. As Clarissa Pinkola Estés puts it in her book Untie the Strong Woman, the Holy Mother appears to the wavering, the ragged, the wandering, the addicted, the heartbroken, the grieving, the tightrope walker, the leaper of chasms…the crosser of deserts, the heartfelt, the soulful, the child spirit…She is the fierce Revolutionary who carries infinitely tender Love….we belong to her. She belongs to us…entirely. A woman once told Matthew that it had been forbidden by some of the despots in South America to speak about the Magnificat because it smacked too much of liberation theology. All the more reason to like it, right?

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD, Untie the Strong Woman

Banner image: “I Am Your Mother.” “A photo of the true face of Mary, the ever-virgin Mother of God from the sacred tilma of St Juan Diego.” Photo by Fr Lawrence Lew, O.P. on Flickr.

Recommended Reading

Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations

As Matthew Fox notes, when an aging Albert Einstein was asked if he had any regrets, he replied, “I wish I had read more of the mystics earlier in my life.” The 365 writings in Christian Mystics represent a wide-ranging sampling of these readings for modern-day seekers of all faiths — or no faith. The visionaries quoted range from Julian of Norwich to Martin Luther King, Jr., from Thomas Merton to Dorothee Soelle and Thomas Berry.
“Our world is in crisis, and we need road maps that can ground us in wisdom, inspire us to action, and help us gather our talents in service of compassion and justice. This revolutionary book does just that. Matthew Fox takes some of the most profound spiritual teachings of the West and translates them into practical daily mediations. Study and practice these teachings. Take what’s in this book and teach it to the youth because the new generation cannot afford to suffer the spirit and ethical illiteracy of the past.” — Adam Bucko, spiritual activist and co-founder of the Reciprocity Foundation for Homeless Youth.

A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice

In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register

Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth

Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox.  He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.