Le blog de la Bergerie
|
|
Le blog de la Bergerie
|
A year ago I read that if you wanted to meet the next Mother
Teresa, you should go see Mother Lillie in Tecate, Mexico. I was instantly intrigued.
I thought to myself, since Tecate is practically in my backyard (I live in
San Francisco) I had no reason not to go.
Then just one month later I encountered Mother Lillie at a Divine Mercy conference,
where she was one of the scheduled speakers. I'll always remember how I first
saw her, addressing a youth group, a Powerpoint presentation projected behind
her on the screen. She was showing pictures of the children on the outskirts
of Tecate, and the orphanage that she had built in nearby Mount Tabor. She was
exhorting the audience of California kids to love and obey their parents. Three
or four Trinitarian Sisters were standing behind her, singing softly and praying.
Mother Lillie told the youngsters that they had everything they needed, that
they had more than they needed, that they should be thankful for having loving
parents, devoted Catholics parents, but that the children around Mount Tabor
have no one, that they often suffer from abuse and neglect, that they go to
sleep hungry, that the only bed they have is the cardboard they can crawl under.
It was a powerful presentation, and it looked to me that everyone was hanging
on her very word. Then she stopped talking, and there was some applause and
another speaker came on. Mother Lillie came to the back wall, exactly where
I was standing. When I told her that she had just delivered a great speech,
I noticed that she was crying. She worried whether she had been able to touch
them and whether she had not been too hard on them. And I said "No, they need
to hear the truth". I also told her that I would love to visit her and she looked
straight at me and smiled and said "Come, we will be there".
Eight
months later, on a beautiful Thanksgiving morning, I set out for Tecate. I boarded
a flight for Los Angeles, where my daughter was waiting for me. On the way to
LAX I read Pope John Paul II's encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia - On the
Eucharist and its Relationship to the Church. In that document he presents the
Eucharist as a gift for the world, and connects its historical and sociological
development to its cosmic and spiritual dimensions. I find this very exciting;
something in me resonates and says: Yes! That's how it is. If we Catholics really
understood what goes on at each Eucharistic celebration, we would be stunned!.. Each time.
"Astonished… bewildered… amazed!" These are the words used by the Pope.
 |
The monastery of |
 |
I landed in Los Angeles. The weather was milder, the freeways busier, and there
were skinny palm trees and whacky billboards all over the place. That evening,
I had a lovely dinner with family and friends in Santa Monica. Life is good,
life is clean and life is very comfortable in beautiful California. At least
on the surface. The state's voters had just passed Proposition 71, authorizing
$3 Billion in government funding for embryonic stem cell research. The measure
promises a cure-all for a wide-range of diseases, from Parkinson's to Diabetes,
but is mainly a cover-up for cloning and greed, for a utilitarian view of human
life that's neither good nor clean.
The next day, on Friday, my daughter and I drove south to Tecate. Once we passed
the Mexican border, everything changed. It's amazing the difference a few miles
can make. Tecate is a small town, with a lovely center square surrounded by
Taco stands and little shops. It's also the home of a famous Beer Factory. But
there is also much poverty. We had the directions to Mount Tabor, just a few
miles away. We drove past little canyons filled with shacks and running kids;
we drove past a dump site with groups of people gathered around burning fires,
more kids playing with cardboard boxes, everything looking precarious and dreary. The surrounding poverty kept us silent.
The directions said the entrance to the monastery was right across the new Toyota
plant, and we finally went through the white gates of Mount Tabor, up a dirt
road, up the hill to Mother Lillie's monastery. The sun was setting behind us
and we arrived exactly as the night was falling.
The monastery is on top of a small mountain and consists of a few houses, with
plans for many more. A Sister took us to the original building, the first one
they had, where she told us to leave our bags in the inner courtyard and wait
in the Chapel for a little while. I remembered that one of the first things
that attracted me to this place was a black and white picture that I had seen
of the Sisters doing Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in a trailer. You could
see one Sister kneeling by the door, her two feet sticking out of the doorway.
I was so impressed by the thought of them coming from San Diego, planting their
little trailer on top of the hill, and starting Adoration right away… It set
me dreaming for a while.
JPII says that in the Eucharist and in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, we
are "spurred on our journey and that it increases (rather than lessens) our
sense of responsibility for the world today." This is what Mother Lillie and
her Sisters have done at Mount Tabor. They've given their lives over to praying
for the world and serving the poor and the sick, and the monastery has grown
out of their love for God and from the unending streams of their devotions.
Their witness to the harmonious union of action and contemplation inspires me
and fills me with hope.
There was a Mass at 6pm, with all the Sisters singing and the little girls sitting
in the front rows. A visiting British Priest celebrated the Mass, with a Deacon
from Los Angeles and a one-eyed Carmelite Priest (one patch covering his left
eye, lost to cancer), who smiles constantly. Through the windows behind the
altar, you could see the lights of the Toyota plant shining in the dark in the
valley below. The Mass was beautiful, full of reverence, and very peaceful.
It was a faithful and fruitful celebration. In this Year of the Eucharist, the
Encyclical says that "the Eucharist is always celebrated on the altar of the
world. It unites heaven and earth. It embraces and permeates all creation. The
Son of God became man in order to restore all creation in one supreme act of
praise to the One who made it from nothing".
After the Mass, we all gathered in the Girls' school for a Thanksgiving dinner.
We must have been about 50 people, sitting around one long table. The dinner
was truly a Thanksgiving dinner since it had been prepared by a generous and
kind Filipino couple, regular visitors of the monastery, who decided to offer
this feast to the Sisters, in gratitude. They drown down from Northern California,
bringing all the food needed and they had spent all day preparing the feast.
The Sisters thanked everyone because they are completely dependant on volunteers
and donations, and they, more than anyone else, know how much love bubbles and
flows from both the grace of giving and the grace of receiving.
We had visited the school earlier in the evening and met all the girls. They
looked very happy in their brand new building and the interaction between the
girls and the Sisters was a delight to watch. Mother Lillie opened up the school
because, she said, they need more than just food and shelter, they need an education.
While looking at a science chart on the wall of the classroom, I was thinking
that the issues of stem cell research and cloning seemed very distant from Mount
Tabor. But there is a link between them and it has to do with the truth.
The truth is that California voters were hood-winked into approving Proposition
71 based on false premises. Their opulence and comfort confused them about the
truth--that the research they voted to fund would be built upon the manipulation
and destruction of human life. And the interests who stood to profit the most
from Prop 71 (follow the money!) knew how to use that confusion.
But one good thing did happen during the electoral campaign, although it occurred
too late to affect the result. It was the moment where you could hear the truth
about Prop 71 coming from both the progressive and the conservative sides. They
arrived at the truth from different angles, but nonetheless, they both saw the
truth and spoke it: Prop 71 was bad for the state's finances, bad for women's
rights, bad for ethics, and bad for Life. I like to remember that moment because
it holds great hope. True peace and real progress will come out of combined
efforts for the common good.
That night we slept in the very cells where the Sisters first slept when they
arrived at Mount Tabor over 10 years ago. Each cell is tiny, with just enough
room for a mattress on the floor. Once you lie down, if you extend your arms,
you can touch the walls on either side. I curled up under two sets of thick
blankets because the nights are pretty chilly in Northern Mexico in late November.
Everything surrounding us was completely still and quiet.
I attended Mass the following morning in the Sisters Chapel. Their singing was
very moving. The celebration of the Eucharist requires that there is a "communion
of the community celebrating it, because it is an expression of the bonds of
that community". JP II says that no individual church can forget the universal
Church, that there is an invisible dimension along with the visible dimension
of the sacrament. And it did occur to me, while kneeling next to the Sisters
and next to the few visitors, that November morning, that the love and respect
between the participants is the visible dimension of our love and respect for
the sacrament. Our Pope is completely right when he says that our love for the
Church can be most eloquently demonstrated when we celebrate the Mass faithfully,
respecting the liturgical norms with fidelity. In that little Chapel, I was
filled with gratitude for being part of this sacramental celebration which is
"the Church's treasure, the heart of the Church, the pledge of fulfillment".
JPII has asked us to "keep alive the hunger for the Eucharist" and my visit
to Mount Tabor left me filled with such hope and zeal that I wanted to share
that hunger and write about it….
I have complete trust that Mother Lillie's vision of Mount Tabor as a retreat
center and a place of worship, a free clinic and a free school for Girls, a
welcoming house for Priests and a spiritual center for all, that all of this
will be realized-because of the holiness of the people involved, who believe
more than anything else in the grace of God.
My daughter commented on the "youthful" look of all the Sisters, even the ones
that she knew to be older. They all managed to radiate joy and peace and even
a sense of playfulness. And I said that's because there is an innocence about
them-which is not be confused with ignorance. They are very much aware of suffering,
either because they face it daily in their effort to serve or because they experience
it in their own bodies (like Fr. Richard). But their true connection with the
"wellspring of grace"-as JPII calls the Eucharist and Adoration-allows them
to be a comforting and supportive presence. The Pope also said that he wrote
this Encyclical because "to contemplate the face of Christ is the program that
I have set before the Church. From this living bread she draws her nourishment".
I was back in my own parish, Notre Dame des Victoires, on Sunday morning. It
is such a blessing to me to have a Mass in my native French, with a French Choir,
here in downtown San Francisco. We also have Adoration on Sunday afternoons.
I felt so grateful to be Catholic, to be a member of the Body of Christ and
to be able to worship in Mexico on Saturday morning and in San Francisco the
following day. This chain of prayers and worship which encircles the globe is
truly amazing. It is a chain of love and truth, made of so many different links.
This is where faith helps me: it inspires me to connect the dots in the big
picture. And I can see the connection between the good work of the Sisters at
Mount Tabor and every Catholic social justice program; between the political
activities of my friends and the emergence of serious Catholic sites on the
internet, enabling us to articulate our voice in the popular culture; and lastly
between the teaching efforts of our Pope in his wonderful Encyclical on the
Eucharist and our individual responsibilities to live up daily to the challenges
of "loving God and loving our neighbor" and working for the common good.
And finally, I offer this prayer:
"And I, |
 |
Copyright ©2004 Michèle Szekely
REFERENCES, RELEVANT SITES AND THANKS:
For information on Mother Lillie and the Trinitarians of Mary, go to: here
My recent appreciation of Encyclicals is thanks to Steve Cortright's class on "John Paul II's Social Teaching"(July 2004)
My understanding of the common good has been enriched by "Catholics for the Common Good" here
For John Paul II's Encyclical letter "On the Eucharist in its relationship to the Church" (Ecclesia de Eucharistia)
see : here
For the progressive voice in Bio-Ethics and against cloning see : here
For a good article on Stem Cell research, see "First Things" (Dec 2004) William Saunders: "Embryology: Inconvenient Facts"
: here.
For a commentary following the passage of Prop 71, see "SF Catholic"(11/19/04) Wesley Smith: "Suckers for Science".
My prayer (at the end of the article) was inspired by Psalm 5, verse 7.
MicheleSzekely@2004-2022