The Ancient Mission

“Yes, give Me to drink for I am thirsty. You know well that I am thirsting for souls, the souls I love so much. You can give me to drink…” – Jesus to Sister Josefa Menendez

                Nearly 2000 years ago, on a hill outside the city walls in a long-forgotten part of the Roman Empire, God Himself hung dying on a cross. It was almost finished now. All that He had set out to do, all that He had foretold had just about come to pass. He healed the sick and raised the dead. He entered Jerusalem as its promised king. He offered the paschal sacrifice at the Last Supper as priest and now He completed that sacrifice for sins as its unblemished victim. Everything was fulfilled but one thing remained: “I thirst.”

                They would have expected Him to say something about the terrible pain He was enduring on the Cross, but He said nothing about that. No, it was His thirst He complained of. They thought He was thirsting for wine, but when they raised the sponge to His lips, He refused it. No, there was deeper longing in the heart of the God-man: He thirsted for souls.

In dying on the cross, Christ performed the greatest act of love mankind has ever known. Suffering the punishment deserved by every sin for all time, Christ gave His life to save the very sinners who were nailing Him to that Cross. Now He longed for that love to be received and returned. He longed for those souls, whose sin has been forgiven and wiped away. He thirsted for their love.

                Alone, abandoned by all but one of His disciples, Jesus looked down from the Cross on St. John and His sorrowful Mother. As the sins of the world were wiped away and death itself was nailed to the cross, almost no one was there to witness it. Who would make His love known to the farthest corners of the world? It would be for them, that small and weak group of disciples, to preach to all those who did not love Him and did not know Him at every time and in every place. To His Church He entrusted this mission to go out to all the nations and so to satiate His thirst for souls. They were weak and imperfect; they would suffer setbacks and failures; it would take them years to make their way to all the peoples of the world, but such was the great responsibility He entrusted to His bride whom He loved.

                 And still He waits, thirsting for our love, until that time when all are united with Him. In every age and place, He continues to call on Christians to satiate His thirst for us, for love.

                1600 years later in 1633, a young woman by the name of Marie Guyart takes Christ as her spouse (as so many before and afterward have) in order to return His love and give her whole life out of love for Him. She became an Ursuline nun in the convent at Tours, France and took the name Marie of the Incarnation. The Ursulines were not her first choice as from an early age she wanted to be a Benedictine, but an interior voice told her that this was what Christ wanted of her. It would seem that she discerned well, as Christ soon revealed a strange and unique vocation for her.

                It was two or three years after her profession of vows when Sr. Marie had a dream. Reading her journal, it becomes clear that mystical experiences were not uncommon for her, but this one stood out. Meeting a lay woman in her dream that she had never seen before, they walked together and Christ, dressed as a gardener, showed them the path that they must walk. Marie then recounts what followed:

Jesus dressed as the gardener, showing
Marie the land He was calling her to.

Advancing within, I saw at some distance to my left a little church of wrought white marble, on top of which was the Blessed Virgin, seated on the pinnacle. She was holding the Child Jesus on her lap. This place was very elevated, and below it lay a majestic and vast country, full of mountains, of valleys, and of thick mists which permeated everything except the little building which was the church of this country.

The Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, looked down on this country, as pitiable as it was awesome. At first I found her as inflexible as was the marble pinnacle on which she was seated. There was one narrow way by which to descend to this grand country. As soon as I beheld the Blessed Virgin I released the hand of the good lady who was with me and, thrilled with affection, I ran towards this divine Mother and stretched out my arms so that they touched the two ends of this little church on top of which she was seated. Eagerly I awaited some word from her. As she gazed upon this unfortunate country I could see her only from behind. Then I beheld her become supple and look at her Divine Child, to whom she silently intimated something important concerning myself. It seemed to me that she spoke about this country and about myself and that she had in mind some plan which involved me.

On my part, I sighed after her with outstretched arms. At this point she turned towards me and smiling lovingly kissed me without saying a word, then turned back to her Son and spoke to Him in an interior manner as before. My mind grasped that she was speaking to Him about the design she had in mind concerning myself. Thereupon she turned towards me for the second time and kissed me again, spoke to her adorable Son, and then kissed me for the third time, all of which filled my soul with an unspeakable unction and sweetness. Then she began once again to speak about me as formerly. (91)

The meaning of this vision remained hidden from Marie, at least initially. What was this vast country she had been shown? What was the Blessed Mother speaking with her Son about? What was this plan that they had for her?

                Wherever it was, Our Lady looked with pity on this land. It was vast and beautiful, but it did not know her Son. Who would make His love known to these distant and foreign lands? The secret plan for Marie’s vocation remained hidden in the heart of Our Lady for the time being, but meanwhile Christ began to show Marie the plight of the missions and ask her prayers for them. By a special grace, Marie was mystically transported to distant lands, to souls who had never known Christ.

My body remained within the confines of our monastery, but my spirit could not be confined for it was bound to the Spirit of Jesus. This Spirit transported me in spirit to the Indies, to Japan, to America, to the East, to the West, to parts of Canada among the Hurons, and to all the habitable parts of the earth where there were souls, all of whom I saw as belonging to Jesus Christ. With an interior certainty, I beheld the demons triumph over those poor souls whom they snatched from the domain of Jesus Christ, our divine Master and sovereign Lord, who had redeemed them by His precious blood.

At the sight of all this I was consumed with zeal for them; I could bear it no longer. I embraced all these poor souls, I took them to my heart and offered them to the eternal Father, saying to Him that it was time that He saw justice was done in favor of my Spouse; that He well knew that He had promised His Son all nations for His heritage; and furthermore that His Son had satisfied by His blood for the sins of men, who previously to that were all dead in sin and condemned to eternal death; and that, although He had died for all, not all were spiritually alive, though this was something due to all these souls which I bore in my heart and which I presented to Him; that I asked Him for all of them for the sake of Jesus Christ, to whom they rightly belonged. (95)

Christ suffered and died on the cross for these souls. He paid for their salvation by shedding His blood, and yet still they were snatched away from Him. Christ was thirsting for souls, but so many souls did not know Him. Not knowing Him, they were thrown to the wiles and deceptions of the devil. This was a grave injustice and something had to be done about. Love Himself was not loved. Marie would go mystically to these missions and offer her prayers for these souls and the missionaries sent to them, that they might know Christ’s thirst for them and that they might return His love.

                While Marie was transported by Christ to the far corners of the world, there remained a more specific plan hidden in the heart of Our Lady. In that same year, Marie was kneeling before Christ in the Eucharist when the details of her call were revealed.

One day, while my soul was in these dispositions, I was praying before the Blessed Sacrament when my spirit was of a sudden ravished in God. During this rapture the vast country which had already been shown to me in the manner I have described above was represented to me with all its circumstances. Then this adorable Majesty said to me, “It is Canada that I have shown you; there you must go to make a home for Jesus and Mary.” These words brought life and spirit to my soul and at the same time put me in a state of unspeakable annihilation because of the command given me by this infinitely adorable Majesty. But He gave me the power to utter this reply: “O my great God, Thou canst do all things but I can do nothing; if it shall please Thee to help me, then I am ready to carry out Thy order. I promise Thee that I shall obey Thee. May Thy most adorable will be done in me and by me!”…

I no longer thought of any country except Canada and my excursions (in spirit) were most commonly made to the land of the Hurons in order to accompany the missionaries working there, and at the same time I was united in spirit with the eternal Father under the auspices of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in order to gain souls for Him. In spirit I visited all parts of the world, but Canada was the place of my abode and my country. (99-100)

That vast land Our Lady was speaking to the Christ child about was Canada. Souls were there and Christ longed for them. Who would satiate His thirst, who bring them His love?  This was Marie’s call: to make a home for Christ and His Blessed Mother, to bring Jesus to those souls. This was her country to evangelize, this was her vocation.

                The Canadian mission would bear much fruit. It planted strong seeds of faith among the Native Americans but also among the French settlers themselves, who became one of the most devoutly Catholic people in the world. Marie of the Incarnation was called shortly after her vision and was informed (without having ever said a word about Canada) that she was being asked to go to the Canadian missions. She founded a school in Quebec, teaching young French girls and Native Americans the faith and became first Mother Marie and later Saint Marie of the Incarnation.

                But for our story, Our Lady turned her gaze not to Canada, but to a different province of New France, to the southeast in the Acadian mission, to a land that would one day be dedicated under the patronage of her Immaculate Conception: to Maine. The missionaries who would plant the first seeds of faith shared the same call as St. Marie and they served the same crucified Lord. Fr. Biard and Fr. Masse were the first to bring the faith to Maine. It is the story of how they sought to bring souls to Christ with which we will continue in the next post.

Prayer:

Mary, Mother of Jesus, and my Mother, you were the first one to hear Jesus cry, “I Thirst.” You know how real, how deep is his longing for me and for the poor. I am yours. Mother Mary, teach me, bring me face to face with the love in the heart of Jesus crucified. With your help, I will listen to Jesus’s thirst and it will be for me a Word of life.

Standing near you, I will give him my love, and I will give him the chance to love me, and so be the cause of your joy and so to satiate Jesus’s thirst for love of souls.

Amen.

- Prayer by St. Teresa of Calcuta

I approach You, Eternal Father.

By His divine Heart I adore You for all who adore you not.

I love You for all who love You not.

I acknowledge You for all those wilfully blind souls

who through contempt refuse to acknowledge You.

By His divine Heart

I wish to fulfil the obligation of all creatures toward You.

I go round the world in search of all the souls

bought by the most precious Blood of my divine Spouse.

By His divine Heart I wish to make amends for all of them.

I embrace them all to present them to You through Him;

and through Him I ask for their conversion.

Will You allow them not to know my Jesus,

or not to live for Him who died for all?

You see, O heavenly Father,

that as yet they do not live.

Ah! Grant that they may live through His divine Heart.

On this adorable Heart,

I present to You

all who labour for the extension of the Gospel.

In order that by its merits

they may be replenished with Your Holy Spirit.

AMEN.

- Prayer by St. Marie of the Incarnation