The Beauty of Our Catholic Heritage - The Mystical Revelations of Our Lady of Sorrows

Fr. Jacob Hsieh is a graduate of St. Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula who teaches at Saints Peter and Paul Elementary school and resides at the parish, in Wilmington Ca.  In this episode, he discusses messages of Heaven revealed through Venerable Maria Agreda.

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Transcript

announcement: 0:35

Welcome to the beauty of our Catholic heritage. Our host is father Jacob che a Norbertine father of St. Michael's Abbey in Orange County, California. Father Shay has a great love for our church's heritage, the beauty of our Catholic heritage with father Jacob Shea

Fr. Jacob Hsieh: 0:54

Welcome back to the beauty of our Catholic heritage here with father Jacob. Let's begin with prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory be to the Father into the sun into the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without an Amen, and the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today we will speak about the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the account given by venerable Mary have a greater in the mystical city of God is an amazing account. And we're just going to read it and I will comment on it is a masterpiece. And it is just a gift from heaven to know all of these different things. So this is chapter 21, on the birth of the Most Holy marry our mistress, the day Dustin for the parturition of St. Anne, and for the birth of her who was consecrated and sanctified to be the mother of God had arrived a day most fortunate for the world. This birth happened on the eighth day of September, fully nine months having elapsed since the conception of the soul of our most holy queen and Lady. So remember, in the account of venerable Mary of a greater when our lady was conceived in the womb of Saint Anne, on December 8, she was conceived completely conscious, it's really amazing to understand this. So she was conceived, that means her soul was infused into her body, God created all of these things. And when she was conceived, immediately, she had the use of reason, she could already think that is not what normally happens. And so she had the use of reason. And she was immediately given the beatific vision. And so that's what happened on December 8. Then after that, we have the growth of Our Lady in the womb of St. Anne, and then she's born on September 8. So this is the account, St. Anne was prepared by an interior voice of the Lord informing her that the hour of her parturition had come, full of joy of the Holy Spirit at this information. She prostrated herself before the Lord and besought, the assistance of His grace and His protection for a happy deliverance. Presently, she felt a movement in her womb, similar to that which is proper to creatures being born to the light, the most blessed child marry, was at the same time by divine providence, and power ravished into a most high ecstasy. So right at the birth of our lady, her soul went into ecstasy, this is, you know, even before she's out of the womb, she was already in high ecstasy. Hence, Mary was born into the world without perceiving it by her senses. So here is a very important understanding, by venerable Mary have a greater, so when our lady was born, she did not feel everything that was happening to her. So remember, she already has all of the use of her reason. So she can use everything, she can sense everything. And so when she was born, she was wrapped out of her body, so she didn't have to feel all of the birth, you know. So basically, she was in such high ecstasy, that her senses were suspended. And this is what venerable Mary of a great out will describe. Hence, Mary was born into the world without perceiving it by her senses, for their operations and faculties were held in suspense, as she had the use of her reason, she would have perceived it by her senses, if they would have been left to operate in their natural manner at that time. However, the Almighty disposed otherwise, in order that the princess of Heaven might be spared the sensible experience otherwise connected with birth. And this detail is just something that really shows us that you can't dream of this by yourself, right? It's very amazing how consistent venerable marry of a grader is, and this is not just a human consistency. This is the divine revelation that's given to her. It's a private revelation, but it just shows how consistent it is because if you have reason at your conception, and thus you have the Feeling of all the senses of the body. So her body is already nine months grown in the womb, she is ready to come out into the world, all of her senses will be activated already she can know that she can feel it and she can think about it. So in order to spare her all of that, you know, obviously what it feels like to go out of the womb right here a God raises her soul out of her body in an ecstasy. This is what an ecstasy is. And ecstasy is when you are ecstatic. That is your soul is wrenched from your body, and here are just in such divine love and why here, obviously, she is coming into the world. And now she is going to experience all of God's creation, and experience even more increase of God's grace infused into her soul. And so she's in divine ecstasy now that she is going to go forth and be able to do God's Well, that's pretty ecstatic. And so venerable Mary have a greater continues her private revelation, she was born pure and stainless, beautiful and full of grace, thereby demonstrating that she was free from the law and the attributes of sin. Although she was born substantially like other daughters of Adam, yet her birth was accompanied by such circumstances and conditions of grace, that it was the most wonderful and miraculous birth in all creation, and will eternally redound to the praise of her maker. So here, the meditation is that nobody was ever born like this, of course, except Jesus, right? Because here we see that this is going to be a work of divine art, the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary is going to be exquisite, we will be meditating upon this forever, basically. And so this is the revelation given to us of how the angels and the saints will praise God for his infinite wisdom in this magnificent birth of Our Lady at 12 o'clock in the night. This is a very amazing we could all these beautiful details here at 12 o'clock in the night, this divine luminary, issued forth, dividing the night of the ancient law, and its pristine darknesses from The New Day of grace, which now was about to break into Dawn, she with clothed, handled and dressed like other infants, though her soul dwelt in the divinity. That is, she was always thinking about God meditating, bod contemplating God, and she was treated as an infant. Though she excelled all mortals and even all the angels in wisdom. Her mother did not allow her to be touched by other hands than her own. But she herself wrapped her in swaddling clothes. And in this St. Anne was not hindered by her present state of childbirth, for she was free from the toils and labors, which other mothers usually endure in such circumstances. As we get a ton of information in this little passage, which is just filled with such theological amazingness. Here, we see that when our lady is born, she is born at 12 o'clock, midnight. And we see that here, we have an imitation of our Lord's birthday at Christmas, who was also born at midnight, the first brick, so on September 8, at midnight, you know, that's when you should have your parties and your cake and eat. Okay, so here we see that at midnight, why is this because here, everything is that, you know, night, it's dark, and then our lady is the pure light that shines forth. This is why she's coming at midnight. It's not just like, here, God is just choosing something that happens here. God is choosing something exactly in his divine providence, he wants pure light to come out. Now, the next detail that we see is that no one touches Mary's body. Okay? This is very important, just like nobody touches the Ark of the Covenant. Here, it's only st and that touches her body. This is very reminiscent, for example of the assumption after Mary dies, no one not any of the apostles touched the body of marry, her body is way too holy for anybody to touch. And so here we see all the angels they are bringing her body to her place. So here, this is the great dignity of Saint and the mother of the Mother of God, where she is able alone to touch Mary's body and of course then to wrap her in swaddling clothes, everything in perfect imitation of Our Lord, okay. And then we see also this other detail that same and she did not suffer any hain. Okay? This is very amazing to see that when Mary is born, obviously Mary, she is in complete ecstasy. She is completely united with our Lord is our blessing Lord, the bliss of Trinity Father, Son and Holy Ghost. And here when she goes forth, St. Anne does not experience any pain whatsoever. How can the Immaculate Conception come out of your body and you feel pain, right? You're only going to feel complete joy and ecstasy yourself. And so here is saying and was given that beautiful grace of not suffering, the punishment that was due to Eve that is the pains of childbearing. Next, so then St. Anne received in her arms her who was her daughter, but at the same time, the most exquisite treasure of all the universe, inferior only to God and superior to all creatures. With fervent tears of joy. She offered this treasure to His Majesty. So immediately, Saint Anne is weeping, she is crying, because this is too beautiful, and she gives our lady back to God, saying interiorly This is St. Ann's prayer, Lord of infinite wisdom and power, creator of all that exists this fruit of my womb, which I have received have died bounty I offer to thee with eternal thanks for without any narrative mine, thou has vouchsafed it to me, dispose thou of the mother, and child according to Thy Most Holy Will. And look propitiously down upon our lowliness from the exalted throne, be thou eternally blessed, because thou has enriched the world with a creature, so please into that bounty. And because it her, thou has prepared a dwelling place and a tabernacle, for the Eternal Word, I tender my congratulations to my holy forefathers, and to the Holy Prophets, and in them to the whole human race for this shore pledge of redemption which thou has given them. But how shall I be able wordly to treat her whom thou has given me as a daughter, I that am not worthy to be her servant? How should I handle the true ark of the testament, give me, Oh, my Lord and King, the necessary enlightenment, to know thy will, and to execute it according to the pleasure. And in the service of my daughter. You can't make up that prayer. Okay? This is just too exquisite and too beautiful. And it's just every single line. And every single thought is just so dense in venerable Mary have a greater and you see, this book is just the first volume, the conception of Our Lady, and the density, it's just has no word that is superfluous, every single word is necessary. Every single prayer is just exquisitely composed. And you see, just the work of the Holy Ghost acting in the soul of St. Anne. And as per you can't make this stuff up, this is just itself to read this private revelation in itself, you just see that it comes from a Sanctum basically. So she's still venerable there, well, Mary have a greater, there were some difficulties in the canonical process, but it's not her fault. It was just the canonical process. And you can see that this comes just so beautifully and so easy. It's like Mozart, he had no difficulty composing, it just kind of came out of him. But here, it's on a supernatural level. And all of these things are just coming out. You can't write this, you know, in one sitting, you can't just write this and suddenly this comes out, but it feels like it just comes out so easily and so beautifully. It's just has to be a private is obviously a divine revelation. So here we go. Now to the next section. The Lord answered The Holy matron that a saint and interiorly that she was to treat her heavenly child outwardly as mothers treat their daughters without any demonstration of reverence, but to retain this reverence inwardly, fulfilling the laws of a true mother toward her, and rearing her up with all motherly love and solicitude. All this, the happy mother complied with making use of this permission and her mother's rights without losing her reverence. She regaled herself with her most holy daughter, embracing and caressing her in the same way as other mothers to with their daughters. So imagine here you have St. Anne and she knows st and knows that her daughter is superior to her already, okay? Her daughter already enjoyed the Beatific Vision, okay. Her daughter already has more grace at the moment of her Immaculate Reception and now even more at her birth. Remember, Our Lady's Grace just increases, increases increases in Priuses and here you have this as your daughter, you know, St. And she's very smart, smarter than all of us, right? She knows that marry her daughter is superior to her way superior. And yet she has to be here, obviously told by God, you know you are just to handle her like your daughter because she is and you are not to reverence her, okay, as someone superior to you, obviously, you can do that spiritually. But in the natural realm of things you are to, of course, do everything like a normal mother would with her daughter. And so, we see continuing, but it was always done with proper reverence and consciousness of the hidden and divine sacrament, not only to the mother and daughter. Here, the word sacrament means mystery. This is a divine mystery between the mother and daughter between St. Anne and Our Lady, the guardian angels of the sweet child, with others in great multitudes show their veneration and worship to Mary. As she rested in the arms of her mother. They joined in heavenly music, some of which was audible also to bless it. And the 1000 Angels appointed as guardians of the Great Queen offered themselves and dedicated themselves to her service. This was also the first time in which the heavenly mistress saw them in a corporeal form with their devices and hub elements, as I shall describe in another chapter. And the child that is, our lady asked them to join with her in the praise of the Most High and to exalt him in her name. Okay, so now this is another amazing detail. Here you have the question, Does our Lady have guardian angels? Okay. In a way, this is a very interesting question, because she's the queen of angels, how would she have guardians, but here, she is a small child. And so God gave her guardian angel, she doesn't just have one. But she has 1000 Angels appointed as her guardian, as her guardians. And then she immediately sees them in corporeal form. And then she is going to ask them praise God with me. And so this, again, is completely in line with St. Thomas Aquinas, because the angels can take up a bodily form because they can control matter, they can shape it like clay. So basically, they take all of the various elements and whatever parts, they form it and they can form a likeness of a human body, it won't be a human body, but it will be a likeness of the human body, kind of like a puppet. And so they formed all of their corporeal form. And then Mary saw the 1000 Angels in their commercial form. And then they also had their specific clothing that they also formed, etc. And then our lady, the little child, asked them to join her in the praise of the Most High and exalt him in her name. So this is remember, this is just a little baby. Okay? She's still a little baby, right? She hasn't walked yet. Okay, so all these angels are around her. And she's saying, Let's praise God together. Continuing, at the moment of the birth of our Princess Mary, the most highest sent the Ark Angel Gabriel as an envoy to bring this joyful news to the Holy Father's in limbo, okay, it's just again, how dense is this? Right? There's just one amazing detail after another. And this is what's so amazing about these private relations, because usually we just think, okay, it's the birth of the Virgin Mary, this is wonderful. And then our mind is blank. We don't have any idea what kind of happened around it because it was not described to us in the Bible. And here with these private revelations, we get an inkling of what we're going to do in heaven, and really just contemplate all of the marvels of God's design. If the Queen of Heaven and Earth is born, all of the things in this world are going to change. And so this is what it just makes sense, right? And so the Archangel Gabriel is sent as an envoy to go to the fathers in limbo. So these are Adam and Eve and then Moses, King David, King, Solomon, all the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, all of the prophets, Ezekiel, everybody, all the prophets there right, and then the are going to receive the news. Okay. Continuing immediately, the heavenly ambassador, St. Gabriel descended, illuminating that deep cavern and rejoicing the just who were there by detained. He told them that already the dawn of eternal Felicity had commenced and that the run Separation of man, which was so earnestly desired and expected by the holy patriarchs and foretold by the prophets had begun, since she, who was to be the mother of the Messias had now been born. Soon would they now see the salvation and the glory of the Most High, the holy Prince gave them that St. Gabriel, he's called the Holy Prince, gave them an understanding of the excellence of the Most Holy Mary, and of what the omnipotent had begun to work in her, in order that they might better comprehend the happy beginning of the mystery, which was to end their prolonged imprisonment. Then all the holy Patriarchs and Prophets and the rest of the just in limbo rejoiced in spirit, and in new canticles praise the Lord for this benefit. So there is a huge party in limbo, basically, because here, everything is starting here, you can just imagine, well, maybe you can't, I can't actually. But here with this, we can imagine what it was like when the angel Gabriel is sad to tell them everything that happened with the Immaculate Conception, everything that happened with the birth of our Blessed Mother, with saying, and everything that happened, and all the angels in everybody's, you know, assignment of the angels, and everything is given. And they know because these are the prophets who are given that beautiful prophecy of everything that would happen. They knew that there would be a mother of God by prophecy. And now everything is becoming crystal clear, more and more and more and more and more, and everything and salvation is coming. And their expectation is just wrapping up. They have so much expectation and everything that is going to come. Okay, let's continue. All these happenings at the birth of our queen succeeded each other in a short space of time. So here, we just took that time. And it's a lot of things to meditate on. But we're reminded and by venerable merit of greater that it was basically instantaneous, like one moment after another, I hear Mary's ecstasy. She's born, she passes out of the womb of St. Anne. She is dressed, she's given her guardian angels and Abraham Gabriel is then sent to limbo. And remember, you know, St. St. Gabriel is not talking with words, because in limbo, they don't have bodies, they're separated from the bodies. They're all dead, right? And so here, everything has happened in lightning speed with thought. And here we can even imagine how their joy is just going so fast. In this world, you know, we think of fast as intellect. Is my phone fast enough? Or am I getting this download fast enough here they're working in this download is lightning speed. And so we see that everything is just so joyous, and the joy is just exponential. And it's just happening at lightning lightspeed. Okay, the first exercise of her senses, in the light of the material son was to recognize her parents and other creatures. So here, when our Lady exercised her senses, that is her eyes, right and her smell, she recognized what her parents and other creatures, the arms of the Most High began to work new wonders in her far above all conceptions of men. And the first and most stupendous one was to send innumerable angels to bring the mother of the Eternal Word, body and soul into the Empyrion heaven. Okay, so now we got to slow down because it's just going a little bit nuts here. Okay, here we see what happened here. So once again, the arms of the Most High began to work new wonders, because something new is happening here, in her far above all conceptions of men, and the first and most dependents. One was to send innumerable angels to brain now I just again, gotta slow down because this is just like too huge, to bring the mother of the Eternal Word, stop, to bring the mother of the Eternal Word, body and soul into the Empyrion heaven for the fulfilling of his further intentions regarding her view, understand what that means. Okay? So she was born, all those things happened. And then innumerable angels bring the mother of the Eternal Word, body and soul into the Empyrion heaven. Okay? So she's wrapped up body and soul just this is I can't repeat this enough because this is the first time I'm reading it, and it's my first reaction of it. She's going up into the Empyrion heaven. This is where of course our Lord will go in the ascension. The Empyrion heaven is the most beautiful part in this entire universe where our lady is right now after the assumption and our Lord, okay, so as a baby after her birth, she is wrapped up to the impure in heaven, body and soul. Okay? That's crazy. Okay and amazing. And I don't know who could have thought about that except God himself and then he revealed it. Okay, let me just take a deep breath here, okay? The holy princes, that is the angels obeyed the divine mandate, and receiving the child Mary from the arms have her holy mother and they arranged a new and solemn procession, bearing heavenward with incomparable songs of joy, the true Ark of the Covenant in order that for a short time, it might rest, not in the house of obey didn't obey the dawn. But in the temple of the King of kings and of the Lord of lords, were later on it was to be pleased for all eternity. This was the second step, which most Holy Mary made in her life, namely from this earth to the highest heaven. Oh my goodness gracious. Okay, so here, this is really amazing because she's born onto this earth. And then here as Queen of the have Queen of Heaven and Earth and all of the angels, she immediately goes and she's brought by the angels to the empiricists, like already a mini assumption, okay? Here's a little a little baby, okay? Oh my gosh, this child too. And here, obviously, as she's experiencing this, right, there's a beautiful procession of angels, that is bringing her heavenward, she is going to that place where she will for a short time, right? To be there, which she will be forever, namely, after the assumption that through the assumption she will be there forever, right? So after her birth, she goes to heaven for short time, where she will be forever later on after she dies and is assumed into heaven. Oh my goodness. Okay. So you just kind of take a breather after that. Okay. So then after this, we see the amazing meditation of venerable Mary of a grader who can worthily extol this wonderful prodigy have the right hand of the Almighty know about it? This is just amazing. How can we even think right, and she continues, when will Mary have a greater who can describe the joy and the admiration of the celestial spirits, when they be held this new and wonderful work of the Most High, and when they gathered to celebrate it in their songs. In these songs, they acknowledged and referenced as their queen and Mistress her who was to be the mother of their Lord and the true and the source of the grace and glory which they possessed. The angels are just an ecstasy, because here they see all their grace comes through Mary, this is just too much. I can go on this as the chapter is just more and more beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, as you see, right? We can spend so long and here everything of venerable Mary Greta is just such a gift from God, that we have this divine revelation, even though it's private, but you can see if this is the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary, how could anything else happen? You know, this is the maximalist thing, if you think of God is going to do everything that he can to raise the glory of Our Lady above any possible thing that we could ever think about. So this revelation is not it's not possible that any human being could not could have thought about this. St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine himself could not have thought that this was possible. All of this had to be divinely revealed to the saints, here to venerable Mary have a greater and we really see just the divine artistry of God to give everything the best to his mother, the Queen of Heaven and Earth.

announcement: 29:34

You've been listening to the beauty of our Catholic heritage with father Jacob Shea. If this program has been a blessing to you. Please encourage others to listen as well. For more information, visit spirit filled hearts.org That's spirit filled hearts.org May God be with you this day and always. This is Bishop Tim fryer from the Diocese of orange and you're listening to spirit filled radio