[Mass at JHWC, Fiesta of Sta. Maria della Strada, May 24, 2024.]
We come together on the Feast of Our Lady of the Way or Sta. Maria della Strada. She is the patron saint of our parish, but more importantly patroness of the Society of Jesus.
The original fresco was on the wall of the old church of Sta Maria della Strada in Rome which was given to St Ignatius by Pope Paul III in 1540.
Some thirty years later the present Chiesa del Gesu was constructed to replace the old church.
The image of Sta Ma. Della Stada was painstakingly transferred from the original fresco to canvas. It is now venerated in the Gesu between the side altar dedicated to St Ignatius and the main altar dedicated to the Holy Name of Jesus – the Gesu.
As it is venerated in many of our communities, in memory of the abiding devotion Ignatius had to her.
In his pilgrim years, while travelling through Sienna on the way to Rome, Ignatius stopped to pray at a small wayside shrine dedicated to Mary. The encounter there with Mary affected him deeply – inspiring him to devote himself to the service of God and to his eventual founding of the Society of Jesus
It was in gratitude for this profound experience that Ignatius adopted Sta. Maria della Strada as the patroness of the Society of Jesus. He saw her as a powerful intercessor and protector of the Jesuits in their mission of spreading the Gospel and of saving souls.
We must not fail to recognize the power of Our Lady's intercession for us as Jesuits today even as we try to deepen our understanding of our Mission today. Once we said, we are Jesuits for the defense and propagation of the faith. Later we said we are sent to promote the faith and the justice that that faith requires. Later we said we are sent to promote faith, justice, sensitivity to cultures and interreligious dialogue. Today we say we are "sent to collaborate in the Reconciliation of all Things in Christ." Our mission has not changed in essence, but our understanding of it has developed in accordance with the times and the inner promptings of the Holy Spirit.
Through Mary we pray that women and men find reconciliation with the Father especially through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.
Through Mary we pray people and nations find reconciliation with one another in giving up their guns, their warships, their weapons of mass destruction for ways of living with each other in fraternity and peace.
Through Mary we pray that humanity find reconciliation with God's creation, withdraw from its consumerist activities that destroy the planet and that all human beings work with each other for the preservation of God's creation for all of creation.
Through Mary we pray that like her, invited to collaborate in God's work of reconciliation in our world today, we say "Yes! Fiat! Let it be done to me according to your word!"
Especially through our prayer for the Society, our prayer for one another and for the world, may we become servants of the reconciliation that God has entrusted to us, namely, as we hear in 2 Corinthians 5: 19-20: "that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. … we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us: we beg you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled with God."
We are ready to be servants of that reconciliation.
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