“There are few authentic prophetic voices among us, guiding truth-seekers along the right path. Among them is Fr. Gordon MacRae, a mighty voice in the prison tradition of John the Baptist, Maximilian Kolbe, Alfred Delp, SJ, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”

— Deacon David Jones

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 1/1/25 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 1/1/25

A Glorious Mystery for When the Dark Night Rises

At the dawn of the New Year, the Church honors the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God. I met her at the age of nine, part lived experience and part dream.

At the dawn of the New Year, the Church honors the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God. I met her at the age of nine, part lived experience and part dream.

January 1, 2025 by Fr Gordon MacRae

To comprehend this post, readers must understand the world of 1962. Something happened in America that dramatically changed our view of ourselves and the world around us, and its tentacles reach deeply into the present day. It brought a sense of futility, a resignation that we are powerless over the great tides of history sweeping us up into their grip, and resistance to evil is futile. So look out for Number One, and live for the moment! That is the great lie of our age.

I turned nine years old in April of 1962. Five months later, I began fifth grade a year younger than everyone else in my class. A month after that, the United States and the Soviet Union approached the very brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962. The administration of President John F. Kennedy discovered that the Soviet Union had placed strategic nuclear missiles in Cuba. Diplomacy failed miserably, and it just exposed our impotence. The United States demanded removal of the missiles and the Soviet Union flatly refused. President Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of Cuba. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev were all that stood between us and nuclear annihilation. Fear and deep anxiety engulfed everything — even the 5th grade.

Growing up in the industrial city of Lynn, Massachusetts, just a few miles north of Boston, left us especially vulnerable. Lynn at that time was home to the General Electric Company’s Aircraft Engine Division which was the largest employer in that city and surrounding towns. Its biggest customer was the U.S. military. Children my age were traumatized with fear by the weekly rehearsals for nuclear attack. Upon a signal from school administration we had to rush to extinguish all lights, draw all window shades and then crawl under our desks while sirens blared outside.

The day the Cuban Missile Crisis began, was the day our childhood innocence ended. We were vulnerable in a fragile, unpredictable world, and the anxiety never really left us. It was, perhaps in hindsight, the wrong moment for some of the great black-and-white science fiction films of the fifties to start running as matinees in a local cinema.

I did not understand then that some of those great films were really paradigms of the Cold War, containing within them all the fear and paranoia the Soviet Empire brought to our young minds. Films like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and — my favorite of all — “The Day the Earth Stood Still” are today considered Cold War classics. They captured our anxiety and capitalized upon our fears.

Invaders from Mars

I wrote of the North of Boston where I grew up in “February Tales.” Going to a movie theatre alone was a rare occurrence when I was nine years old in 1962. It meant venturing downtown like a free-range kid. Lynn, Massachusetts had two downtown cinemas back then, the Paramount and the Capitol. The latter was in Lynn’s Central Square, and it only opened at night — its marquee preceding every title with a large, mysterious “XXX.” It was strictly off limits.

It took a bit of courage back then for a 9-year-old to board a city bus alone for a Saturday afternoon trek downtown. I reveled in my freedom, but my parents had spies everywhere. When once I ventured too close to the Capitol marquee to see what all those Xs were about, there was hell to pay when I got home!

The Paramount had a Saturday matinee for 35 cents. Lynn’s newspaper, The Daily Evening Item carried an alluring ad, a miniature version of the movie poster for that week’s feature, “Invaders from Mars.” It portrayed a boy my age, aghast at his bedroom window by the scene of a spaceship landing at midnight in an empty field behind his house.

There was really no need for scary movies then. We were already all frightened enough, and those who claimed they were not were lying. But perhaps as kids we were all looking for outlets for our fear, because the real story of politics and nuclear bombs made no sense to us at all. Scary movies became the in thing, and I couldn’t wait to see “Invaders from Mars.”

Thirty-five cents for admission was no challenge at all then. There were always a few soda bottles to be found, and a little rummaging through the easy chair where my father watched a worried-looking Walter Cronkite every night yielded bus fare, and, if I was lucky, enough for that week’s special matinee snack, a Mars Bar.

It rained that Saturday, so just about every kid stuck inside was given bus fare to go see “Invaders from Mars.” The movie was preceded by a few cartoons to quiet us down, then it began. You could hear a pin drop. All the anxiety we had pent up within us was about to play out on the screen.

After the spaceship landed in that field, the boy in the film fell asleep. In the morning, he wondered whether it was all a dream. At breakfast, his mother and father and brother were acting very strangely. At school, his teacher and fellow students were strange, too. As he investigated, the story brought him to an underground tunnel where Martian zombies took direction from a squid-like mastermind managing the takeover of everyone’s mind and soul from its protected glass sphere. Those who today say there is really nothing to fear didn’t live through the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was utterly terrified.

When the movie was over and the lights came on, the older kids who had been throwing popcorn at us all disappeared into the streets. The kids in the middle, who were all my age, sat silently traumatized as the curtain closed. “Invaders From Mars” scared the &#§@ out of us! By the time I came to my senses all the kids I knew had scattered. None wanted to be seen in the fits of fright with which they departed “Invaders from Mars.”

A Glorious Mystery

Out on a rainy, darkened Union Street in downtown Lynn, I had missed the bus. It would be an hour before another came, and I had a sudden intense longing for the safety of home. So I set out on foot to walk the two miles through the city streets as it grew dark. Even today, when I am feeling vulnerable, anxious and alone, I dream of that trek at age nine through the city streets at night.

As I walked home on that day, my imagination raced ahead of me, and I felt fragile and alone. I was on the edge of tears for an accumulation of reasons I could never articulate. At times, the reality of feeling vulnerable strikes hard. I knew there were no evil Martian zombies, but I had an ill-defined sense that evil had just paid our world a visit and it changed us. We lived in a dangerous world, then, and since then its danger has exponentially grown.

And so on into the rain I walked. I walked alone, through a part of the city kids like me didn’t usually venture into. The darkness grew — both in the skies above me and deep, deep within me. You know what I mean for at one time or another, you have been there too. All light had gone out of the world. All hope had been drained away. Then the torrent came.

I’m not sure which soaked me more, the rain or the tears. I rarely cried as a boy — it was just hell if my older brother ever saw me crying — but the rain was making me shiver. I cannot ever forget that day. When I looked behind me in the dim darkness, someone was following me. A dark figure in a raincoat who stopped whenever I stopped. I tried to run, and when I did, he ran too.

There on the downtown city street, about a mile from the movie theatre, I came upon the imposing, looming spires of Saint Joseph Catholic Church. We didn’t spend much time in churches when I was growing up. The church’s dark brick façade and immensity seemed to stretch into the rumbling clouds. It felt almost as scary as “Invaders from Mars” and that ominous figure stalking somewhere behind me.

But the rain kept coming, and I had no choice. I climbed the steep marble steps of Saint Joseph Church, and just as I got to the top to duck into an alcove, a massive door opened next to me, and scared whatever wits I had left right out of me. It was, of all people, a police officer. I looked back down the street and the stalker had fled. “Get out of the rain, kid!” barked the officer as he shuffled me through the door on his way out. “And say a prayer for me while you’re in there,” he commanded. So in I went, almost against my will.

The church was massive. I had received my First Communion there two years earlier, but had never been back since. In the dim lights, I walked toward the sanctuary, and at the Communion rail, I knelt. I looked back toward the church doors, but no one had followed me in. I was alone, but a sense of safety slowly came over me. At some point it struck me that the police officer had come in here to pray and that thought impressed and comforted me. So I stayed for awhile.

Then I saw her! The great carved image in the sanctuary before me was crowned with light, and she held a child in her arms as though presenting Him to me. She was incredibly beautiful, but it was the creature beneath her feet that really gripped my attention and wouldn’t let it go. I stared in utter wonder at what was subdued beneath her feet. It was ugly, and all too real. It looked like the creature in the glass sphere that so terrified me in “Invaders from Mars.” It was trapped under her feet — under a soul that magnified the Lord.

Then the Martians left me. The stalker in the street left me. The missiles, and Khrushchev, and the Cold War left me. I felt, more than saw, the light come back into my world. The pulsing sobs, now still felt but unheard, left me, and a vista of hope broke through the clouds of doubt and fear. The look on her face was radiant, and she spoke to me. It wasn’t in words. It was deep, deep in the very place where fear had gripped my soul. I could not take my eyes from what was subdued beneath her feet. “Trust!” she said, and “Peace be with you.” And it was.

On that day she lifted me up out of a pit. Then years later, when once we met again, she humbled me, and I needed that, too. I tried to write about this in “Listen to Our Mother: Mary and the Fatima Century” but my words could not really ever do her justice.

Sixty-two years have passed since that day. Well over a half century. On the wall of this prison cell is an image of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, the patron saint of prisoners and writers and the patron of Beyond These Stone Walls and this imprisonment. He’s Pornchai Moontri’s patron, too, and this changed everything for him. Saint Maximilian’s feast day is August 14.

Next to him on our cell wall is that image, the one I saw at age nine. I don’t know where it came from. It appeared one day in a letter to Pornchai and went quickly up onto his wall. I wrote once of the images on our cell wall in “Angelic Justice: Saint Michael the Archangel and the Scales of Hesed.”

Reason for hope is a very great gift. Never again let the sun go down on your fear. When the Glorious Mysteries seem too unworldly to fathom, then look beneath her feet. What is there will look very familiar to you, and you will know what it means. The key to resisting evil is trust that the strife may not yet be over, but the battle is already won.

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary,
that never was it known
that anyone who fled to your protection,
implored your help
or sought your intercession,
was left unaided.
Inspired with this confidence,
I fly unto you,
O Virgin of virgins, my Mother;
to you do I come,
before you I stand,
sinful and sorrowful.
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
despise not my petitions,
but in your mercy hear and answer them.
Amen.

— The Memorare, by Saint Bernard of Clairveaux

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

How Our Lady of Fatima Saved a World in Crisis

The Assumption of Mary and the Assent of Saint Maximilian Kolbe

The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God

Advent of the Mother of God

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 11/20/24 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 11/20/24

Thanksgiving in the Reign of Christ the King

While American tradition offers thanks in the land of the free and the home of the brave, some still await the promise of freedom with a bravery found in defiant hope.

While American tradition offers thanks in the land of the free and the home of the brave, some still await the promise of freedom with a bravery found in defiant hope.

November 20, 2024 by Father Gordon MacRae

Before celebrating Thanksgiving in America — even if you’re not in America — I will be asking the readers of Beyond These Stone Walls to ponder my post for next week. It has become a Thanksgiving tradition at this blog so I will post it anew on the day before Thanksgiving in America. Some readers have said that it has become a part of their own Thanksgiving observance. Its point is clear. Not everyone lives a privileged life. Not everyone even lives a life in freedom. But in the land of the free and the home of the brave, everyone can find reason to give thanks in the Reign of Christ the King.

The story next week’s post will tell is a true account of history that most other sources left in the footnotes. It is also a story that has deep meaning for us who have endured painful losses in this odyssey called life, the loss of loved ones, the loss of health, of happiness, of hope, the unjust loss of freedom. For some, the litany of loss can be long and painful, and it could drive us all into an annual major holiday depression.

It has helped me and those around me to consider the story of Squanto. History is too often passed down by victors alone. The story of the Mayflower Pilgrims who fled religious persecution (though they didn’t really) to endure the wilds of a brave new world (though they didn’t endure it without help) is well known. But it has been stripped of a far more accurate and inspiring story under its surface.

It is the story of Tisquantum, known to history as Squanto, the sole survivor of a place the indigenous called “The Dawn Land,” now known as Plymouth, Massachusetts. Having been chained up and taken on an odyssey of my own, I found very special meaning in the story of Squanto’s quiet but powerful impact on American history. So will you.

If you have followed our posts, then you know that a spirit of Thanksgiving has been elusive for us behind these stone walls. But with a little time and perspective, my friends here and I find that our list of all for which we give thanks has actually grown in size, scope, and clarity.

From the earliest days of BTSW since its inception in 2009, we have tried to live within a single core principle. I first discovered it in the classic book by Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Beacon Press 1992). It promotes a fundamental truth about coping with life’s litany of loss with a central liberating theme: “The one freedom that can never be taken from us is the freedom to choose the person we will be in any circumstance.”

In Frankl’s own words, his story of survival in Auschwitz, the darkest of prisons, was in part inspired by the same person who inspires us. Saint Maximilian Kolbe was a prisoner, but he was first and foremost a Catholic priest who survived heroically by giving his life to save another. “Survived” might seem a strange word to use. Father Maximilian Kolbe was murdered, his earthly remains reduced to smoke and ash to drift in the skies above Auschwitz.

But he survives still. I am certain of this. The Nazi commandant whose power over others extinguished countless lives is now just a footnote on history. I don’t even know his name. But Saint Maximilian lives forever among the communion of saints. He lives in mysterious communion with us behind these stone walls with the same truth that inspired Victor Frankl to survive Auschwitz and write his own story of survival:

“We must never forget that we also find meaning in life even when confronted by a hopeless situation. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential to turn a personal tragedy into a triumph. When we are no longer able to change a situation … we are challenged to change ourselves.”

— Man’s Search for Meaning, p. 116

A friend recently sent me a revision of the famous “Serenity Prayer.” It struck me as an awesome truth and I reposted it a while back in another post, God, Grant Me Serenity. I’ll be Waiting. I find myself sharing this revised version often now with prisoners who come to me with a litany of grief and sorrow:

“God grant me Serenity to accept
the people I cannot change,
The Courage to change
the only one I can,
And the Wisdom to know
that it’s me.”

The Folly of Living with Resentment

One of the two patron saints who empower this blog is Saint Maximilian Kolbe. I have been very much informed by the course of his life in light of his sacrifices. Today my priesthood feels meaningless unless I don the glasses that Father Maximilian wore in prison. If I cannot see what he saw, then what I suffer is meaningless and empty.

But I have seen it. You may recall our post just a week ago, “Thailand’s Once-Lost Son Was Flag Bearer for the Asian Apostolic Congress.” You may have noticed the top graphic on that post. My friend, Pornchai Maximilian Moontri, was wearing a very special shirt sent to him in Thailand by one of our readers. It says “Without sacrifice there is no love.” The quote is attributed to Saint Maximilian Kolbe, and the shirt is emblazoned with his Auschwitz prison number, 16670. I told Max that if he puts this T-shirt on, he will never see his life and suffering the same way again. So I marvel at the fact that he not only put it on, but he wore it for all the world to see.

Sometimes readers write to ask me how it is that I am still (relatively?) sane after 30 years of unjust imprisonment with continually rising and then falling hope. They ask how it is that I still have faith, and why I do not seem to be bitter or resentful when I write. But I HAVE been bitter and resentful about the losses and sorrows life has tossed at me. It is just that I came to recognize that living in anger and resentment is like mixing a toxic brew for our enemies and then drinking it ourselves. It is to live in a self-imposed prison, a relentless assault upon your very soul.

Once you become ready to let go of bitterness and cease to be governed by resentment, faith and hope are what grow in its place. It is like a plant that springs up from a tiny crack in the urban concrete. You simply cannot hold onto your bitterness and your faith at the same time. One of them always gives way to the other.

I find lots of inspiration for this from the readers of this blog. Consider Fr William Graham of the Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota who spent eight years in exile, publicly shamed and his priestly ministry suspended. I wrote of his plight and its most recent development in “After Eight Years in Exile Fr William Graham Is Credibly Innocent.”

He had been falsely accused and cast out in 2016 after his bishop deemed a nearly 40-year-old claim against him to be “credible.” “Credible” is a vague and much abused term used in no other setting but American Catholic priesthood in the age of suspicion. As a legal standard, it means no more than the fact that a priest and an accuser lived in the same geographic area 30, 40, or 50 years ago. If an accusation “could have happened,” then it is seen by our bishops and their lawyers and insurers as “credible.”

After eight years in exile with a dark cloud of accusation hanging over his head, Father Graham was fully exonerated. He returned to ministry in the parish from which he was banished. He returned just in time to file his request for retirement and he moved on to a safer, quieter life with his priesthood intact. In spite of all that befell him, Father Graham believes that he has much to be thankful for. Throughout, Father Graham reported that he found both solace and hope in Beyond These Stone Walls, and it was a lantern during his darker times. Now he is free.

My Thanksgiving for Irony

And I am also thankful for the inspiration of irony. If you have been reading our posts all along, our stories are filled with it. Here’s a very moving example sent to me from a dear reader, the late Kathleen Riney. Kathleen was a retired nurse living in Texas. Her beloved husband, Tom, died from cancer, and Kathleen wrote that she found spiritual refuge in Beyond These Stone Walls.

Before her own death Kathleen wrote to me near the September 23 feast day of Saint Padre Pio, which is also the anniversary of my false imprisonment. I had written a post then that included the “Prayer after Communion” composed by Saint Padre Pio. I sent the post and prayer to Kathleen Riney who was caring for her dying husband at home.

Kathleen wrote that while her husband, Tom, was in the last weeks of his life, she gave him a copy of that prayer printed from that older post. The downloaded page had her name and email address at the top. She had rented a reclining hospital chair to help keep her husband comfortable. Many months after Tom died, Kathleen received this message in her email:

“Kathleen, my name is Kristine. I rented a hospital recliner. I found a paper with the “Stay With Me, Lord” prayer in the chair. I wanted to let you know that the prayer has helped me. I’m scheduled for surgery on November 1st and the surgery is the reason I rented the chair. Somehow that prayer found me and has strengthened me. I wanted to let you know that you touched a stranger in a great way!!! I will read it often. I hope all is well in your life. Thank you, Kristine.”

Accounts such as this are easy to dismiss as mere coincidence, but only if you really struggle to live life only on the surface without ever delving into what I recently called “the deep unseen” in the great Tapestry of God where our lives, through grace, become entangled with the Will of God. Padre Pio had many spiritual gifts in this life that I do not fully comprehend. I wonder if he ever thought that his “Prayer after Communion” would become like a message in a bottle cast into the sea where it would drift into the hands of someone known only to God. Here is that prayer in its entirety:

Padre Pio’s Prayer after Communion

Stay with me, Lord, for it is necessary to have You present so that I do not forget You. You know how easily I abandon You.

Stay with me, Lord, because I am weak and I need Your strength, that I may not fall so often.

Stay with me, Lord, for You are my life, and without You, I am without fervor.

Stay with me, Lord, for You are my light, and without You, I am in darkness.

Stay with me, Lord, to show me Your will.

Stay with me, Lord, so that I hear Your voice and follow You.

Stay with me, Lord, for I desire to love You very much, and always be in Your company.

Stay with me, Lord, if You wish me to be faithful to You.

Stay with me, Lord, for as poor as my soul is, I want it to be a place of consolation for You, a nest of love.

Stay with me, Jesus, for it is getting late and the day is coming to a close, and life passes; death, judgment, eternity approaches. It is necessary to renew my strength, so that I will not stop along the way and for that, I need You. It is getting late and death approaches. I fear the darkness, the temptations, the dryness, the cross, the sorrows. O how I need You, my Jesus, in this night of exile!

Stay with me tonight, Jesus, in life with all its dangers. I need You.

Let me recognize You as Your disciples did at the breaking of the bread, so that the Eucharistic Communion be the Light which disperses the darkness, the force which sustains me, the unique joy of my heart.

Stay with me, Lord, because at the hour of my death, I want to remain united to You, if not by communion, at least by grace and love.

Stay with me, Jesus, I do not ask for divine consolation, because I do not merit it, but the gift of Your Presence, oh yes, I ask this of You!

Stay with me, Lord, for it is You alone I look for, Your Love, Your Grace, Your Will, Your Heart, Your Spirit, because I love You and ask no other reward but to love You more and more.

With a firm love, I will love You with all my heart while on earth and continue to love You perfectly during all eternity.

Amen

This coming Sunday, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the Church celebrates a most important Solemnity. Our politics consume all the press right now, and it is unavoidable. Only one truth is necessary this Thanksgiving. No matter who we elected president, Christ is our King!

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Whether we face the aftermath of our political struggles with sorrow or joy, our coming Thanksgiving requires a heart open to grace. Here are a few posts that I hope might light that lantern:

Four Hundred Years Since That First Thanksgiving

To Christ the King Through the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Saint Maximilian Kolbe and the Gift of Noble Defiance

With Padre Pio When the Worst That Could Happen Happens

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 10/2/24 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 10/2/24

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and the Gift of Life

There was once a Little Flower who became a spiritual giant. The Story of a Soul by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux inspired many souls. This is the story of just a few.

There was once a Little Flower who became a spiritual giant. The Story of a Soul by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux inspired many souls. This is the story of just a few.

Back in September, 2013, I happened upon a FOX News interview of Megan Kelly with Miriam Ibrahim. You may remember her as the young Sudanese woman who was cast into a Sudan prison with a death sentence. Miriam’s “crime” was two-fold. She married a Catholic, and then refused to renounce her Christian faith and convert to Islam. In chilling words, she spoke of having to give birth to her second child with her ankles chained in that prison cell. Her story received worldwide attention.

The courage of Miriam Ibrahim is inspiring. Her being a Christian and marrying a Catholic were both crimes punishable by death in her Islamic country, and she was given three days to recant. The world responded, and many intervened, including Pope Francis. Miriam Ibrahim is an extraordinary woman of immense courage and faith. My heart leapt at this exchange:

Megan Kelly: “But why not just say what they wanted to hear to save your life?”

Miriam: “If I did that it would mean I gave up. It’s not possible because it’s not true. I have committed no crime.”

I wonder today about the story that will be told to her child whose life began with a death sentence in that Sudanese prison. The story makes me wonder about the gift of life, about how Miriam’s Islamic captors would so casually extinguish it in the name of Sharia law and justice. It makes me wonder about what Western Culture could learn from such courage rooted in the sanctity of life and freedom. It makes me wonder about the raw courage of Miriam’s “fiat” to suffer not for its own sake, but for the sake of a message to the world.

I did have an ironic laugh, however, at the conclusion of the interview. Miriam Ibrahim now lives about twenty miles away from the prison in which I write. Megan Kelly asked her what her life is like now living in New Hampshire. Miriam paused thoughtfully and said, “Well, it’s better than a Sudanese prison!”

On that note, I sometimes wonder what draws so many people to visit me in prison from beyond these stone walls week after week. I have never once dropped a completed post in the prison mailbox and walked away thinking it might inspire anyone. I don’t think it’s a result of false humility, or the power of prisons everywhere to stifle any evidence of self-respect. I just don’t think that what I write is particularly noteworthy. I guess a part of that comes from reading a lot. I read so much from writers I admire that I never feel that anything I write could ever measure up to them.

All of which makes me wonder why it is that so many others write about what I write. Father James Valladares, PhD in Australia wrote a book a decade ago entitled Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast, about a third of the book references my writing at Beyond These Stone Walls. Then Dr. Bill Donohue of the Catholic League did the same in “Travesty of Justice: The Ordeal of Father Gordon MacRae” at the same time. Both of them generated lots of responses from around the globe.

One of the memorable responses appeared at Freedom Through Truth, the blog of Michael Brandon writing from Canada. His post “From Fear and Humility to Hope and Love” is a reflection on Bill Donohue’s guest post that rivals anything I write in depth and understanding. Then a few days later Mr. Brandon posted “The Parable of the Prisoner,” a post about Pornchai Maximilian and me. I had to wait for that one to arrive by mail because the person who tried to read it to me by telephone sobbed all the way through it.

I was so inspired by what Michael Brandon wrote that I forgot it was about me! I am always struck by the number of people, like the talented Catholic writer behind Freedom Through Truth who read Beyond These Stone Walls and tell me they felt as though I were writing directly to them. I am also struck by the many letters, comments, and posts by other writers all expressing the thought that, had I not been in such straits in prison, they would not have been drawn to what I write.

Thorns Before a Rose

As I try to wrap my mind around that, don’t think for a moment that I actually know what I’m doing when I write. I do not. I just plod along casting outposts like messages in a bottle cast into the sea. I am not gifted with the insight into the meaning of suffering that God has given to those I admire, those whose writings I write about, such as Saint Padre Pio, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, and this week, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux.

In “From Arizona State University: An Interview with Our Editor”, Dilia E. Rodríguez, PhD described the nuts and bolts of this blog (Pornchai Max might say “more nuts than bolts”) and how she became its editor. When this blog first began in 2009, my first posts were brief, and handwritten because at the time I had nothing more in this prison cell to write with than a Bic pen and some lined paper. There are few posts from back then that are still read today. But one that is, and that remains one of my most read and most shared posts today, is about an ordinary encounter with an extraordinary young woman. That post is “A Shower of Roses,” and since this post appears on BTSW on the day after the Feast Day of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, I want to mention it again.

Readers may recall that back in 2013 my friend Pornchai Moontri and I took part in an “in-house” retreat based on the book 33 Days to Morning Glory by Marian Father Michael Gaitley. We recently featured an article about this from Felix Carroll in Marian Helper magazine, “‘Mary Is at Work Here’.” One evening during that retreat, our esteemed coordinator, Nate Chapman, mentioned that he had been awaiting a wonderful new book, Angels and Saints: A Biblical Guide to Friendship with God’s Holy Ones, by Scott Hahn (Image Books, 2014). I didn’t tell Nate that I had ordered that same book and it arrived just days before. One of its chapters is about Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, and Scott Hahn approached writing of her with the same trepidation I experienced:

“Her prodigy was her littleness – and, paradoxically, her littleness is so large that it can be frightening. For no other chapter in this book have I been so intimidated. For no other chapter have I stared so long at a blank page”

— Saints and Angels, p. 155

I know the feeling, Dr. Hahn! When I set out to write of Saint Thérèse, I was thoroughly intimidated as though my soul were but a tabula rasa — a blank slate — in the presence of pages that spoke volumes, Story of a Soul, in the Presence of God. I could not write of Saint Thérèse. I had no frame of reference with which to relate to someone whose footprint in this world was so small, yet one whose spiritual impact was so immense that Saint John Paul II declared her a Doctor of the Church, one of the 33 spiritual giants of Church history.

I could not really write about Saint Thérèse at all. I could only write about a chance encounter between us, a moment in my own life that somehow intersected with Saint Thérèse. It’s a snapshot in my life as a priest that changed the way I view faith, hope, and suffering, the way I live life toward dying.

“A Shower of Roses” is the story of Michelle, a suffering and dying teenage girl. With fear and trembling as a young priest, I took the hand of this girl as she surrendered her life. As I look back across 42 years of a priesthood mired in suffering, I keep going back to that moment, for it is filled with meaning and with mysteries yet to be unraveled.

There was a moment in which Saint Thérèse took that girl’s hand from mine, and in doing so, left an impression of how her suffering was a conduit between the soul and God. Consider these words of Saint Thérèse in Story of a Soul, the diary of a young woman leaving this life:

“My heart was fired with an ardent desire of suffering… Suffering became my attraction; in it I found charms that entranced me —Suffering has held out its arms to me from my very entrance to Carmel, and lovingly have I embraced it… For one pain endured with joy… we shall love the good God more forever — Suffering united to love is the only thing that appears to me desirable in this Vale of Tears.”

Unlike Saint Thérèse, but like most of the rest of us, I have spent a lot of time and effort struggling against suffering in many forms. I am daunted and intimidated by this little saint and her Story of a Soul, the story of her simple acquiescence to God’s will that turns every moment of suffering into an instrument of grace. It is the story of extraordinary grace reaching into souls through ordinary things, and it still shakes the earth beneath my feet.

Sometime in this month that opens with the Feast of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, read anew and share with someone else “A Shower of Roses.”

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A Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Don’t stop here, Dear Readers. With all the is going on in the world, and going wrong with the world, it is not easy to keep a focus on all that really matters. So sometime today, this week, or this month come back here and read or reread a few gems, three of which were written by others, about the transformation of sacrificial suffering into glory:

A Shower of Roses by Fr Gordon MacRae

From Fear and Humility to Hope and Love by Michael Brandon

‘Mary Is at Work Here’ by Felix Carroll

From Arizona State University: An Interview with Our Editor by Dilia E. Rodríguez, PhD

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 8/14/24 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 8/14/24

The Assumption of Mary and the Assent of Saint Maximilian Kolbe

In one of history’s darkest times and places, Saint Maximilian Kolbe continued his life’s greatest quest: to know, honor, and echo the assent of Mary to the Lord.

In one of history’s darkest times and places, Saint Maximilian Kolbe continued his life’s greatest quest: to know, honor, and echo the assent of Mary to the Lord.

August 14, 2024 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII solemnly defined as a dogma of faith the bodily Assumption into Heaven of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. The precise words of Pope Pius are found in the Apostolic Constitution, Munificentissimus Deus, “The Most Bountiful God,” defining what much of the Church already believed, and now holds as a matter of truth:

“We pronounce, declare and define it to be a divinely revealed truth that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”

It was not without controversy. Pius XII thus became the first pope in a century to define a new dogma of faith. Five papacies earlier, in 1869, Pope Pius IX sought, cajoled, and in the end imposed, the doctrine of papal infallibility. In his book, Making Saints, former Newsweek editor Kenneth Woodward described the doctrine of infallibility as a “sheathed sword” (Making Saints, p. 314). He described it that way because, from the time of the doctrine’s inception in 1869, a declaration of papal infallibility has only been invoked once: a century later in 1950 when Pius XII declared the Assumption of Mary to be an infallible tenet of faith.

This was not just a unilateral pronouncement from on high. Before defining the dogma in 1950, Pius XII sought and received an amazing response of affirmation from the “sensus fidelium,” the assent of the faithful from throughout the world. The Our Sunday Visitor Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine describes this beautifully:

“Infallibility in belief pertains to the whole Church. ‘The whole body of the faithful … cannot err in matters of belief. This characteristic is shown in the supernatural appreciation of the faith (the ‘sensus fidei’) of the whole people when, from the bishops to the last of the faithful, they manifest a universal consent to matters of faith and morals.” (Lumen Gentium)

“To understand properly how the whole people of God is infallible in its sense of the faith (sensus fidei, sensus fidelium) it must be born in mind that the body of the faithful goes beyond limits both of place and, especially, of time. The People of God always includes those of past generations as well as those in the present moment. The former are in fact the vast majority, and it is easier to ascertain what they believed. It is that belief that marks the sensus fidelium and points infallibly to the truth." (p. 334)

To help in understanding this concept of the Universal Church that includes the faith of all generations past, see my post, “The God of the Living and the Life of the Dead” (linked again at the end of
this post). It is evidence of the ongoing connectedness of the faithful departed to the life of the Church.

I found this concept to be a stunning affirmation, not only of what we believe, but of why we believe it. The idea that infallibility includes the unwavering faith of the vast majority of the People of God taken as a whole over the span of millennia is mind-boggling truth.

The faith of the entire Church, from its birth at Pentecost to the present, points to a belief in Mary as Theotokos, the Bearer of God and the New Ark of the Covenant. Pope Pius XII strongly considered this before defining as infallible the Dogma of the Assumption in 1950. From the Chair of Peter, Pius XII sought the assent of the faithful in the present through his encyclical, Deiperae Virginis Mariae, to inquire whether Mary’s bodily Assumption should be defined.

As a result, an amazing number of petitions reached Rome from every corner of the Church. The petitions included those of 8,000,000 laity, 50,000 religious women, 32,000 priests, 2,505 archbishops and bishops, 311 cardinals, and 81 patriarchs of the Eastern Church. If this demonstration of assent had been able to span the entire life of the Church the result would have been immeasurable.

From the earliest days of the Church many considered the Assumption of Mary — centuries before it was defined as a tenet of faith — to be, in the words of Pius XII, “the fulfillment of that most perfect grace granted to the Blessed Virgin and the special blessing that countered the curse of Eve” — original sin. In the Eastern Church, a “Memorial of Mary” was already being celebrated on August 15 in the Fifth Century. It spread from the East and came ot be known as the koimesis in Greek and the dormitio in Latin, both of which mean the “falling asleep.” By the Eighth Century, belief in the bodily Assumption of Mary was widely accepted in both the East and West.

In the 19th Century, John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote that both the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary are implicit in her identification as the “New Eve,” a title given to Mary since the Second Century. Just as the Resurrection of Jesus was the essential element of His victory over sin and death, Mary shares that victory in her designation as the New Eve, and in the words of Jesus at the foot of the Cross as the spiritual Mother of all. Seeing His Mother at the foot of the Cross, Jesus said ot her, “Woman, behold your son.” And then to the Disciple John, “Behold your Mother.” It was an adoption arrangement (John 19:26-27).

Among the earliest titles of Mary is Theotokos, Greek for “The Bearer of God.” For the Scriptural foundation of this belief and its implications, see my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

“What Will Become of You?”

In the Gospel account of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:2), Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus at Mount Tabor. Both Moses and Elijah, according to Scripture, entered heaven in both body and soul. The appearances of Mary at Fatima, Lourdes, Tepeyac Hill in Mexico, and others all point to an understanding of Mary as existing still in that same form. I wrote of the details of one of these visits in “A Subtle Encore from Our Lady of Guadalupe.”

There is no saint of modern times with a stronger and more dedicated devotion ot Mary than Saint Maximilian Kolbe who seemed to live with a perpetual presence of the Immaculata in his field of view. Long before he was the Saint of Auschwitz and Founder of the Militia Immaculata, Saint Maximilian Kolbe was simply “Raymond,” a highly intelligent and gifted boy born into poverty in a rural farming community in Poland.

Like me, Raymond Kolbe was fascinated by the sciences of astronomy and cosmology and actually once built a working rocket as a boy. Also like me, he exasperated his mother at times. One day his frustrated mother scolded him, “Raymond! Whatever will become of you?” Filled with grief, young Kolbe went immediately to a local church and turned to the Mother of God with the same question. According to Kolbe’s own words as reported by my friend, Father Michael Gaitley, MIC in his wonderful book, 33 Days to Morning Glory,

“Then the virgin appeared to me holding in her hands two crowns, one white and one red. She looked at me with love and she asked me if I would like to have them. The white meant that I would remain pure, and the red meant that I would be a martyr. I answered, ‘yes, I want them.’ Then she looked at me tenderly and disappeared.”

Father Gaitley went on to describe that what was meant by “pure” in this sense was that Kolbe would never allow evil or dishonesty to take root in his heart. And it never did. On August 14, the date this is posted, the Church honors Saint Maximilian Kolbe. He also happens to be my own Patron Saint as well as that of my friend, Pornchai Maximilian Moontri, and the Patron Saint of this blog. To the best of our ability, we follow in his spiritual footsteps, but his footsteps took him to an ultimate sacrifice. The nature of that sacrifice, along with Maximilian’s Auschwitz prison number 16670, now a badge of honor, is expressed on Pornchai’s T-shirt atop this section of our post. Our friend, Father Michael Gaitley, MIC, described the footsteps of Saint Maximilian in brief but familiar prose in 33 Days to Morning Glory :

“In 1941, after decades of incredibly fruitful apostolic labors in Poland and Japan, Kolbe was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Before his arrest, his brother Franciscans had pleaded with him to go into hiding. He said he was grateful for their loving hearts but couldn’t follow their advice.

“He later explained why: ‘I have a mission to fulfill.’ That mission was fulfilled on the eve of the Feast of Mary’s Assumption into Heaven when, after he volunteered to take the place of another prisoner condemned to starvation, the impatient Nazis finished Kolbe off with a lethal injection. Thus, St. Maximilian died a martyr of charity and received the red crown from his Immaculata.”

Two hours before his arrest, Fr. Maximilian Kolbe penned what Father Gaitley called “the single most important theological reflection of his life. It was nothing less than the answer to a question that eluded him for many years, the question he had pondered over and over throughout his life was: “Who are you, O Immaculate Conception?”

In the document, according to Father Gaitley, Kolbe raised a key point. In the appearances of Mary at Lourdes, Mary did not say to St. Bernadette, “I am immaculately conceived,” but rather she said, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” It was thus clarified for Maximilian that through a special grace from God, Mary was in fact immaculately conceived in the womb of her own mother with no stain of original sin and that grace became her very identity by the as yet unseen merits of her Son. Understanding this means stepping out of conventional time and space for a moment into the mystery of the “nunc stans” the "Eternal Now" in which God dwells and in which He envisions all time and space as one. It is a difficult concept for our linear existence to ponder, but I have pondered it for my entire life.

Father Gaitley asks (p. 52): “Why does Mary make the grace she received at her conception her very name?” Clearly, Mary is not a divine being. Kolbe wrestled with this divinity problem for decades, and it ultimately led to a solution.

There are two Immaculate Conceptions, one created (Mary) and the other uncreated (the Holy Spirit). Before Mary, there was the uncreated Immaculate Conception, “the One Who for all eternity springs from God the Father and God the Son as an uncreated conception of love, the prototype of all conceptions that multiply life throughout the universe. The Father begets, the Son is begotten, the Spirit is the 'conception' that springs from their love. The Holy Spirit is the “Immaculate Conception” b e c a u s e, being God, He is without sin.

Is Mary then a personification of the Holy Spirit? The truth of this union between the Holy Spirit and Mary is found in a somewhat difficult passage in Maximilian’s own writings as reported by Father Gaitley:

"What type of union is this? It is above all an interior union, a union of her essence with the ‘essence’ of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells in her, lives in her. This was true from the first instant of her existence. It was always true; it will always be true.” ( Gaitley, p. 53)

“In what does this life of the Spirit in Mary consist? He himself is uncreated Love in her; the Love of the Father and of the Son, the Love by which God loves Himself, the very Love of the Most Holy Trinity ... . In a much more precise, more interior, more essential manner, the Holy Spirit lives in the soul of the Immaculata, in the depths of her very being” (Gaitley, p. 53-54)

"My soul magnifies the Lord, and my Spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, henceforth all generations shall call me
blessed.”

— From the Magnificat of Mary, Luke 1:46-48

In “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God,” I explored a similar Marian theology, and from it I think I can finally make sense of what Saint Maximilian has proposed. Mary, Theotokos , the Bearer of God, is an eternal repository of the Holy Spirit. Both my friend Pornchai Maximilian Moontri and I owe her a great debt — not for saving us from Earthly Powers of destruction, because they actually mean little, but for preserving us in faith despite them.

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“Remember that those who ask for Heaven of the Immaculata will surely achieve it because she is unable to deny us anything nor is the Lord God able to deny her anything. We shall shortly know exactly what it will be like in Heaven. Surely in a hundred years none of us will be walking on this Earth. But what are a hundred years in the face of what we have been through? Soon, therefore, provided we are well prepared under the protection of the Immaculata.”

— St. Maximilian Kolbe, 1941

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. Please spend some time in prayer and thanksgiving at the live feed of Saint Maximilian Kolbe’s own Adoration Chapel featured below after all our posts at Beyond These Stone Walls.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 4/28/24 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 4/28/24

Claire Dion Has Fallen into the Hands of the Living God

Our great friend, Claire Dion, succumbed to cancer early on April 26, 2024. She passed peacefully in the presence of her family into the hands of the Living God.

Our great friend, Claire Dion, succumbed to cancer early on April 24, 2024. She passed peacefully in the presence of her family into the hands of the Living God.

April 29, 2024 by Father Gordon MacRae

“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

— Colossians 3:3

It is rare that I publish more than one post a week. However, I could not let this opportunity pass to acknowledge Mrs. Claire Dion for her undaunted efforts over many years to help bring our posts to you every week. I wrote a tribute to Claire posted on April 3, 2024 entitled, “In a Mirror Dimly: Divine Mercy in Our Darker Days.” Claire played many roles in my life and in the life of our friend Pornchai Max Moontri in ways both innovative and heroic. I have spent much time pondering, in the past few days, how we could ever continue on without her.

But we must, and Claire would be the first to insist that we must. She was and is one of the most selfless souls ever to cross my path. A Mass of Christian Burial is to be offered for Claire on the day this is posted, April 29, 2024. The Mass will be at Saint Pius V Catholic Church in Lynn, Massachusetts in the very neighborhood in which I grew up. You may read all about Claire, and our hopes and fears for her in the winter of her life, in the post linked above.

But the memory I most want to cling to, and convey to all of you, is perhaps the most innovative thing she had done for us. It was late September of 2020 at the height of a global pandemic. After 16 years here as my friend, my roommate, and my family, Pornchai Maximilian Moontri was taken away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to begin the long and painful ordeal of deportation to his native Thailand. Prison life was beset by a panicked and draconian response to Covid, and it seemed much of the world had come to a screeching halt. Here is how I presented this story a few weeks ago:

The Divine Mercy Phone Calls

In 2020, Pornchai was held for five months in ICE detention at an overcrowded, for-profit facility in Louisiana. It was the height of the global Covid pandemic, and we were completely cut off from contact with each other. But Claire could receive calls from either of us. I guess raising five daughters made her critically aware of the urgent necessity of telephones and the importance of perceiving in advance every attempt to circumvent the rules.

Claire devised an ingenious plan using two cell phones placed facing each other with their speakers in opposite positions. On a daily basis during the pandemic of 2020, I could talk with Pornchai in ICE detention in Louisiana and he could talk with me in Concord, New Hampshire. These brief daily phone calls were like a life preserver for Pornchai and became crucial for us both. Through them, I was able to convey information to Pornchai that gave him daily hope in a long, seemingly hopeless situation.

Each step of the way, Claire conveyed to me the growing depth of her devotion to Divine Mercy and the characters who propagated it, characters who became our Patron Saints and upon whom we were modeling our lives. Saints John Paul II, Maximilian Kolbe, Padre Pio, Faustina Kowalska, Therese of Lisieux, all became household names for us. They were, and are, our spiritual guides, and became Claire’s as well by sheer osmosis.

Neither Pornchai Max nor I will ever forget Claire, but what we will both most remember with gratitude in our hearts and thanksgiving to the Lord for the graces bestowed to us through Claire is the clever and innovative story described above. It was unorthodox, but she saved the day for us both.

If you would like to post a prayer or thought about Claire, or condolence to her family, you are invited to do so at this site.

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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Please pray for Claire and her family. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls.

In a Mirror Dimly: Divine Mercy in Our Darker Days

For Those Who Look at the Stars and See Only Stars

A Shower of Roses

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”