Elizabeth Ann Seton teaches us that \u201cJesus is as a fire in the very center of our souls ever burning. Yet, we are cold because we do not stay by it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pero, \u00bfc\u00f3mo vamos a encontrar a Jes\u00fas all\u00ed, en el centro de nuestras almas? \u00bfY c\u00f3mo guarda<\/em> nosotros mismos cerca de ese fuego interminable?<\/p>\n Elizabeth would say without hesitation that the secret to staying close to Jesus is prayer. And prayer is nothing more than a \u201clook of love\u201d: \u201cOur look of love at Him draws back a look of love on us, and His divine love enkindles that fire of love in us which makes us remember him continually.\u201d<\/p>\n Among Elizabeth\u2019s sisters in sanctity, the woman saints of our Catholic tradition, few have been drawn into the fire of divine prayer as was Venerable Mary Ward.<\/p>\n Mary was born in 1585 into a family of English \u201crecusants,\u201d Catholics who had refused to embrace the new church that was created in 1534 when King Henry VIII separated England from the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. In the years that followed, Henry\u2019s government dismantled the shrines of the saints, dissolved the monasteries, and punished all who refused to participate in the worship services of the Church of England with fines and imprisonment. Shortly before Mary was born, a law was passed that made it a crime punishable by death to be a Catholic priest in England. And it was an equally serious crime to help or harbor one.<\/p>\n Sorprendentemente, las persecuciones que intentaron acabar con los cat\u00f3licos ingleses que quedaban sirvieron para intensificar y profundizar su fe. Los cat\u00f3licos perseguidos viv\u00edan una bendita codependencia: los sacerdotes atend\u00edan a los laicos que se sacrificaban para alimentarlos y darles cobijo, y los laicos atend\u00edan a los sacerdotes que les ense\u00f1aban y les llevaban los sacramentos. Y en el centro mismo de esta comuni\u00f3n en el sufrimiento estaban los laicos mujeres<\/em>de casas grandes y peque\u00f1as, que acog\u00edan a los sacerdotes y facilitaban las misas secretas en sus hogares.<\/p>\n El mismo a\u00f1o en que naci\u00f3 Mar\u00eda, una mujer de Yorkshire, Margaret Clitherow, fue arrestada por esconder sacerdotes en su casa. Margaret no quer\u00eda que sus tres hijos testificaran contra ella (o fueran torturados), por lo que se neg\u00f3 a declararse culpable, evitando as\u00ed el juicio. Las autoridades respondieron conden\u00e1ndola a muerte: la presionaron hasta la muerte bajo una enorme puerta de madera sobre la que amontonaron una tonelada de piedras. Margaret estaba embarazada de su cuarto hijo. Sin embargo, fue valientemente a la muerte, galvanizando el coraje de los que vinieron despu\u00e9s de ella.<\/p>\n Mary Ward was one of those who drew strength from Margaret\u2019s witness, and it meant she clung ever more to Jesus. When the young Jesuit mission priests introduced her to contemplative prayer, that became a source of undeniable strength.<\/p>\n Mary learned that prayer of which Elizabeth Ann Seton spoke, the \u201caffective prayer\u201d that seeks intimacy with Christ. She entered imaginatively and personally into the scenes of Christ\u2019s earthly life, seeking in her meditations to sit at his feet, or huddle next to him in the bottom of the boat, or stand with Mary at the foot of His cross. In prayer, she was drawing close to Jesus, listening to him, and talking familiarly with him. And in this way, Mary began to know with certainty that she was wanted and loved. She became alive to the Lord\u2019s work in her life, and she wanted to give herself freely to that work.<\/p>\n A la tierna edad de quince a\u00f1os, Mar\u00eda discerni\u00f3 una vocaci\u00f3n religiosa y convenci\u00f3 a su padre para que la dejara ir a las Clarisas en Holanda. No estuvo all\u00ed mucho tiempo, sin embargo, antes de darse cuenta, a trav\u00e9s de la oraci\u00f3n, de que estaba en el lugar equivocado. Regres\u00f3 a Inglaterra y comenz\u00f3 a servir a los cat\u00f3licos perseguidos, catequizando a los ni\u00f1os y visitando a los presos.<\/p>\n Mary was in the midst of this work when one day she had an extraordinary experience in prayer that she called her \u201cglory vision.\u201d In this overwhelming experience of the Lord\u2019s presence she sensed that she was called to something \u201cmore to his Glory.\u201d Soon she returned to the Netherlands to discern the path.<\/p>\n Two years later Mary received another definitive illumination in prayer: \u201ctake the same of the Society.\u201d This time, Mary knew exactly what was being asked of her: she was to found a new order for women based on the same Constitutions that Ignatius of Loyola had written for the Society of Jesus.<\/p>\n Mar\u00eda fue llamada a reunir a las mujeres en una comunidad activa y contemplativa, centrada en la oraci\u00f3n. y<\/em> ordenada a la acci\u00f3n mundana. Se imaginaba a las mujeres sirviendo como ella hab\u00eda servido en Inglaterra: catequizando a los ni\u00f1os, visitando a los presos y evangelizando a los dem\u00e1s en las conversaciones cotidianas. Estar\u00edan enraizadas en la oraci\u00f3n, pero libres para la misi\u00f3n: y la misi\u00f3n ser\u00eda apoyar a las almas en circunstancias dif\u00edciles. Se sinti\u00f3 llamada a responder a las mismas necesidades que hab\u00eda visto en sus compatriotas perseguidos.<\/p>\n Y esta llamada fue algo totalmente nuevo<\/em>. At this time in the Church\u2019s history no religious women were permitted to pursue apostolic works. Women were to remain \u201cin enclosure\u201d in convents. But, certain of what she had received in prayer, Mary went to Rome to seek papal approval. At first, she was given leave to open a few houses and schools in Rome and elsewhere in Italy. But within only a few years resistance began to mount against her and the women who had joined her. Eventually, Mary\u2019s case was brought to the Inquisition, and because Mary refused to accept enclosure for her nuns and continued to insist on a woman superior (another innovation), she was declared a heretic.<\/p>\n Mary calmly accepted all that came with this charge: the suppression of her houses, the scattering of her first followers, and her own imprisonment in a cramped cell. In 1632, she was summoned to Rome to answer the charges. In a meeting with the pope, she declared, \u201cHoly Father, I neither am, nor ever have been a heretic.\u201d \u201cI believe you,\u201d the pope told her. Nevertheless, she was told to remain in Rome and refrain from living in community. Eventually, her health deteriorated, and she was permitted to return to England where she died in 1645.<\/p>\n At Mary\u2019s death, nothing remained of the Institute she had founded\u2014except for her vision for serving the Church in the way that the Lord had revealed to her in prayer, and the few followers to whom she had confided this wish. These women continued where Mary had been forced to leave off, and two separate congregations slowly took shape, working without official recognition until 1877, when they were approved by the Church.<\/p>\n Sin embargo, no se les permiti\u00f3 reconocer a Mar\u00eda hasta 1909, cuando fue reconocida como fundadora del Instituto de la Sant\u00edsima Virgen y de la Congregatio Jesu. Y s\u00f3lo en 2002 se permiti\u00f3 por fin a estas mujeres tomar como propias las Constituciones de la Compa\u00f1\u00eda de Jes\u00fas.<\/p>\n For over three hundred and fifty years Mary\u2019s foundations persevered, their foundress all but forgotten. Such was the power of Mary\u2019s prayer. Such, we must admit, is the power of prayer.<\/p>\n Elizabeth Ann Seton habla por todos los santos cuando profesa: Jes\u00fas es el centro ardiente. Acercaos a \u00c9l. Mar\u00eda da testimonio de lo mismo: Jes\u00fas es el centro ardiente. Ac\u00e9rcate a \u00e9l.<\/p>\n