When I was first raising my babies, twenty-something years ago, I was drawn to the practice of \u201cattachment parenting.\u201d The basic assumption of this parenting approach is that a baby is happiest when he is close to his mom. One of the tenets of attachment parenting is \u201cwearing\u201d your baby swaddled in a baby sling or carrier \u2014 and I totally embraced it.<\/p>\n
A lo largo de muchos a\u00f1os de crianza de mis hijos, he gastado numerosos fulares portabeb\u00e9s de todos los colores y estilos. Las fotos de familia me muestran llevando a nuestros beb\u00e9s en todo tipo de circunstancias: lavando los platos, de excursi\u00f3n, montando en barca, escardando el jard\u00edn.<\/p>\n
And I have to be honest. I don\u2019t know if this practice made my babies happier than any other babies. but I can tell you one thing: it made me<\/i> feliz. Me hac\u00eda incre\u00edblemente feliz tener a mis peque\u00f1os tan cerca. Y ese era el tipo de felicidad que invariablemente se contagia a los dem\u00e1s. Mi felicidad hac\u00eda felices a mis beb\u00e9s. Mi alegr\u00eda se convirti\u00f3 en su alegr\u00eda.<\/p>\n
Hoy en d\u00eda, no tengo m\u00e1s beb\u00e9s. Y ahora mismo no tengo ning\u00fan deseo de llevar a nadie a cuestas. Pero debo admitirlo: Quiero para llevar<\/i>. This year has made me feel like a helpless child. \u201cSomeone come quick,\u201d I want to cry, \u201csweep me up and hold me close to your heart!\u201d I want a mother\u2019s consolation, a tenderness I can feel, that warmth that radiates out from her happy center. I want Mary.<\/p>\n
En esto, estoy en buena compa\u00f1\u00eda. Los dos santos que hoy nos ocupan, Pedro Canisio e Isabel Ana Seton, se apoyaron en la Madre de Dios para superar sus dificultades. Sacaron fuerzas de su ternura y se sintieron animados por su cercan\u00eda. Y, de este modo, marcan un camino a seguir para todos nosotros en tiempos oscuros.<\/p>\n
At first blush, the two seem so different. Elizabeth was an eighteenth-century, American woman, a convert, mother, widow, and religious sister. She founded a teaching order, the Sisters of Charity, in rural Maryland. Peter was a fifteenth-century, Dutch-born Jesuit priest. He is credited with almost single-handedly saving the Catholic faith in southern Germany after the Protestant Reformation through his preaching, teaching, and work of founding educational institutions. A gifted writer, Peter created three catechisms that formed the backbone of post-Reformation education in Germany \u2014 one of the reasons he is lauded as a Doctor of the Church.<\/p>\n
Pero por muy diferentes que parezcan, Pedro e Isabel compartieron una p\u00e9rdida y un amor similares: ambos hab\u00edan experimentado la muerte prematura de una amada madre terrenal. Y ambos fueron recogidos despu\u00e9s en los brazos de la Madre de Dios. Ella los llev\u00f3 junto a su coraz\u00f3n, envueltos, por as\u00ed decirlo, en el manto de su amor (su versi\u00f3n del fular portabeb\u00e9s). En los momentos m\u00e1s dif\u00edciles, cuando la vida se volv\u00eda desesperada y dif\u00edcil, tanto Pedro como Isabel se volv\u00edan instintivamente hacia Mar\u00eda, alz\u00e1ndole los brazos en oraci\u00f3n. Pidieron ser llevados en brazos.<\/p>\n
Uno de esos momentos fue su primera visita a Viena: su segunda misi\u00f3n en tierras germanas y quiz\u00e1 la m\u00e1s dif\u00edcil. En de facto<\/i> capitol of the Holy Roman Empire, the spiritual and cultural center of Europe, Vienna was reeling from the confusion that resulted from Martin Luther\u2019s break with the Church. Religious battles had torn families and communities apart. Some people became Lutherans; others clung to the Catholic faith. But many more, disillusioned, fell from the practice of religion entirely or reverted to pagan practices. Monasteries were deserted and universities shuttered. Many churches had no pastor, and those that remained were utterly disheartened. When Peter arrived in Vienna, there had not been a priestly ordination in the city in 20 years.<\/p>\n
Y Pedro pens\u00f3 que sab\u00eda qu\u00e9 hacer: \u00a1\u00c9l ense\u00f1ar\u00eda! Predicar\u00eda. Convertir\u00eda la herej\u00eda en fe. Y as\u00ed, fue a las iglesias y comenz\u00f3 a evangelizar. Pero nadie vino. Nadie estaba all\u00ed para escuchar. Los vieneses hab\u00edan terminado con la iglesia.<\/p>\n
As\u00ed que Pedro retrocedi\u00f3, se reagrup\u00f3 y rez\u00f3. Y entonces cambi\u00f3 completamente su t\u00e1ctica. En lugar de anunciar el Evangelio, se convirti\u00f3 en el Evangelio. Busc\u00f3 a los pobres y a los indigentes. Ejerci\u00f3 su ministerio en los hospitales. Y frecuentaba las c\u00e1rceles, donde encontraba a los condenados a muerte, se quedaba con ellos y rezaba con ellos hasta el amargo final.<\/p>\n
Pedro Canisio acerc\u00f3 a los vieneses a su coraz\u00f3n y \u00e9stos empezaron a sentir su calor. Concibieron afecto por este hombre que abrazaba a los perdidos y abandonados. Quer\u00edan o\u00edr su predicaci\u00f3n; escuchaban sus palabras. Y este fue el comienzo de la reevangelizaci\u00f3n de Viena. Pedro no volvi\u00f3 a ganar a esta gente para la fe con doctrina, sino con ternura. Los gan\u00f3 a trav\u00e9s del apego.<\/p>\n
Where did such tenderness come from? What was the secret of Peter\u2019s strength? The simple answer is that Peter was drawing strength from the heart of his Mother. He was radiating to others that same love he felt from Mary. He was sharing her joy.<\/p>\n
In all his labors, Peter relied utterly on the Mother of the Lord. He founded sodalities to Mary everywhere he went \u2014 and he told them that prayer to Mary, more than anything else, would ground the re-emergence of the faith in their land. The more they entrusted themselves to her, the more she would help them.<\/p>\n
Peter spoke from his own experience. He had been loved. He had been carried. Late in life, as a witness to it, he wrote a book for Mary, his \u201cpoor testimony\u201d to his \u201cmost August Queen, most true and faithful Mother Mary.\u201d It ran to 800 pages.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Ann Seton knew this same love. And like Peter, she came to it by relying on Mary in the most difficult moments. Elizabeth was an Episcopalian when she met the Catholic faith in Italy. And despite all that she had been taught about avoiding the \u201cworship\u201d of Mary, she was drawn by the mother of God whom she saw honored in the art and the architecture and in the simple pious faith of her Catholic friends. Elizabeth was so moved by this that she herself began to turn instinctively to Mary. When she faced the most important decision of her life, whether or not to convert to the Catholic faith, she threw her arms open to the Mother of God.<\/p>\n
For months, Elizabeth had been wavering between the Episcopal faith of her upbringing, which had brought her much joy, and the strange and wondrous new Catholic faith that she had found in Italy. She felt the burden of the choice for herself and her children. What if she made the wrong decision? Would she be damned, and her children with her, for remaining outside the true Church? Even as Elizabeth remained on the razor\u2019s edge, unable to come down on the side of either, she wrote to her Catholic friend Amabilia of how she found herself repeatedly turning to Mary:<\/p>\n
\u201cI beg her with the tenderness and confidence of her child to pity us, to guide us to the true faith, if we are not in it, and if we are, to obtain peace for my poor soul, that I might be a good mother to my poor darlings\u2026So I kiss her picture you gave me, and beg her to be a Mother to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elizabeth the Protestant asked Mary to soothe her soul! Mary became the face of God\u2019s mercy for Elizabeth and gave her the strength to continue to care for her own children. In this moment, Elizabeth threw out her arms and was lifted up. She longed for love and was carried into the arms of the Church.<\/p>\n
And she never forgot this mother\u2019s love. During her years in Emmitsburg leading the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph’s, Mother Seton slept at night with a crucifix under her pillow and a picture of Mary pressed to her heart. She relied on her Mother to the end.<\/p>\n
As can we! How simple it is to throw open our arms, how beautiful to shed the cynicism of our hearts in favor of this love! In the end, don\u2019t we all want to be carried? Don\u2019t we all want to be held close? Let us, in these final days of Advent, at the end of this crazy year, ask Peter Canisius and Elizabeth Ann Seton to grant us the same affection they knew, to create in us the same intense attachment they had to the Mother of God.<\/p>\n
Que sus oraciones a Mar\u00eda sean las nuestras: \u00a1Lev\u00e1ntanos en tus brazos! \u00a1Ll\u00e9vanos cerca de tu coraz\u00f3n! \u00a1Danos tu alegr\u00eda!\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n