Not just during Lent, but also during this Advent season, we focus on reconciliation with God. That makes sense, because Jesus was incarnate of the Blessed Virgin (took on human flesh when He became her Son) for one purpose only: to reconcile us to the Father. So as we reflect so often on the importance of Mary in this Advent season, we also think of her profound role in our reconciliation.
We just celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of the Americas, who reconciled the indigenous Mexicans (Aztec and other Indians) to Christ over 400 years ago. They lived at the time radically separated from God’s love, in a brutal society that even practiced human and child sacrifice. When the Spanish conquistadores tried to bring conversion to Christianity by force, they were not successful. But where they failed in their power, Our Lady accomplished this mission by her gentle love. Coming to St. Juan, the humblest of peasants, bearing the Christ child in her pregnancy, she insisted that she chose him for her special mission to build a church for her at Tepeyac so all the peoples of the Americas would know God’s love and be reconciled to him.
But she works in modern times as well. One of my favorite stories of conversion and reconciliation is that of Jacques Fesch, a 20th century Frenchmen. As a young man, he was irreligious, spoiled, shallow, rich and callous. When he insisted his parents buy him a sailboat so he could sail the South Pacific, they refused, so he decided to rob a bank. When the crime went awry, he shot and killed a policeman who tried to stop him. But in prison, the Blessed Mother got a hold of him and effected a very profound conversion and reconciliation in his life. His last words, as he was executed at age 27 via the guillotine were, “Blessed Virgin, have pity on me!”
His letters from prison are still ready today. They are such a profound story of the power of Jesus and Mary to covert hearts that the Archbishop of Paris has opened has cause for canonization.
At the very end of his life, discovering the profound love of Mary, His heavenly mother, he tried desperately to convert his earthly mother, who was estranged from the Church. Here is an excerpt of his last letter from prison to his own mother
“Mama, after years spent far from the Lord, it is not rest that awaits you, but repentance. You have to expiate and ask forgiveness from God. … This execution which frightens you, Mama, is nothing in comparison with what awaits sinners in the next world! It is not for me that you should weep, but for sins which offend God. As for me, I am happy. Jesus is calling me to himself, and great graces have been given me. If you could only taste for a single instant the sweetness of … divine love! And could realize the absolute gravity of the slightest offense! God must come first, do not forget it. He calls you and believes in you … You must go to Christ, without whom you can do nothing … Make your peace with the Church and pray regularly … (especially the rosary). Go to Mass on Sundays and communicate as often as you can.”
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