There is this true story about the Catholic Church in Japan. At the end of the sixteenth century, all foreign missionaries were expelled from Japan, where the seeds of faith had just been planted and were beginning to sprout. Vicious persecutions followed and lead to the gruesome persecutions like the martyrdom of St Paul Miki and companions. Catholicism was banned and they thought was eradicated.
But two
hundred sixty years later, missionaries returned. In a remote corner in the northeastern part
of the country, Jesuit missionaries landed and discovered a tiny village where
hundreds of inhabitants gathered every Sunday to pray the Apostles creed, the
Our Father, Hail Mary, the Glory Be, and then recite the ten commandments and
the eight beatitudes.
Shocked by
what they witnessed, they asked where this custom came from. The Japanese
villagers replied that sometime in the distant past, men whom they called
“fathers” had taught those words to the people and as they anticipated their
martyrdom instructed the people to memorize the formulas and gather every
Sunday to recite them together in the hope that in the future other “fathers”
would return to teach them more about Jesus. Ecstatic, the priests announced:
“We are those fathers.” But the
villagers were suspicious, so their leader said: “Those fathers told us that
when men claiming to be “fathers” come, we must ask them four questions to be
sure they are from the true Church.”
The
priests agreed though nervously.
(1)“When
you enter your Churches, what do you do?” The Jesuits replied by demonstrating
a genuflection, which met excited gasps from the crowd.
(2)”Where
does the earthly leader of your Church live?” “In Rome” came the answer and the crowd were
whispering to each other now.
(3) “ Do
you fathers have wives?” “No” answered the priests and the crowd were now
beaming with smiles?
(4) “Does
your Lord have a mother and what does she do?” And humbly the priests replied:
“Yes and her name is Mary and she helps all Christians.” With that the village
broke into a tumult, hoisted the missionaries on their shoulders and led them
into their little church which had not seen a priest for the past 260 years.
Mary
indeed is the Helper.
In Antioch, the followers of
Jesus were called Christians for the first time, and of course they had mother
Mary to help them. She is Mary, the Help of Christians although that title was
not formalized. Later on the early Church Fathers will refer to her as Boeteia,
the Helper- this was recorded by St. John Chrysostom in 345.
Devotion
to Mary under this title became popular in Europe during the pontificate of Pope Pius V and the wars
against the Islamic Ottoman Empire. She was invoked under this name by
Christian armies who were summoned by Pius V to defend Europe
from an impending invasion by the Empire in 1571. The Pope asked his soldiers
to invoke Mary under this title as they prepared for the famous Battle of
Lepanto in which the Muslim Turks were miraculously defeated by a much smaller
Christian force.
A feast
day for Our Lady Help of All Christians was not instituted until the
pontificate of Pius VII who prayed for Mary’s intercession under this title
while in prison for three years during the reign of Napoleon. He was set free
in 1814 and his triumphant journey back to Rome was a cause of great celebration
throughout Christendom. Along the way, the pontiff visited many shrines of Our
Lady where he crowned her images in thanksgiving. He entered Rome on May 24, 1814. A year later, he
instituted the same day as the feast of Our Lady Help of Christians to
commemorate the anniversary of his return to Rome.
Devotion
to Mary under this title quickly spread throughout the Christian world, most
notably with St. Don Bosco who dedicated the mother church of the Salesian
congregation to her in 1868. St. John Bosco always prayed: “Most Holy Virgin Mary, Help of
Christians... if earthly mothers cease
not to remember their children, how can you, the most loving of all mothers
forget me? Grant then to me, I implore you, your perpetual help in all my needs,
in all my sorrow, and in all my temptations. Amen.”
Mary was
the helper of God. She helped God accomplish His plan to save the world. It
does not mean that Mary is stronger than God. It does not mean that God is
feeble and helpless. But could you imagine Almighty God, He sought and politely
begged for the “yes” of His creature to pursue His greatest plan- his greatest
miracle…the word becomes flesh. And this makes Mary his ultimate helper.
"Once there was a
little dinosaur called a Maiasaur. (A Maiasaur is named after the goddess Maia
which literally means: “Good Mother. They have flat beaks like the duck which
they use to harvest plants to eat and take to their young ones.)
One day she told his mother, "I wish I
were special like the other dinosaurs. If I were huge and fierce like a T.Rex (tyrannosaur), I could chomp and
bite with my ferocious teeth!" But if you were a
T. Rex," said his mother, "how
would you hug me with your tiny little arms?" 
"But if you were a
Brontosaurus," said his mother,
"how could you hear me in the treetops when I told you I love you?"
"What makes you so
special, little Maiasaur?" said his mother. "Is it your ferocious
teeth or long neck or flat toothless beak?
What makes you special, is that out of all the different dinosaurs in the big, wide world, you have the mother who is just right for you. And who will always protect you and will always love you."
What makes you special, is that out of all the different dinosaurs in the big, wide world, you have the mother who is just right for you. And who will always protect you and will always love you."
We in our
parish have Mary Help of Christians who is just right for us… who will always
protect us, and will always love us. “Have
devotion to her and you will see what miracles are.”