Submitted and written by Glenn Lanham

AUDIENCE: MARYFIELD/PENNYBURN NURSING HOME –High Point, NC. Run by Irish SMG sisters 

“God is love and he who abides in love, abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16). According to the Catechism, God had only one reason to reveal Himself to Israel: “His sheer gratuitous love” (CCC 218). And He is always faithful to His promises. God was happy and complete in himself, living in a trinitarian communion of persons: He was not bored, not lonely. He chose to create the world and humanity out of love. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).

He created these, the animals on it, and all the vegetation. But first of all, He created the angels, beautiful spiritual beings who instantly do his will. They were created with instant knowledge of God’s plan and were shown right away what His future plans for humanity would be. Satan and the angels that followed his lead rebelled against the Lord God, as they saw they would be placed under humans. Though created inferior to them, some would be raised up due to humility and obedience to God’s will. So, Satan was cast down: “And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” (Revelations 12:9).

But Satan continues to make war against humanity and the good angels. The rest of the angels still give glory to God, either face to face like the Seraphim and Cherubim, or indirectly like the guardian angels, who carry out his commands. Hebrew says “Are they not all ministering angels sent forth to serve, for the sake of those who are to obtain salvation?” (Hebrews 1:14). But God went further, after seeing how good everything was that He had made: “…then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). God saw that man was good, for “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27).

Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, lived in perfect harmony with themselves and all of creation, and they were naked without shame, for they saw each other in the light of a spousal gift from God (Genesis 2:25).

But not only peaceable animals and creatures lived in this garden of paradise with them. Satan the father of lies, was present as well. God had told Adam and Eve that “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden. Neither shall you touch it, lest you die” (Genesis 3:3). But the devil, who figuratively is shown here as a serpent, lied and said they would not die, that God was holding out on them. And so, Adam and Eve committed the Original Sin, which is transmitted down to every human being. After living in a state of original justice and holiness, they really did inherit death, spiritual death, and noticed they were naked. And felt shame. But God told Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers” (Genesis 3:15). This was God’s prophecy that not all was lost, even though they fell from grace, and had to leave the garden, and death and sin entered the world. He promised a savior, the New Adam, and his mother would be the mother of all believers, the New Eve.

So God started over with humanity, yet sin grew worse. God saw that Noah was righteous, so he told Noah to build an ark, to save the righteous. God told him, “I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood…” (Genesis 9:11). God had begun gradually revealing himself in covenants, and each one enlarged the group that He was teaching. First, it was a couple with Adam and Eve, then a family with Noah; the next important character is Abraham, who formed a tribe.

Abraham was first called Abram, and God called him in Iraq and told him: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing” (Genesis 12:1-2). So Abraham left in faith and journeyed to Canaan (now Israel), which God promised to give to him and his descendants forever.

Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, had to send his sons to Egypt because of famine. Jacob’s son Joseph, due to God’s providence, had become powerful in Egypt. But Joseph died, and over time new rulers in Egypt came to power who did not know Joseph. The Pharaoh feared the Israelites as their numbers had increased and had become a nation. Moses, who had been raised as an Egyptian, ran away to Midian. One day he was tending His flocks on a mountain and saw a burning bush. God spoke to him there: “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring forth my people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:10). God’s covenant with Moses forms a nation! So Moses went to Pharaoh and demanded his people’s freedom. After much suffering, and plagues which led to the Passover ritual, Pharaoh finally let them go, but he changed his mind and chased after them. He came up and thought he had them trapped near the Red Sea, but: “Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the Lord drove the sea back” (Exodus 14:21). But the Egyptians were drowned. After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, finally the Israelites reached the promised land, but Moses died in sight of it.

So the Israelites reached the land God had promised Abraham. They grew in number, and were ruled by judges. But the Israelites wanted a king, like their neighbors. After the first king, Saul, turned against the Lord, the Lord picked a shepherd boy, David, to become king. Thus, God’s covenant becomes a kingdom. David fought many wars and increased the power of the kingdom. David felt it was not right for the ark of the covenant to dwell in a tent, while he lived in a luxurious house. But God said, “I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Samuel 7:12). God is fulfilling His promise about Eve’s offspring. David’s son Solomon partially fulfilled this prophecy, but it would be Jesus Christ, descendant of David, who would truly complete it. David had committed adultery with Bathsheba, mother of Solomon. So, David’s descendants were cursed to cause him many problems. After Solomon died, his descendants began to fight amongst each other, and the Israeli kingdom was divided, and eventually led into captivity in Babylon. After many years, a new king of Persia took power and allowed the Jews to return to the promised land, but they were conquered by the Romans and subjected yet again to a type of slavery.

So, we move on to 15 B.C. or so. God’s people were waiting for the promised Messiah, the Son of David who they thought would free them from Roman rule and start another political kingdom. A young couple, living in Galilee, in the North, decided to get engaged. The woman’s name was Mary. The archangel Gabriel appeared to her and called her full of grace. But this troubled her. The angel told her: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:30-32). Talk about a grand slam! God is fulfilling nearly all His promises in this passage! And this is after nearly all seemed lost, with the loss of the kingship and the Babylonian captivity. And in His classical style, God lets it all rest upon the decision, the “yes”, of a teenage Jewish girl. This is the hinge of salvation history, for God himself becomes flesh. After a census and being forced to travel to Bethlehem (translated city of bread), (Mary) “gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, for there was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). And “Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52).

At the age of 30, a Jewish man was allowed to teach. Jesus set out from his home and began to draw disciples to himself. After John the Baptist was arrested by Herod, “Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:14). Though we rarely hear the word today, repentance was one of Jesus’ first requests to His followers. In Luke, we read about a woman who suffered for a long time, but Jesus came to preach there, in the synagogue. “And there was a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years; she was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. And when Jesus saw her, He called her and said to her, ‘Woman, you are freed from your infirmity’. And he laid His hands upon her, and immediately she was made straight, and she praised God” (Luke 13:10-13). Jesus came to set the captives free! Jesus healed many and set many free from their sad lives of sin. But He became very popular with the people, and the Jewish rulers became very jealous.

The rulers were so jealous they conspired together to put Jesus to death, though they knew He was innocent. Eventually Judas, one of His own disciples, became disillusioned with things and agreed to betray Jesus to them. When they sat down to eat the Passover meal, Jesus followed the liturgy but also transformed it into the Eucharist. He told them, “But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table. For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed” (Luke 22:21-22). The betrayer was Judas, one of His hand-picked disciples, and to mention it at such a meal was to show the shocking betrayal of friendship Jesus offered. Eventually Jesus was convicted in a show trial before the Sanhedrin and sentenced to death under Pilate. At the end, Jesus handed over His spirit on the cross and died. But a soldier came up to him, and “…one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water” (John 19:34). The early Christians teach us that this blood and water gave birth to the church, the water for baptism and the blood for the Eucharist. But death could not hold Jesus, and on the third day, he rose from the dead. Appearing to the disciples locked in the upper room on the next Sunday, “…He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’” (John 20:22-23), giving His priests the power to forgive sins. And so Jesus gave birth to the Church, the universal kingdom, through the new and eternal covenant. This final covenant makes a universal, worldwide Church.

Jesus remained with them forty days on earth, then ascended into heaven. But He promised to send them another advocate. On the day of Pentecost, all the disciples were gathered together, “And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:2-4). The Apostles ran out to preach to the people assembled in Jerusalem for the feast, and three thousand were baptized that day. At first the Apostles preached in Jerusalem, and only to Jews, but when the deacon Stephen was martyred, “…on that day a great persecution arose against the Church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the Apostles” (Acts 8:1). This persecution was supposed to stamp out the Christian sect, but what God intended was for the church to spread, to move around the world and evangelize all peoples.

One of the great converts of the early church was Paul of Tarsus, a former Pharisee and persecutor of the church. But he, like Peter, began to see that God was reaching out to the gentiles, and not only Jews. He foresaw that all Christians, gentiles and Jews, would form one body. In speaking of the Eucharist, he says: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (I Corinthians 11:17). As one body, together we are the bride of Christ. John says “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, prepared as for a bride adorned for her husband, and I heard a great voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling of God is with men’ (Revelations 21:2-3).

So this church, our church, began to spread quickly all over the world.

One of the early Christian martyrs, St. Ignatius of Antioch, on the way to being thrown to the lions in Rome, wrote 7 letters. In one he refers to the “Catholic” or worldwide church, the first use of the term. He called himself a Bishop and used very Eucharistic terms. He begged the Romans not to stop his death in these terms: “Allow me to become food for the wild beasts. I am the wheat of God, and am ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of God” (Epistle to the Romans 4).

Another early Church bishop was called Patricius, or Patrick. Born into a Christian family in Britain, he was hardly religious. But he was kidnapped and sold as a slave off into Ireland. There he tended flocks and had a lot of time to pray. He began to realize he had a father in heaven, and to identify with his son Jesus’ sufferings. Eventually, he escaped and was taken back to his home country but began to feel God’s call. He studied for the priesthood. One night, he had a dream where an Irishman appeared to him and said, “Holy boy, return to us, we need you”. He became a bishop, returned to Ireland, and won the people’s hearts away from the pagan druids. In order to explain the Trinity, he famously came up with the idea of comparing it to a shamrock. And the Catholic faith took strong root in Ireland ever since, often sending out missionaries.

And so the Catholic church, under the Pope and Bishops in union with him, continued to spread. Although it started in the East, it took root most strongly in the West. Europe had strong roots in Catholicism. After the Reformation in Germany, the early Protestant churches began to split up into many different churches. In England, King Henry VIII took over and illegally declared himself head of the English church. And so the Anglican church began. One Anglican pastor had a daughter named Frances Taylor. Born in England, she had some exposure to High church Anglicanism. When the Crimean war began, she went to help as a nurse, even working with Florence Nightingale for a little while. St. Patrick’s journey had its fruits, as Frances saw the devotion of the Irish soldiers and nuns there and became a Roman Catholic. Due to her great devotion to the poor and suffering, she tried out various religious communities, but none would accept her plans for England, so she started the Poor Servants of the Mother of God, the spiritual guides of Maryfield, and took the name Mother Magdalen. Her friend Cardinal Manning helped her to grow the congregation, and at her death in 1900, there were 20 convents.

So here we are today, at Maryfield in Pennyburn.

What does this have to do with us? Well, in God’s plan, the Bishop of Raleigh invited the SMG sisters in 1947 to come to High Point to start a hospital. So 5 sisters came from London to do just that. But it was just after World War II, and the town couldn’t afford to give the sisters money for a hospital, and they didn’t have any. But people who were recovering from the hospital began to come and stay at the convent, much like today’s post-op rehabs, until they could go home. Some never went home at all, so the sisters started a nursing home that became Pennyburn at Maryfield, which looked very little like this sprawling campus and perpetual Adoration chapel where people can pray anytime they want. And you and I would not be here today, listening to this story, without their sacrifice. This story is now our story. How will you and I make similar sacrifices to spread the Gospel throughout North Carolina and wherever we go? Will we say yes, like Mary, like St. Patrick, like Mother Magdalene Taylor?

What now, for the future? What will happen to us Christians?

Some things are sure. We know that Jesus Christ will come again, in His second coming. Paul says, “For the Lord Himself, will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first…” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). Jesus told us, “Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice, and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of Judgment” (John 5:28-29). There will be a final judgment, and we will be accountable for all our actions. God forbid we have not learned to trust in God’s mercy by that point. As I shared before, at the end of time, the Church, Jesus’ bride, will go up as the heavenly Jerusalem, to meet the Lord. Will you join me, will you join the priests, nuns and deacons here who minister, to give your life to Christ? Will you give Him your heart, your time in prayer, your service? If you do, and remain steadfast, Jesus will say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much, enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21). Mara na tha. Come Lord Jesus!