Announcing the Antidote to Presidential Pride

©2010, Randall A. Beeler

12 How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who rose in the morning? How are you fallen to the earth, that wounded the nations? 13 And you said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north. 14 I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High. 15 But yet you shall be brought down to hell, into the depth of the pit. 16 They that shall see you, shall turn toward you, and behold you. Is this the man that troubled the earth, that shook kingdoms, 17 that made the world a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof, that opened not the prison to his prisoners?(Isa 14, DRE)

How will the powers that trouble this world meet their just reward?

Never have I see Americans so angered. We sense the audacity and duplicity of the Congress and our President, and we seemed stunned that such is happening in America.

Yet, where has it ever not happened? More importantly, how are we to  "Be angry: and sin not" (Eph 4:26, DRE)? How are we to follow Saint Paul's injunction to "be subject to higher powers. For there is no power but from God: and those that are ordained of God. 2 Therefore, he that resists the power resists the ordinance of God" (Rom 13:1-2, DRE)?

Our current President and Representatives are just a few in the long line of Caesars who bid us render unto the state what is God's—and this time it amounts to the lives of our very children. How do we stand for them?

By rendering unto God our wills. By becoming the Chalice filled with God's antidote to satanic pride.

Today is the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, the day on which Christ pours Himself out as wine into the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is chosen by the Father to be the Chalice of His Son's blood:

22 And no man puts new wine into old bottles: otherwise the wine will burst the bottles, and both the wine will be spilled and the bottles will be lost. But new wine must be put into new bottles. (Mk 2:22, DRE)

Jesus announces a truism familiar to his listeners: having been stretched out by the carbon dioxide exuded in the fermentation process, old wineskins can stretch no more. New, unfermented wine would burst their lost elasticity.

The Virgin Mary is the new wineskin. The sin-filled exhalations of our fallen nature have not outstretched her capacity to welcome God. In her womb brews our salvation. Her very blood becomes His. Even after His birth, she pours Christ out to the world … in the Magnificat … at Bethlehem … at the wedding feast at Cana … at the Cross … at Pentecost.

Today, with the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, the Church announces to the world that our Salvation pours forth from the Cup of His Blood—the Blood that cascades from His Chalice, Mary, washes away our sin.

Satan and Caesar cannot sit still enough to be a cup filled by the Lord. They will not be invaded, occupied, and filled with anything but themselves. They will not bear to term the Christ Child. They are a tired, burst old wineskin. In their petulant rage, they plot to crack apart the earthen vessel of human dignity and hoist themselves above the stars.

The awakening from this satanic dream is we, the Church, Who, flowing from the womb of Mary, announces that the reign of pride runs dry.

We are to be angry, but sin not: "if the enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him to drink. For, doing this, you shall heap coals of fire upon his head. 21 Be not overcome by evil: but overcome evil by good" (Rom 12:20-21, DRE).

We, the Church, are God's Chalice forged from the mold of Mary. When Caesar tries to topple us, we pour out the wine that quenches the world's drought.

We are to pour out our lives in prayer and witness to every Caesar. Thereby, as in every age, we will set the world alight with the fiery coals of our loving witness.

Be angry, and pray a lot.