Mother Mary Francis - Cause of Our Joy: Walking Day by Day with Our Lady

CAUSE OF OUR JOY

MOTHER MARY FRANCIS, P.C.C.

IGNATIUS PRESS SAN FRANCISCO

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Second Catholic Edition (Ignatius Press Edition) copyright 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

The texts of biblical readings from the New American Bible, 1970 by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C., are reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.

The Mysteries of the Rosary, Cause of Our Joy, Invariables, Psalm for the Mother of God, Hail, Full of Grace, Festivale: Two Movements (For Our Ladys Assumption), and Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C., are reprinted from Summon Spirits Cry .

The Resurrection by Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C., is reprinted from A Time of Renewal: Daily Reflections for the Lenten Season .

Cover art:
Virgin and Child Embracing
By Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato
From Restored Traditions

Cover design by Riz Boncan Marsella

Copyright by Ignatius Press, San Francisco
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-62164-173-5 (PB)
ISBN 978-1-68149-799-0 (EB)
Library of Congress Control Number 2017941800
Printed in the United States of America

Dedicated to Father Joseph D. Fessio, S.J.,
Carolyn Lemon and the other devoted
staff of Ignatius Press in gratitude for their
tireless labors on behalf of Holy Church

1. The Annunciation

2. The Visitation

3. The Nativity

4. The Presentation in the Temple

5. The Finding in the Temple

1. The Baptism in the Jordan

2. The Wedding at Cana

3. The Proclamation of the Kingdom and the Call to Conversion

4. The Transfiguration

5. The Institution of the Eucharist

1. The Agony in the Garden

2. The Scourging at the Pillar

3. The Crowning with Thorns

4. The Carrying of the Cross

5. The Crucifixion

1. The Resurrection

2. The Ascension

3. The Descent of the Holy Spirit

4. The Assumption

5. The Coronation

Mother Mary Francis tells us in the introduction to this book that Our Lady is the best reminder of everything we could desire to be. She learned well from the Mother of God, and the spiritual daughters of Mother Mary Francis of Our Lady were blessed to have her example to help them to grow in the likeness of Mary.

By a happy arrangement of Providence, Mother was taught by the School Sisters of Notre Dame. As she recounts in her first book, A Right to Be Merry , she entered this congregation of religious sisters after high school graduation, but it soon became clear that God was calling her to the cloister. When she received the habit of a Poor Clare nun, the abbess gave her the name Sister Mary Francis of Our Lady, whispering in her ear after it was announced, You still belong to Notre Dame. This was her favorite title for the Mother of God, and she almost always referred to her as Our Lady.

Mother understood Our Lady through her own feminine genius. She grasped the womanliness, suffering, and love of Our Lady because she herself loved and suffered. Our Lady was real, imitable, lovable, and accessible to her, rather than distant and unapproachable. She recounted that as a young sister she would mow her lawn with a push mower, run upstairs, sit at her little desk, and gaze up at the small picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Then the words for the beautiful verse play she wrote about Our Lady of Guadalupe, Counted as Mine , would flow from her pen. In the first scene of the play a Franciscan friar is giving a catechetical lesson to Juan Diego and his wife, Maria Lucia. In their simplicity the two Indians ask him if he has ever seen Our Lady. He replies,

Mothers heart was truly like a locket closed around Our Ladys face, and she reflected that countenance to others. Her demeanor showed grace, gentleness, strength, and dignity. She was a true contemplative, calm and recollected. She cultivated ladyhood, or perhaps we could say that Our Lady cultivated it in her. For Mother Mary Francis, ladyhood was not a set of rules but an ideal of beauty she wanted her daughters to fulfill. She once said, Every lack of beauty is some kind of untruth, for beauty and truth cannot be separated. Every kind of untruth, spiritual or moral, is an offense against beauty. The more truthful we are in our spiritual lives, the more beautiful we become; this beauty expresses itself in total refinement. She encouraged her spiritual daughters, Be who you are. Our Lady was a lady because she knew who she wasthe Mother of God. Nuns are to show forth ladyhood because they are the contemplative spouses of God.

This book is composed of the conferences Mother Mary Francis gave about Our Lady during her forty-two years as abbess. They are profound yet simple, and her daughters feel that they encountered Our Lady through them. When giving spiritual direction, she would say, Think of Our Lady, what she would have done. Ask Our Lady to help you. Her teachings in the conferences were reflected by her conduct in daily life. She had a deep respect for each person and showed great attention and care for each one in the small as well as the large details of each day. When concerned about a particular sister she confided, I offer the Litany of Our Lady for her every day. That was her solution because she felt the love of a mother for her child.

Abbesses from abroad consulted her on many matters, so she had a worldwide correspondence, not to mention the contacts she had with each monastery of our federation in the United States and countless numbers of benefactors. She wrote Poor Clare Constitutions and made six foundations, traveling to each one regularly. In later years, she suffered from debilitating back pain, yet she was always self-forgetful. One evening she was weighed down with many concerns all through the Office of Compline. When it came time to sing the final antiphon to Our Lady, the Salve Regina , she said to herself, All I have to do is sing the Salve Regina with all the love of my heart; I dont need to worry about anything.

During her last illness a Rosary was in her hand continually, and when the sisters came to be with her, they often prayed the Rosary together. Mother prayed with quiet radiance on her face. If another sister walked in, she could almost feel peace in the room.

The night before Mother died she was in severe pain, and the sisters sang to her the words of Our Lady of Guadalupe: Hear, my little daughter, what I now tell you, let nothing ever trouble or afflict you. She was looking up at the picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe that hung right above her bed, with a luminous gaze, childlike and simple.

After months of suffering, the day arrived when Our Lord would take Mother to himself, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes in the year 2006. The morning was spent in pain as usual, but suddenly her transfixed gaze was fastened on a distant point and there was a beautiful smile on her lips. Was she seeing Our Lord, or Our Lady, or both? A few minutes later she breathed her last. Exactly sixty years earlier on the same feast of Our Lady, the young Sister Mary Francis had written these lines to her: