Walk with our Mother's footsteps

Walking in Your Footsteps

I remember a morning several months back when I watched Joy, my wife, trying to get through an ordinary day at home. With this many children, of course, no day is ever really ordinary. But that morning she couldn't manage even the simplest chores, and the reason was our five-year-old, Joseph.

Joseph has two younger siblings who could easily have kept him busy. Instead, that morning, he was glued to his mother. Wherever Joy went, he went. Whenever she stopped to do something and turned around, she tripped over him. Several times she patiently suggested something better. "Wouldn't you like to play outside?" she'd ask. He'd smile that innocent smile of his and say, "That's all right, Mommy. I'd rather be in here with you." Then he'd go right on bouncing happily behind her.

After stepping on his toes for the fifth time, Joy finally lost her patience and told him to go outside and play with the others. Then she asked him why he was behaving this way. He looked up at her and said, "Well, Mommy, in scripture class my teacher told me to walk in Jesus' footsteps. But I can't see Him, so I'm walking in yours."

"The angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God.'"

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary — and it may be one of the most misunderstood feast days in the Church. Ask around about the "Immaculate Conception" and many people will tell you it's about Jesus being conceived without sin. But this is not a feast of Jesus. It is a feast of His mother. It celebrates the truth that Mary — not Jesus — was conceived without sin in the womb of her own mother, Anne.

So why does this day matter so much to us? Quite simply, because it reminds us what our faith is finally for. It shows us where all this believing is meant to lead.

A few years ago, when our son Lorenz was eight and preparing for his First Reconciliation at his old school in St Gertrude, I asked him whether he was nervous about his first confession. He admitted he was a little worried he'd forget what to say — but he was excited, too. So I asked him what there was to be excited about. He answered boldly, proudly: "Because today, Dad, I get to be sin free."

I get to be sin free. Has there ever been a more wonderful sentence?

That is exactly what Mary reminds us of today. Every one of us has been invited to be sin-free. Another word for sin-free is holy. We are all called to be holy — to clear away the things that put distance between us and God, and to be united with Him. We do it by working against the sin in our lives, one day at a time.

And if you're thinking, "I can't do that. It's too hard" — you're right. We cannot make ourselves sin-free. Neither could Mary. Her sinlessness was never something she achieved by her own strength or merit. It was a gift, given to her by God at the very instant of her conception in Anne's womb.

That's worth remembering about ourselves. When we are free of sin, when we are in a state of grace, when we find we're doing better on the road to holiness — that is not the achievement of our own greatness. It is a gift too. We can overcome sin with God's help, and only with God's help. We would do well to be like my son Joseph: to follow in the footsteps of our Blessed Mother, who followed the footsteps of Christ more perfectly than anyone ever has.

To believe in the Immaculate Conception is to believe in a provident God — a God who provides for the future, who prepares His children for their work in life before they are even born, who foresees what we will need and equips us with every natural and supernatural quality required for the part we are to play in the drama of salvation. God does not drop us into this wilderness of a world and leave us to fight it out among ourselves.

So let us be moved today by the loving Providence of our God and by the example of His mother. Let us walk where she walked. And let us try to live lives worthy of the same word the angel spoke to her: Do not be afraid, for you have found favour with God.

Our particular prayer today, on this feast of the Blessed Mother's Immaculate Conception, is that she would touch and comfort our brothers and sisters in the community who are burdened by illness — in particular sis Rose Perez, sis Baves Ventura and sis Ambay Maquinad — and that God's providence and His healing power would find favour in them.

And to close, something a little more secular. The story goes that Paul McCartney wrote "Let It Be" about his own mother, who came to him in a dream in a hard season of his life. Sing it today, if you like, as a prayer to our mother — the one who keeps standing in front of us in our hours of darkness, speaking words of wisdom, until tomorrow comes.

A GP Visit Taught Me About Our Modern Society — and Our Christian Mission

A friend told me this story the other day.

Two weeks earlier, he woke up with a mouth full of ulcers.

 Not one discreet little ulcer hiding in the corner — oh no — a full committee meeting. Every syllable felt like sandpaper. Preaching with mouth ulcers, he said, is like attempting Handel’s Messiah while chewing gravel.

So he rang the GP’s surgery.

The earliest appointment? A week away.

There’s a sentence that stretches both your patience and your theology.

In the meantime, he turned to the time‑honoured remedy: salt‑water rinses. Then more salt‑water rinses. By day four his mouth tasted like an over‑salty ocean and the ulcers were still thriving.

 Eventually, the appointment arrived. His wife came with him, partly for moral support, partly to ensure he remained Christian in the waiting room.

They entered the doctor’s office.

No warmth. No welcome. No “How are you?”

Just: “What do you want?”

 It felt less like a consultation and more like a cross‑examination.

 The doctor glanced in his mouth — and when my friend says glanced, he means one second. He’s had longer eye contact from a pigeon.

 Tap. Tap. Tap on the keyboard.

“Go to the pharmacy. Pick up your prescription. Goodbye.”

Ninety seconds.

 They were in and out faster than a Formula 1 pit stop.

 The doctor wasn’t offensive. He was efficient. Just distant. Detached. Disinterested. You know the sensation: you’re not a person, you’re a problem to be processed.

 The prescription didn’t work. The ulcers and pain worsened.

 So he rang again. To the surgery’s credit, they offered another appointment three days later with a different doctor.

 They walked into the second consultation.

 “Hello! Come in! Take a seat.”

 And immediately, something shifted.

 This second doctor examined his mouth properly. Checked his ears. Took his blood pressure. Asked questions. They even had a little banter about football and life.

 Ten minutes. Same surgery. Two doctors. Two atmospheres. Two prescriptions. Two outcomes.

The second doctor’s prescription cleared the ulcers within three days.

 But as I listened to my friend, I realised his story was not really about ulcers.

 

It was about us.

 A Culture Running on Empty

We are living in an age of relentless pace.

Deadlines. Notifications. Commitments. Meetings. Messages. Metrics.

 Efficiency has become our currency. But empathy is becoming scarce.

 The first doctor treated a mouth.

The second doctor treated a person.

That distinction may sound small. That difference is everything.

 We underestimate the power of tone. We underestimate the ministry of manners. We underestimate how much kindness costs — and how much coldness costs more.

 And here is the sobering truth: the world does not only suffer from policy failures or economic instability.

 It suffers from relational poverty. From hurried conversations. From distracted listening. From spiritual dryness.

 

And this is precisely where our Christian calling becomes urgent.

 The Invisible Aches Around Us

Here is what troubles me most as I look at our modern world through the eyes of faith.

 There are people walking around today with invisible ulcers.

 Ulcers of resentment in marriages.

Ulcers of insecurity in children. Ulcers of exhaustion in parents. Ulcers of disappointment in workers. Ulcers of doubt in believers.

 They sit across desks. They stand in queues. They scroll through phones late at night.

You cannot see their pain in a scan. But it is there.

 As members of Couples for Christ, we proclaim a mission that is beautifully ambitious: the renewal and strengthening of Christian families, and the evangelisation of society through transformed lives.

 But renewal does not begin on a stage.

 It begins at a table.

It begins in a living room.

 It begins when a husband pauses long enough to really listen to his wife.

When a parent kneels to understand a child’s fear.

When a brother in the community asks another, “How are you really?” — and waits for the answer.

 Evangelisation is not only proclamation.

It is presence.

Transformation is not only dramatic testimony.

It is daily attentiveness.

We are arguably the most technologically connected generation in history, yet loneliness has become a public health crisis. We speak constantly, but listening is becoming rare.

 And listening is not passive. It is powerful.

 The Example of Jesus

When we look at Jesus in the Gospels, one pattern becomes unmistakable:

 He was interruptible.

 Crowds pressed in. Schedules were full. Needs were endless.

 Yet when someone in pain stood before Him, He stopped.

 He saw Zacchaeus in a tree.

He noticed the woman touching His cloak.

He wept with Mary and Martha.

He restored Peter with questions, not condemnation.

 He did not treat people as interruptions to His mission.

They were His mission.

 And this is the heart of Christian transformation.

Not merely believing in Christ.

But becoming like Him.

 In Couples for Christ, we speak of personal conversion — a renewed relationship with Jesus that transforms every dimension of life. But conversion is not only an interior event.

 It changes how we look at people.

How we speak to them.

How we treat them.

 A renewed heart produces renewed relationships.

Renewed relationships build renewed families.

Renewed families shape renewed communities.

And renewed communities influence society.

 This is not sentimental idealism.

It is the quiet revolution of the Gospel.

 

The Small Things That Shape Our World

Modern society will continue to prize efficiency. And rightly so — order matters. Systems matter.

 But systems cannot heal loneliness.

Procedures cannot repair broken marriages.

Technology cannot replace tenderness.

 The second doctor did not perform a miracle. He simply practised attentive care.

And that changed the outcome.

 Imagine if our families practised attentive care.

 Imagine if our Christian communities became known not for activity alone, but for warmth.

Not only for programs, but for presence.

Not only for preaching, but for patient listening.

 What if the world encountered Christ first through how we pay attention?

 In a hurried world, slowness can be prophetic.

In a cold culture, warmth can be evangelistic.

In an anxious generation, peace can be magnetic.

 For those of us in lay communities like CFC, this is precisely where our mission becomes concrete: in the school gate conversation, the rushed checkout line, the tired spouse at the end of the day, the struggling brother or sister in our household group.

 The Prescription We All Carry

Most of us will never sit behind a GP’s desk. But every one of us carries something just as powerful:

 Our tone.

Our attention.

Our presence.

Our extra two minutes.

 You may be the only gentleness someone encounters today.

 The only pause in their chaos.

 The only moment they feel seen rather than scanned.

 Same office. Different spirit.

 The lesson of my friend’s ulcers is simple but searching: sometimes the greatest healing does not come from what we prescribe, but from how we treat people.

 We cannot fix everything. We cannot solve every systemic problem. But we can decide what kind of presence we bring into a room.

 As Christians, as members of CFC, as families in the Holy Spirit, this is our daily mission field. To let Christ’s love shape our tone, our gaze, our pace. To bring the tenderness of the “Church of the Home” into every encounter, and the compassion of the “Church of the Poor” into every relationship.

 And in the end, that may be one of the most powerful prescriptions of all — a quiet, consistent, Christ‑like presence in an ulcerated world.