In a December 14 homily during Mass at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Wisconsin, Cardinal Burke encouraged Catholics to keep their faith in difficult times, stressing the importance of the Blessed Virgin Mary in our redemption.
“No matter what we are asked to suffer, we must remain with Him, even if those in the highest positions of authority in the Church should abandon Him, should commit the grievous crime of apostasy from the Catholic faith,” Cardinal Burke said during the candlelit Rorate Mass said in the honor of the Blessed Virgin.
Cardinal Burke emphasized the importance of devotion to the Blessed Virgin to aid Catholics through tumultuous times in the Church.
“She accompanied Our Lord as His first and best disciple throughout His public ministry. She was at His side throughout His cruel Passion and Death, and, as His divine and human heart was pierced by the Roman soldier’s spear, after He had died, so also was Her Immaculate Heart mystically pierced,” he declared.
“As Our Lord was about to die on the Cross, He signified the Virgin Mary’s continuing mission as Mother of God in the Church, declaring to Her and to Saint John the Apostle, representing the Church, as they remained with Our Lord at the foot of the Cross: ‘Woman, behold Your son! … Behold, your mother!'” Cardinal Burke explained.
The prelate noted that Mary’s role was prophesied by the prophets of the Old Testament when the Prophet Isaiah foretold, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel.”
“What God announced through the Prophet Isaiah He accomplished at the Annunciation,” he explained.
“The Virgin Mother of God never ceases to be the chosen instrument, the all-pure channel, by Which the grace of our salvation, the grace of Christ which is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit from His glorious-pierced Heart into our hearts, comes to us,” he continued.
Cardinal Burke stressed the importance of Our Lady’s role “in the most troubled time in which we are living in the Church,” adding that “our only hope is in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
“The confusion, error, and division which daily multiply in the Church cause us to fear, to feel abandoned and betrayed, to be angry, and even to consider leaving the side of Christ on the Cross,” he lamented.
“Sadly, in the Church today there is ever more discussion of schism, of a radical split in the Church, as an evitable result of the undisciplined confusion and division,” he warned.
“But schism is never justified,” Cardinal Burke declared. “Schism is never the will of God for us. We are never justified in abandoning Christ in His holy Church.”
He explained that the teachings of the Gospel have been safeguarded and handed down from Christ to the Catholic Church through the Apostles and “memorialized for us in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”
“We hold firm to Christ, to the Sacred Tradition by which He continues to act on behalf of our salvation in the Church, to that Sacred Tradition as it comes to us most perfectly and fully in the Sacred Liturgy,” he said.
Cardinal Burke called on Catholics to appeal to the Blessed Virgin during this Advent season and encouraged them to consecrate themselves to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
“In a particular way, today, let us ask the Mother of God, Our Lady of Guadalupe, to intercede for our holy Mother Church and for each of us, her living members, so that she and we will be protected from attacks from within her body, and so that sound doctrine and right discipline will be restored in the Church for the salvation of countless souls,” he encouraged.
“Let
us storm heaven with this prayer brought to the Throne of God by our
heavenly Mother. In a special way, let us storm heaven with the praying
of the Rosary for the Church and the world,” he declared.