Much to the surprise of the author in February, 2004, he received a communication that Brother Leo Gregory, the Trappist monk who had been Sarita Kenedy East's spiritual mentor during the last years of her life, was alive and wished to speak to him about "Go Tell the Bishop."
In the course of the following days, the author and Brother Leo exchanged a series of emails. What follows is the actual text of the emails from Brother Leo who is at the Trappist abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, and the author in San Antonio.
Brother Leo to author, Saturday, Feb. 14. 2004
Dear Tony, yes indeed, Sarita was/is a very special person, loved much by God and the many poor people whom she met in life and both loved and helped. Actually, she always loved the poor, especially those who worked for her Dad on the ranch. One sign of this love and respect was that as soon as her father died, and she took over the ranch operations, she arranged to give each of her cowboys and other workers title to their individual houses, houses that she herself assumed the responsibility of getting in better shape.
But, Tony, if you will allow me to correct one statement you put on her lips that she surely wouldn't have said, especially once she was in heaven. Towards the end you have a paragraph which begins with these words: "Sarita revealed to me that she learned that many men seek control and leadership for the wrong reasons, even men who seek the priesthood . . . . . . She told me that the model for all human beings should be the Blessed Virgin Mary, not the Christ of the Gospels. She said that Jesus could not be our model. He is our savior. No man can be like the incarnate Son of God, the Christ, she said. Every man, she said, should be like Mary." This paragraph ends with the words: " . . . marveled at her wisdom". Tony, if it's possible, see if you can omit this paragraph or change the wording? Jesus is our model. We are told to follow him. He is the incarnation of the Word who as man dwells within every human being from Adam down to the end of time. It is our task to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ" as Paul tells is in his letter to the Romans (13:14), so that we can say that "we have the mind of Christ' (1 Cor 2:16.) Dying to our old ego self and putting on Jesus Christ is our task as Christians, so that we can someday say with Paul, "to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Phil 1:21). In Acts (17:28) we read the same message: "In him (Jesus Christ) we live and move and have our being." Jesus, Mary's Son, is the incarnation of the Son of God, and it is only through our identification with him that we will come one eternal day to "become partakers of the divine nature" of God himself (2 Peter 1:4). And it is through Mary that we come to Jesus, so she does plays a most important role in our rebirth within the mystery of her only Child. ("I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal 2:20). We not only copy him but by God's grace we come to be recreated within him! Please tell if you understand what I've said.
Tony, dear friend, my health is failing. So too is my eyesight. I've recently lost my left eye and the other one is failing. So have patience with me who very much wants to become your close friend! Love in the Lord, Leo.
The author's response:
Dear Brother Leo,
Thank you so very much for your loving response(s).
I understand, believe me, I understand what you have shared with me. I cannot, however, change what I wrote so many years ago. It has to stand. HOWEVER, I can certainly CLARIFY with a footnote.
It was my experience that Sarita was telling me about the contrast between the "macho" and the "maternal."
Certainly, we are "to put on Christ" and we are to "let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus." Etc., etc.! Every scripture you quoted I validate!!!!!!!
But the point is, as you say, "we come to Jesus through his mother Mary!" It is through the submissiveness of Mary that Christ came into the world. "Be it unto me according to your Word." Mary is "mankind" -- humanity. Christ is the DIVINE WORD. Yes, yes, yes, we are to have the Word permeate our VERY being. "Not I, but the Christ I" And in so allowing the Christ to indwell our being, we become NEW MEN (persons) in Christ.
I am no theologian, but I know that JESUS was (IS) the INCARNATE WORD. He was (IS) the God-Man! I can NEVER be the God-Man but through submission HE can live in me, but I am still "in-dwelt" and it is my human will (not a divine will) that says "yes" each day or "no" each day to the ever beckoning annunciation that He wants to indwell me.
SOoooooooo! It was in this sense that I recall that Sarita told me that human persons (men particularly) should choose to follow Mary as a model of submission. And in so doing we men (persons) would become "fit to reign" with Christ.
Everything you say about being "in Christ" is so absolutely true. But I have to be faithful to the emphasis that I am almost certain I heard. Mary is our model in allowing the Christ to be formed in us and to be born from us for manifestation to the world. We are to be HIS mother, however, and in a most mystical way, we live out our lives telling those around us "Whatsoever HE tells you, that do!" That is how the Jesus within us turns the water into wine!" We are to be the mother of Jesus who is born into our lives. We tell the indwelling Jesus to do this and that! (Now that's a complex thought!)
As I said above, I am not a theologian. All I am is a simple person who tried to hear a message which turned my heart. I realized immediately the inner beauty of this woman whom you knew and so devotedly guided in spiritual understanding. She, like Mary, through you, dear holy brother, has helped the Christ to be reborn in me.
I will try to figure out how to write a footnote reflecting this discussion.
Most sincerely "in Christ -- through Mary!"
Brother Leo's response:
Dear Tony, let me help you change or rather add on to what you have written because what you said is in a sense correct if properly understood. So don't say you were wrong. Jesus is indeed our model but the grace to let him live within us comes thru Mary. Your friend. Leo
Email from Brother Leo on Sunday, Feb. 15:
Dear Tony, please use 12 or even 14 as my one eye isn't too good. And yes, Mary is our model. Let me quote from a Conference Karl Rahner gave in Germany in 1962. Are you familiar with Rahner, born in c. 1902 and died in c. 1982, brilliant German theologian who has opened up new doors, Anyway he says as follows: "Christianity in its perfect form is the pure acceptance of the salvation of the triune God that has appeared in Jesus Christ, and Mary is the perfect Christian, because in the faith of her spirit and in her blessed womb, with body and soul, and all the powers of her being, she received the eternal Word of the Father. If perfect Christianity is the perfect correspondence between outward mission in the history of salvation and personal life, it is perfectly realized in Mary. She received visibly and tangibly the Incarnate Word of the eternal Father, and so she is the most significant and representative figure among merely human beings in the externally visible history of redemption. . . . . Mary is the most perfect instance of what it means to be a Christian, for it was the salvation of us all, Jesus Christ our Lord, whom she conceived by the consent of her faith and in the physical reality of her divine motherhood. . . . . Viewed in this light, Mary is clearly the perfect Christian and an actual typical expression of what redemption itself in its most perfect form actually means. For that reason she is the noblest of human beings in the community of the redeemed, representative of all who are perfect, and the type of figure that manifests completely the meaning of the Church, and grace, and redemption, and God's salvation." As you say towards the bottom of your good email,
"Mary is our model." The sense of the word "model" is to "emulate."
Your friend, Leo
Author's response to Brother Leo's email:
Blessed are you, my dear Brother, for researching Rahner and for sending the quote on to me.
I shall add that as another footnote to the story.
Yes, I am familiar with Karl Rahner. (He and I pray at the same altar (-: with you!!!!! and Sarita!!!!) I am also familiar with the late Boston University theologian -- my God, his name slips my mind. (I, too, am falling apart - I will be 70 on Dec. 27 but it is not the age so much as the mileage!!!!)
I'll send his name in a few minutes. One of his students (a former priest, Daniel Helminiak) was my spirituality professor at Oblate Seminary down here in San Antonio.
I hope this larger type is easier for you to read!!!!!! I loved the choir at Spencer Abbey! Please say a prayer for me when you are next in there!
Tony Hearn
P.S. The theologian is the late Bernard Lonergan, S.J., of Boston University
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