February 2007 Archives

Wednesday of the First Week of Lent

Jonah 3: 1-10
Psalm 50: 3-4, 12-13, 18-19 (R. 19b)
Luke 11:29-32

Nineveh

Nineveh is in the news. Nineveh is, of course, the present day city of Mosul in Northern Iraq, not far from the Turkish border. Its ruins spread over 1800 acres: a huge green space on the eastern bank of the Tigris River. The ancient Nineveh of the Assyrians was an immense city, seven times larger than the Old City of Jerusalem.

The very mention of Nineveh cast fear into every Jewish heart. Sennacherib, the King of Assyria whose palace was in Nineveh, invaded Judah in the days of King Hezekiah. To placate Sennacherib, Hezekiah gave him “all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasuries of the king’s house” (2 K 18:15). He even “stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord” (2 K 18:16) and gave it to Sennacherib. God intervened to save Jerusalem from the invading Assyrians. “The angel of the Lord went forth, and slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. . . . Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went home, and dwelt at Nineveh” (2 K 19:35-36).

Stupendous Repentance

Knowing something of the background of Nineveh helps us to understand that the repentance of the Ninevites was something stupendous. God sets Nineveh before the eyes of His own people as an example of penitence, a model of conversion. The Israelites were stubborn in resisting the message of the prophets. Rather than repent, they rejected the prophets and contested them. They turned a deaf ear to their message. They discussed, debated, and procrastinated.

Sackcloth and Ashes

The Ninevites, on the other hand, responded immediately to Jonah’s preaching. No discussions. No haggling over the details. No attempt to justify themselves. No negotiations. “And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them” (Jon 3:5). The movement of repentance rose from the grassroots.

Let Every One Turn From His Evil Way

The conversion of Nineveh began, not by royal edict at first, but in the hearts of the people “Then tidings reach the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes” (Jon 3:6). Only then did the king make his proclamation: “Let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry mightily to God; yea, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands. Who knows, God may yet repent and turn from His fierce anger, so that we perish not?” (Jon 3:8-9).

God’s Change of Heart

God was touched by the penitence of the Ninevites. The heart of God was moved, turned around. God repented because Nineveh repented. “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God repented of the evil which He had said He would do to them; and He did not do it” (Jon 3:10). Jonah’s message is considered so essential to Judaism that it is read annually in synagogues all over the world on the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, the Day of Repentance.

Blessed Marie de Jésus Deluil–Martiny

My dear friend, Monsignor A.C., reminded me earlier this week that today, besides being the feast of Saint Gabriel of the Addolorata, is also the dies natalis and liturgical memorial of Blessed Marie de Jésus Deluil Martiny. Born to upper middle class parents on May 28, 1841 in Marseille, Marie Deluil Martiny was the eldest of five children. She belongs to the vast family of saints and blesseds surrounding the Wounded Side and Sacred Heart of Jesus. Marie's own spiritual genealogy included her great grand–aunt, the Venerable Anne–Madeleine Rémuzat (1696–1730), a Visitandine like Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647–1690) and, like the saint of Paray–le–Monial, an ardent apostle of the Sacred Heart.

The Guard of Honour of the Sacred Heart

The vocation of Marie Deluil Martiny unfolded in two phases. In the first, she dedicated herself to propagating the Guard of Honour of the Sacred Heart, a movement of reparation and of perpetual adoration of the Heart of Jesus present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar. Marie du Sacré–Coeur, a Visitandine of the monastery of Bourg–en–Bresse launched the Guard of Honour on March 13, 1863. The following year the bishop of Belley recognized the movement as a confraternity, and in 1878 Pope Leo XIII elevated it to the rank of an archconfraternity in France and Belgium.

In the beginning, the movement obliged its members to spend an hour in adoration and reparation to the Heart of Jesus before the tabernacle. The hours of the day and night were so distributed among the members as to offer the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus an uninterrupted presence of reparation and adoring love. Later on, the manner of carrying out one's assigned hour was modified: no longer was a physical presence before the tabernacle required. One could participate in the Guard of Honour without interrupting one's daily activities, simply by offering an hour of one's day in the spirit of adoration and reparation to the Sacred Heart.

Zélatrice of the Sacred Heart

Marie Deluil Martiny was the first Zélatrice (or zealous apostle and promoter) of the Guard of Honour of the Sacred Heart. So effective was her apostolate that she came to be known as the Zélatrice of the Sacred Heart.

The Wound of the Divine Heart

She explains the movement in these words: "The Guard [of Honour of the Sacred Heart], the Work in itself, was placed by the Infinite Love of our Master at the entrance of the Wound of His Divine Heart. There, it calls souls, unites them, calls them together, preaches to them, if one may say so, pushes them, and draws them into the interior of the Divine Wound . . . it leads them there, and introduces them therein, after having, so to speak, opened to them the door of this sacred refuge . . . Souls, entering this safe abode are sprinkled, washed, whitened, purified, healed, and supernaturalized, by a most efficacious application of the Blood and Water that came forth from the Divine Wound.

But Jesus wants even more: this is the new step that Our Lord desires to make the souls He chosen to this end take: they must enter by the gate of the City of God, that is into the Heart of Jesus by the Divine Wound; therein will be their world, their dwelling, their place of rest."

Saint Gabriel of the Addolorata died on February 27, 1862 at twenty–four years of age. Pope Benedict XV canonized him on May 13, 1920. A blessed feast of Saint Gabriel to all the readers of Vultus Christi who joined me in making the novena! I invite you to acknowledge graces received through his intercession in the comments section.

Click here for the Novena Prayers.

The Rich Young Man

Saint Mark (10:17–27) describes in vivid detail Jesus’ encounter with a youthful seeker. The Gospel does not say that the man is young, but his gesture and his discourse suggest the kind of spiritual idealism that rarely survives middle age. He is eager, spontaneous, and perhaps a little hasty. Our Lord seems to find these traits endearing. The Gospel does tell us that he is rich.

A Word With Jesus

He runs up to Jesus. Why does he run to him at the last minute? Was something holding him back? Fear perhaps? Does he realize that this may be his one opportunity to have a word with Jesus? He kneels before him: a gesture of reverence and humility. Only then does he blurt out his question: “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mk 10:17).

O Good Jesus!

Our Lord tests him. He answers the question with another question: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone” (Mk 10:18). Jesus does not deny that he is good. He identifies goodness with God alone. He treats the young man as he treated the Samaritan woman at the well. “If you but knew the gift of God, and who it is that is speaking to you” (cf. Jn 4:10). Jesus is no mere teacher of goodness; he is goodness itself. Saint Bruno, tasting the sweetness of God, used to exclaim, O Bonitas! O Goodness! If only the rich young man knew whom he was calling good!

They Shall See God

Jesus reviews the commandments for him. One comes to the knowledge of the goodness of God by imitating it. The commandments lead to purity of heart, and purity of heart leads to the vision of God. “Blessed are the pure in heart,” says Jesus, “for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8).

And Jesus Loved Him

The young man’s answer is candid: “Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth” (Mk 10:20). Looking into his heart, Jesus sees that he is ready for more. One of the most striking lines in Saint Mark’s Gospel follows: “And Jesus looking upon him loved him” (Mk 10:21). The eyes of Jesus shine divine light upon him. And the light of his eyes is love. The Latin version of this Gospel says that Jesus looked into him and loved him. “Iesus autem intuitus eum dilexit eum” (Mk 10:21).

In response to the Holy Father's invitation to contemplate the wounded Side of Christ, I offer my own translation of a prayer "Alla Piaga Del Costato di Gesù," To the Wound in Jesus' Side, composed by the Servant of God Father Eustachio Montemurro (1857–1923). The Venerable Eustachio of Jesus and Mary, a physician and a civic leader, a man of noble ideals and courageous initiatives, became a priest at forty–five years of age, desiring to bringing healing to souls as well as to bodies. Shortly thereafter he founded two religious congregations: The Little Brothers of the Most Holy Sacrament and the Sisters Missionaries of the Sacred Side.

The holy founder was accused of "an excess of zeal" and, for the good of the institutes he had established, chose to exile himself from his spiritual sons and daughters. With the permission of the Pope, he moved to the sanctuary of the Madonna of the Rosary of Pompei, founded by Blessed Bartolo Longo, to devote himself selflessly to the service of souls. Father Montemurro died at Pompei on January 2, 1923, loved by all, and leaving a reputation for holiness.

O painless thrust of the spear
forever awaited with passionate love by my Saviour
that thou shouldst repair in the Father's sight
the terrible wound opened by the sin of Adam
in the heart of humanity!

O glorious wound,
gushing forth life, love, and peace!
I adore thee inexhaustible wellspring of salvation,
the womb of new children
born of the water and of the blood of the Bridegroom.
Thou art for me an ever open refuge,
the door giving access to the nuptial chamber,
the vestibule of the banquet of the Lamb.

The living water that, at every moment, springs from thee,
invites me with the language of love
to enter, through thee, into the heart of my Saviour
that therein I might take the regenerating rest of new life
and spread it all about me
just as the bride coming forth from the nuptial chamber
radiates among her friends the signs and the sweetnesses of love.

Be thou for me, then, O blessed wound,
my blissful abode.
May I be drawn always to thee,
that in thee I may live and die.
In thee may I find the splendid riches
which eye has never seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart experienced.

I love Thee, Lord Jesus,
glory of my mind, joy of my eyes,
melody of my ears, gladness of my heart,
and peace of my soul.

I am Thine for time and for eternity;
nothing shall ever separate me from Thee,
for Thou hast espoused me,
drawing me with bands of goodness to Thy open side
and pouring out of Thy heart into mine
the joys of the Spirit
and the mercy of the Father who always hears Thee.

Yesterday in his Angelus address, Pope Benedict XVI returned to the subject of his Lenten message: the contemplation of the Sacred Side of Jesus, pierced by the soldier's lance. Saint Gabriel of the Addolorata lived profoundly and passionately the contemplation of Jesus Crucified with the Blessed Virgin Mary and with Saint John the Beloved Disciple to which the Holy Father is inviting the whole Church this Lent. This is what he said:

Him Whom They Have Pierced

This year, the Lenten message is inspired in the verse of John's Gospel, which in turn goes back to a messianic prophecy of Zechariah: "They shall look on him whom they have pierced" (John 19:37).

Contemplation of Jesus Crucified

The beloved disciple, present with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and the other women on Calvary, was an eyewitness of the thrust of the spear which pierced Christ's side, so that blood and water came out (cf. John 19:31-34). This gesture of an unknown Roman soldier, destined to be lost in oblivion, was imprinted on the eyes and heart of the apostle, who recounted it in his Gospel. In the course of the centuries, how many conversions have taken place precisely thanks to the eloquent message of love that he receives who contemplates Jesus crucified!

With Our Gaze Fixed on Jesus' Side

Therefore, we enter the Lenten season with our gaze fixed on Jesus' side. In the encyclical letter "Deus Caritas Est" (cf. No. 12), I wished to underline that only by gazing on Jesus, dead on the cross for us, can we know and contemplate this fundamental truth: "God is love" (1 John 4:8,16). "In this contemplation the Christian discovers the path along which his life and love must move" ("Deus Caritas Est," No. 12).

Sin and Mercy

Contemplating the Crucified with the eyes of faith, we can understand profoundly what sin is, its tragic gravity, and at the same time the incommensurable power of the Lord's forgiveness and mercy. During these days of Lent, let us not distance our hearts from this mystery of profound humanity and lofty spirituality.

An Inexhaustible Torrent of Merciful Love

On contemplating Christ, let us feel at the same time that we are contemplated by him. He whom we ourselves have pierced with our faults does not cease to shed over the world an inexhaustible torrent of merciful love. May humanity understand that only from this source is it possible to draw the spiritual energy indispensable to build that peace and happiness for which every human being is ceaselessly searching.

She Whose Soul Was Pierced

Let us pray to the Virgin Mary, whose soul was pierced next to her Son's cross, to obtain for us the gift of a firm faith. That, guiding us on our Lenten journey, she may help us leave everything that impedes us from listening to Christ and his word of salvation.

Click here for the Novena Prayers.

Saint Gabriel of the Addolorata, even from his place in glory, makes friends easily. Like Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, he spends his eternity doing good on earth. He has the most charming way of making his presence known, of offering counsel, of showing sympathy, of placing his intercession at the service of the poor, the sick, the fearful, and the lonely. When necessary, he has been known to appear to those who need his presence: a smiling youth in his black Passionist habit. He has also been known to whisper a word of comfort or direction at precisely the right moment. With all who invoke him he shares his own tender and confident love for the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In the lesson formerly assigned to Matins on the feast of Saint Gabriel, we read:

In the novitiate, day by day he became conspicuous for regular observance and for the exercise of all the virtues, and in a short time he came to be considered a pattern of perfect holiness, not only by his companions and his seniors, but also beyond the confines of the monastery ; he became a sweet odour in Christ in every place. An assiduous devotee of the Lord's Passion, he spent days and nights meditating upon it. He was drawn by unbelievable zeal towards the Holy Eucharist, a memorial of that Passion ; and when he nourished himself with it, he burned with seraphic ardour. There was nothing more noticeable than his filial piety towards the great Mother of God. He was accustomed to pay her honour for every type of devotion, but especially to contemplate her stricken and afflicted by the sufferings of Jesus, with such sorrow that he shed floods of tears. The sorrowful Virgin was, as it were, the whole reason of his being, and the teacher of the holiness that he had acquired.

Click here for the Novena Prayers.

The First Sunday of Lent

Nestling Under the Shadow of God

Today the sacred liturgy transports us into the desert: an arid wilderness, uncharted, inhospitable, and haunted by evil spirits. This being said, the tone of today’s Mass is reassuring and full of confidence. Psalm 90 (Qui habitat) runs through the Mass of the First Sunday of Lent from beginning to end. “He will give thee the shelter of his arms; under his wings thou shalt find refuge, his faithful care thy watch and ward” (Ps 90:4-5). The desert is, paradoxically, the very place where, cut off from all else, we experience the closeness of God. The opening verses of Psalm 90 have, in the translation of Ronald Knox, a note of intimacy that may escape us in more familiar translations:

Content if thou be to live with the Most High for thy defence,
under his Almighty shadow nestling still,
him thy refuge, him thy stronghold thou mayst call,
thy own God, in whom is all thy trust” (Ps 90:1-2).

Christ Praying in Us

This is the psalm that today’s liturgy places in the mouth of Christ. This is the prayer of Christ that exorcises the desert, that cleanses it, and that sanctifies it. The liturgy places the same psalm in our mouths. We repeat it; we pray it; we sing it; we allow it to inhabit us. Held in the heart, it becomes Christ’s own prayer for us, and with us, and in us, to the Father. Psalm 90 functions today as a sacrament of the prayer of Christ. It is that by which we are given a holy communion with the prayer of the tempted and lonely Christ, the means by which the prayer of Christ himself can inhabit all our moments of temptation, loneliness, and fear.

The Psalm of the Day

Psalm 90 occurs no less than five times in today’s Mass, not counting the oblique references to it in the Gospel itself. It is clearly the psalm of the day. The Church gives us Psalm 90 as we prepare to go into the desert. It is a mother’s provision for the son going off to war. “Take this,” she says, “keep it close to your heart, and when, all around you, the battle rages repeat it, knowing that I am praying it with you.” “Though a thousand fall at thy side, ten thousand at thy right side, it shall never come next or near thee” (Ps 90:7).

Psalm 90 is one of the few psalms that we find used universally in both East and West on a daily basis. When we discover that the practice of the Church is to pray a given psalm every day, it must be because that psalm has, in the light of experience, been found indispensable.

The Noonday Devil

In the East Psalm 90 was assigned every day to the Sixth Hour, that is noon. This particular choice was inspired by verse 6: “Thou shalt not be afraid of . . . the arrow that flieth in the day . . . or of the noonday devil” (Ps 90:5-6). The fathers and mothers of the desert identified the noonday devil as the evil force that attacks those who are “burned out” and weary. The noonday devil insinuates thoughts of dejection and of disgust for prayer and the things of God. The noonday devil whispers dark thoughts and plants them in the mind: thoughts of discouragement, despondency, and despair. “Give it up. What’s the use? Why go on? It all means nothing. You’ve been taken in, deceived. There is nothing on the other side. There is no hope for you. Your life is a failure. You are beyond redemption. You are not salvageable.” These are the classic temptations of desert-dwellers from Saint Anthony of Egypt to Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, tempted to suicide during her final illness.

The Merciful Christ wants us for Himself. “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Lk 5:32). And should anyone out of shame, or confusion, or fear, hesitate in answering His call, there is, very close, the presence of a Mother, a reconciling Mother, the Mother of Mercy and the Refuge of Sinners, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

I have known souls incapable of saying a heartfelt Act of Contrition and yet able to say the Hail Mary with humble sincerity. The strange and wonderful thing is that one who perseveres in saying the Hail Mary will be led gently, but inexorably, to true contrition and to compunction of heart.

Priests should never despair of penitents who return to Confession again and again with the same sins, even if these be grave sins. There is a sure and certain remedy: humble recourse to the Immaculate Mother of God.

Saint Alphonsus, one of the Church’s wisest spiritual physicians, knew that when all else fails, humble supplication to the Blessed Virgin Mary obtains miracles of grace. My own pastoral experience has taught me that the undoing of certain patterns of sin belongs in a special way to the Blessed Virgin. When one opens the door of one’s heart to her, she enters quietly and sweetly and, in the full force of her humility and purity, crushes the head of the menacing serpent.

It is worthy of note that the Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary contains five formularies for use during Lent. Elements of these can be used most suitably when integrated with the Saturday Lenten Mass and with the Lenten lectionary. The Blessed Virgin Mary, the beloved Addolorata of Saint Gabriel, facilitates every return to her Son. With a gentle hand, she leads all who are sin-sick and weary to the Physician of souls.

Click here for the Novena Prayers.

Saturday After Ash Wednesday

Isaiah 58:9-14
Psalm 85:1-2ab, 2c-4, 5-6
Luke 5:27-32

The Voice of Mercy

While we are yet on the threshold of Lent, Mercy passes by, looks into our hearts, sees every bit of your story and of mine, and, astonishingly, says, “Follow me” (Lk 5:27). He wants us for himself. “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Lk 5:32).

Saint Augustine

We do well to attend to the traditional Lenten Stational Churches of Rome. We are, after all, Roman Catholics; our liturgy and our piety are shaped by the practices of the Church that is at Rome. The best peoples’ missals used to offer a map of the Eternal City marking the location of the Stational Churches so that, at least in spirit, Catholics the world over could follow the Christians of Rome in their Lenten progress. Every day in Lent offers us the opportunity to make a spiritual pilgrimage to the designated Stational Church. I speak of this because today’s church, that of Saint Augustine, is wonderfully suited to today’s gospel. The Confessions of Saint Augustine are confessions of the Mercy of God. “Though I am but dust and ashes,” says Augustine, “allow me to speak in your merciful presence, for it is to your Mercy that I address myself” (Confessions, Book I, 7).

Mercy on the Face of Christ

Our friends from the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation would tell us that the core of their commitment is in the event of an encounter with Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Today’s gospel relates exactly such an experience: the event of Levi’s encounter with Jesus. The richness of God’s Mercy is revealed in Jesus. We see the Mercy of God on His face. We hear the Mercy of God in His voice. We feel it in the touch of His hands. We experience it flowing from His heart. Christ, being the Mercy of God, is the Way to those who, confused and disoriented, have lost their way in life. Being the Mercy of God, He is the Truth to those who go stumbling in the darkness and knocking at all the wrong doors, hoping to find truth at home. Being the Mercy of God, He is the Life to those deceived by a culture of death.

Red-covered they were passed out
one by one like a Lenten communion
drawn out of the cavernous tabernacle
of Mercy sleeves,
and distributed by a pale virginal hand,
made whiter still by Friday’s dusting of chalk.

Little hands,
sweaty from an interval in the schoolyard,
fingered them,
those fragile little books,
a little faded and a little worn.
So many children had turned them this way and that
kneeling and rising and and saying in voices that knelt and rose:
“We adore Thee, O Christ and we bless Thee,
because by Thy Holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.”

The candle flames flickered their way around the Church,
and between them a crucifix held high by one of the big lads,
and veiled these last two weeks in a purple sadness
like the saints covered in their Passiontide shrouds.

The priest surpliced in a lacy whiteness
with a double stream of violet falling over his chest,
read Saint Alphonsus,
boring some, I fear,
and bringing one or two quiet boys to tears,
or at least to the pity that, like a flood,
rises in a child’s heart
and then returns like the receding tide.

At the Cross her station keeping,
the Mother of Sorrows watched as
children, tired and not a little restless,
learned the journey of suffering love;
and, now and then, a few were compelled to look
at the Face fourteen times depicted
and feel something,
just something of her pain.

In the hearts of a few
(there are always a few who listen)
that Face engraved itself
so that the passing years
should become a procession from one station to the next,
not without falls in dust and in mud,
more than three, I fear,
and not without thorns, blood, and tears.

The little red book,
forgotten by most,
became for some a prophecy
and the prayers of its finger-worn pages
the secret of joy.

M.D.K.

I heard a frightful amount of banging about outside my cell during the work period this morning. "The postulants are moving furniture again," I thought, "or doing some serious housecleaning." When I left my cell for Sext what did I see in our corridor? An immense 19th century statue of the Sacred Heart!

The statue was retrieved from a storage room where it shared space with enormous portaits of dead abbots. (That often happens in monasteries. Portraits of long dead abbots and other things are put in storage for years, sometimes for generations, and then reappear. At the same time other things disappear.)

I am pleased to be living now in the corridoio del Sacro Cuore: a suitable surprise on this First Friday of Lent.

I did not forget about the birthday of the Venerable John Henry Newman on Wednesday of this week. I just didn't have time to post anything about it. Cardinal Newman was born on February 21, 1801.

As I have mentioned before on Vultus Christi, Newman, in 1847, lived here at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in the rooms just above me, and descended into the basilica by the very staircase I now use several times a day. Given the arrival of the Sacred Heart on our corridor, I think it fitting to present Newman's exquisite prayer to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus:

O most Sacred, most loving Heart of Jesus,
Thou art concealed in the Holy Eucharist, and Thou beatest for us still.
Now as then Thou savest,
Desiderio desideravi—"With desire I have desired."
I worship Thee then with all my best love and awe,
with my fervent affection, with my most subdued, most resolved will.
O my God, when Thou dost condescend to suffer me to receive Thee,
to eat and drink Thee,
and Thou for a while takest up Thy abode within me,
O make my heart beat with Thy Heart.
Purify it of all that is earthly, all that is proud and sensual,
all that is hard and cruel, of all perversity,
of all disorder, of all deadness.
So fill it with Thee, that neither the events of the day
nor the circumstances of the time may have power to ruffle it,
but that in Thy love and Thy fear it may have peace.

On December 30, 1861 Saint Gabriel of the Addolorata , who was twenty-three years old at the time, wrote these lines to his brother Michele. The young Gabriel comes across as somewhat cynical about human love and friendship. We know, however, from other sources, that he was sensitive, endearing, and capable of friendship. He wants, I think, to spare his brother the pain of romantic disappointments and, above all, lead him to an intimate relationship with the Blessed Virgin Mary. Gabriel's last sentence reminds me of certain texts of Saint Bernard.

People here on earth cannot make you happy. They are inconstant, untruthful in love; and when you find someone who doesn't have these defects, the very thought of one day having to be separated saddens and torments the heart.

If you are in dangers, she runs quickly to deliver you; if you are afflicted, she consoles you; if you are weak, she sustains you; if you are in need, she helps you.

Click here for the Novena Prayers.

Friday After Ash Wednesday

Isaiah 58:1-9a
Psalm 50: 3-4, 5-6ab, 18-19
Matthew 9:14-15

Holy Fasting

Today the prophet Isaiah puts a question to God: “Why have we fasted, and thou seest it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and thou takest no knowledge of it? (Is 58:3). The problem lies not in God not seeing, nor in God failing to notice. The problem lies in our fasting. The fasting pleasing to God is incompatible with quarreling, with oppression, greediness, and complacency. Holy fasting is incompatible with “the pointing of the finger, and speaking of wickedness” (Is 58:9). Saint Benedict says that we are “to love fasting” (RB 4:13). How can we begin to love fasting? How do we fast? Fasting and abstinence are, first of all, about training the will to seek the “things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God” (Col 3:1). “Set your mind on the things that are above,” says the Apostle, “not on things that are on earth” (Col 3:2).

Media Fasting

Fasting and abstinence have to do with more than food and drink. Contemporary life obliges us to look seriously at “media fasting and abstinence.” Media fasting and abstinence affect our use of television, radio, computers, internet, videos, telephone, and e-mail. Media fasting is one area in which one can be very radical without impairing one’s health. The secular media have a pernicious effect on the interior life. It happens almost imperceptibly. First we tell ourselves that television, or movies, or videos, or DVDs, or “surfing the net” is useful. Then it becomes necessary. Then it becomes a right that we are ready to defend the way a dog defends a juicy bone. This is why during Lent it is so important to practice media fasting. It opens up time in the day and in the week. It is, like all the other forms of fasting, liberating and refreshing. It refines the spiritual senses, opening the eyes and attuning the ears of the soul to “what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived” (1 Cor 2:9).

Contemplata Aliis Tradere

One may think it strange that I should be writing this on, of all things, a blog! Why do I continue to write Vultus Christi even during Lent? Should I not abstain from blogging? The question is a good one. This blog is an extension of my lectio divina. It is a way of reaching out to souls, a kind of sancta predicatio. Other bloggers and readers may disagree with me. “Not in bread alone doth man live,” saith the Lord, “but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). For this monk, the Dominican adage holds true even during Lent: Contemplata aliis tradere. Far be it from me to compare myself with the Servant of God Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, but can you imagine what his blog would have been like? (I, for one, think that Archbishop Sheen would have had a blog, had the internet existed in his day. Saint Maximilian Kolbe probably would have had one too.)

Yearning, I adore you,
wondrous hidden God,
Living Bread by bread concealed,
speaking heart to heart.
Give me now the faith that sees
darkly through the veil,
Let your presence draw me in
where my senses fail.

It being Thursday, the Most Blessed Sacrament was exposed in our choir within the clausura. Father Abbot posted a list of hours of adoration. The monks, clothed in the white cuculla out reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, kept watch in adoration all day. An indescribable fragrance of adoration seems to linger in the air even after the hours of exposition.

The practice of adoration on Thursday or, at least, of the holy hour of adoration of Thursday night, recalls the Great and Holy Thursday of the Lord's Mystical Supper and the gifts of the Priesthood and Eucharist. It introduces the weekly ascent to the Cross and the contemplation of the Pierced Side on Friday. Then, on Sunday evening after Vespers, it is good to remain before the Eucharistic Face of the Risen Christ, having recognized Him "in the breaking of the bread."

Following the same evocative rite used by Saint Gabriel of the Addolorata in 1857, young Indonesian Passionists making their First Profession are symbolically crowned with thorns and charged with the wood of the cross.

Saint Bernard, meditating the mystery of Passion of Christ, writes:

[The Church] beholds King Solomon,
with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him
in the day of his espousals;
she sees the Sole-begotten of the Father bearing the heavy burden of His Cross;
she sees the Lord of all power and might bruised and spat upon,
the Author of life and glory transfixed with nails,
smitten by the lance, overwhelmed with mockery,
and at last laying down His precious life for His friends.

Contemplating this the sword of love pierces through her own soul also
and she cried aloud, 'Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples;
for I am sick of love.'
The fruits which the Spouse gathers from the Tree of Life
in the midst of the garden of her Beloved, are pomegranates (Cant. 4:13),
borrowing their taste from the Bread of heaven,
and their color from the Blood of Christ.
On Loving God, Chapter Three

Click here for the Novena Prayers.

The fourth day of our novena coincides with the beginning of Holy Lent. At the beginning of his religious life Saint Gabriel of the Addolorata made a list of forty resolutions for the conversion of his life. Among them, we find the following:

— I will never excuse myself when I am blamed or corrected, nor even resent it interiorly, much less put the blame upon others.

— I will show the good opinion I have of each one by covering up his faults.

So, if you are looking for some serious Lenten practices, you need look no further.

Click here for the Novena Prayers.

Yesterday, the Poor Ladies in Barhamsville, Virginia celebrated the Feast of the Holy Face of Our Lord Jesus Christ for the first time. For my part, I was privileged to concelebrate Holy Mass with His Eminence, Cardinal Angelini at the Basilica of Santo Spirito in Sassia. His Eminence preached on the contemplation of the Holy Face and the vocation to reparation that springs from it. Present at the Mass of the Holy Face were priests and religious from a variety of traditions, including Franciscans. A number of "gentle leadings" compel to write something, however inadequate, about the Holy Face of Jesus in Franciscan spirituality.

When it comes to the spirituality of the Seraphic family, I, being a son of Saints Benedict and Bernard, and an unworthy disciple of Blessed Abbot Marmion, lay claim to nothing other than an absymal ignorance. Recently, however, a few texts have come my way that demonstrate the centrality of the Face of Christ to the Franciscan charism.

Saint Bonventure, the Seraphic Doctor, in his Tree of Life, contemplates the adorable Face of Christ:

That Face, venerated by the Patriarchs,
desire of the Angels,
delight of Heaven,
was defiled by spittle from vile mouths,
struck by the blows of the inhuman,
and so as to augment the mockery, was covered with a veil by the sacrilegious.
The Face of the Lord of all creation was struck
as though He were an abject slave.
And He, serene of Countenance speaking softly,
gently had admonished one of the servants of the High Priest who had struck Him:
"If I have spoken evil, tell Me where I have erred;
if however I have spoken the truth, why do you strike me?

Turner's "Sunrise" is, I think, the perfect illustration of our Lenten Lauds Hymn, Jam, Christe, Sol Iustitiae.

The Lengthening Day

Lent is a lovely word. It belongs to that distinguished family of old English church words. Some of them — Shrove Tuesday and Maundy Thursday, for example — are still familiar to us. Most other languages refer to Lent with a term derived from the Latin Quadragesima, signifying forty days, but we English-speaking Catholics hold to our Lent. It comes from the Old English lengten, meaning spring, and refers to the lengthening daylight hours.

Who among us is not yearning for longer sun-filled days? It is time for Lent, time for all that is dark and cold to shrink, time for a lengthening brightness. This is, I think, something of what Saint Paul was getting at in the second reading. “Behold now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2). The same Paul, in his defense before King Agrippa, recounts his own conversion experience, his “day of salvation,” and says, “At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining round me and those who journeyed with me” (Ac 26:13). This was Paul’s “acceptable time” (2 Cor 6:2); this was his “day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2). A spiritual resurrection takes place.

From Darkness to Light

Christ says to Paul, “Rise and stand upon your feet” (Ac 26:16). He then sends Paul to the Gentiles, saying, “Open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Ac 26:17-18). The imagery evokes the mysteries of the Paschal Vigil: the turning from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God for the forgiveness of sins in baptism and a place among those sanctified by faith in the risen Christ, that is, in the Eucharistic assembly of those sealed with the Holy Spirit. The lengthening light of this “very acceptable time” (2 Cor 6:2) will become, after forty days, the unfading light of Pascha, the “day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2).

A Quickening of the Spirit

Jesus says, “Walk while you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become children of light” (Jn 12:35-36). We are to walk then — no, run — while we have this lengthening light. Holy Father Benedict says in the Prologue, “Let us then at last arouse ourselves, even as Scripture incites us in the words, ‘Now is the hour for us to rise from sleep.’ Let us then, open our eyes to the divine light, and hear with our ears the divine voice as it cries out to us daily. ‘Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, and again, ‘He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches’” (RB Pro:8-11). “Run, he says, while you have the light of life lest the darkness of death overwhelm you” (RB Pro:5). Lent is a cheerful alacrity, a quickening of the spirit in response to the light.

The Light of Grace

All of this is borne out in the hymn given us by the Church for weekday Lauds during these first weeks of Lent. Composed in the sixth century, it sings of the lengthening light, of Christ, the Sun of Justice. Allow me to quote just two stanzas in the fine old translation of the English Primer of 1706 and to offer a few words of commentary.

Now Christ, Thou Sun of righteousness,
Let dawn our darkened spirits bless:
The light of grace to us restore
While day to earth returns once more.

Today is the third day of our novena to Saint Gabriel of the Addolorata. At the Mass of the Holy Face we will be reading from the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according the Prophet Isaiah. Trusting in the intercession of Saint Gabriel, bring to the bruised and wounded Christ every bruise, every wound, every sorrow and infirmity of those for whom you are interceding in this novena. Remember that Christ Himself, the Immaculate Lamb, was judged as one "struck by God and afflicted."

Saint Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother, imbued with the charism of Saint Paul of the Cross, learned that the wounds of Jesus are wellsprings of healing. He prayed every day, "Holy Mother, this impart, Deeply print within my heart, All the wounds my Saviour bore."

Despised, and the most abject of men,
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity:
and His look was as it were, hidden and despised,
whereupon we esteemed Him not.

But He was wounded for our iniquities,
He was bruised for our sins:
the chastisement of our peace was upon Him,
and by His bruises we are healed (Is 53:3–5).

Click here for the Novena Prayers.

In Rome and in other places, Shrove Tuesday is observed as the Feast of the Holy Face of Jesus. In 2007 I had the privilege of concelebrating a Solemn Mass in honour of the Holy Face of Jesus at the Roman Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia with His Eminence, Fiorenzo Cardinal Angelini.

Masses in honour of the Holy Face appeared as early as the fourteenth century. In 1958 Pope Pius XII approved the observance of a feast of the Holy Face of Jesus on Shrove Tuesday. At Manoppello, the feast of the Holy Face is celebrated on August 6th, the Transfiguration of the Lord. The Benedictines of Jesus Crucified honoured the Holy Face with the Litanies sung in procession on the Sunday After Ascension.

The present Mass of the Holy Face of Jesus for Shrove Tuesday was approved by the Holy See in 1986. A flash of paschal glory before beginning Lent! Here are the Proper Mass texts of the Mass in English. The translation is my own.

A word from Saint Gabriel of the Addolorata:

Love Mary!... She is lovable, faithful, constant.
She will never let herself be outdone in love, but will ever remain supreme.
If you are in danger, she will hasten to free you.
If you are troubled, she will console you.
If you are sick, she will bring you relief.
If you are in need, she will help you.
She does not look to see what kind of person you have been.
She simply comes to a heart that wants to love her.
She comes quickly and opens her merciful heart to you,
embraces you and consoles and serves you.
She will even be at hand to accompany you on the trip to eternity.

Click here for the Novena Prayers.

Monday of the Seventh Week of the Year I
Mark 9:14–29

A Tormented Child

Today's Gospel recounts the deliverance of a boy tormented by an evil spirit from his infancy. "And oftentimes hath he cast him into the fire and into waters to destroy him. But if Thou canst do anything, help us, having compassion on us" (Mk 9:21). The Evil One throws the boy into extremes; this is characteristic of the devil's work. Whereas the action of the Holy Spirit is marked by a sweet discretion, by gentleness, and by moderation, the action of the Evil One is marked by exaggerations, by excesses of all sorts, by imprudent starts and by bitter endings. These are the things that cast the soul into discouragement and sadness.

Faith

How does one restore order and balance to a soul that has lost both? "And Jesus saith to him: If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth" (Mk 9:22). Our Lord asks for one thing only: a little faith. Here, faith means trust. Faith is not an intellectual assent to a metaphysical construct; it is the word or action by which one entrusts oneself (or another) to God. "And immediately the father of the boy crying out, with tears — the perfect definition of the prayer of supplication: a crying out with tears — said: I do believe, Lord: help my unbelief" (Mk 9:23). The father responded to the word of Our Lord by asking Him to place within his soul the dispositions of faith necessary for his son's deliverance. Not only does he ask for his son's healing; he asks that his own faith be made whole.

Struggle and Death

A terrifying struggle and a kind of death follow. And crying out and greatly tearing him, he went out of him, and he became as dead, so that many said: He is dead" (Mk 9:25). Struggle and apparent death are part of the healing process.

And He Arose

The narrative culminates in a spiritual resurrection. "But Jesus taking him by the hand, lifted him up; and he arose" (Mk 9:26). "And he arose" — how easy it is to pass over this little phrase that, in some way, is the key to all the rest. This is a true resurrection into newness of life. Henceforth, nothing will be the same in the young man's life, and nothing will be the same in the life of his father.

Prayer and Fasting

The disciples are puzzled by the Our Lord's boy's deliverance. They had attempted to deliver him and had failed. "And when He was come into the house, his disciples secretly asked Him: Why could we not cast him out? And He said to them: This kind can go out by nothing, but by prayer and fasting" (Mk 9:28). Our Lord refers here to "The Soul of the Apostolate," to the hidden life, the source of all spiritual authority and fruitfulness.

In seeking the intercession of Saint Gabriel the Wonderworker during this novena, we, like the father in the Gospel are saying, "I do believe, Lord: help my unbelief" (Mk 9:23). To the prayer of supplication we do well to add some form of fasting — and there are many, many forms of fasting — taking care to practice moderation and discretion. Fasting, by engaging the body, becomes a physical investment in prayer. Fasting anchors prayer in the heart.

VESPERS II

Jesus! You taught and sanctified
Observance of this Lenten tide;
Be pleased our fast to consecrate,
And by it mend our broken state.

Now unto Paradise once more,
By penitence our souls restore;
Without the gates our souls were thrust
Where thorns and toil turned pride to dust.

Be with your Church in saving pow’r,
In this her death and rising hour;
When for the sins of bygone days,
With Word-pierced heart she weeps and prays.

For all our grievous past offence,
Your gracious pardon, Lord, dispense;
Henceforth, O gentle Guardian, shield
From sin each sense by mercy sealed.

So cleansed and chastened in your eyes,
By this our gladsome sacrifice,
May we for Pascha’s joys prepare,
Who now a joyful sorrow share.

Infuse us, Father, with your Breath,
The Crucified’s last Gift in death;
That in that Spirit we may raise
New paschal hymns of living praise. Amen.

Seventh Sunday of the Year C
1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23
Psalm 102: 1-2, 3-4, 8, 10, 12-13
1 Corinthians 15:45-49
Luke 6:27-38

The Ten Commandments of Mercy

I counted ten commandments of mercy in today’s Holy Gospel.

1. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you (Lk 6:27).
2. Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you (Lk 6:28).
3. Give to everyone who asks of you (Lk 6:30).
4. Do to others as you would have them do to you (Lk 6:31).
5. Lend expecting nothing (Lk 6:35).
6. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful (Lk 6:36).
7. Judge not, and you will not be judged (Lk 6:37.
8. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned (Lk 6:37).
9. Forgive and you will be forgiven (Lk 6:37).
10. Give, and gifts will be given to you (Lk 6:38).

Novena to Saint Gabriel of the Addolorata
February 18 — 27, 2007

The liturgical memorial of Saint Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother falls quite suitably at the beginning of Lent on February 27th. I am very fond of Saint Gabriel. The affection I have for him goes back to my boyhood. The Passionist Fathers often preached missions in my home parish. At some point I must have been given a popular life of Saint Gabriel written for young lads. If I remember rightly, it was called "Boy in a Hurry." (Terry N. would know, or Father Gregory O., or Father Martin F. They probably read it too.) On the morning of February 27, 1862, Saint Gabriel died of tuberculosis. He was twenty-fours years old; although a professed Passionist, he was not yet ordained a priest

It occurred to me that some of the readers of Vultus Christi might want to join me in making a novena to Saint Gabriel from February 18—27. Here are two possibilities. The first prayer is suitable for everyone, but especially for parents and grandparents who want to recommend their children and grandchildren to him. The second set of prayers (antiphon, reading, litany, and collect) is inspired by the liturgical texts for Saint Gabriel's feast. Saint Gabriel is a wonderworker. There is no doubt about that. The miracles obtained through his intercession are too many to be counted.

Saturday of the Sixth Week of the Year I
Mark 9:2–13

Jesus Alone With His Friends

Who are the saints? The saints are those who allow themselves to be taken by Jesus “up a high mountain apart by themselves” (Mk 9:2). The saints are those who accept the invitation of the Master to go with him to a place of solitude and to remain with him there. The saints are those who, leaving behind what is familiar and reassuring, choose the company of Jesus alone — a wondrous and fearful thing — amazed that Jesus has chosen to be alone with them. “It is not you who seek my company,” he says, “it is who seek yours.”

Those to Whom God Speaks Face to Face

The saints are the blessed companions of Moses to whom “the Lord used to speak face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Ex 33:11). They are the friends of Elijah fed by an angel in the wilderness (1 K 19:5-7): Elijah to whom God spoke not in a great wind, nor in an earthquake, nor in fire, but in “a still small voice” (1 K 19:13).

Seekers of the Face of God

The saints are those in whom the prayer of David is a ceaseless murmur by day and by night: “It is your face, O Lord, that I seek; hide not your face from me” (Ps 26:8-9). The saints are those before whom Jesus shows himself transfigured, “his garments glistening, intensely white” (Mk 9:3), his face “shining like the sun” (Mt 17:2) — and this as “in a mirror darkly” (1 Cor 13:12). The saints are those who, having caught a glimpse of “the fairest of the sons of men” (Ps 44:2) cannot detach their gaze from his face, those who live with their eyes fixed in his.

My telephone rang this morning shortly before 9:00. An Apostle of the Sacred Heart was calling to invite me to join her and two others on a "pilgrimage" to the Roman Major Seminary for the feast of the Madonna della Fiducia, Our Lady of Confidence or Trust. The Roman Seminary, situated just behind Saint John Lateran, is a less than ten minute walk from Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.

The seminary was a beehive of activity this morning. Pope Benedict XVI will be visiting there this evening, continuing the practice of Pope John Paul II who venerated the miraculous image of the Madonna della Fiducia each year. The oratory containing the holy image is not usually open to the public. An exception is made on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday, the feast of Our Lady of Confidence. The silver rays surrounding the miraculous image were made from the dog tags of the seminarians who returned safely from their military service during the First World War. Generations of young men have knelt before the miraculous image, entrusting themselves and their priestly vocations to the Madonna della Fiducia.

I was moved to see the number of priests in prayer before their beloved Mother, their Confidence. Blessed John XXIII, an alumnus of the Roman Seminary, was known for his devotion to the Madonna della Fiducia. The invocation "Mater mea, Fiducia mea! — My Mother, my Confidence!" was ever on his lips, even at the hour of his death.

Look closely at the image. The Child Jesus is looking directly at us and pointing to His Mother. "Trust her," he says. "Trust her with your past, your present, and your future. He who has confidence in my Mother will never be disappointed."

The Discalced Carmelites of Savannah, Georgia, have a splendid page dedicated to Our Lady of Confidence, the patroness of their monastery.

Given the grace of today's feast, you may want to begin praying the Rosary of the Seven Dolours. It is prayed on seven sets of seven beads. Although one can obtain the beads from the Servite Fathers and a number of other sources, my own were made by the wonderful ladies of the Rosary Workshop. Their work is exquisite; the beads are sturdy, beautiful, and a comfort to touch and to hold.

Two memorials occurring in February, as well as the proximity of Lent, compel me to post once again what I wrote last September concerning the Rosary of the Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The two memorials are that of the Seven Holy Founders of the Servites today, February 17th, and that of Saint Gabriel of the Addolorata on February 27th.

The Rosary of the Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a way of rememorating certain events in the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Compassion of His Virgin Mother. The fruits of this particular prayer are compunction of heart, detachment from the occasions of sin, chastity, humility, reparation, compassion, intimacy with the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, and desire to contemplate the Face of Christ. The power of this prayer — something that many have experienced — comes from allowing one's own heart to be irrigated and purified by the tears of the Mother of God. The tears of the Sorrowful Mother bring purity and healing wherever they fall.

It is significant, I think, that the first three of Our Lady’s Sorrows were shared with Saint Joseph and the last four with Saint John, the Beloved Disciple of Jesus. Saint Joseph and Saint John, the two men chosen by God to live in the intimacy of the Virgin Mother, were also chosen by God to enter into the mystery of her sorrows.

Here is one method of saying the Rosary of the Seven Dolours:

Sixth Friday of the Year I
Mark 8:34-9:1

I just came from the altar, having celebrated the Votive Mass of the Most Precious Blood. This particular Votive Mass is profoundly significant here at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme where the the relics of Our Lord's Passion are preserved and venerated. The Wood of the Cross and the Thorns of the Crown were soaked in the Precious Blood of the Lamb. I remembered my dear friend Father Jeff Keyes, C.PP.S. who offered Holy Mass at this same altar just a few weeks ago.

Holding Fast to Christ

Our Lord calls any man who would come after Him to "deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Him" (cf. Mk 8:34). If I love Christ I will choose always to remain with him, to abide close to him. “I found Him whom my soul loves. I held Him and would not let Him go” (Ct 3:4).

Our Lord's call to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him is not, first of all, a call to suffer. It is a call to be with Him, to “follow the Lamb wherever He goes” (cf. Rev 14:4). The sequela Christi, the following after Christ is the expression of our desire to be with Him.

To the Father by the Way of the Cross

Today’s gospel presents us with dynamic images; there is movement. Attend to the verbs: “to come after Me,” says Jesus, and again, “follow Me.” If Jesus says, “follow Me,” it is because He is moving on. “I go to the Father” (Jn 14:28).

The Necessity of the Cross

The Christian life is movement. Why then, you may ask, cannot one simply leave the weight of the cross behind? Would that not make the movement forward easier? Why struggle beneath the weight of the cross if its burden slows our steps? If Our Lord says that we are to come after Him without leaving the cross behind, it is because the cross is somehow necessary. It was concerning this very point that the risen Jesus enlightened the disciples on the road to Emmaus: “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory?” (Lk 24:26).

Why is the carrying of the cross necessary to us? Because the cross, by revealing our weakness, opens us to the grace of Christ. “My grace is sufficient for you,” said Christ to Paul; “for My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). What does that mean if not that the power of Christ is made perfect in bearing the cross? Paul understood. “When I am weak,” he says, “then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10). “When, beneath the burden of the cross I come to know my weakness and accept it, then I am strong.” Why did Our Lord choose to fall three times beneath the cross, if not to give us in His weakness a mirror of our own and a reason to hope?

Blessed Marmion and the Way of the Cross

Blessed Abbot Marmion made the Way of the Cross faithfully every single day of the year with the sole exception of Easter Day. I never tire of returning to his meditations on the Way of the Cross in Christ in His Mysteries. A little known fact about Blessed Abbot Marmion is that he waged a life-long battle against depression. Robust in appearance and outwardly jovial, he was obliged to face his hidden weaknesses and accept them. What was the source of his hope? It was, I think, his daily encounter with the suffering Christ in the Way of the Cross.

The Cross: Our Only Hope

In less than six weeks we will be singing the Passiontide Vespers hymn that, in the second to the last verse, raises a mighty cry of triumph: O crux, ave, spes unica — “Hail, O Cross, our only hope!” Christ fills with His grace every weakness, every poverty, every brokenness revealed by our acceptance of the cross. The cross, especially when we stumble and fall beneath its weight, allows us to take the measure of our weakness and so, reveals the immeasurable measure of Christ’s all-sufficient grace.

The Mother of Sorrows

There is something else too, or rather someone else. There is the Blessed Virgin Mary, the compassionate Mother of Sorrows. She is ever present on the via crucis, never far from one who falls once, three, or one hundred times beneath the cross, for in each one she recognizes her Son. All of the saints devoted to the Passion of Christ encountered the Mother of God on the via crucis. They chose to remain in spirit by her side all the way to Calvary, standing with her at foot of the cross, suffering with her as she received the body of her Jesus in death, weeping with her at the tomb. The tears of the Sorrowful Mother, mingling with the Precious Blood of Christ, fall into the hearts of her children. The Virgin Mary’s tears are seeds of hope sown in a fertile soil to bear fruit for the whole Church.

Grace Measured to Every Weakness

The first sign of a faith made fruitful by love is adhesion to the cross. In holding out the cross, Christ offers grace measured to every weakness and, in that, He offers each of us a hope that will not disappoint.

The coincidence of the Holy Father's Lenten Message with the liturgical memorial of Saint Claude La Colombière prompts me to post an article that I wrote in May 2005. In June of the same year, it was published in the Italian, English, and Portuguese editions of L'Osservatore Romano.

Toward A Theology of the Sacred Heart

“Knowing the Mystery of God in the Pierced Heart of the Crucified”

“In the pierced heart of the Crucified, God’s own heart is opened up — here we see who God is and what he is like. Heaven is no longer locked up. God has stepped out of his hiddenness. That is why St. John sums up both the meaning of the Cross and the nature of the new worship of God in the mysterious promise made through the prophet Zechariah (cf. 12:10). ‘They shall look on him whom they have pierced’ (Jn 19:37).”

Pope Benedict XVI: Theologian of the Heart of Christ

In July of 1985, I was standing in the bookstore of the Abbey of Sainte-Cécile of Solesmes in France when, by a wonderful providence of God, I met the Benedictine scholar, Mother Elisabeth de Solms. The encounter remains unforgettable. I had long studied and used her admirable translation of the Life and Rule of Saint Benedict, as well as her Christian Bible, a series of volumes setting the commentaries of the Church Fathers line by line alongside the Scriptures. The simplicity of so great a woman was a marvel. She engaged me in conversation, asking if I had read the works of Cardinal Ratzinger. I admitted that I was familiar with certain writings of his, surely not with everything published. “Read him,” she said. “You will see. God will make of him a great gift to his Church.” That was twenty years ago.

On the occasion of the visit of the relics of Saint Claude La Colombière to Ireland in 2006, a remarkable website was prepared by Father Bernard McGuckian, S.J. It offers a biography of the saint, a selection of quotations, and a number of his prayers. Among the latter is this one addressed to the Divine Mercy. I know that it will speak to the hearts of many.

Prayer to the Divine Mercy

O Lord, behold here before You a soul who exists in this world
in order to allow You to exercise Your admirable mercy
and manifest it before heaven and earth.
Others may glorify You through their faithfulness and perseverance,
thus making evident the power of Your grace.
How sweet and generous You are to those who are faithful to You!

Should I fall a hundred times,
or should my crimes be a hundred times worse than they actually are,
I would continue to trust in your mercy.

I think it was in 1974 that a priest friend gave me a little book of the writings of Saint Claude La Colombière in French. The book was covered in a kind of onion–skin paper and had belonged originally to a Religious of the Cenacle. Saint Claude La Colombière became a dear friend. I count on his intercession. I turn to him when I feel my heart growing cold.

The Franciscan Saint John Wall (Joachim of Saint Anne), who was martyred for the crime of being a Catholic priest near Redhill, Corcester, England on August 22nd, 1679, knew Saint Claude. After having spent a night in spiritual conversation with him, the soon–to–be martyr said, "When I was in his presence I thought that I was dealing with Saint John returned to earth to rekindle that fire of love in the Heart of Christ.”

Here is one of Saint Claude's prayers, in the original French and in English translation.

Jésus, vous êtes le seul et le véritable ami.
Vous prenez part à mes maux, vous vous en chargez,
vous avez le secret de me les tourner en bien.
Vous m'écoutez avec bonté lorsque je vous raconte mes afflictions
et vous ne manquez jamais de les adoucir.

Vous souffrez mes défauts avec une patience admirable;
mes infidélités même, mes ingratitudes ne vous blessent point tellement
que vous ne soyez toujours prêt à revenir si je le veux.
O Jésus, accordez-moi de le vouloir, afin que je sois tout à vous,
pour le temps et pour l'éternité.

The Antiphon, O quantum in cruce, found in Laudes Vespertinae, the Cistercian collection for Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, is the perfect meditation on the Holy Father's Lenten Message. The melody is full of compunction and a tender, pleading love. In the past I have often had the schola sing it with a faux–bourdon (a fourth below the melody), changing the si bémols (flats) to si naturals. The effect is extraordinary.

Here is an English translation of the Latin text:

O, how much upon the Cross
didst thy bowed head, O Christ,
thy hands flung wide,
thy open heart
breathe forth love.

Good Iesu, hear thou our groaning,
and take not the measure of our crimes.
We implore thy wounded Heart,
O tender God.

A Feast in Europe

In all of Europe today is the feast of Saints Cyril and Methodius, co–patrons of Europe with Saint Benedict, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Birgitta of Sweden, and Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

The Ascension of the Lord

The Gospel given us today is Saint Mark's account of the Ascension of the Lord (Mk 16:15–20). This particular pericope is constructed like a triptych. The central panel is the radiant image of the ascended Lord Jesus, the King of Glory, seated at the right hand of the Father. "So then the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God" (Mk 16:19).

O Jesus, our redemption,
our love, and our desire,
God, Creator of all things,
become Man in the fullness of time.

(Iesu nostra redemptio, Hymn at Vespers of the Ascension)

The Things That Are Above

It is in the light of the glorious mystery of the Ascension, recapitulating the whole work of redemption, that Saint Paul writes: "Seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God" (Col 3:1–3). This, it seems to me, is the message that contemporary Europe and the whole Western world need to hear.

Go Into the World

The first panel in Saint Mark's triptych depicts Our Lord's command to "go into the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation" (Mk 16:15). Baptism is the necessary response to the prevenient gift of faith. Those who, having heard the preaching of the Gospel, refuse to put their belief in Christ, will be condemned by their own hardness of heart. The preaching of the Gospel is made compelling by the signs that accompany it. "And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover" (Mk 16:17–18).

Preaching Everywhere

The third panel of the Gospel triptych shows the Church's obedience to the command of the Lord. Saints Cyril and Methodius are, in fact, examples of the last verse of the Gospel: "And they went forth and preached every where, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it. Amen" (Mk 16:19–20). Saint Mark's phrase, "and the Lord worked with them," corresponds to Saint Matthew's expression of the same mystery: "Behold, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Mt 28:20).

The Soul of the Apostolate

The preaching of the Gospel is sustained by the contemplation of the risen and ascended Christ hidden for our sake in the sacred mysteries until His return in glory. Those who seek His Face and His Heart hidden in the adorable mystery of the Eucharist will not be disappointed in their hope. The central panel of today's Gospel reveals what Dom Chautard called "the soul of the apostolate." Without seeking the Face of Christ and exposing ourselves to the flames that emanate from His Sacred Heart, it is impossible to hear the commands of the Lord, and impossible to carry them out.

“They shall look on Him
whom they have pierced” (Jn 19:37)

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

“They shall look on Him whom they have pierced” (Jn 19:37). This is the biblical theme that this year guides our Lenten reflection. Lent is a favourable time to learn to stay with Mary and John, the beloved disciple, close to Him who on the Cross, consummated for all mankind the sacrifice of His life (cf. Jn 19:25). With a more fervent participation let us direct our gaze, therefore, in this time of penance and prayer, at Christ crucified who, dying on Calvary, revealed fully for us the love of God. In the Encyclical Deus caritas est, I dwelt upon this theme of love, highlighting its two fundamental forms: agape and eros.

God’s love: agape and eros

The term agape, which appears many times in the New Testament, indicates the self-giving love of one who looks exclusively for the good of the other. The word eros, on the other hand, denotes the love of one who desires to possess what he or she lacks and yearns for union with the beloved. The love with which God surrounds us is undoubtedly agape. Indeed, can man give to God some good that He does not already possess? All that the human creature is and has is divine gift. It is the creature then, who is in need of God in everything. But God’s love is also eros.

In the Old Testament, the Creator of the universe manifests toward the people whom He has chosen as His own a predilection that transcends every human motivation. The prophet Hosea expresses this divine passion with daring images such as the love of a man for an adulterous woman (cf. 3:1-3). For his part, Ezekiel, speaking of God’s relationship with the people of Israel, is not afraid to use strong and passionate language (cf. 16:1-22).

These biblical texts indicate that eros is part of God’s very heart: the Almighty awaits the “yes” of His creatures as a young bridegroom that of his bride. Unfortunately, from its very origins, mankind, seduced by the lies of the Evil One, rejected God’s love in the illusion of a self-sufficiency that is impossible (cf. Gn 3:1-7). Turning in on himself, Adam withdrew from that source of life who is God Himself, and became the first of “those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage” (Heb 2:15). God, however, did not give up. On the contrary, man’s “no” was the decisive impulse that moved Him to manifest His love in all of its redeeming strength.

Tuesday of the Sixth Week of the Year I
Mark 8:14–21

Unintelligence

My French Bible subtitles today’s passage from Saint Mark: “The Unintelligence of the Disciples.” This does not suggest that the disciples were feebleminded; it means, rather, that they were incapable of reading the signs given by Jesus. The word “intelligent” derives from legere, to read, and intus within or inside. The disciples witnessed the multiplication of the loaves in a desert place. They saw Our Lord feed four thousand men and, with their own hands, distributed the miraculous bread to the people. They counted seven baskets left over. And still, the meaning of the sign escaped them. They were unintelligent: incapable of reading inside the meaning of the event.

Except for One Bread Only

We saw yesterday that the Pharisees, blind to the meaning of the multiplication of the loaves, asked Jesus for a sign from heaven. He sighed from the depths of his heart and left them. Today, we see Our Lord in the boat with his disciples. Listen carefully to what Saint Mark says, following the Greek and Latin texts closely: “Now they had forgotten to bring breads; and except for one bread only, they had none with them in the boat” (Mk 8:14).

The Bread of Life

By translating the second “bread” in the sentence as “loaf,” the American lectionary misses the point entirely. Both the Greek text and the Latin typical edition of the lectionary use the same word twice. “They had forgotten to bring bread (plural); and except for one bread only, they had none with them in the boat” (Mk 8:14). The “one bread” with the disciples in the boat is none other than Jesus himself. “I am the bread of life” (Jn 6:35). “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh” (Jn 6:51). This is the unintelligence of the disciples: the one Bread necessary, the Bread of Life, is in the boat with them, and they fail to recognize him.

Yes, in six categories. I can hardly believe it. The 2007 nominations of Vultus Christi are in the following categories:

Best Blog by Clergy/Religious/Seminarian

Most Spiritual Blog

Voting is now open. If you wish to cast your vote for Vultus Christi, go to The Catholic Blog Awards 2007 and follow the instructions given there.

Voting will continue until Friday, February 16 at noon CST and results will be posted by Sunday, February 18 at noon.

Thank you, kind readers of Vultus Christi, for your support and encouragement.

The first time I said this prayer of mine publicly was during a homily on 17 May 2006. After Holy Mass I offered copies of it to those who wanted them. One of the copies found its way to the office of a psychologist who, upon reading it, made copies for his patients. Interesting.

Prayer of Forgiveness and Reparation

Lord Jesus Christ,
Who revealed the infinite mercy of Your Sacred Heart
in saying: “Love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you” (Mt 5:44)
and again, “Bless those who curse you,
pray for those who abuse you” (Lk 6:28),
give me, I beseech You,
grace to obey these commandments of yours,
and to persevere in praying daily
for those who, in any way,
have abused, cursed, hurt, or rejected me.

I pray for those who hate me,
for those who resent me
and for those who have spoken ill of me.
I beg you to bless them abundantly
and to pour into their hearts
such a profusion of healing mercies
that in them and around them
love will triumph over hatred,
friendship over resentment,
sweetness over bitterness,
meekness over anger,
and peace over enmity.
I further ask you to extend these graces
to their families and to all whom they hold dear.

Monday of the Sixth Week of the Year I
Genesis 4:1–15, 25

Cain's Fallen Countenance

The Sacred Liturgy sends us today to Chapter 4 of the book of Genesis: it recounts the first enmity, the first hostility between brothers. “In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell” (Gen 4:3-4). There you have the first indications of enmity: anger and the fallen countenance. The bile of enmity secreted in the heart makes for a bitter face.

The Beast at the Door

God himself intervenes to save Cain from further sin. “The Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it’” (Gen 4:6-7). The whole psychology of sin is contained in these two verses. God reads the anger in Cain’s heart on his face and immediately offers him a way out of it. It is not too late for Cain to “do well.” God warns Cain of the sin that, like a wild beast, is couching at his door. Sin wants to devour Cain, but God tells him that he must “master it.” The taming of the beast! Master the beast of anger lest it overcome you and eat your heart!

I am so impressed by Father Ray Blake's reflections on celebrating Holy Mass ad orientem that instead of sending my readers over to his excellent blog I decided to post what he wrote here. The titles and italics are my own.

The Image of the Crucified

The great beauty of celebrating ad orientem is that it is the image of the Crucified that dominates the celebration not the face of the priest, the Pope talks about that in Spirit of the Liturgy. For the priest then the Mass becomes an action through Christ.

The Priest, A Revealer of the Divine

What becomes clear in celebrating Mass "with" the people is that the priest is doing something for them but what I have realised doing it with a growing congregation (normally it has been a side altar in an Italian Church, perhaps with a server, is that the Mass is an Epiphany, in the sense that apart from the elevations ( a late addition to combat heresy), the first time the people see the host is at the Ecce Agnus Dei (Behold the Lamb of God). I can understand that doing it everyday gave a very different theology of priesthood, the priest becomes the "revealer" of the divine. Someone who is called to show forth Christ not just at the Liturgy but in his life.

John, the Friend of the Bridegroom

There is a parallel with John the Baptist who in the Old Rite had a much more prominent part in the Eucharist, as he does in the Eastern Rites. On the iconostasis, in the Deesis, he was always a complimentary figure to Our Lady. Now that is an interesting subject for a doctoral thesis, "John the Baptist Model of Priesthood", Dr Uwe Michael Lang suggests that the image of Our Lady and the image of the Baptist might have designated the women's and men's aisles of a Church, which gives an interesting spin on the model of the relationship of men and women in the pre-modern Church.

The "Oversight"

I was made aware today that in a certain monastery the Blessed Sacrament (enclosed in a pyx) was left unattended on a shelf near the tabernacle for two days. Just left there. Forgotten. Neglected. "An oversight," they said. People came and went directly in front of the pyx. No one stopped. Priests and levites passed by and paid no attention. Finally, someone intervened and the situation was corrected. A few souls offered some hours of adoration in a spirit of reparation.

Loss of Faith

Would this have happened forty–five or fifty years ago? I think not. The loss of faith in the adorable mystery of the Eucharist, expressed in the way the Blessed Sacrament is now treated, or I should say mistreated, is directly related to the systematic dismantling of the Roman Liturgy and to the dismembering and mutilation of its rites that followed the Second Vatican Council.

Ritual Ruptures and Devotional Discontinuity

First communion rails were removed and tabernacles displaced. Then Holy Communion began to be given in the hand with the communicants standing. Then folks were instructed not to genuflect on two knees in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament exposed. Then, first in one diocese and then in another, the wonderfully fruitful Forty Hours Devotion was suppressed; so too was Nocturnal Adoration. Then, especially in Western Europe and North America, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion — many of them poorly catechized and ill–prepared — began to invade the sanctuary — "to help priests," we were told. (I thought the permament diaconate was restored for that very reason.)

The Adorable Body of Christ

Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi. As we worship, so do we believe, and as we believe, so do we live. Every authentic theology of the body derives from the theology of The Body of Christ and refers to it. Reverence for human life and for the human body is a consequence of reverence for the adorable Body of Christ. As we treat the Head sacramentally present in the weakness, vulnerability, and silence of the sacred species so will we find ourselves treating the weak, vulnerable, and silent (or silenced) members of His Mystical Body. It is all of a piece.

The Year of the Eucharist Sabotaged

The Servant of God Pope John Paul II attempted by means of his Year of the Eucharist to revive a sense of eucharistic amazement in the Church and to regenerate adoration, reverence, and holy awe. Admit it: the Year of the Eucharist was not a huge success; it met with indifference among many of the higher clergy. There were dioceses in which nothing was said or done in response to the Apostolic Letter, Mane, Nobiscum Domine. The Year of the Eucharist was sabotaged by indifference.

Adoration and Reparation Recovered

I have been reflecting lately on the charism of Eucharistic adoration and reparation given to so many outstanding souls in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Among them are Mechtilde de Bar (1614–1698), foundress of the Benedictines of Perpetual Adoration; Adèle Garnier (1838–1924), foundress of the Benedictine Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Tyburn; Théodolinde Dubouché (1809–1863), foundress of the Adoration Réparatrice; Hermann Cohen, Augustin–Marie du Saint–Sacrement (1820–1871), founder of the Nocturnal Adoration Society; Saint Peter Julian Eymard (1811–1868), founder of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament; and Blessed Marie de Jésus (1841–1884), foundress of the Filles du Coeur de Jésus.

Priest–Adorers

The charism of Eucharistic adoration and reparation is being given again at the beginning of this new millennium. Priests, in particular, will find themselves drawn to Eucharistic adoration and to an ever deeper identification with Christ, Priest and Victim living forever before the Father to intercede for us. The "work" of Eucharistic adoration and reparation will go hand–in–hand with the restoration of the Sacred Liturgy and will complement it.

Like Men Who Are Waiting

In one of his novels, R.H. Benson depicts the Parousia of the Lord as a blazing "coming forth" from the Blessed Sacrament exposed in a monstrance, the rays of the monstrance becoming the light of the glorious Body of Christ filling the universe. "Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the marriage feast, so that they may open to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes" (Lk 12:35–37).

Lourdes is the spiritual capital of the poor, the hungry, and of those who weep. The coincidence of today's Gospel with the memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lourdes invites us, rosary in hand, to make a spiritual pilgrimage to the grotto of Massabielle.

Sixth Sunday of the Year C
Jeremiah 17:5-8
Psalm 1:1-4. 6 R. Ps 39:5
1 Corinthians 15:12. 16-20
Luke 6:17. 20-26

Beatitude

Blessedness, beatitude: words that are rarely part of our every day conversations. And yet who among us does not long for blessedness, for the happy life. There is no one who is not inhabited by a thirst for happiness, for beatitude. We come into the world with an immense emptiness inside: a capacity for the divine. What is blessedness? It is the possession of God. Nothing more and nothing less than the possession of God. The psalmist says: “To be near God is my happiness. . . God is my possession forever” (Ps 72: 28,26).

The Certainty of Being Loved

What is beatitude? During this life it is the certainty that we are loved by God, enfolded in God, held in the Heart of Christ: a certainty that comes not from sight but from faith. After this life, faith will dissolve into vision. Then we shall see with our own eyes the Love that enfolds us, the glory of the One who hides us in the secret of His Face. This is the meaning of blessedness.

The Happy Life

Beatitude is not something which God holds in reserve for the future. Beatitude is for today. Blessedness, the happy life intended by God for each of us, is for this very moment. God does not fill us with the longing for blessedness in order to frustrate us. He who gives the thirst, gives the spring. He who gives the hunger, gives the bread. He who gives the desire, gives the possession of that which is desired.

Exiles From Ourselves

Why then are so many dying of spiritual thirst? Why are so many tormented by the pangs of hunger of the soul? Why are so many embittered and unfulfilled? It is because we have lost the way to our own hearts. We are all, in varying degrees, alienated from the deepest part of ourselves. Saint Augustine experienced this. “You were with me,” he says, “and I was not with you” (Confessions X, 38). We are all exiles from the secret place within where a fountain of living water runs silent and deep. God planted each of us like a tree beside the flowing waters (Ps 1:3). Yet strangely, our roots have grown away from the source of life. Foreign, parasitical growths have entwined themselves around our roots, rendering our leaves dull and brittle, our fruit, bitter and sparse.

Tragic Delusions

The real problem is not that we experience inner poverty, not that we are consumed with spiritual thirst, not that we long for something more, weep over the shallowness of our roots, and lament that we are indeed exiles from our inmost selves. Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel that it is far worse to delude ourselves into believing that we are rich and satisfied. “Woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation” (Lk 6:24).

The Way to the Heart

It is far worse to think that professional success, for example, can silence the cravings of the heart. Nor is it enough to be young and rich and beautiful. “Woe to you that are full now, for you shall hunger” (Lk 6:25). It is far worse to think that all is well and that we are in the best of all possible worlds because when all is said and done, we seek the right things, try to get along, and toe the line. Holiness is something more. Jesus says to us, “Woe to you!” And He asks the question: “Do you know the way to your own heart?”

Where Dragons Lurk

More often than not, the path to the deepest part of ourselves, the way to the hidden valley of the heart where the water of life murmurs its secret song, is overgrown with briars and weeds, strewn with fallen trees and blocked with rocks and rubble. There are dragons waiting to devour us, and monsters lurking in ambush. Now and again we begin the descent into the heart, but quickly become discouraged at the sight of the obstacles which stand in our way, or frightened by the dragons, or terrorized by the monsters. It is more convenient, more comfortable to live at the surface.

Signposts in the Form of the Cross

Woe to us if we live at the surface! Woe to us if we choose the convenient! Woe to us if we prefer the comfortable way! It is a great mercy, a severe tenderness of God, when He obliges us to turn back, when He compels us to seek out the way that leads to blessedness, the path to our own hearts. Poverty will do it. Hunger will do it. Failure will do it. Illness will do it. Rejection and exclusion will do it. Loneliness and loss will do it. Sorrow and tears will do it. Disappointment and pain will do it. Hurt and betrayal will do it. All of these are signposts constructed in the form of the Cross that say: “This way to blessedness.” And if all of these do not convince us to return to ourselves, then death itself will do it, because in the hour of death we will be obliged to descend into the depths of our own hearts and see ourselves as we really are.

A Letter of John H. Newman
To Edward Heneage Dering on the Death of His Wife in 1876

My Dear Mr. Dering,

Yours most sincerely,
John H. Newman

* Father Ambrose St. John of the Oratory.

This "looker" is my three year old nephew, Michael Colin Kirby.

"We must edify others by the sweetness of Jesus. A soft answer turneth away
wrath, saith Scripture. Kind and gentle words, such as those of our dear Lord, are
an apostolate in themselves. Whereas clever sharp words, such as we have often
a strict right to use, are continually doing the devil's work for him, and damaging
the souls of others, while they are inflicting no slight wounds upon our own.

Our manner, too, must be full of unction, and be of itself a means to attract men to us,
and make them love the spirit which animates us. Coldness, absence of interest,
an assumption of superiority for some unexpressed reasons, or even an obviousness of condescension, are not unfrequently to be found in pious persons. They have not yet mastered the spirit that is in them so as to use it gracefully, or they do not
appreciate the delicacy and universality of its tenderness. They have not a true
picture of Jesus in their minds ; and thus they can hardly exhibit Him at all in their
outward conduct. Our very looks must be brought into subjection to Grace."

Father Frederick W. Faber

Local sanctuaries and regional pilgrimages abound in Italy. At the origin of most of them is a miraculous event or special grace. The foundational event is kept alive in the collective memory of the people by means of yearly festivals, processions, and other celebrations. Given that this blog is dedicated to the Vultus Christi, the Holy Face of Christ, I want to recall today the anniversary of just such an event and the shrine that grew out it.

Flora Romano De Santis (1899–1969) and her husband Ernesto De Santis, a devout couple living at Capodimonte in Naples, subscribed to a number of Catholic periodicals. On the cover of an issue of Crociata Missionnaria (Missionary Crusade), Flora noticed a beautiful image of the Face of Christ, a reproduction of a painting by the artist Rina Maluta. It was nothing more than a magazine cover, but Flora and her husband were strangely moved by the divine beauty of the Face. Flora cut out the image, framed it, and gave it a place of honour in her bedroom. This is not the first time that a common, printed reproduction of a popular image has become a means of grace. It pleases God to make use of things that are humble and quotidian.

On February 10, 1932, Flora was praying the rosary in front of the image of the Face of Christ. The day was cold and grey. Flora had just finished cooking and serving dinner for the poor and abandoned old people of her neighbourhood.

All of a sudden the room was filled with an immense light shining from the framed picture of the Holy Face. As Flora gazed at the image, it came to life before her eyes. Our Lord, looking at Flora, said, "Flora, behold this Face so offended and insulted; love it and make it loved."

From that moment forward, Flora dedicated herself to obeying these words of Christ. For thirty–five years she devoted herself to loving the Holy Face of Christ and making it loved, all the while seeing that same adorable Face in the faces of the poor, especially of orphans and of the elderly.

Signora De Santis became Madre Flora to countless people who knocked at her door wanting to pray before the miraculous image. Madre Flora was graced with all sorts of charisms: locutions, prophesies, visions, and especially, the gifts of wisdom and of counsel. She was given the secret of opening hearts to prayer, and of leading people to the contemplation of the Face of Christ and to the sacraments.

The De Santis home became a shrine of the Volto Santo, the Holy Face of Christ. Padre Giacinto Ruggieri, a Friar Minor of the Province of Naples, was Madre Flora's spiritual director and her representative to the authorities of the Church. In 1965, His Eminence Cardinal Alfonso Cataldo, Archbishop of Naples, authorized the daily celebration of Holy Mass in "the house of the Holy Face."

Madre Flora died on May 31, 1969. For ten days, crowds of people mourned her passing and venerated her remains. By popular decision, later legitimized by the competent civil and ecclesiastical authorities, Madre Flora was interred in the little chapel of her own home.

On February 25, 1990, His Eminence Cardinal Michele Giordano blessed the first stone of a spacious new sanctuary of the Holy Face, and on March 10, 1996 the same prelate celebrated the opening of the church to the faithful. Pilgrims from Campania and from every part of Italy continue to bear witness to the flood of graces obtain through confident prayer before the Holy Face of Jesus and the intercession of Madre Flora.

Cistercians celebrated today the memorial of Blessed Corrado (Conrad) of Bavaria. Born in 1105, Conrad was the son of Henry the Black, Duke of Bavaria. The young Conrad was sent to study under the doct canons of Cologne. Drawn to Saint Bernard by the latter's magnetic holiness and personal charm, Conrad entered the abbey of Clairvaux.

Shortly thereafter he received Saint Bernard's permission to go as a pilgrim to the Holy Land and to live there as a hermit. He remained in Palestine for several years in the service of an elder. Threatened by the incursions of Islamic forces and having learned of Saint Bernard's declining health, Conrad decided to return to Clairvaux.

When he arrived in Bari, he learned that Bernard was already dead. Rather than return to Clairvaux, he venerated the relics of Saint Nicholas in Bari and then withdrew to Modugno where he set himself up as a hermit in a grotto dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. He reposed in 1154 or 1155 with a reputation for holiness and miracles. His body was transferred to Molfetta, becoming its principal patron saint. On certain feastdays, his head, preserved in a reliquary, is carried in procession. Gregory VI confirmed his cultus on 6 April 1832. The photo shows the cathedral of Molfetta where Saint Corrado's body rests.

Today's reflection on beseeching reminded me that I wanted to present one of Rome's loveliest churches for beseeching and for adoring: San Claudio on the Piazza San Silvestro. This is one of the many churches in Rome where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed during the day, drawing the faithful to beseech and to adore.

San Claudio is served by the Sacramentini, the Blessed Sacrament Fathers. A reliquary to the right of the sanctuary contains a likeness of the body of Saint Peter Julian Eymard which, in turn, contains the saint's head. The body of the saint is in the Church of Corpus Christi, avenue de Friedland, in Paris.

At the entrance of the church is a niche containing an image of the Madonna del Santissimo Sacramento: the Virgin holds the Infant Christ offering the mysteries of His Body and Blood. Around the apse of the niche one reads: "Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed" (Pr 9:5).

Friday of the Fifth Week
of the Year I
Mark 7:31–37

Mediators and Intercessors

"And they brought to Him one deaf and dumb; and they besought Him that He would lay His hand upon him" (Mk 7:32). I am struck by the role of "the others" in today's Gospel: those who brought the man who was deaf and dumb to Jesus. They are mediators and intercessors. "And they besought Him that He would lay His hand upon him."

Beseeching

It is urgent that we recover the language of beseeching both in our liturgical and in our solitary prayer. The hapless translations of the liturgy to which we have been subjected for at least thirty–five years systematically eliminated the language of beseeching. The distinctive da nobis quaesumus of the Roman Rite disappeared from liturgical prayer not only in English but in other vernaculars as well.

To Hear and to Speak

The man in today's Gospel has, in fact, lost the ability to hear and to speak: to hear the Word of God and to speak the praises of God. Is this not the essential structure of the sacred liturgy? The Word of God heard; the Word of God repeated; the Word of God become praise, thanksgiving, and supplication in the mouth of the hearer; the Word of God held in the heart.

Touched By Christ

Both hearing and speaking are restored by the physical touch of Christ, that is, by contact with His vivifying Flesh. The hand of Jesus is the hand of God. the touch of Jesus is the touch of God. Every contact with Jesus is contact with God. I hold in my heart all that Blessed Abbot Marmion wrote concerning this in his classics, Christ in His Mysteries and Christ, the Life of the Soul.

A Place Apart

"And taking him from the multitude apart" (Mk 7:33). Our Lord does this not only because He wants to act quietly and without attracting attention, but also because He desires to grace this man with a moment of divine intimacy that will remain forever within his heart. There are certain healings which can take place only in solitude, in a place apart. By this I do not mean that Our Lord acts apart from His Body, the Church, nor that sacramental and, when God so wills, even charismatic mediations, such as the intercession of the saints, are not necessary. I do mean that what happens in solitary communion with Our Lord is the fruit of the intercession — beseeching — of the Church, flowing from the sacraments and leading back to them.

Eucharistic Healing

For us, healing contact with the Flesh of the Word is realized sacramentally not by means of saliva from the mouth of Christ nor by means of His finger in our ears, but by the ineffable gift of His Sacred Body and Precious Blood in the Eucharist. The liturgy itself, and the prayer before Holy Communion attributed to Saint Thomas Aquinas ascribe to the Holy Mysteries the divine virtus (power) by which we are healed of our infirmities and restored to the wholeness willed for us by God for His glory.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

"And looking up to heaven, He groaned, and said to him: Ephpheta, which is 'Be thou opened'" (Mk 7:34). Our Lord's "looking up to heaven" is the expression of His filial and priestly prayer to the Father; His "groaning" is the expression of the Holy Spirit. This one verse is a mysterious epiphany of the Trinity.

O Lord, Open Thou My Lips

"And immediately his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke right" (Mk 7:35). To speak right! Is this not why the Church makes us begin every day with the verse, "O Lord, open Thou my lips, and my mouth shall declare Thy praise? Is this not why the rubrics place this verse before the articulation of any other prayer? He who "speaks right" has entered into "all the truth" (Jn 16:12). He who "speaks right" has entered into the prayer of Christ to the Father. He who "speaks right" has received "the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father" (Jn 15:26). For this — for ourselves and for one another — let us beseech the Lord.

It seems to me that this sermon, preached on the feast of Saint John the Apostle, sheds some light on the way the Venerable Servant of God John Henry Newman understood friendship and love in his own life. The italics are my own.

Love of Relations and Friends

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God." 1 John iv. 7.

St. John the Apostle and Evangelist is chiefly and most familiarly known to us as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." He was one of the three or four who always attended our Blessed Lord, and had the privilege of the most intimate intercourse with Him; and, more favoured than Peter, James, and Andrew, he was His bosom friend, as we commonly express ourselves. At the solemn supper before Christ suffered, he took his place next Him, and leaned on His breast. As the other three communicated between the multitude and Christ, so St. John communicated between Christ and them. At that Last Supper, Peter dared not ask Jesus a question himself, but bade John put it to Him,—who it was that should betray Him. Thus St. John was the private and intimate friend of Christ. Again, it was to St. John that our Lord committed His Mother, when {52} He was dying on the cross; it was to St. John that He revealed in vision after His departure the fortunes of His Church.

Our Saviour Had a Private Friend

Much might be said on this remarkable circumstance. I say remarkable, because it might be supposed that the Son of God Most High could not have loved one man more than another; or again, if so, that He would not have had only one friend, but, as being All-holy, He would have loved all men more or less, in proportion to their holiness. Yet we find our Saviour had a private friend; and this shows us, first, how entirely He was a man, as much as any of us, in His wants and feelings; and next, that there is nothing contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, nothing inconsistent with the fulness of Christian love, in having our affections directed in an especial way towards certain objects, towards those whom the circumstances of our past life, or some peculiarities of character, have endeared to us.

With Our Saviour's Pattern Before Me

There have been men before now, who have supposed Christian love was so diffusive as not to admit of concentration upon individuals; so that we ought to love all men equally. And many there are, who, without bringing forward any theory, yet consider practically that the love of many is something superior to the love of one or two; and neglect the charities of private life, while busy in the schemes of an expansive benevolence, or of effecting a general union and conciliation among Christians. Now I shall here maintain, in opposition to such notions of Christian love, and with our Saviour's pattern before me, that the best preparation for loving the world at large, and loving it duly and wisely, is to {53} cultivate an intimate friendship and affection towards those who are immediately about us.

Friendship and Spiritual Childhood

It has been the plan of Divine Providence to ground what is good and true in religion and morals, on the basis of our good natural feelings. What we are towards our earthly friends in the instincts and wishes of our infancy, such we are to become at length towards God and man in the extended field of our duties as accountable beings. To honour our parents is the first step towards honouring God; to love our brethren according to the flesh, the first step towards considering all men our brethren. Hence our Lord says, we must become as little children, if we would be saved; we must become in His Church, as men, what we were once in the small circle of our youthful homes.

My beloved Poor Ladies at Bethlehem Monastery in Barhamsville, Virginia gently chided me for forgetting that today is indeed the solemn festival of Saint Colette, their mother after Saint Clare. In Rome we were all about Blessed Pius IX today!

The Ty Mam Duw Poor Clares in Wales have a very rich section on Saint Colette on their site. Do read it!

Mother Vicaress Thérèse offered to post Paul Claudel's poem on Saint Colette for us. We are waiting, Mother! Blessed festival of Saint Colette to her worthy daughters the world over, especially to those who bear her name!

The Ty Mam Duw Poor Ladies write:

Colette's intercession with the Lord has spanned the five centuries since her death, calling forth miracles of love. The deaf hear, the blind see, the lame walk and the dead are restored to life.

Colette's method of proclaiming the Gospel was not to preach but to pray. Her whole life was spent in prayer. Even when she was asked to help her brothers the Friars Minor, in their reform, and was invited into their chapter room, she did not tell them what they ought to do, she simply knelt down and prayed, and those who watched, one by one, also fell on their knees.

There is a lot of talk today among religious about "refounding" their institutes. Most are still reticent about "reforming" them. To acknowledge the need for reform implies that, somewhere along the way, we have become deformed. It takes humility and courage to say, "We have made mistakes. We have made wrong decisions. We are not living in fidelity to the grace of our origins. Worldliness and activism are snuffing out the living flame of love." Saint Colette shows all of us the way to true reform. Reform begins in prayer. Reform is sustained by prayer. Reform bears fruit — fruit that will abide (Jn 15:16) — in prayer.

Reform, like conversion, is ongoing. It is movement. Mother Rosaria, with her walking stick and pilgrim's hat (looking ever so much like Saint Colette), shows us the way: one step at at time.

John Henry Newman writes about Santa Croce in Gerusalemme:

"This Basilica is so called, because St. Helena, not only brought the True Cross there, but earth from Mount Calvary on which the Chapel or the Altar there is built — thus if there be a centre of the Church, we shall be there, when we are on earth from Jerusalem in the midst of Rome." (Ascension Day, 1847)

Brother Ryan tells me that in one of Newman's letters written from Santa Croce, he speaks of the convenient staircase leading from his rooms directly into the basilica below. I have not yet been able to find that letter; it would have been written in 1847. In any case, this is the very staircase that I now use several times a day to go down into the sacristy and basilica. Brother Ryan has dubbed it la Scala Newman.

It is fascinating that, through the intervention of Blessed Pope Pius IX, the English Oratory began here at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. Now, it is impossible for me to go downstairs without thinking of John Henry Newman and listening for ancient footsteps. As the staircase is often treacherously dark, I should also think of the poem Newman wrote at sea in 1833:

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home—
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene—one step enough for me.

"In human affairs we must be content to do the best we can and then abandon ourselves to Providence, which will heal our human faults and shortcomings."
Blessed Pius IX

Pius IX, Newman, and Santa Croce in Gerusalemme

In 1847 Blessed Pius IX sent John Henry Newman and six other Englishmen to live at the Abbey of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme while preparing together for life in the English Oratory.

Mr. Bowles, one of Newman's companions in Rome wrote: "Pius IX chose Santa Croce as the place where we should all go, the Pope himself calling it un bel sito — a beautiful situation, which it certainly was. We were then Newman, St. John, Penny, Dalgairns, Coffin, Stanton, and myself. We had a whole wing of the monastery on the upper floor to ourselves with a kitchen and man cook, an Italian named Michele, as servant, and a dining room to ourselves on the ground floor. Father Rossi was appointed, by the Pope, from the Oratory in Rome, to be our Novice Master. He also had his room on the same floor, and there was a recreation room also, which was also the Chapel, with an Altar in it."

John Paul II on Pius IX

Blessed Pius IX was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 3 September 2000. His liturgical memorial occurs on 7 February. Read what Pope John Paul II said about his sintly predecessor:

"Listening to the words of the Gospel acclamation: 'Lord, lead me on a straight road', our thoughts naturally turn to the human and religious life of Pope Pius IX, Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti. Amid the turbulent events of his time, he was an example of unconditional fidelity to the immutable deposit of revealed truths. Faithful to the duties of his ministry in every circumstance, he always knew how to give absolute primacy to God and to spiritual values. His lengthy pontificate was not at all easy and he had much to suffer in fulfilling his mission of service to the Gospel. He was much loved, but also hated and slandered.

However, it was precisely in these conflicts that the light of his virtues shone most brightly: these prolonged sufferings tempered his trust in divine Providence, whose sovereign lordship over human events he never doubted. This was the source of Pius IX's deep serenity, even amid the misunderstandings and attacks of so many hostile people. He liked to say to those close to him: 'In human affairs we must be content to do the best we can and then abandon ourselves to Providence, which will heal our human faults and shortcomings'.

Sustained by this deep conviction, he called the First Vatican Ecumenical Council, which clarified with magisterial authority certain questions disputed at the time, and confirmed the harmony of faith and reason. During his moments of trial Pius IX found support in Mary, to whom he was very devoted. In proclaiming the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, he reminded everyone that in the storms of human life the light of Christ shines brightly in the Blessed Virgin and is more powerful than sin and death."

"When I am in adoration,
what matters is not my capacity to be lucid for an hour,
but rather the fact that in accounting for life,
I have chosen that all of myself should be His.
I am not there with my head, nor with my senses, but I am there,
and I am there, my God, because I have chosen to be there with you.
Whether I succeed or do not succeed at this is your business.
The important thing is that
— even if I lose my initial lucidity —
I must recall the days of my youth.
The youth that we must recall before God
is not our biological youth,
but rather the youth of the "Yes" we said to God.
To rejuvenate means to be always young before God."

Antonino Grimaldi, La sfida del puro amore,
Itinerario umano e spirituale di Madre Mectilde de Bar (1614–1698)
(Portalupe Editore, 2006, p. 131).

Yesterday a certain person was saying to me that she believed that the communities entrusted to her could be healed and rejuvenated by Eucharistic adoration. It is not for nothing that the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar of the Tridentine Missal begin with the words, Introibo ad altare Dei, ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam, "I will go up to the altar of God, to God who makes glad my youth" (Ps 42:4).

Spiritually, we grow old and stiff–jointed when we forget the "Yes" that first brought us to the foot of the altar in adoration. The recovery of a youthful spirit — not to be confused with an impulsive and immature spirit — but of the freshness and wisdom of spiritual childhood is intrinsically related to the recovery of adoration.

Communities (and individuals) grown old, and stiff, and resistant to change, that is, to conversion, can recover their youth, their suppleness, and the élan of their initial "Yes" by exposing themselves to the glorious Body of Christ in Eucharistic adoration.

In response to Thy presence, O Lord,
I offer Thee my presence.
In response to Thy silence,
I offer Thee my silence.
In response to the gaze of Thy Eucharistic Face,
I offer Thee my eyes.
In response to Thy Eucharistic Heart,
I offer Thee every heartbeat of mine.
In response to the mystery of Thy Eucharistic poverty,
I offer Thee my poverty.
My one desire is to remain before Thee
even as Thou remainest before me
in this the Sacrament of Thy Love.

The Saints in Our Lives

The saints come into our lives, each one with a particular mission. We do not choose the saints to whom we are devoted in a special way; it is they who, in obedience to a mysterious design of God, make themselves known and devote themselves to us. This is something I have experienced over and over again. When a particular saint offers me the gift of his or her friendship, it is because God chooses, through this saint, to teach me something, to offer me a particular gift or, quite simply, to give me a heavenly companion for my journey, a counselor, and a friend.

Saint Peter Julian Eymard, Apostle of the Eucharist

Last December I was given a first class relic of Saint Peter Julian Eymard. Then, several trips to the Italian Consulate in Manhattan gave me the opportunity to pray in the magnificent Church of Saint Jean–Baptiste. The Church contains an altar dedicated to Saint Peter Julian and an important relic. Saint Peter Julian Eymard seemed to be approaching me with a message and with a gift.

I just finished reading two biographies of the saint; both books are in Italian. I found them here in the abbey library. San Pietro Giuliano Eymard, Apostolo dell'Eucaristia by Quirino Moraschini and Mondolfo Pedrinazzi, S.S.S. (Roma 1962), and Il Beato Pietro Giuliano Eymard by Paolo Dott. Fossati, Sacerdote Adoratore (Milano 1925).

What I found most striking is this particular teaching of Saint Peter Julian Eymard. Excuse my translation from the Italian, itself a translation from the French.

"The secret for arriving quickly at a life centred in the Eucharist is, during a certain period of time, to make Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament the habitual object of the exercise of the presence of God, the dominant motive of our intentions, the meditation of our spirit, the affection of our heart, the object of all our virtues. And if the soul is generous enough, one will come at length to this unity of action, to familiarity with the adorable Sacrament, to think of it with as much and even greater ease than of any other object. Easily and gently one's heart will produce the most tender affections. In a word, the Most Holy Sacrament will become the magnet of devotion in one's life and the centre of perfection of one's love. Eight days would be enough for a simple and fervent soul to acquire this Eucharistic spirit; and even if one should have to put weeks and months to acquire it, can this ever be compared with the peace and the happiness which this soul will enjoy in the Divine Eucharist?"

A Eucharistic "Conversion of Manners"

What exactly is Saint Peter Julian Eymard saying here? To use the classic Benedictine expression, he is talking about a conversatio morum, a Eucharistic conversion of the way one lives, a turning toward the mystery of the Eucharist. the first expression of this Eucharistic conversion will be the re–ordering of one's priorities beginning with the organization of one's day. He is suggesting an intensive eight–day exposure to the healing radiance of the Most Holy Eucharist.

Power Comes Forth From Him

I have always loved the Communion Antiphon Multitudo languentium (p. 471 in the Graduale Romanum). The theological and musical summit of the antiphon is in the last line: Quia virtus de illo exibat et sanabat omnes. "For power came forth from Him and healed them all" (Lk 6:19). The fact that the liturgy makes us sing this text during Holy Communion tells us that healing power radiates from the Body and Blood of Christ received from the altar, and contemplated and adored in the tabernacle and in the monstrance. Saint Peter Julian Eymard is suggesting that eight days of conversion, i.e. of turning toward the Most Holy Eucharist is sufficient to begin the healing of one's heart and the renewal of one's life.

Bringing the Messy Bits to Adoration

My friend Lisa H. is famous for counseling folks with problems of all sorts to bring them to Eucharistic adoration. Lisa is 100% right. Bring your whole life to adoration, especially the messy bits, the very parts that you would be tempted to hide or disown. Bring your broken heart and your wounds to adoration. Try it for eight days. It will be the beginning of a Eucharistic conversatio morum.

I would ask all my readers to join me today in praying for a very bright, engaging young woman who has been in poor health for the past few years..

Lord Jesus Christ Divine Physician, through the intercession of Saint Agatha, Virgin and Martyr, be pleased, we beseech Thee, to heal Thy handmaid from every affliction of body, mind, and soul. Amen.

Saint Agatha shines today as the fifth star in the Church's winter constellation of women martyrs, all of whom are named in the venerable Roman Canon:

Cecily, Virgin Martyr — 22 November
Lucy, Virgin Martyr — 13 December
Anastasia, Virgin Martyr — 25 December
Agnes, Virgin Martyr — 21 January
Agatha, Virgin Martyr — 5 February
Perpetua and Felicity, Martyrs — 6 March

GENERAL INTERCESSIONS

That the Church in every place,
made radiant by the example of Saint Agatha
and so many other virgin martyrs,
may remain steadfast in the love of Christ
and so present to the eyes of the world
the witness of a joyful fidelity to her Bridegroom,
to the Lord we pray, Christ, hear us. R. Christ, graciously hear us.

That, with reverence for the mystery of life,
the leaders of nations
may promote the dignity of women in society,
to the Lord we pray, Christ, hear us. R. Christ, graciously hear us.

That, following the example of Saint Agatha,
the sick may place their hope in Christ
who by his word alone restores all things;
and that women afflicted with cancer of the breast
may find in Saint Agatha an intercessor and friend,
to the Lord we pray, Christ, hear us. R. Christ, graciously hear us.

That we,
approaching the adorable mysteries of Christ’s Body and Blood,
may seek the healing that goes forth from him
to deliver us from evil and strengthen us for good,
to the Lord we pray, Christ, hear us. R. Christ, graciously hear us.

Almighty and merciful God,
who, by the gift of your Spirit,
strengthened the virgin martyr Agatha
to face death with a pure and fearless gaze;
grant us, we beseech you,
a like surrender to the severe and tender claims of love,
that we, by holding nothing dearer than Christ,
may go forward in faith with unstumbling feet,
and open wide our weakness
to the strength that comes from you alone.
Through Christ our Lord.

Looking toward Holy Pascha

Although the Bugnini reform sought to suppress it, today was — and still is — Septuagesima Sunday. In three weeks our heads will be marked with the ashes of penitence. A special time of preparation for Lent emerged in the liturgy of the 6th and 7th centuries. The three Sundays preceding Ash Wednesday were called Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima, meaning respectively, the seventieth, sixtieth, and fiftieth days before Pascha. The First Sunday of Lent is, of course, Quadragesima, the beginning of the Lenten fast of forty days.

Evil Limited by Divine Mercy

The seventy-day period that begins with Septuagesima recalls the seventy-year exile of the children of Israel in Babylon. Seventy is the perfect number, signifying that God has fixed for us a delay of mercy to pass from the anguish of sinful Babylon to the beatitude of Jerusalem. “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Ps 136:4). We do well to recall Pope John Paul II’s assertion that, “the power that imposes a limit on evil is Divine Mercy.” The seventy days before Pascha signify this, and so become a season of hope for all who sit and weep by the waters of Babylon (cf. Ps 136:1).

Seven: A Mystical Number

At the same time, the history of the world is divided into seven ages. The first is from the creation of the world to the flood; the second, from the renewal after the flood to the call of Abraham; the third from the covenant with Abraham to the call of Moses; the fourth from Moses to King David; the fifth from the reign of David to the Babylonian exile; and the sixth from return from captivity to the birth of Christ. With the birth of Our Lord comes the seventh age: the appearance of the Sun of Justice who rises over the world “with healing in his wings” (Mal 4:2). This seventh age of “these last days” (Heb 1:2) stretches until Christ’s second coming as Judge of the living and the dead. The seven weeks before Pascha are a review of salvation history.

The Pastoral Wisdom of Septuagesima

In the traditional Roman Rite Septuagesima Sunday is marked by putting away the Alleluia; the Gloria is omitted and, already, violet vestments are used in preparation for Lent. Sound psychology and practical pastoral wisdom indicate the need for a kind of countdown before Ash Wednesday. Otherwise Lent arrives all of a sudden, finding us flustered and frightfully ill prepared.

In some martyrologies, today is the feast of Saint Veronica, the woman of courage and compassion commemorated in Catholic piety at the Sixth Station of the Cross. It is the feastday of my niece Veronica Kirby and of Mère Véronique, prioress general of the Benedictines of Jesus Crucified. This painting of "The Veronica" by the Master of Flémalle (ca. 1375–1444) depicts the Holy Face on a finely woven and transparent cloth, exactly like the Holy Face of Manoppello.

On March 24, 2005, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger offered the following meditation and prayer during the Via Crucis in the Colosseum:

From the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. 53:2-3

Lord, grant us restless hearts, hearts which seek your Face. Keep us from the blindness of heart which sees only the surface of things. Give us the simplicity and purity which allow us to recognize your presence in the world. When we are not able to accomplish great things, grant us the courage which is born of humility and goodness. Impress your Face on our hearts. May we encounter you along the way and show your image to the world.

Just yesterday I found this prayer to the Holy Face printed on the back of a reproduction of the Volto Santo in the Chapter Room of the Cistercian monastery of Santa Susanna:

Holy Face of my sweet Jesus,
living and eternal expression of the love
and of the divine martyrdom suffered for the redemption of mankind,
I adore Thee and I love Thee.
Today and for always
I consecrate to Thee my whole being.
By the most pure hands of the Immaculate Queen
I offer Thee the prayers, actions, and works of this day,
in expiation and reparation for the sins of poor creatures.
Make me Thy true apostle.
May your gentle gaze be ever present to me
and, at the hour of my death,
grow bright with mercy.
Amen.

Out the front doors of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme and down the street, through the Chinese business section and the park, to Santa Maria Maggiore. Walked to the right of Santa Maria Maggiore until I came to the end of the street facing the Church of Santa Susanna. Immediately turned left to the Cistercian Church of San Bernardo alle Terme. Visited Santa Susanna and then crossed the street to the Carmelite Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria. Bernini's famous Saint Teresa in Ecstasy is over the first side altar on the left. On the way back stopped for a moment in the Redemptorist Church of Sant'Alfonso.

This fresco of Saint Bernard adorns the facade of San Bernardo alle Terme. Click to enlarge it. Note that Saint Bernard is carrying the image of the Holy Face suspended from the Cross and the red cloak of derison worn by Our Lord when He was crowned with thorns. The Title on the Cross is very prominent. A major fragment of the Title is preserved and venerated at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. The other insignia of the Passion of Christ surround Saint Bernard.

The feast of the Invention (Finding) of the Title of the Most Holy Cross is celebrated at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme on 19 January with a proper Mass and Office. The liturgy of the feast is, from beginning to end, a contemplation of Jesus, the Crucified King. How interesting that this feast of the Passion of Christ should occur within the period of Christmastide, at least as it is popularly observed in Rome! This particular feast is one of several celebrated at Santa Croce in honour of the mysteries of the Sacred Passion.

In preparation for the feast of 19 January I did some research in our Sessorian Library and found a manuscript containing the proper antiphons of the Office. I also found a 19th century printed edition of the Office of the Finding of the Title of the Most Holy Cross. The feast was originally kept on the last Sunday of January. It is described as being for the Benedictine–Cistercian monks attached to the Sacred Sessorian Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem.

While much of the Office is borrowed from that of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on September 14th, there are elements proper to the commemoration of the Title.

The Capitulum at Vespers is taken from Colossians 2:13–14:

And you, when you were dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh; he hath quickened together with him, forgiving you all offences: Blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us, which was contrary to us. And he hath taken the same out of the way, fastening it to the cross.

The Short Responsory is:

Thy Title of Thy Cross * we adore, O Lord.
V. And we remember Thy glorious Passion.
R. We adore, O Lord.
V. Glory be to the Father.
The Title of Thy Cross * we adore, O Lord.

The Magnificat I Antiphon:

The chief priests of the Jews then said to Pilate,
"Do not write, 'The King of the Jews,'
but, 'This man said, I am King of the Jews (Jn 19:21).

I am profoundly grateful to Mother M. Clare Millea, A.S.C.J. for making possible a pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of the Holy Face of Jesus at Manoppello in the Province of Pescaro, Abruzzo. Manoppello is the very place visited by Pope Benedict XVI last September 1, the same day on which I inaugurated this blog dedicated to the Vultus Christi, the Holy Face of Christ.

Mother Clare and Sisters Barbara Matazzaro and Mary Grace Giaimo are all Connecticut natives. We left Rome early on the morning of Tuesday, 9 January with Sister Mary Grace at the wheel, praying the rosary (Mysteries of the Holy Face) as we rolled eastward towards the Adriatic The weather was clear and crisp. We had coffee when we arrived at Manoppello. I couldn't wait to enter the church to see the Holy Face. "Thy Face, O Lord, will I still seek; hide not Thy Face from me" (Ps 26:8–9).

There was no one else in the church when we entered it. There, high above the altar, was the Holy Face of Manoppello. "Lift up, O Lord, the light of Thy Face upon us" (Ps 66:1). Approaching the Holy Face was an indescribable experience, one clearly willed and arranged by Divine Providence. We were greeted by Father Carmine Cucinelli, the Guardian of the Capuchin community at Manoppello, and by Sister Blandina Paschalis Schlömer, a German Trappistine nun and iconographer now living at Manoppello.

Father Carmine arranged for us to have Holy Mass in the church: a Votive Mass of the Holy Face of Christ. What a joy for me to offer the Holy Sacrifice in this place that I have I wanted to visit for so long. I said with particular intensity the invocation that I pray silently every day when I elevate the Sacred Host: "Illumina, Domine, Vultum tuum super nos — Lift up, O Lord, the light of Thy Face upon us." The proper texts of the Mass were exquisite. The Preface of the Mass praised God for giving us the image of the Face of His Son in this temple. I only regret that I did ask for a copy of the Collect and the Preface of the Mass.

The Holy Face is a very finely woven veil stretched between two panes of glass. It appears to be made of an ancient sea-byssus fibre, a precious "marine silk" also found inside some sarcophagi of the Egyptian pyramids. This would be the "fine linen" mentioned forty-six times, neither more nor less, in Sacred Scripture.

The cloth measures cm 17 x 24 (6,70 x 9,45 inches). The fabric is so thin that the image is visible before and behind and so transparent that a newspaper, put behind it, could be read even at a distance. It is the effigy of a long-haired man with a broken nose, a wispy beard and a short forelock on his bloodstained forehead (Mk 15:17; Mt 27:29); his half-open mouth seems to be about to utter something.

In the dim light of a candle, the contrasting shades of brown seem to recede, allowing the darker bruises covering his the Face to become visible. His cheeks are dissimilar: one, rounder than the other, appears considerably swollen (Jn 18:22; 19:1-3). Dr. Donato Vittore and Dr. Giulio Fanti have, after examining the image under ultra–violet rays, confirmed that no paint is found on the veil.

His eyes look upward, allowing the white of the eye under the iris to be seen. His gaze is one of wonder or amazement, but it is also benevolent and consoling. It expresses the love of Jesus for us even after His bitter Passion, reminding us that He said to the disciples, "Behold, I am with you always, even until the end of the age" (Mt 28:20).

Sister Blandina Paschalis spent about two hours with us, explaining her original scientific research on the Holy Face. Sister Blandina is intensely devoted to the Face of Christ. When she kneels in prayer before the Holy Face of Manoppello, one senses the grace of contemplation given to those who seek and adore the Face of Christ.

By placing exact photo slides of the Holy Shroud of Turin and the Holy Face of Manoppello one upon the other, Sister Blandina discovered that their transparent data-points fit together perfectly. The Face of Christ in death is given us on the Shroud of Turin, and the Face of the rising Christ — Christ at the moment of His holy resurrection — is given us on the Veil of Manoppello.

Dr. Father Heinrich Pfeiffer, S.J., professor of iconography and history of Christian art at the Pontifical Gregorian University here in Rome, affirms that the Veil of Manoppello was, in times past, considered to be an image not made by human hands. This sacred Image was the model for the later representations of the Holy Face.

The Jesuit scholar also asserts that Our Lord gave us not only his Word by means of the Holy Scriptures, but also his Image formed in the tomb when a supernatural radiant energy illumined the "fine linen" soaked in aloe and myrrh, photosensitive "spices" (Jn 19:40), leaving divine evidence of the Passion, Resurrection and everlasting Glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Mt 28:7; Lk 24:51; Ac 1:9).

The painting (1488) is by Bartolomeo di Giovanni and was commissioned for the Hospital of the Innocents in Florence. The six-sided altar at the centre of the composition points to the Sixth Day Sacrifice of the Cross. There is fire burning on the altar, a sign of the Holy Spirit. The Blessed Virgin Mary's gesture indicates that she is offering the Infant Christ and participating in His sacrifice. Simeon's gesture is one of acceptance; he is an image of the Eternal Father. Saint Joseph holds the turtle doves in his cloak; Joseph was chosen by God to veil the mystery. Anna, entering the painting at the extreme left, holds the lighted candle of her faith and hope as she witnesses the arrival in the temple of the long–awaited Priest and Victim, the Consolation of Israel.

The Face of a Little Child

In today’s splendid Entrance Antiphon we sing that we have received Mercy “in the midst of the temple” (Ps 47:10). At the heart of today’s mystery shines the face of a little Child, the human face of Divine Mercy. The four other figures in today’s Gospel — Mary, Joseph, Simeon and Anna — are held in His gaze. In his letter for Lent 2006, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the gaze of Jesus. “The gaze of Jesus,” he said, “embraces individuals and multitudes, and he brings them all before the Father, offering himself as a sacrifice of expiation.”

Today we meet the gaze of the Infant Christ, “made like his brethren in every respect” (Heb 2:17) and, looking into his eyes, we see that he is already our “merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people” (Heb 2:17).

The Presentation of Christ Our Priest

Today in the midst of the temple the Father presents his Christ, our Priest, to us; today the Father presents us to Christ our Priest. Of ourselves we have nothing to present; we can but receive him and allow ourselves to become offering in his hands. “We have received your Mercy, O God, in the midst of your temple” (Ps 47:10). It is the Infant Christ, presented to us as our Priest, who in turn presents us to the Father. It is fitting that the symbol of the Infant Christ should be the living flame that crowns our candles. This Child has a Heart of fire, and so the prophet says, “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire . . . and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, till they present right offerings to the Lord” (Mal 3:2-3).

The Infant Priest and Victim

Today’s observance of the World Day for Consecrated Life must not be allowed to degenerate into a celebration of ourselves. Consider the images that the liturgy sets before us: a flame that burns, consuming the wax that holds it aloft; a Child with the all-embracing gaze of the “Ancient of Days” (Dn 7:13); an Infant who is already priest and victim.

Identification with Christ the Victim

One consecrated is a taper offered to the consuming flame of love. One consecrated has eyes only for the gaze that reveals a Heart that is all fire. One consecrated is presented and handed over to Christ the Priest. One consecrated is inescapably destined for the altar of sacrifice, for identification with Christ the Victim. Consecrated life cannot be anything less than this, nor can it be anything more. This is why the Apostle says, “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1).

The Woman Wrapped in Silence

Each of the four figures surrounding the Infant Christ in the temple is an icon of consecrated life, beginning with his all-holy Virgin Mother. How does today’s Gospel present her? She is a woman wrapped in silence. Even when addressed by Simeon, she remains silent. Her silence is an intensity of listening. She is silent so as to take in Simeon’s song of praise, silent so as to capture his mysterious prophecy of soul-piercing sorrow and hold it in her heart. She is silent because today her eyes say everything, eyes fixed on the face of the Infant Christ, eyes illumined by the brightness of his gaze.

Wordlessly Mary offers herself to the living flame of love. She is the bride of the Canticle of whom it is said, “Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold you are beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil” (Ct 4:1). Consecrated life in all its forms, and monastic life in particular, begins in the silence of Mary that, already in the temple, consents to the sacrifice of her Lamb and to the place that will be hers beside the altar of the Cross.

Malachy 3:1-4
Psalm 23: 7, 8, 9, 10
Hebrews 2: 14-18
Luke 2: 22-40

Susception Day

“We receive, O God, your mercy, in the midst of your temple” (Ps 47:10). This is the word from Psalm 47 that the liturgy places on our lips and in our hearts today. In the Middle Ages today’s feast was sometimes called Susception Day, from “suscepimus,” the first word of the entrance antiphon. Often translated as, “we receive,” or “we accept,” “suscepimus” has yet another meaning. This other meaning, while crucial to understanding the mystery we celebrate today, is often overlooked. “Suscipere” means to take up a new born child, and so acknowledge it. In ancient Rome a father acknowledged a child as belonging to him by taking the little one into his arms in the presence of witnesses. Knowing this, the entrance antiphon becomes transparent for us, illumined as it is by the word of the Gospel: “Simeon took him into his arms” (Lk 2:28). “We take up into our arms, O God, your Mercy, in the midst of your temple.”

To Cradle Mercy in Our Arms

The one thing that everyone finds irresistible is to hold a baby, even if only for a few moments. Elders are transformed by it. Boys suddenly become tender and girls motherly. Even little children vie for the privilege of holding the newest arrival. As the little one is passed from one person to the next, faces grow bright with awe and delight. A little child has the power to light up a room. The little child we celebrate today has the power to light up the world: “A light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” (Lk 2:32). The entrance antiphon names the Child “Mercy.” Today, it is given us to cradle Mercy in our arms.

Guided by the Infant

An antiphon from today’s Office sings that, “the ancient carried the Infant, but the Infant guided the steps of the ancient.” Simeon, the image of all that in us has grown old with waiting, carries Mercy in his arms, but Mercy, by the light that shines on his face, guides the old man’s steps. If we would be guided by Mercy, we must first receive Mercy, the Mercy of God that comes to us in the outstretched arms of a little Child seeking to be held.

In the Middle of the Temple

The entrance antiphon says that Mercy is given us “in medio templi” — in the middle of the temple. This places the Infant Christ, the human Face of Divine Mercy at the heart of today’s mystery. As in the icon of today’s feast, all of the other figures in the Gospel are seen in relation to the Child. All of the other figures are seen, in fact, in the light of his face. “What can bring us happiness?” they ask. “Lift up the light of your face on us, O Lord” (Ps 4:7). “Look towards him,” they say one to another, “and be radiant” (Ps 33:6). Christ is placed in our arms today that we might gaze upon the human face of Divine Mercy and, in the light of that face, be transformed.

It is customary in Rome, and elsewhere in Italy, to keep the presepe (Nativity scene) up until the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord on February 2nd. This extended Christmastide allows for a prolonged contemplation of the Incarnate Word. It is an invitation to enter deeply into the mysteries of Our Lord's infancy and childhood in the company of the Virgin Mother, of Saint Joseph, of the shepherds, the Magi, Anna, Simeon, and a whole host of saints through the ages.

Yesterday I went with a friend to pray in the room of the Servant of God, Abbot Ildebrando Gregori, O.S.B. (1894–1985) on the Via della Conciliazione. I photographed the Bambino still lying sweetly on the altar of the little chapel of the Benedettine Riparatrici del Santo Volto.

I also photographed my own Bambino for you. Since my arrival here in Rome, He lies on a clothed trimmed in lace that my Nana Barbato made by hand some sixty or seventy years ago. Next to Him is my relic of Saint Peter Julian Eymard.

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life: for the life was manifested; and we have seen and do bear witness, and declare unto you the life eternal, which was with the Father, and hath appeared to us (1 Jn 1:1–2).

The mystery of the Child Christ is the antidote for so much of what troubles us. Love of the Child Christ restores innocence where it has been lost. It disinfects and heals childhood's ancient wounds. It simplifies what is complicated in us. It humbles pride and turns arrogance into meekness. It dispels despair and causes hope to spring up in the most hopeless places of our lives. Those who love the Child Christ will themselves become like little children. The Child Christ makes grown–ups fit for the Kingdom of Heaven.

I am inspired by the example of so many saints, that is, repentant sinners, who found healing, humility, purity of heart, gentleness, hope, and above all, merciful love in the contemplation of the Infant Christ: Saint Bernard, Saint Aelred, Blessed Guerric of Igny, and countless other Cistercians; Saint Francis, Saint Clare, Saint Bonaventure, Saint Anthony, and a multitude of Franciscans; Saint Teresa of Jesus, Saint John of the Cross, Venerable Marguerite du Saint–Sacrement (Carmelite of Beaune); Dominicans Saint Rose of Lima and Blessed Agnès de Langeac; Monsieur Olier and the French School; Saint Alphonsus and the Redemptorists.

The "Little King" reigning from His glass case is in the Carmelite Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria. There are ex-voto offerings at His feet in grateful remembrance of favours received.

There are many friends of the Child Christ closer to our own times, too many, in fact to name here. Among them were Saint Vincent Pallotti; Venerable Mother Cornelia Connelly; Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face; Blessed Lorenzo Salvi, a Passionist; Dom Vital Lehodey, a Trappist Abbot; the indomitable Mère Yvonne–Aimée of Malestroit; and Little Sister Magdeleine de Jésus.

"And Jesus calling unto Him a little child, set him in the midst of them,
and said, 'Unless you be converted, and become as little children,
you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven'" ( Mt 18:2–3).