February 2007 Archives

Wednesday of the First Week of Lent

Jonah 3:1-10
Psalm 50;3-4, 12-13, 18-19
Luke 11:29-32

I can't resist adding a word about this portrait of Saint Mary of Egypt by Spanish painter Jusepe de Ribera, also known as Lo Spagnoletto. Ribera came to Naples in search of Caravaggio in 1609, but Caravaggio had just died. Ribera's Mary of Egypt is emaciated and hollow–cheeked. Her once voluptuous body is wrinkled and weatherbeaten. She stands in prayer against the landscape of her conversion: the desert. There is even a certain resemblance between the saint and the skull on the ledge in front of her. The broken loaf of bread is a symbol of the Word of God, recalling the saying of Our Lord in the desert: "Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God" (Mt 4:4).

Indolence

Lent is supposed to be unsettling. Lent is supposed to disrupt our routines. Lent is about entering into another rhythm of life, a rhythm different from the one by which we ordinarily organize our lives. The unwillingness to be disturbed, to make a change, even a very little one, in what has become customary reveals an underlying resistance to the grace of conversion. Newman speaks of indolence. Indolence is a state of sluggishness; it is the habit of seeking to avoid exertion. The indolent person says, “I am quite comfortable with things as they are, thank you. I have neither the desire nor the need to change my routines, to displace myself, or to do anything differently from the way I have always done it.” Indolence is incompatible with Lent.

Alacrity

The opposite of indolence is alacrity — a very Benedictine virtue — an eager willingness to get up and get moving. The dictionary defines alacrity as a “cheerful readiness, promptness, or willingness.” When Saint Benedict treats of Lenten penances in Chapter Forty-Nine of the Rule, he says that they are to be offered “spontaneously in the joy of the Holy Spirit.” There is in this something of the quickfooted and swift obedience of Chapter Five, an obedience that brooks no delays.

Sackcloth and Ashes

In today’s gospel Jesus gives us two examples of alacrity in penitence: that of the Ninevites and that of the Queen of Sheba. The Ninevites wasted no time in responding to Jonah’s preaching. He had gone but a day’s journey into the city, preaching repentance, when 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 4:5). Jonah’s message completely disrupted things as they were. Word of it reached the ears of the king. “He arose from his throne, removed his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes” (Jon 4:6). A dramatic departure from routine! The king proclaimed a fast affecting not only the people of the city, but even their beasts, their herds, and their flocks. The Ninevites are to put on sackcloth, but so too are their beasts. The image of a sheep, a goat, or a cow wearing sackcloth is almost too amusing; clearly it signifies a departure from business as usual. The extraordinary thing is that this public penitence is done with alacrity, in prompt obedience to Jonah’s preaching. Nothing is said of a town meeting to discuss and decide what response might be appropriate. Jonah’s message is urgent and it is urgent that the people of Nineveh waste no time in talk, lest the judgment of God overtake them.

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).

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

Isaiah 55:10-11
Psalm 33:4-5, 6-7, 16-17, 18-19
Matthew 6:7-15

Lectio and Oratio

Today’s Mass invites us to focus on two practices necessary to the Christian life at all times, but utterly crucial during Lent: in the First Reading, lectio, and in the Gospel, oratio. In Isaiah God speaks of his descending Word, the same Word proclaimed from the ambo and heard in our solitary lectio divina. In the Gospel our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word Himself, gives us words for prayer to the Father: the very form of our common and solitary oratio.

Pope Benedict XVI on Lectio Divina

Last year, Pope Benedict XVI addressed the youth of the world in view of the World Youth Day 2006. His subject: lectio divina! The Holy Father invited young people to the practice of lectio divina. He even explained it for them in his letter. This is what he said:

My dear young friends, I urge you to become familiar with the Bible, and to have it at hand so that it can be your compass pointing out the road to follow. By reading it, you will learn to know Christ. Note what Saint Jerome said in this regard: "Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ" (PL 24,17; cf Dei Verbum, 25). A time-honoured way to study and savour the word of God is lectio divina which constitutes a real and veritable spiritual journey marked out in stages. After the lectio, which consists of reading and rereading a passage from Sacred Scripture and taking in the main elements, we proceed to meditatio. This is a moment of interior reflection in which the soul turns to God and tries to understand what his word is saying to us today. Then comes oratio in which we linger to talk with God directly. Finally we come to contemplatio. This helps us to keep our hearts attentive to the presence of Christ whose word is "a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts" (2 Pet 1:19). Reading, study and meditation of the Word should then flow into a life of consistent fidelity to Christ and his teachings.

Saint Benedict

Pope Benedict XVI and Saint Benedict are, so to speak, on the same page. For Saint Benedict, Lent is the season of lectio divina par excellence. He goes so far as to rearrange the daily timetable, changing the ordered routine of things, so as to provide more time for lectio divina during Lent (cf. RB 48:14). Lent requires a change in routine; there is a healthy sense in which Lent should be upsetting. It is a time to stop doing things as we have always done them and to quicken to a more bracing rhythm of life.

Distribution of Lenten Books

The distribution of Lenten books prescribed by the Rule (RB 48:15) is a kind of Lenten sacrament. In the old monastic ceremonials each monk received his Lenten book from the hand of the abbot, kissing the book to signify not only his joy in being trusted with a precious book from the library, but also his willingness to hear the Word and be converted.

Monday of the First Week of Lent

I'm rather late in posting this for today. It is bedtime in Rome! A frightfully busy day. Paul Z. arrived yesterday morning from New Haven to stay for a month long experience of our life. Tomorrow is the feast of Saint Gabriel of the Addolorata to whom some of us have been making the Novena.

Convert Us, O God

Today’s Collect is unusual in that it begins directly with a verse from Psalm 84: “Convert us, O God our salvation” (Ps 84:5). A dangerous request. One has to be bold and not a little foolish to make such a prayer, or distracted, or inattentive to what one is saying, or lulled by pious routine into thinking that words are just words and that the things we say to God are, in the final analysis, without any real effect on our lives. “Convert us, O God our salvation” (Ps 84:5). What if God were to take us seriously and do it?

Note that we do not say, “Help us to convert ourselves”; that would be a safe little prayer. It would leave us free to turn to God and away from sin at our own pace, in our own way. It would leave us a margin of comfort and a way out of what Saint Benedict calls “the things that are hard and repugnant to nature in the way to God” (RB 53:8). But that is not what the psalm says nor is it what the Church makes us pray today. Instead, if we are obedient to the “givenness” of the liturgy, we are obliged willy-nilly to take a deep breath and say what, left to ourselves, we would not have the courage to say: “Convert us, O God our saviour” (Ps 84:5).

Do Thou In Us Things We Dare Not Do

This prayer makes the old self in us tremble with fear. The old self senses that, by uttering such a prayer, its days are numbered and its very existence threatened. We are asking God to do in us the hard things that we dare not do. We are asking God to take away from us the very things from which we cannot bear to part. We are asking God to intervene, to step in, turn us around, and change us. There is nothing reassuring, nothing cozy, nothing safe about such a prayer. It makes us vulnerable. Who is to say what God will do once we have given Him permission to convert us?

Deus, Salutaris Noster

But there is something else in that one line. We pray, “Convert us, O God our salvation” — Converte nos, Deus salutaris noster. The God we ask to convert us is our healing, our wholeness, our restoration to well-being. We approach him then as one sick approaches a physician, saying, “Do whatever is necessary to make me well.” The remedy may be painful. It may involve a long therapy or a regime of medication with unpleasant side effects. It may require incision, surgical removal of the affected parts or even amputation. In giving God permission to treat us, to convert us, we focus not on the treatment but on its end result: health, wholeness, peace of mind and heart, holiness. A Lenten Office hymn puts it this way: “The hidden wound whence flow our sins, / Wash clean by bathing in the tide; / Remove the things that, of ourselves, / We cannot reach, or put aside."

Little Vengeances

Should God answer our prayer what sort of things might we expect? Hearts purged of the thorns of hatred and of the need to plot revenge. Revenge? Not in a monastery, you say! Alas, even in a monastery, one can find the sickening sweetness of revenge irresistible. I speak not of enormous, violent acts, but of the little act of vengeance, the barely perceptible act of revenge. “Aha! She got what was coming to her!” In monasteries nowadays we rarely seek revenge overtly. Monks no longer brandish the sword. Abbots are no longer ambushed on the dormitory staircase, prioresses no longer poisoned at their own table. We are content with the nasty little pinch, the discreet pinprick, the razor-like word, the withering glance. Ask God to convert you and all of that will have to go.

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.

Although today is the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, I offer a meditation on Luke 9:22–25, the Gospel for the Thursday After Ash Wednesday.

Under the Sign of the Cross

On this second day of Lent, Our Lord sets before us the whole mystery of His Passion, Cross, and Resurrection. Lent opens under the sign of the Cross; the Lenten pilgrimage is the Via Crucis, the way of the Cross. “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Lk 9:22).

The Cross leads straight into the promised land. To choose the Cross is to choose life: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendents may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice, and cleaving to Him; for that means life to you and length of days” (Dt 30:20).

Agápe

Not only does Our Lord show us the mystery; He invites us to follow Him into it. “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk 9:23). Just because one is suffering — physically, emotionally, or spiritually — does not mean that one is following Christ along the way of the Cross. Suffering alone is of no value. One who follows Christ along the way of the Cross sees Him infuse agápe, sacrificial love into every moment of His Passion. It is this and nothing else that gives suffering value; it ennobles it, making it precious in the sight of God and redemptive for the world. Agápe, self-giving sacrificial love, draws all the virtues after it: humility, obedience, silence, patience, meekness, fortitude, and mercy. Agápe is the love that pierces the heart with sorrow for sin and inflames it with the desire to make reparation.

The Cross Taken to Heart

How does the Way of the Cross described in today’s Gospel pass from the sacred page into one’s heart so as to find expression in one’s life? What we commonly call devotion to the Passion is simply a way of taking to heart the mystery of the Cross. One expresses in life the things that one has taken to heart. The Via Crucis, the Way of the Cross (or Stations of the Cross) is precisely this: a way of taking to heart the mystery of suffering infused with sacrificial love by which Christ saves us, heals us, and unites us to His work of redemption.

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.

Ash Wednesday

Joel 2:12-18
Psalm 50:3-4, 5-6ab, 12-13, 14, 15
2 Corinthians 5:20 — 6:2
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

Compunction

Ash Wednesday addresses the heart. Ashes are sprinkled on our heads, but Lent is lived in the heart. God wants pierced hearts. God looks for the broken heart. “Even now,” says the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments” (Jl 2:12-13). Paradoxically, in order to give God one’s whole heart, it must first be pierced and broken. This is what we mean when we speak of compunction and contrition.

The traditional Lenten disciplines — fasting and abstinence, almsgiving, silence, keeping vigil, and increasing the time devoted to lectio divina each day — are not ends in themselves. They are the tried and true means by which one arrives at having a pierced and broken heart, at some measure of compunction and contrition.

Joyful Fasting

1. Fasting and abstinence crack the heart’s stony shell; hunger makes one vulnerable. But here is the catch: Our Lord would have us fast as if we were feasting. One of the fruits of fasting is spiritual joy. Fasting cleanses and refines the palate of the soul, making it possible to “taste and see that the Lord is sweet” (Ps 33:9). “When you fast do not look dismal . . . anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Mt 6:16-17). The fasting pleasing to Our Lord makes the face cheerful and lifts up the heart.

Fasting (going without eating) and abstinence (not eating certain foods) need not be enormous feats of ascetical prowess. One’s fasting and abstinence should always be proportionate to one’s health and state in life. The value of fasting and abstinence is that they allow us to feel a certain emptiness. They put us in touch with our real hunger: the hunger that only God can satisfy. Ultimately all fasting and abstinence have a Eucharistic finality. “He who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst” (Jn 6:35), says the Lord. Fasting is doing what it is supposed to do when it sends us hungering and thirsting to the Word of God and to the Holy Mysteries.

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.

I am fascinated by this 18th century tabernacle depicting the Holy Face of Christ. Looking closely, one sees that the tabernacle door frames Veronica's Veil. Veronica herself holds the veil but turns away her own face. We are not meant to look at her face, but rather at the Face of Jesus concealed and revealed in the adorable mystery of the Eucharist.

Shrove Tuesday
Feast of the Holy Face of Jesus

Isaiah 52:13 — 53:12
Psalm 26:1, 4, 5, 8-9abc, 11
Matthew 17:1-19

Reparation

The last century saw, here and there, like so many points of light in the Church, men and women drawn by the Holy Spirit to the contemplation of the Face of Christ. In many cases this attraction to the Face of Christ was characterized by the prayer of reparation. The spiritual impulse to make reparation emerged in the aftermath of the French Revolution and, in the twentieth century, became in some way a response to the horrors of two World Wars. Violence, terrorism, and war continue to inspire a prayer of reparation that looks to the Face of Christ. We are most affected by acts of violence that disfigure the human face. We heard Isaiah’s prophecy of the Servant: “His appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the sons of men. . . . He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Is 52: 14; 53:3).

Face and Person

Face and Person are synonomous, not only by reason of the Greek etymology, but even more because there is nothing more personal, nothing more precious, nothing dearer than the face of a loved one. The psalmist’s cry, “I long to see your face” (Ps 26:8), is the cry of every lover to his beloved, the cry of child to parent, of parent to child, and of friend to friend. The most poignant moment in the rites of death and burial comes when the face of the deceased is covered for the last time. We cherish photographs of those we love, but what is a photograph without a face? The relationships that we call “heart to heart” never tire of the “face to face.”

Sins Against the Holy Face

The Holocaust that took place during the Second World War was, at the deepest level, an attempt to erase the dignity and uniqueness of each person, a sin against the Face of Christ, the Holy Face mirrored in millions of Jewish faces. Every sin against the dignity of the human person is a sin against the Face of Christ. Every act of violence, irreverence, or scorn directed against the human person is a sin against the Face of Christ. The abortion that prevents a child’s face from seeing another human face in the light of day is a sin against the Face of Christ. Torture and cruel ridicule are sins against the Face of Christ. The hard, stony gaze that looks at a person without seeing him is a sin against the Face of Christ. The eyes that judge, the look that condemns, is a sin against the Face of Christ. The refusal to see Christ in the faces of the sick, the stranger, and the immigrant is a sin against his Holy Face.

In Rome and in other places, Shrove Tuesday is observed as the Feast of the Holy Face of Jesus. His Eminence, Fiorenzo Cardinal Angelini will celebrate Holy Mass in honour of the Holy Face of Jesus at the Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia on Tuesday, 20 February at 17:00.

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.