March 2007 Archives

A Word Out of Silence

The chant of the Passion plunges us into silence. The Word has been silenced. Only a fool would dare to speak. Anything less than a word out of silence is unworthy of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ; anything more is superfluous. If I am so foolish as to preach today, it is for the sake of silence: a word out of silence, a word into silence. Like Saint Paul, “I am with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling” (1 Cor 2:3). If I offer you words, their only purpose is to guide you into the harbour of an immense and solemn stillness.

Pierced by the Passion

Dr. Sutton, an English divine of the sixteenth century imagined a dialogue between the soul pierced by the hearing the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ:

Lord, wherefore diddest thou suffer thyself to be sold?
That I might deliver thee from servitude. . .
Wherefore diddest thou sweat blood?
To wash away the spots of thy sin. . .
Why wouldest thou be bound?
To loose the bands of thy sins. . .
Why wert thou denied of Peter?
To confess thee before my Father. . .
Why wouldest thou be accused?
To absolve thee. . .
Why wouldest thou be spitted on?
To wipe away thy foulness. . .
Why wouldest thou be whipped?
That thou mightest be freed from stripes. . .
Why wouldest thou be lifted up upon the Cross?
That thou mightest be lifted up to heaven. . .
Why were thine arms stretched out?
To imbrace thee, O fainting soul. . .
Why was thy side opened?
To receive thee in. . .
Why didst thou die amidst two thieves?
That thou mightest live in the midst of angels.

This is the image that I chose twenty–one years ago to commemorate my ordination to the priesthood. I chose it then because it depicts the Face of Jesus full of peace and beauty after having "bowed His head and given up His spirit" (cf. Jn 19:30), and it shows His Sacred Side opened by the soldier's lance. I would choose it again today for the same reasons: the adorable Face of Jesus and His pierced Heart.

I don't often write in so personal a voice on Vultus Christi, and I loathe "autobiographical preaching." It seems to me nonetheless that a personal witness to the unchanging designs of God in a life like mine — marked by change, struggles, uprootings, and apparent failures — may help others, as Saint Benedict says, "never to despair of the mercy of God" (RB 4:74), believing with Saint Paul, that "nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ" (Rom 8:35). Blessed Great and Holy Week to each one . . . in the light of His Face and in the secret of His pierced Heart.

Guercino's (1591–1666) Crowning With Thorns depicts two attitudes toward the Suffering Christ. On the one hand we see a soldier clad in armour. With a gloved hand he forces the crown of thorns into the sacred head of Christ. His armour and gloves protect him from any direct contact with the Body of Christ. On the other hand, we see a self–righteous spectator; he holds himself at certain distance from Christ and, like the soldier, protects himself from direct contact with the Body of Christ. He holds Our Lord's scarlet cloak of derision with one hand: signifying his approval of the cruel Passion of the Lamb.

Introit

This morning's Mass opens with Psalm 21, the very psalm that, in Saint Matthew's Gospel, Our Lord intones from the Cross: "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani?' that is, 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?'"(Mt 27:46). Today's Introit is a solemn entry into the prayer of the suffering Christ to the Father. It is Christ who prays:

O Lord, remove not Thy help to a distance from Me;
look towards My defence.
Save Me from the lion's mouth;
and My lowness from the horns of the unicorn (Ps 21:20, 22).

One cannot sing, or hear, or meditate today's Introit without recalling what is written in the Letter to the Hebrews concerning the prayer of Christ: "In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard for His godly fear" (Heb 5:7). The sacred liturgy during these days of Passiontide and Holy Week gives us the "prayers and supplications, the loud cries and tears" of Christ our Head and our High Priest. In a unique way, these prayers and supplications, these loud cries and tears of His, have passed into the chant of the Church, which interprets them for us. One need only sing the soaring, pleading aspice (see GR, p. 133) of this morning's Introit to experience this.

The verse of the Introit takes up the heart–rending cry:

O God, my God, look upon me:
why hast thou forsaken me?
Far from my salvation are the words of my sins" (Ps 21:2).

How are we to understand such a prayer in the mouth of Our Lord. Jesus crucified is "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" (Jn 1:29). The immaculate Lamb calls our sins His sins; He has taken them upon Himself. They have been driven into His hands and His feet; they have become a crown of thorns wounding His sacred head. "God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending His own Son in the likeness of flesh and [as an offering] for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh" (Rom 8:3). Saint Paul goes so far as to say, "For our sake He made Him to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor 5:21).

Following up on Pope Benedict XVI's teaching on reparation, I want to share two prayers of reparation that I found on Vincent Uher's splendid site Tonus Peregrinus. "He who has ears, let him hear" (Mt 13:9).

O LORD JESUS CHRIST, who for our salvation didst endure the outrages of those who crucified thee, and now endurest the irreverence of those who discern thee not: Rather than withhold thy Sacred Presence from our Altars, give us grace to bewail the indignities committed against thee; and to repair, as far as lies in our power, and with devout love, the many dishonours thou still continuest to receive in this Adorable Mystery; Who livest and reignest, world without end. Amen.

O MY LORD AND MY GOD, MY GOD AND MY ALL, who hast willed to abide with us always in this Wonderful Sacrament, thus ever-glorifying thy Father by making present thy Passion in perpetual Memorial, and giving unto us thy very Self, the Food of Life: Grant us grace to grieve with a hearty sorrow for the insults offered thy Holy Mystery, and with sincere love to offer reparation for the many abuses and sacrileges thou still continuest to receive in thy Blessed Sacrament, who livest and reignest with the Father, in the Unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

At a February 22, 2007 meeting of the Roman clergy with Pope Benedict XVI, Don Alberto Pacini, Rector of the Basilica of Sant'Anastasia, spoke of perpetual Eucharistic Adoration and asked the Holy Father to explain the meaning and value of Eucharistic reparation, specifically with reference to sacrilegious thefts and satanic sects. For a fruitful reflection on the Holy Father's response, read it together with Pope Pius XI's treatment of the same subject in the encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor :

Eucharistic Reparation, A Difficult Topic

We are not speaking now about Eucharistic Adoration in general, which has truly penetrated our hearts and is penetrating the hearts of the people. You have asked this specific question about Eucharistic reparation. This has become a difficult topic. I remember, when I was young, that on the Feast of the Sacred Heart we prayed using a beautiful prayer by Leo XIII and then one by Pius XI in which reparation had a special place, precisely in reference, already at that time, to sacrilegious acts for which reparation had to be made.

The Reparation of Christ

I think we should get to the bottom of it, going back to the Lord himself who offered reparation for the sins of the world, and try to atone for them: let us say, try to balance the plus of evil and the plus of goodness. We must not, therefore, leave this great negative plus on the scales of the world but must give at least an equal weight to goodness.

The Weight of Infinite Love

This fundamental idea is based on what Christ did. As far as we can understand it, this is the sense of the Eucharistic sacrifice. To counter the great weight of evil that exists in the world and pulls the world downwards, the Lord places another, greater weight, that of the infinite love that enters this world. This is the most important point: God is always the absolute good, but this absolute good actually entered history: Christ makes himself present here and suffers evil to the very end, thereby creating a counterweight of absolute value. Even if we see only empirically the proportions of the plus of evil, they are exceeded by the immense plus of good, of the suffering of the Son of God.

For Sidney

Some time ago, a remarkable young man named Sidney wrote me from Brazil to ask for a blessed Agnus Dei. I promised him that I would post something about the Agnus Dei here. It is fitting to do so as we prepare to enter Holy Week and, through the glory of the Paschal rites, the mystery of the immolated Lamb.

An Agnus Dei, so called from the image of the Lamb of God impressed on the face of it, is made of virgin wax, balsam, and chrism, blessed according to the form prescribed by the Roman Ritual.

An old Irish prayerbook (Dublin 1860) gives a prayer to be said daily by those who wear an Agnus Dei. Following the impulse given by this prayer, one who wears an Agnus Dei is compelled to “follow the Lamb wherever He goes” (Ap 14:4) in a spirit of Eucharistic victimhood, that is, of sacrificial love and oblation.

Prayer of One Who Wears an Agnus Dei

O my Lord Jesus Christ,
the true Lamb who takes away the sins of the world;
by Thy mercy which is infinite, pardon my inquities,
and by Thy Sacred Passion, preserve me this day
from all sin and evil.

I offer myself up to Thee as an entire oblation,
and in memory of that Sacrifice of Love
which Thou didst offer for me on the Cross,
and in satisfaction for my sins.
Accept this oblation, I beseech Thee, O my God,
and may it be acceptable to Thee
in the odour of sweetness. Amen.

A Paschal Sacramental

This peculiarly Roman sacramental, goes back at least as far as the ninth century. Amalarius and the Pseudo–Alcuin refer to it. The blessing of the Agnus Dei medallions used to take place at the Lateran Basilica on Holy Saturday. The archdeacon vested in a dalmatic would receive from the Pope a silver phial containing Sacred Chrism. He would pour the Sacred Chrism into a cauldron of liquid wax. The Agnus Dei medallions would be made from this blessed wax and distributed on the Sunday In Albis after the singing of the Agnus Dei at the Papal Mass.

The Cistercian Privilege

The oldest extant Agnus Dei medallions date from the pontificates of John XXIII (1316–34) and Gregory IX (1227–41). Later on, the Roman Pontiffs reserved the blessing of the medallions to themselves, and assigned the privilege of preparing them to the Benedictine–Cistercian monks of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.

At the Banquet of the Lamb

The sixteenth century rite for the blessing of the Agnus Dei medallions makes use of holy water, chrism, and balsam. It was the custom for the Supreme Pontiff to bless the medallions in the first year of his pontificate during the Octave of Holy Pascha, and to bless them every seven years thereafter. The ceremony consisted of three orations addressed to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Thus would he bless the medallions themselves and the water mixed with chrism and balsam into which they would be plunged. When the medallions were removed from the water the Paschaltide Vespers hymn, Ad Cenam Agni Providi would be sung. The same blessing was repeated as often as necessary according to need, and also on special solemnities or anniversaries. Every element of the confection and blessing of the Agnus Dei contributes to its mystical significance.

Recover the Agnus Dei

In the wake of the Second Vatican Council, the Agnus Dei was one of those treasured sacramentals that fell into disuse. It is, I think, time to restore the solemn blessing of the Agnus Dei and recover the use of so precious a sacramental. The Church stands in need of “friends of the Lamb,” and of Eucharistic victim souls who will follow the Lamb in purity, in humility, in silence, and in the oblation of themselves.

Recently a dear friend here in Rome gave me a booklet by Dr. Philip Boyce, O.C.D., Bishop of Raphoe, Ireland, entitled At Prayer with John Henry Newman. The booklet is available from the International Centre of Newman Friends. The Carmelite bishop calls prayer "the texture of Newman's life." He presents some of Newman's own magnificent prayers. All his life the famous Oxford convert sought to pray in spirit and in truth. When I pray using Cardinal Newman' words, I savour in them the same humility and confidence that I have tasted in the prayers of Saint Aelred, William of St–Thierry, and Saint Claude La Colombière.

I was struck in this prayer by the petition, "soothe me with the beauty of Thy countenance":

O mighty God, strengthen me with Thy strength,
console me with Thy everlasting peace,
soothe me with the beauty of the Thy countenance;
enlighten me with Thy uncreated brightness;
purify me with the fragrance of Thy ineffable holiness.
Bathe me in Thyself, and give me to drink,
as far as mortal man may ask, of the rivers of grace which flow
from the Father and the Son,
the grace of Thy consubstantial, co–eternal Love.

And I find this one very close in spirit to Claude La Colombière's Act of Confidence:

O my God, my whole life has been a course of mercies and blessings shown to one who has been most unworthy of them.
I require no faith, for I have a long experience,
as to Thy providence towards me.
Year after year Thou hast carried me on —
removed dangers from my path —
recovered me, recruited me, refreshed me,
borne with me, directed me, sustained me.
O forsake me not when my strength faileth me.
And Thou never wilt forsake me.
I may securely repose upon Thee.
Sinner as I am, nevertheless, while I am true to Thee,
Thou wilt still and to the end,
be superabundantly true to me.

The booklet's sections on intercessory prayer, on Newman's love for the Roman Breviary, and on his devotion to the Rosary are enlightening and inspiring. In conclusion, Dr. Boyce explains the three kinds of divine presence in which Newman's prayer unfolded: the presence of the indwelling Trinity, the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, and the presence of Christ in Sacred Scripture.

The Bishop of Raphoe describes Newman's life of prayer as "a persevering effort in the weakness and darkness of our human condition." One recognizes there the experience of the author of Lead, Kindly Light.

Today being the liturgical commemoration of the Compassion of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I decided to turn once again to Cardinal Newman for his Litany of the Seven Dolours. Newman was fond of litanies. I am too. They address a persistent need of the heart for a prayer that is rich in images, yet simple and rythmed by repetition. Unlike the excessively didactic and heavy preces given for Lauds and Vespers in the current Liturgia Horarum, litanies in their classic form allow "heart to speak to heart," and foster the actuosa participatio recommended by the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council. Here then, is John Henry Newman's Litany of the Seven Dolours.

Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Commemoration of the Sorrowful Compassion of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Virgin of Sorrows is the Portress of the Holy Mysteries, the Keeper of the Door of Christ’s Pierced Heart, the Mother of our Joy. The last edition of the Missale Romanum, published in 2002, contains two modifications, discreet touches that will leave in the Missal of Paul VI the unmistakable imprint of John Paul II.

The first of these concerns the Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent, the Friday before Palm Sunday. The 2002 edition of the Missal restores the Commemoration of the Compassion of the Virgin Mary formerly celebrated on the Friday of Passion Week, and offers for the Fifth Friday of Lent the following collect:

O God, who during this time
graciously grant to your Church
devoutly to imitate blessed Mary
in contemplation of the Passion of Christ,
grant us, we pray,
through the intercession of the same Virgin,
to cling each day more firmly to your Only-Begotten Son,
and to come at length to the fullness of his grace.

The second touch is in a rubric concerning the chants during the Good Friday adoratio crucis: it suggests that after the traditional chants given in the Missal and the Graduale Romanum the Stabat Mater also be sung in commemoration of the Blessed Virgin’s sorrowful compassion. In this way, a thirteenth century text, presumed to be of Franciscan origin — it is attributed to Jacopone da Todi —takes it place alongside the ancient antiphon Crucem tuam, the Improperia, and the hymn to the Cross of Venantius Fortunatus.

The Stabat Mater is strong medicine for those who, being of a more abstract or cerebral disposition, would approach the Passion of Christ without getting bloodied, without being set ablaze, without feeling a melting in their breast.

Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Genesis 17: 3–9
Psalm 104: 4–5, 6–7, 8–9 (R. 8a)
John 8: 51–59

Christ our Priest

On this Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent, the last Thursday before Holy Week, the Roman Missal gives an Entrance Antiphon drawn not from the Psalms, but from the Letter to the Hebrews. “Christ is the mediator of the New Covenant, that by means of His death, they that are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance” (Heb 9:15). The mediatorship of Christ, our High Priest fills us with hope: “A fuller hope has been brought into our lives, enabling us to come close to God” (Heb 7:19).

Through Christ and in Christ

The Roman Gradual gives an Introit from the Book of the Prophet Daniel: “Every thing that Thou hast done to us, Thou hast done in true judgment, for we have sinned against Thee, and we have not hearkened to Thy commandments, but give glory to Thy name, O Lord, and deal with us according to the multitude of Thy mercies” (Dan 3: 31, 29, 30, 43, 42). Here again, the mediatorship of Christ is evoked, albeit implicitly: it is through Christ that the name of the Father is glorified, and it is in Christ that the Father deals with us according to multitude of His mercies.

The Father Sees Us Through the Wounds of Christ

Covenant means coming together. Christ, our Priest and Head, offering His Precious Blood on our behalf, “enables us to come close to God” (Heb 7:1919), by bringing us with Him into the presence of the Father. “The sanctuary into which Jesus has entered is not one made by human hands, is not some adumbration of the truth; he has entered heaven itself, where he now appears in God’s sight on our behalf” (Heb 9:24). The Father looks at our faces through the Face of His Beloved Son. The Father looks at our hands, defiled by sin, through His pierced Hands. The Father looks into our hearts, impure and divided, through the Heart of Jesus, opened by the soldier’s lance.

The Blood of Christ

“Shall not the blood of Christ, who offered himself, through the Holy Spirit, as a victim unblemished in God’s sight, purify our consciences, and set them free from lifeless observances, to serve the living God?” (Heb 9:14). The Father, seeing us sprinkled with the Precious Blood of the Lamb, accepts us and, through His Son, draws us to Himself. “But now, you are in Christ Jesus; now, through the Blood of Christ, you have been brought close, you who were once, so far away” (Eph 2:13). This is the meaning of the New Covenant: in the Blood Christ God has come out to us; and we, in the Blood of Christ, have gone out to God. No longer can the Father look upon His Son without seeing us, the members of His Mystical Body. No longer can He look at us without seeing the Bride “clothed in readiness for the Wedding Feast of the Lamb” (Ap 19:7), the Church “for whom Christ gave Himself up, that he might sanctify her” (Eph 5:25–26). The Blood of Christ authorizes us to pray with boldness. Lips sanctified by the Blood of Christ can dare to say, “Abba, Father!”

Litany of the Passion
by the Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman

Cardinal Newman's Litany of the Passion reveals the tenderness and compunction of his Christocentric piety. It also demonstrates that Newman was a humble man, capable of entering into the mainstream of Catholic devotion and of learning from it, even while adapting it somewhat to his own sensibility.

To illustrate Newman's Litany I chose a painting by a French contemporary of his, William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905). The position of Jesus attached to the column already suggests the torments of the crucifixion: his arms are extended, his feet lie one upon the other as they will be on the cross. No blood is visible on His sacred body; it appears white and host–like. His face is turned upward, suggesting the mystery of His victimal priesthood. The flesh of Jesus appears luminous — almost transfigured — while, all around Him, are shadows. All the light in the painting seems to emanate from the body of Jesus. I see already the Lumen Christi of the Paschal Vigil. Is this Bouguereau's way of expressing the whole mystery of Redemption?

Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Daniel 3:14-20, 24-25, 28
Daniel 3: 29-30, 31, 33, 32, 34 (R. 29b)
John 8:31-42

Freedom

Freedom is one of those words that, as soon as it is pronounced, seems to elevate one’s blood pressure. Folks become passionately defensive about their freedom. The question is, “What do we mean by freedom?” In contemporary culture, tragically, the word has been paired with two other words: “to choose.” The freedom to choose. Far from referring to the noble freedom of the God’s adopted children, delivered out of slavery, to receive the Word of God and, in its light, choose the things that are pleasing to Him, it has come to refer, among other things, to what the proponents of abortion call, “a woman’s freedom to choose.”

Choices

The freedom to choose has become a slogan in some circles. It becomes the justification for every manner of self-indulgence, idiosyncracy, sin, perversion, and cruelty. The “free to choose” mentality of the world has infiltrated even the minds of some Catholics. It has spawned the exaggerated cult of options, liturgical and otherwise. There are those who choose from among the teachings of Church, carefully avoiding whatever challenges their sin and unsettles their moral constructs. The criteria are purely subjective: “I will choose what works for me and, if it doesn’t work for me, I need not choose it.”

Heresy

The Greek word for heretic derives from airesis, meaning choice. Heretics were simply the choosers, those who instead of accepting the faith of the Church in its integrity, chose what pleased them and rejected what displeased them. There is in each of us one who wants always to choose. To choose by one’s own lights, or even worse, by one’s own tastes, preferences, and needs, is to court spiritual disaster.

In the Light of God

In today’s Collect we beg God to enlighten our hearts. The light for which we pray is the splendour of truth. For one who lives in the light of God, every other “light” is darkness.

Merciful God, enlighten the hearts of your children,
hallowed by penitence,
and in your lovingkindness,
graciously give ear to the suppliant people
upon whom you bestow the spirit of devotion.

O blessed Passion of Christ!
We contemplate Thee bound to the column of Thy cruel scourging
and praise Thee with sorrowing love because
by the ropes that bound Thee, we are set free.

Holy Mass begins today with the words: Liberator meus (Ps 17:48). The same phrase is repeated in the verse of the Introit: Diligam te Domine, fortitudo mea: Dominus firmamentum meum, et refugium meum, et liberator meus (Ps 17:3). The Offertory Antiphon ends with an impassioned plea: libera me, Domine (Ps 58:2). The Communion Antiphon is a song of praise; it sings of the freedom that comes to the soul eucharistically united to Christ in His Passion: Et circuibo altare tuum, Domine (Ps 25:6-7).

The Proper Chants of today's Mass are, in fact, a meditatio and an oratio on the words of Our Lord in the Gospel: "If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed" (Jn 8:36). One sees, from this example, the importance of the Proper of the Mass. When, as so often happens, the chants of the Proper are replaced by other texts, the theological and spiritual architecture of the liturgy is dismantled.

My brother Terence with his son Jonah Daniel, 14 days old today.

Paul Zalonksi of New Haven, Connecticut recently finished a month long experience of monastic life at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. While here he helped prepare the Mass booklet for Laetare Sunday and accompanied a group of us to the Curia Generalizia where we sang for the ordination to the diaconate of two monks from the Cistercian Abbey of Szczyrzyc in Poland. The ordaining bishop was Cardinal Franc Rode. The Abbot General Dom Mauro Esteva, O.Cist. concelebrated.

Naming

Maria Elena Vidal will love this. I decided to write something about monastic forms of address and etiquette. There has been a fair amount of confusion over my use of the title Don. It is not the short form of Donald. The same confusion arises with the title Dom used by English and French–speaking monks; it is not the short form of Dominic. A number of folks think that Don is my Christian name and Marco my surname! In my monastic community in Rome and among my Italian relatives and friends I am known and addressed as Don Marco; in the United States people call me Father Mark or, to use my two Christian names, Father Mark Daniel.

Don and Dom

Cistercian–Benedictines in Italy, as well as other Benedictines and Carthusians, are usually addressed as Don. The same title is given to secular priests in Italy. In other countries monks (and some Canons Regular) use the form Dom, but it means the same thing. The title derives from the Latin Domnus, a form of Dominus, and passed into Italian use under Spanish influence. It is perhaps best translated as Messer or as Sir. It expresses respect. In Southern Italy the title is also given to men of some social standing and to those of noble background. The title Donna, meaning Lady, is still given in Italy to Cistercian and Benedictine nuns; it is also the correct form of address for women of noble background, especially in Southern Italy.

Rule of Saint Benedict

The Rule of Saint Benedict orders that no one is to be addressed by his Christian or monastic name alone. "Even in the manner of addressing one another, let no one presume to call another simply by his name. The seniors are to address their juniors as Fratelli, and the juniors are to address the seniors as Nonni, which means "Your Paternal Reverence" (RB 63). In practice, all solemnly professed priest monks came to be addressed as Don, while novices and juniors were called Fratello. In a few monasteries the title Nonnus, meaning Reverend Father Elder, is still used on formal occasions or in documents.

Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Numbers 21: 4–9
Psalm 101: 1–2, 5–17, 18–20 (R. 1)
John 8: 21–30

The Serpent and the Cross

Today the Church gives us a passage from the Book of Numbers that, from earliest times, the liturgy and the Fathers have associated with the mystery of the Cross. This same provided Father Luc de Wouters, O.S.B. with the title of his biography of the foundress of the Congregation of the Benedictines of Jesus Crucified, Mother Marie des Douleurs Wrotnowska: Le Serpent et la Croix, The Serpent and the Cross.

The Bite of the Serpent

Father Luc writes: “The episode of the bronze serpent recounted in the Book of Numbers seems to us extremely significant. It projects onto the mystery of the redemptive Cross a light, the importance of which we do not sufficiently grasp.” He writes that Mother Marie des Douleurs encountered the Cross, as we all do, in her own sin. For her, as for all of us, sin was the bite of the fiery serpent. It was, nonetheless, upon this cross, the cross of her own brokenness, weakness, and sin identified with the Cross of Jesus, that she was united with the Saviour, l’Homme des douleurs. The cross of her disfiguration by sin and weakness, assimilated to the Cross of the “Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief” (Is 53:3), became the Cross of her transfiguration by grace.

The Mystery of Iniquity

Father Luc, with no little eloquence, emphasizes that the Cross is the last word of the Incarnation. We are certain of meeting the Cross at every moment of our existence. Whenever we find darkness all about us, the darkness of our own sins and of the sins of the world, the Cross shines like a saving beacon. Personal sin causes an intimate anguish that only the Cross can alleviate. Consciousness of the evil that inhabits us, and of the evil that stalks the world, brings with it a terrible anguish. Our Lord’s agony in Gethsemani was the manifestation of the anguish of His Heart in the face of the mystery of iniquity.

Wounds Uncovered

It is easy to become hypnotized by the shadow of evil cast by the serpent. How many souls, instead of lifting their gaze to the Crucified, turn in on themselves, see their sin, and sink in the quicksand of despair. Sin, our own sin and the sin of others, exercises a morbid fascination on us. The remedy is to look upon “Him who they have pierced” (Jn 19:37), and to believe in the love of Jesus Crucified. The remedy is to expose our wounds, however purulent and shameful they may be, to the wounds of the Crucified, for “by his wounds we are healed” (1 P 2: 24). One of the prayers before Mass in the Roman Missal has us say: “To thee, Lord, I uncover my wounds; to thee I lay bare my shame. My sins, I know, are many and grievous; they fill me with fear, but my hope is in thy countless mercies.”

In 2005 Good Friday fell on March 25th. This year, the Annunciation of the Lord is transferred to the Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent, formerly known as the Monday of Passiontide. Two years ago, while celebrating Holy Week with the Poor Clares in Barhamsville, Virginia, I reflected on the intersection of the two mysteries. Here is the homily I preached:

“O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
‘For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?’” (Rom 11:33-34).
“None of the rulers of this age understood this;
for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8).

We find ourselves today at the intersection of two mysteries,
or rather, at the heart of the One Mystery,
indivisible, and yet too rich to be taken in all at once:
Incarnation and Redemption,
Annunciation and Crucifixion,
Conception and Death.

The Western tradition, seeking clarity in distinctions
and respectful of chronos, the ordered time of the universe,
separates, fixing her gaze today on the wood of the Cross,
and promising to return in ten days time
“to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph
of the house of David” (Lk 1:26-27).

The Eastern tradition, spiraling into kairos,
the ever-present immediacy of the God who is, who was, and is to come,
integrates, even liturgically,
the mysteries of the conceiving Virgin
and of the crucified Fruit of her womb.

One might argue as convincingly from one perspective as from the other,
but we are here not to debate but to contemplate.
The mute prostration at the beginning of this solemn liturgy,
— all of humanity flung down before the face of God in the person of the priest —
was an act of utter and unconditional surrender to the Mystery,
not to the Mystery as we see it,
poor myopic creatures, straining to transcend our limited perceptions,
but to the Mystery as it is
in its cruciform “breadth and length and height and depth” (cf. Eph 3:18),
and in “the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge” (Eph 3:19).

A number of years ago, while visiting the Augustinian Monastery of Malestroit in France, I was introduced to a prayer cherished by the incomparable Mère Yvonne–Aimée de Jésus:

O grande Passion!
O profondes plaies!
O effusion de Sang!
O suprême douleur!
O mort soufferte dans toutes les amertumes!
Donnez–nous la vie.

O great Passion!
O profound Wounds!
O outpouring of blood!
O highest Sorrow!
O Death suffered in every bitterness!
Be to us healing and eternal life.

Those who have prayed the prayer know that it is full of compunction and sweetness. I have discovered the prayer in several languages and with many variants. It has been variously attributed to Saint Bridget of Sweden, Saint Bernard, Saint Bonaventure, Blessed Angelo of Foligno, and Blessed Julian of Norwich, but I have never been able to confirm its origin.

I ask readers familiar with the prayer to share anything they may know about its authorship. Thank you.

I know that in some places the Gospel of the Year C (John 8: 1-11) will be read today, and so I am offering this meditation on the marvelous encounter of a great misery with a great Mercy.

Excessive Mercy

Today’s gospel almost did not make it into the canon of the Scriptures; it was a cause of consternation to certain Christians of the early Church. The gentle compassion of Jesus seemed excessive to them. His merciful attitude towards the woman caught in adultery seemed too liberal, too easy. In several early manuscripts, the passage was simply deleted from the text. But the mercy of the Lord Jesus is indeed excessive! “His mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning” (Lam 3:22-23).

A Night Spent in Prayer

Our Lord has spent the night in prayer on the Mount of Olives (Jn 8:53). At daybreak, He descends from the Mount of Olives to the Temple precincts. The people come to Him, ordinary people, sinners of all sorts. In contrast to those who come to Jesus in order to hear his word, we see the scribes and Pharisees — the professionals of religion, the rigorists — who seek to entrap him. Their ears are open to catch Him in some theological inaccuracy or in some political faux-pas, but their hearts are closed to His excessive mercy.

The Sinner and the Saviour

They bring to Jesus a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. In spite of their deceptive and twisted motives, in bringing the woman to our Lord, the scribes and pharisees do a good thing. A sinner is brought to the Saviour, a lamb to the Shepherd, one bruised and ailing to the Physician. Out of the evil designs of the scribes and Pharisees, our Lord will bring a great good.

A Captive of Divine Mercy

There are diverse ways of being brought to Christ. The woman caught in adultery is the captive of the scribes and Pharisees; she will become the captive of Divine Mercy. Accustomed to being used by men, she will be used by them in their experiment with Jesus. She is the bait with which they will attempt to catch Jesus, and she is a well-chosen bait, because the mercy of Jesus is irresistibly attracted to the misery of sinners. She is humiliated. She is fearful. She is ashamed. She is forced to come into the presence of Jesus; she is pushed into His presence.

The Presence of Jesus

At times something very similar may happen in our own lives. We are dragged into the presence of Jesus as a result of circumstances that humiliate and terrify us: disappointment, betrayal, illness, failure, the loss of a loved one, or the jealousy, the rigorism, or the lust for power of another.

At other times, it is Jesus himself who seeks us out. He comes to us, like the shepherd in the wilderness. He comes in search of the lost sheep. “And when He has found it, He lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing” (Lk 15:4-5).

Our Lady Saint Mary, Saint John the Beloved Disciple,
and the Wounded Side of Christ

With First Vespers of Sunday we entered into the last phase of preparation for the Pasch of the Lord. The Church placed on our lips the great hymn of Christ’s Cross and Passion, and so we sang: fulget Crucis mysterium, “the mystery of the Cross shines out.” The second to the last verse of this age-old hymn is a confession of hope, hope in the power of the Cross:

O Cross, all hail! Sole hope, abide
With us now in this Passiontide:
New grace in loving hearts implant
And pardon to the guilty grant!

The station today is at Saint Peter’s Basilica. The solemnity of this Fifth Sunday of Lent required that the faithful of Rome assemble at the tomb of Saint Peter. (The purple veils that hide our sacred images recall the great veil that in ancient times was stretched across the whole sanctuary, obliging the faithful to go by faith and longing into the inner sanctuary, the invisible one, where Christ is victim, altar and priest.)

Caravaggio's Resurrection of Lazarus depicts a dead man stunned by his sudden return to life. The head of Christ is the very one Caravaggio painted in his Calling of Saint Matthew, but here it is reversed.

Fifth Sunday of Lent
Note: The "A" cycle of readings may be used in Years B and C.

Ezekiel 37:12-14
Psalm 129: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
Romans 8:8-11
John 11:1-45

The Divine and Mystic Gospel

Over the past three Sundays of Lent, the Church has opened for us the Gospel of Saint John, the divine and mystic Gospel, the Gospel that, on every page, shines with the brightness of Christ’s divinity. The Lenten series of Johannine gospels are directed, first of all, to the catechumens, men and women in the last stages of preparation for the mysteries of initiation that will be celebrated in the night of Pascha. The same Gospels are addressed to the penitents, men and women who, having fallen, seek to rise again, washed in the pure water of the Spirit, and infused anew with the life-giving Blood of the Lamb. The Lenten liturgy is profitable to us only insofar as we identify inwardly with the catechumens and penitents, only insofar as we walk with them towards the mysteries of regeneration and reconciliation that ever flow from the Passion and Resurrection of Christ.

Water

On the Third Sunday of Lent we heard the promise of living water made by Christ to the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn 4:14). Each of us is the Samaritan woman; to each of us is disclosed the mystery of the thirst of Christ and to each of us is promised the “spring of water welling up to eternal life” (Jn 4:14).

Light

On the Fourth Sunday of Lent we witnessed the drama of the man born blind to whom Christ gave sight, light, and new life (Jn 9:11). Each of us is that man born blind; to each of us is promised and given the gladsome light of Christ.

Life

Today, on the Fifth Sunday of Lent we follow a very human Christ, a tender and weeping Christ, to the tomb of one greatly loved (Jn 11:34-35). It is four days since the burial of Lazarus; already his body has begun to stink. Each of us is that stinking corpse, bound tightly in the shroud, and belonging already to the darkness of the netherworld.

Divine Promises

Listen with the catechumen’s eager ears to the glorious promises of Ezekiel’s prophecy! “Behold, I will open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And you will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live” (Ez 37:12-14). These promises, fulfilled once in the resurrection of Lazarus, are fulfilled again and again in the life of the Church, and principally in the night of Resurrection, in the great baptismal Vigil that Saint Augustine calls the “mother of all vigils.”

Three things are promised, three things are given to every Lazarus of every age and of every place: the resurrection from the grave, the experience of the Risen Christ, Lord of Life and Victor over death, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. What was promised by the mouth of the prophet is fulfilled in Christ. What is fulfilled in Christ the Head is actualized again and again for the members of His Body in the mysteries (sacraments) of the Church. So often as Lazarus is baptized, chrismated, nourished with the Body and Blood of Christ, reconciled and healed there is even now triumph over the grave and the return from corruption, there is even now the experience of Christ the Lord of Life in the face of death, there is even now the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit whose sweet fragrance dispels forever the sickening stench of the tomb.

Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Wisdom 2:1a, 12–22
Psalm 33: 16–17, 18–19, 20 and 22 (R. 18a)
John 7: 1–2, 10, 25–30

Darkness

There is a Caravaggian darkness about today’s liturgy. One senses that the plots of the wicked are closing in around Our Lord. You may recall the long, dramatic responsory from the Holy Week liturgy that begins, Collegerunt, “The priests and pharisees assembled in council and said, ‘What shall we do?’”

He Is Inconvenient to Us

The First Reading exposes their secret thoughts and, in some way, presents us with the psychology of sin. “Ungodly men reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves, ‘Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us, and opposes our actions’” (Wis 2: 1a, 12). Look closely at the text. The ungodly, that is, those who do not “meditate the law of the Lord day and night” (Ps 1:2), those who make themselves the measure of all things, those who are their own reference, necessarily reason unsoundly. Left to itself, without the light of divine grace, human reason veers into the darkness.

Sick Reasoning

The conscience itself can be perverted by repeated compromises with sin. There are those who would extinguish the light of Natural Law; there are those who would contest the revealed Law of God. The result is a sick conscience. Unsound reasoning means unhealthy reasoning or, put more bluntly, sick reasoning. “Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them, and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hope for the wages of holiness, nor discern the prize for blameless souls” (Wis 2:21-22).

The Light of the Word

Sick reasoning is the consequence of pride and disobedience. One can recover from sick reasoning by exposing oneself to the light of the Word of God in the communion of the Church, and by following Christ along the path of humble obedience, along the way of the Cross. Saint Paul, in First Corinthians, addresses this very thing. “We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:7-8).

Judgment

In the Gospel, Our Lord openly professes his identity and mission: “You know me, and you know where I come from? But I have not come of my own accord; he who sent me is true, and him you do not know. I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me” (Jn 7:28-29). A blinding light flashes in the words of Jesus; the light of his divinity, the brightness of his life with the Father. It is this light that makes the gathering shadows appear all the darker. “For judgment I came into this world,” he says, “that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind” (Jn 9:30).

Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Exodus 32:7-14
Psalm 105:19-20, 21-22, 23
John 5:31-47

Moses

Today’s liturgy is all about Moses. Moses in the first reading, Moses in the psalm, and Moses in the gospel. Moses has been with us — a companion on our Lenten journey — since the Second Sunday of Lent when we saw him on the holy mountain in conversation with Elijah and the transfigured Christ.

And the People Rose Up to Play

While, during the Exodus, Moses was absent, hidden with God for forty days and forty nights on Mount Sinai, the people grew restless and impatient. They turned to Aaron and said, “Up, make us gods which shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what has become of him” (Ex 32:1). Aaron, in an attempt to quiet the people, gave in to their murmurings. You all know the story of the molten calf. I am always struck by what happens after the presentation of the golden calf to the people. Aaron proposes a feast, a party really, to distract the people and keep them happy. In few words, the text conjures up quite a scene. “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play” (Ex 32:6).

Holding One’s Ground Before God

This is where today’s First Reading begins. God sends Moses down to break up the party. “Go down at once to your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, for they have become depraved” (Ex 32:7). Moses’ obedience is very unbenedictine. He does not, “with the quick feet of obedience, follow by action the voice of him who gives the order” (RB V:8). He does not immediately run down the mountain into the madness of the crowd. He holds his ground before God, and has recourse to prayer.

The Prayer of Moses

Moses’ compelling prayer became one of the most poignant Offertory Antiphons of the Mass: Precatus est Moyses in conspectu Domini Dei sui. “And Moses besought the Lord his God” (Ex 32:11). Listen to a recording of the piece or sing it through for yourself if you have time today. Do it as lectio divina. All the intensity of Moses’ prayer passes into the melody. Listening to it, one has the impression of being right there next to Moses, face to face with God on Mount Sinai. In the prayer of Moses one hears already the accents of the prayer of Jesus crucified to the Father: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34).

Standing in the Breach

God offered to consume the people, to annihilate them utterly, and to give Moses a fresh start. The Responsorial Psalm evoked the scene for us: “For this he said he would destroy them, but Moses, the man he had chosen, stood in the breach before him, to turn back his anger from destruction” (Ps 105:23). “Let me alone, says God, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; but of you I will make a great nation” (Ex 32:10). Quite a proposal! To be free of all the headaches caused by a stiff-necked, murmuring, fickle people, and to start all over again! But Moses cannot accept it. He refuses God’s offer.

My radiantly beautiful niece Lauren Elizabeth Hope Cable is holding her tiny newborn cousin, Jonah Daniel Kirby. Lauren went to New Hampshire to help care for her little cousins Michael Colin and Mary Elizabeth the week Jonah Daniel was born.

Lauren is 1/4 Italian, as anyone looking at her can tell! Lauren is extremely active, very much her mother's daughter. She is also an excellent cook. I'm waiting for her to visit me in Italy. (Sorry, gentleman. Lauren has a boyfriend.)

So, Lauren, when are you coming to the Eternal City?

March 21
The Transitus of Our Holy Father Saint Benedict

Genesis 12:1-4a
John 17:20-26

Transitus

We celebrate today the Transitus of our Holy Father Saint Benedict. Transitus means passing over, passage, or change, and is used, in the Christian tradition to refer to the mystery of death. You all know the beautiful line from the Preface for the Dead that sings, “The life of those who are faithful to you, O Lord, is but changed, not ended; and when their earthly dwelling-place decays, an everlasting mansion stands prepared for them in heaven.” A change, not an end: such is the Christian perspective of death.

Change

Every change in our life here below, even the smallest, most insignificant changes are, in some way, a preparation for death. This is perhaps one of the reasons why we are so resistant to change, even to little changes. Every change, every detachment, is a portent of death. We respond to change — not always consciously — with fear, because we fear death. In the Christian perspective, change is the price of life.

Saint Joseph

There is a striking connection between today’s feast and the Solemnity of Saint Joseph that we celebrated yesterday. In Saint Joseph we saw a man called to changes that uprooted his life, changes that obliged him to obey Angels, to journey by night; changes that involved insecurity and risk, changes that called him to the triumph of faith over fear.

Uprootings

Today, in celebrating Saint Benedict, we see a man marked, as was Saint Joseph, by a succession of uprootings and changes: from the life of a student in Rome to that of a solitary in the Sacro Speco at Subiaco; from solitude to life in community; and from his dear monastery of Subiaco to Monte Cassino. At Monte Cassino came the final change, the final pass-over, the transitus. Our Holy Father Saint Benedict prepared all his life for death by a radical openness to change in obedience to the Holy Spirit.

Detachment

In the Rule, Holy Father Benedict enjoins us to “keep death daily before our eyes” (RB 4:47). The measure of our preparedness for death is the measure of our openness to change or, if you prefer, our degree of detachment. Detachment is secured through obedience. For Saint Benedict obedience to tradition is the highest form of wisdom, and this because tradition — often incarnated in anachronistic signs and inherited customs and counter-cultural daily practices — distills for us the wisdom of the Cross. “The word of the Cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Ezechiel 47:1-9, 12
Psalm 45:2-3, 5-6, 8-9
John 5:1-16

All You That Thirst

Today’s texts are just waiting to be developed into a pre-baptismal catechesis. “All you that thirst, come to the waters: and you that have no money come, and drink with joy” (cf. Is 55:1). The Entrance Antiphon is addressed to all who thirst; there is nothing to purchase. The waters flow freely. The last phrase of the antiphon — “drink with joy” — is not found in the biblical text. It is the Church’s word, making clear for us here and now, the prophecy of Isaiah.

Flowing Waters

The Responsorial Psalm sings of the river that irrigates the Church, the new Jerusalem: “The city of God enriched with flowing waters, is the chosen sanctuary of the Most High” (Ps 45:5). The Communion Antiphon praises Christ the Shepherd who, in the Eucharist, “leads us by refreshing waters” (cf. Ps 22:1-2). In the Gospel we see the waters of Bethesda, a bath of healing stirred by an Angel of the Lord. All around the pool of Bethesda lie the diseased, the blind, the lame, and the disabled seeking to recover from the infirmities that oppress them. Bethesda is an image of the baptismal pool of regeneration, the bath from which in a few weeks the catechumens will emerge clean, healed, and altogether new.

Vidi Aquam

The centerpiece of today’s Mass is the reading from the prophet Ezekiel. The title printed in red above the text in the lectionary is most unusual. It reads: “I saw water flowing from the temple, and all who were touched by it were saved.” It adds, “See Roman Missal.” Where in the Roman Missal are we to look? Go to the antiphons sung at the Rite of Sprinkling with Holy Water: the Asperges me, taken from Psalm 50, and used outside of Paschaltide; and the Vidi aquam, taken from Ezekiel 47, and sung at the Paschal Vigil and on the Sundays of Paschaltide.

Look for a moment at the text of the Vidi aquam. The prophet Ezekiel, in a mystical rapture, sees the Temple as the wellspring of an immense river irrigating the whole country and making stagnant waters fresh. The Temple is the abode of the Glory of God (Ez 43:1-12). It is the source of a river, teeming with fish, and on both sides of its banks grow fruit bearing trees because the water for them flows from the sanctuary.

The glorious body of the of the crucified and risen Christ is the new and indestructible temple of which he himself said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19). At the death of Christ, the veil of the Temple was “torn in two from top to bottom” (Mt 27:51); Saint John, by recounting how the side of Jesus was pierced by the soldier’s lance, translates the same mystery. Out of the pierced heart of Jesus flows blood and water (Jn 19:34), recalling the water from the rock struck by the rod of Moses in the desert (Num 20:2-13), the fountains of salvation prophesied by Isaiah (Is 12:3), and the great river of Ezekiel’s vision.

Michael Colin (3 years) and Jonah Daniel (6 days).

My two nephews are discovering one another. I just love the expression on Michael Colin's face. How could I not post such a wonderful photo?

I wanted to write more on dear Saint Joseph today, but yesterday we had our Solemn Stational Mass for Laetare Sunday, and today I had to go to our Curia Generalizia on the Aventine to sing for the ordination to the diaconate of two young Polish Cistercians, D. Conrado and D. Ignazio. We sang the entire Mass in Gregorian, including the Gradual and the Tract.

Our liturgical calendar is full of festivals this week: after Saint Joseph on the 19th we have the Dedication of the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme on the 20th, and the Transitus of Holy Father Saint Benedict on the 21st.

The Icon

Brother Claude Lane, O.S.B., the iconographer who "wrote" this singularly expressive icon of Saint Joseph, is a monk of Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon. Brother Claude's image is, in its own way, a homily on today's Gospel.

On the Road

Saint Joseph is shown on the road with the Virgin Mary. There is tenderness and strength in his face. He is looking forward, facing the unknown with faith, looking ahead without seeing. As I wrote in one of my prayers to him, Saint Joseph is “a model of faith in the night, obedience in adversity, chastity in tenderness, and hope in uncertainty.”

A Young Joseph

Brother Claude portrays him as a young man. Most traditional icons depict an older Joseph, but Scripture says nothing about the age of Saint Joseph at the time of Jesus’ birth. We know that at the time of the Crucifixion (cf. Jn 19:27), the Virgin Mary was a widow. Saint Joseph is not mentioned in any Gospel accounts of Jesus’ public ministry; he is presumed to have died during the years of Jesus’ hidden life. During the first century, life expectancy was short. Joseph could have been an “old man” of twenty-one when he married his new bride of fourteen.

The Virgin Bride and the Child in Her Womb

The Blessed Virgin Mary is shown with child; she is wearing a lovely rose-coloured maternity dress. You recognize that Brother Claude has used the imagery of the Virgin of Guadalupe here, precisely because the miraculous image of Guadalupe depicts a pregnant Virgin. Saint Joseph is shown, putting fear aside to take his Virgin Bride into his home. In welcoming Mary, Saint Joseph welcomes the Infant Christ whose Sacred Heart already beats in Mary’s womb. In welcoming the Infant Christ, Saint Joseph welcomes each of us in our vulnerability, in our littleness, in our need for protection, and comfort, and warmth, and care.

The Angel

The angel is not named for us in the Gospel account, but tradition suggests that he is the Archangel Gabriel, the same heavenly messenger who brought the news to Mary at her Annunciation. Brother Claude shows the Angel gazing with admiration, with wonder, on both Mary and Joseph. The Angel sees in this couple the man and women chosen by God to protect and nurture the Word made flesh, the King of the Angels. The Angel’s finger points forward. “Let us go," he seems to be saying, "more deeply into the Mystery.”

The Donkey

The donkey bearing the Virgin Mary represents that other donkey who will bear Jesus into the holy city of Jerusalem amidst cries of jubilation and the waving of palm branches. The donkey is important to this icon: a sign of the unfolding of the Paschal Mystery of Christ the King.

Toward the Altar

In the beginnings of the mysteries of Christ, Saint Joseph is present humbly, tenderly, and decisively. The Angel’s hand, pointing forward, indicates that there is more to come. That “more to come” is given us in the Most Holy Eucharist. There, Saint Joseph is present to us and with us in the mystery of Christ. Pray to him. Go to Joseph, Guardian of the Living Bread come down from heaven.