September 2007 Archives

The Most Holy Name of Mary

Sirach 24:17–21
Luke 1:46–48, 49–50, 53–54
Luke1:26–38

Victory in the Name of Mary

In 1683 Pope Innocent XI extended the existing Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary to the universal Church to thank Our Lady for the victory of John Sobieski, king of Poland, over the forces of militant Islam. On September 11th, 1683, Muslim Turks attacked Vienna, threatening the Christian West. The next day, Sobieski, invoking the Blessed Virgin Mary and placing his forces under her protection, emerged victorious.

A Feast Restored to the Roman Missal

In the culture of the Middle East one thinks more readily in terms of centuries than in terms of years. It would seem that Osama Bin Ladin chose September 11th for the attack on the United States in memory of that attack on the West on September 11th, 1683. Symbolic dates are important. Pope John Paul II restored the feast of the Holy Name of Mary with the publication of the Third Typical Edition of the Roman Missal in 2002, one year after the attacks of September 11th, 2001.

The Invocation of the Name of Mary

The Holy Mother of God is no stranger to the struggles of her children in this valley of tears. She is attentive to every situation that threatens this world of ours, to every assault against the Church and, when we invoke her Holy Name, she is quick to intervene. When it comes to calling upon the Name of Mary, there is no struggle too global and too enormous, and no struggle too personal or too little. In the Bible, the name wields a mysterious power. Names are not to be pronounced casually or lightly. Names are not to be taken in vain. The invocation of the name renders present the one who is named. So often as you pronounce the sweet Name of Mary with devotion and confidence, Mary is present to you, ready to help. So often as you pronounce the sweet Name of Mary, you have her full and undivided attention.

As Oil Poured Out

The saints, drawing on a verse from the Song of Songs, compare the Name of Mary to a healing oil. “Thy Name is as oil poured out” (Ct 1:2). Oil heals the sick, gives off a sweet fragrance, and nourishes fire. In the same way the Name of Mary is like a balm on the wounds of the soul; there is no disease of the soul, however malignant, that does not yield to the power of the Name of Mary. The sound of Mary’s Name causes joy to spring up; the repetition of Mary’s Name warms the heart. If you would touch the Heart of the Father, pronounce the Name of Jesus; if you would touch the Heart of Jesus, pronounce the Name of Mary.

12 September
Feast of the Holy Name of Mary

Think of Mary, call upon Mary.

Collect

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God,
that to all who are celebrating her glorious name,
the Blessed Virgin Mary herself
may dispense the benefits of your mercy.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

General Intercessions

That the pilgrim Church,
faithful to the invocation of the Most Holy Name of Mary,
may find in her a shining star,
a refuge in time of distress,
and a mother quick to help in every need,
to the Lord we pray: Christ, hear us. R. CHRIST, GRACIOUSLY HEAR US.

That, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
the world may be spared further war, violence, and bloodshed
and the leaders of nations moved to persevere in seeking a lasting peace,
to the Lord we pray: Christ, hear us. R. CHRIST, GRACIOUSLY HEAR US.

That those who struggle on the stormy seas of life
may look to Mary as to their star, and so avert shipwreck;
that those who are tossed on the winds of temptation,
may call on Mary and be comforted in their weakness;
and that the dying may find in the Holy Name of Mary
light and peace,
to the Lord we pray: Christ, hear us. R. CHRIST, GRACIOUSLY HEAR US.

That all who bear the sweet name of Mary
may be inwardly conformed to her virtues
and, at every moment, honour the name
that fills heaven and earth with gladness,
to the Lord we pray: Christ, hear us. R. CHRIST, GRACIOUSLY HEAR US.

That all who invoke the Holy Name of Mary
may experience her nearness now and at the hour of death;
and that the praise of God may never depart
from the lips of those who celebrate her Name today,
to the Lord we pray: Christ, hear us. R. CHRIST, GRACIOUSLY HEAR US.

Collect at the General Intercessions

Almighty and ever-living God,
who, in the Blessed Virgin Mary,
were pleased to give us a star
shining over life’s vast and stormy sea;
mercifully grant that when the winds of temptation arise
and we run upon the rocks of tribulation,
we may with confidence look at that star,
think of Mary, and call on her by name,
and so learn, with all the saints,
how rightly it is said that “the Virgin’s name was Mary.”
Through Christ our Lord.

(Cf. Saint Bernard, Sermon Two on the Glories of the Virgin Mother)

On the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, Wednesday 12 September, I will be leaving Connecticut to be of service until the end of November to the Benedictine community at the Monastère Saint-Benoît in Nans-sous-Sainte-Anne, France. I will be flying Swissair, New York to Geneva, and then traveling over the Jura Mountains into the Franche-Comté in eastern France to Nans–sous-Sainte-Anne. The village has 142 inhabitants and a number of cows. There is a lovely 16th century church. I hope that I will have internet access there. The village is remote! Does Vultus Christi have any readers in France? My address there will be:

Monastère Saint-Benoît
25330 Nans-sous-Ste-Anne
FRANCE

Monday of the Twenty-Third Week of the Year I
Votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Good Counsel

Colossians 1:24–2:3
Psalm 61:5-6, (R. 7a)
Luke 6:6-11

Warning and Teaching

After listening to the teachings of the Holy Father over the past three days, it occurred to me that what Saint Paul says concerning himself in today’s First Reading applies also, by the grace of God, to Pope Benedict XVI:

“We proclaim Christ in you, the hope of glory,
warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom,
that we may present every man mature in Christ.
For this I toil,
striving with all the energy
which he mightily inspires within me” (Col 1:28-29).

To Present Every Man Mature in Christ

For the past three days the Holy Father has given himself tirelessly to an intense proclamation of Christ, the Hope of Glory. He called upon all Catholics, and not just those of Austria, to fix their gaze upon the Face of Christ and upon His open Heart. He warned every man. He taught every man in all wisdom. His teaching addressed all the members of the Church: bishops, priests, deacons, religious, monks, nuns, and lay faithful. His desire was none other than that of the Apostle: to present every man mature in Christ.

The Thoughts of God’s Spirit

Like those who watched Jesus teaching in the synagogue, there were those who watched the Holy Father “so that they might find an accusation against him” (Lk 6:7). The secular media, largely hostile to all things Catholic, cannot be trusted to provide objective coverage of the Holy Father. In First Corinthians Saint Paul says: “Mere man with his natural gifts cannot take in the thoughts of God’s Spirit; they seem mere folly to him, and he cannot grasp them, because they demand a scrutiny which is spiritual. Whereas the man who has spiritual gifts can scrutinize everything, without being subject himself, to any other man’s scrutiny” (1 Cor:15-16).

Yesterday evening, the Holy Father closed his apostolic journey with a visit to the Cistercian Abbey of Heiligenkreuz. There he pronounced a discourse that was nothing less than his Charter for Monastic Life in the Third Millennium. Pope Benedict XVI addresses point by point the substance of Benedictine life for this generation and for all generations to come. It is a text that one needs to read on bended knee with profound humility and docility.

In the address pronounced today at Heiligenkreuz Abbey, Pope Benedict XVI offered the whole Church a veritable Charter of Monastic Life for this generation, and for all generations to come. This is, without any doubt, one of the most luminous Pontifical teachings on the monastic vocation ever articulated. I am humbled and set ablaze by it. It deserves study "on bended knee." Thank you, Holy Father!

Address of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI

Visit to Heiligenkreuz Abbey
Sunday, 9 September 2007

Most Reverend Father Abbot,
Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate,
Dear Cistercian Monks of Heiligenkreuz,
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Consecrated Life,
Distinguished Guests and Friends of the Monastery and the Academy,
Ladies and Gentlemen!

That Nothing Be Put Before the Divine Office

On my pilgrimage to the Magna Mater Austriae, I am pleased to visit this Abbey of Heiligenkreuz, which is not only an important stop on the Via Sacra leading to Mariazell, but the oldest continuously active Cistercian monastery in the world. I wished to come to this place so rich in history in order to draw attention to the fundamental directive of Saint Benedict, according to whose Rule Cistercians also live. Quite simply, Benedict insisted that “nothing be put before the Divine Office”.(1)

Solemn Choral Prayer

For this reason, in a monastery of Benedictine spirit, the praise of God, which the monks sing as a solemn choral prayer, always has priority. Monks are certainly not the only people who pray; others also pray: children, the young and the old, men and women, the married and the single – all Christians pray. Or at least, they should!

To Be Men of Prayer

In the life of monks, however, prayer takes on a particular importance: it is the heart of their calling. Their vocation is to be men of prayer. In the patristic period the monastic life was likened to the life of the angels. It was considered the essential mark of the angels that they are adorers. Their very life is adoration. This should hold true also for monks. Monks pray first and foremost not for any specific intention, but simply because God is worthy of being praised. “Confitemini Domino, quoniam bonus! – Praise the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy is eternal!”: so we are urged by a number of Psalms (e.g. Ps 106:1).

Officium

Such prayer for its own sake, intended as pure divine service, is rightly called Officium. It is “service” par excellence, the “sacred service” of monks. It is offered to the triune God who, above all else, is worthy “to receive glory, honour and power” (Rev 4:11), because he wondrously created the world and even more wondrously redeemed it.

A Yearning for God

At the same time, the Officium of consecrated persons is also a sacred service to men and women, a testimony offered to them. All people have deep within their hearts, whether they know it or not, a yearning for definitive fulfilment, for supreme happiness, and thus, ultimately, for God. A monastery, in which the community gathers several times a day for the praise of God, testifies to the fact that this primordial human longing does not go unfulfilled: God the Creator has not placed us in a fearful darkness where, groping our way in despair, we seek some ultimate meaning (cf. Acts 17:27); God has not abandoned us in a desert void, bereft of meaning, where in the end only death awaits us. No! God has shone forth in our darkness with his light, with his Son Jesus Christ. In him, God has entered our world in all his “fullness” (cf. Col 1:19); in him all truth, the truth for which we yearn, has its source and summit.(2)

The Heart and Eyes of Christ

Our light, our truth, our goal, our fulfilment, our life – all this is not a religious doctrine but a person: Jesus Christ. Over and above any ability of our own to seek and to desire God, we ourselves have already been sought and desired, and indeed, found and redeemed by him! The roving gaze of people of every time and nation, of all the philosophies, religions and cultures, encounters the wide open eyes of the crucified and risen Son of God; his open heart is the fullness of love. The eyes of Christ are the eyes of a loving God. The image of the Crucified Lord above the altar, whose romanesque original is found in the Cathedral of Sarzano, shows that this gaze is turned to every man and woman. The Lord, in truth, looks into the hearts of each of us.

Twenty-Third Sunday of the Year C

Wisdom 9:13-19
Psalm 89: 3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14, 17 (R. 1)
Philemon 9b-10, 12-17
Luke 14:25-33

A Salutary Anguish

I was reading not long ago the counsels of Staretz Ambrose of Optino on having a daily rule of personal prayer. “Every day,” says the Staretz, “read one or more chapters of the Gospel, standing (the attitude of prayer). If you are seized with anguish, read again until it has passed. If it returns, read the Gospel again.” The reading of the Gospel does not always fill us with comfort, light, and sweet assurance. Sometimes the reading of the Gospel produces anguish. A salutary anguish.

Who Then Can Be Saved?

When the disciples heard Jesus say that, “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Lk 18:25), they experienced a salutary anguish and replied, “Who then can be saved?” (Lk 18:26). If you heard today’s Gospel, for instance, without being seized with a certain anguish, perhaps you didn’t really hear it at all? “And so it is with you; none of you can be my disciple if he does not take leave of all that he possesses” (Lk 14:33).

The Vice of Proprietorship

We hear this teaching of Jesus in its absoluteness and immediately begin to look for loopholes, for a way around it, under it, or over it. We call it impossible, forgetting that Jesus also says in another place — again concerning possessions — that “the things that are impossible with men, are possible with God” (Lk 18:27). “Surely this does cannot apply to me,” one thinks; "one must be reasonable. The scholars are not in agreement on the interpretation of the text." But if one stays with today’s Gospel and refuses to pass over it or around it, one is obliged to look at what Saint Benedict calls, “the vice of personal ownership” (RB 55:18). Vice. Not a very nice word. One does not ordinarily think of a monastery as a place of vice. And yet, Saint Benedict puts his finger on what may well be the last vice to disappear from a monastery, the last vice to be eradicated from the heart of a monk: the vice of personal proprietorship.

Magnificat I

If anyone comes to me and does not hate even his own life,
he cannot be my disciple (Lk 14:26).

Benedictus

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me,
cannot be my disciple (Lk 14:27).

Magnificat II

Whoever does not renounce all that he has
cannot be my disciple (Lk 14:33).

For some years now, especially around the Marian feasts of September 8th, September 12th, November 21st, and December 8th, I have prayed my rosary while dwelling on five mysteries of the first part of Our Lady's life. These five mysteries of the Blessed Virgin are:

— the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the womb of her mother, Saint Anne;
— the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary;
— the Most Holy Name of Mary
— the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Temple;
— the Betrothal of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Saint Joseph;

There is a particular sweetness in dwelling on these mysteries of Maria Bambina, the Infant Mary, the Child Mary. They distill graces of purity, of childlike simplicity, and of littleness.

All five mysteries are commemorated in the Sacred Liturgy. The liturgical books are rich in texts to nourish the meditation of each one. It is enough to take an antiphon, a verse, a single phrase, and to hold it in the heart while telling one's beads. The Rosary corresponds to the meditatio and the oratio of monastic prayer; it begins necessarily in lectio divina, the hearing of the Word and then, gently, almost imperceptibly, draws the soul into contemplatio.

The Rosary is, I am convinced, the surest and easiest school of contemplative prayer. The Rosary decapitates pride, the single greatest obstacle to union with God. The repetition of the Aves, like a stream of pure water, cleanses the heart.

The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Romans 8:28-30
Psalm 12:5, 6 (R. Is 61:10a)
Matthew 1:1-16, 18-23

Maria Bambina

Unto us a little girl is born; unto us a daughter is given. “The Holy Spirit will come upon her, and the power of the Most High will overshadow her” (Cf. Lk 1:35). The Word will take flesh in her virginal womb and suckle at her breast. And her name shall be called Full of Grace, Glory of Jerusalem, Joy of Israel, and Mother of God. In Italy she has another name, one that the people love to give her; she is their Maria Bambina, the little Infant Mary.

The Story of an Image

It was in Rome, many years ago, that I encountered the image of Maria Bambina for the first time. I didn’t know quite what to make of it. She looked rather like a doll, all dressed up in lace and satin, resting on her pillow. I knew only that all sorts of people, and especially children, came to pray before her. I saw that that Maria Bambina had stolen their hearts. She attracted the most extraordinary outpouring of tender devotion, and does to this day.

The image of Maria Bambina originated in Milan where the cathedral is dedicated to the Infant Mary. A Poor Clare nun fashioned the image out of wax in 1735. Maria Bambina suffered the vicissitudes of the times under Napoleon. The convent that kept the image was suppressed. Maria Bambina was passed from one “foster home” to another until, in 1885, she found a permanent home in the motherhouse of Milan’s Sisters of Charity. Beginning in 1884 various miracles were attributed to the image of the Infant Mary. She was dressed in new clothes and placed in a new crib in the chapel of the Sisters. Devotion to Maria Bambina spread throughout Italy and then elsewhere in the world.

A Child for Children

The learned and the clever, the theologically sophisticated and those who think that holiness has no need of warmth and no time for tenderness, are baffled by Maria Bambina. But children understand her. Raïssa Maritain understood the Child Mary perfectly; “The Blessed Virgin is the spoiled child of the Blessed Trinity,” she wrote. “She knows no law. Everything yields to her in heaven and on earth. The whole of heaven gazes on her with delight. She plays before the ravished eyes of God himself.”

Rather than preach my own homily this morning, I read the homily given by the Holy Father today at Mariazell. When the Successor of Saint Peter preaches, he addresses the whole Church. Whenever and wherever the Supreme Shepherd of the Church preaches, his message is for all.

Homily of His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI

Basilica of Mariazell
Saturday, 8 September 2007

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Show Us Jesus

With our great pilgrimage to Mariazell, we are celebrating the patronal feast of this Shrine, the feast of Our Lady’s Birthday. For 850 years pilgrims have been travelling here from different peoples and nations; they come to pray for the intentions of their hearts and their homelands, bringing their deepest hopes and concerns. In this way Mariazell has become a place of peace and reconciled unity, not only for Austria, but far beyond her borders. Here we experience the consoling kindness of the Madonna. Here we meet Jesus Christ, in whom God is with us, as today’s Gospel reminds us – Jesus, of whom we have just heard in the reading from the prophet Micah: “He himself will be peace” (5:4). Today we join in the great centuries-old pilgrimage. We rest awhile with the Mother of the Lord, and we pray to her: Show us Jesus. Show to us pilgrims the one who is both the way and the destination: the truth and the life.

God Writes Straight on the Crooked Lines of History

The Gospel passage we have just heard broadens our view. It presents the history of Israel from Abraham onwards as a pilgrimage, which, with its ups and downs, its paths and detours, leads us finally to Christ. The genealogy with its light and dark figures, its successes and failures, shows us that God can write straight even on the crooked lines of our history. God allows us our freedom, and yet in our failures he can always find new paths for his love. God does not fail. Hence this genealogy is a guarantee of God’s faithfulness; a guarantee that God does not allow us to fall, and an invitation to direct our lives ever anew towards him, to walk ever anew towards Jesus Christ.

Seekers of the Star

Making a pilgrimage means setting out in a particular direction, travelling towards a destination. This gives a beauty of its own even to the journey and to the effort involved. Among the pilgrims of Jesus’s genealogy there were many who forgot the goal and wanted to make themselves the goal. Again and again, though, the Lord called forth people whose longing for the goal drove them forward, people who directed their whole lives towards it. The awakening of the Christian faith, the dawning of the Church of Jesus Christ was made possible, because there were people in Israel whose hearts were searching – people who did not rest content with custom, but who looked further ahead, in search of something greater: Zechariah, Elizabeth, Simeon, Anna, Mary and Joseph, the Twelve and many others. Because their hearts were expectant, they were able to recognize in Jesus the one whom God had sent, and thus they could become the beginning of his worldwide family. The Church of the Gentiles was made possible, because both in the Mediterranean area and in those parts of Asia to which the messengers of Jesus travelled, there were expectant people who were not satisfied by what everyone around them was doing and thinking, but who were seeking the star which could show them the way towards Truth itself, towards the living God.

My two year old niece, Mary Elizabeth Kirby, a dog, and a meadow full of flowers. What more could a little girl want on a sunny September day? Thanks to my brother Terence for the photos.

Twenty-Second Friday of the Year I

Colossians 1:15-20

Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of every creature:
For in Him were all things created in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible,
whether thrones, or dominations,
or principalities, or powers:
all things were created by Him and in Him.
And He is before all, and by Him all things consist.
And He is the head of the body, the church,
who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead;
that in all things He may hold the primacy:
Because in Him, it hath well pleased the Father,
that all fullness should dwell;
And through Him to reconcile all things unto himself,
making peace through the blood of his cross,
both as to the things that are on earth,
and the things that are in heaven.

Doxological Christology

Today’s passage from the Letter to the Colossians is well known to us. Some of you may even know it by heart. In our monastic cursus of the Divine Office it is the New Testament canticle at Vespers on Thursday of the Second Week; in the Roman Office, it occurs as the New Testament Canticle at Vespers every Wednesday. It is, in fact, a hymn inspired by the Holy Spirit, addressed to the Father, in celebration of the mystery of Christ, a wonderful example of “doxological Christology.”

Thanksgiving

In praising the glory of the Father — the mystery of the Son comes into focus to “enlighten the eyes of the heart” (Eph 1:18). The hymn englobes the whole “economy” of God: redemption, creation, the resurrection and lordship of Christ and, at the end of the text, a confession of the mystery of the Cross, radiating peace over heaven and earth (Col 1:20).

Through Him

Perhaps you noticed that, although the whole hymn celebrates Jesus Christ, He is never explicitly named. Instead, all throughout, the pronoun “He” is repeated again and again. The effect is not at all unlike that of the, “Through Him, with Him, and in Him . . .” that concludes the Eucharistic Prayer.

Indeed Right and Fitting

This is not the only point of resemblance with the Eucharistic Prayer. If you take the text on your own, in lectio divina, and repeat it slowly, you will see that it is crafted like the Roman Preface of the Mass. In fact, if you put the traditional opening of the Roman Preface at the beginning — It is indeed right and fitting, it is our duty and leads to our salvation, that we should praise you always and everywhere, Lord, holy Father, almighty and ever-living God, through Christ our Lord — and if you add, at the end, the traditional conclusion of the preface — And therefore, together with all the Angels, we never cease to praise and glorify you, as we joyfully proclaim, Holy, Holy, Holy — you have, with very few adjustments, a magnificent Eucharistic text, a rich Christological Preface.

God's Human Face

There is, in these eight or nine verses, an inexhaustible richness of content. If I were to linger over a single phrase, it would be verse 15. “He is the image, the icon, of the invisible God” (Col 1:15). Jesus is, to use the title of Cardinal von Schönborn’s book, “God's Human Face.” “No one has ever seen God,” says Saint John the Theologian; “the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known” (Jn 1:18). Jesus Himself says, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9), and Saint Paul adds that God “has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of his glory in the Face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:6).

The Eucharistic Revelation of His Face

Today’s message from Colossians moves us to seek the Face of Christ. One who desires to contemplate the Face of Christ needs to immerse himself in the psalms, the prophets, the Gospels, Saint Paul, and the saints and mystics of every age. One who desires to contemplate the Face of Christ needs to spend time, silent and adoring, before the mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist. And so, we go from the ambo to the altar, where “the Blood of the Cross” (Col 1:20) is given us to drink, and where the Face of Christ, at once hidden and revealed, satisfies the heart’s desire.

Luke 5:1–11

The Fisherman's Boat

Today’s Gospel opens with the people “pressing upon” Jesus to hear the Word of God. Eagerness to hear the Word is a sign of spiritual vitality. So too is the desire to be close to Jesus. But already Our Lord is intimating that His Word and His presence will be mediated through His Church. “Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the people from the boat” (Lk 5:3). The fisherman’s boat becomes the pulpit of the Word; even more, it becomes an image of the Church called to bear the Word across the waves of history.

Peter's Marian Holiness

After preaching to the people, Our Lord addresses a personal word to Simon: “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch” (Lk 5:4). Duc in altum! Put out into the deep! Simon answers the Master honestly, “Master, we have laboured all the night, and have taken nothing!” — and then he obeys — “But at Thy word I will let down the net” (Lk 5:5). This simple exchange opens for us a window into the soul of the Prince of the Apostles. Peering into his soul, what do we see? We see that Simon Peter, for all his blustering masculinity, in the secret of his soul resembles Mary, the Virgin Mother of the Lord. “How shall this be, since I know not man?” —and then — “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done unto me according to thy word” (Lk 1:34, 38). “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing!” — “But at Thy word I will let down the net” (Lk 5:5). A pattern emerges here. It is the Marian pattern of holiness. There is no holiness that is not Marian. Even Simon must, in some way, be conformed by the Holy Spirit to the Virgin Mary in her humility, in her singleheartedness, in her trusting obedience.

Thursday of the Twenty-Second Week of the Year I

Colossians 1:9-14
Psalm 97:2-3ab, 3cd-4, 5-6 (R. 2a)
Luke 5:1-11

Toward Mariazell

On this eve of our Holy Father’s pilgrimage to the Benedictine sanctuary of Mariazell in Austria, we prepare our hearts to go in pilgrimage with him. Pope Benedict XVI’s pilgrimage will mark the 850th anniversary of the founding of Mariazell, the Basilica of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Another highlight of the Holy Father’s journey will be a visit to the flourishing Cistercian Abbey of Heiligenkreuz, a vibrant community that has more new vocations at present than it has had in the past two hundred years.

Pilgrimages of the Heart

Last week’s papal pilgrimage to the Holy House of Loreto and tomorrow’s pilgrimage to Our Lady of Mariazell underscore for all Catholics the importance of going in humility and confidence to places made holy by the prayers of the faithful through the ages, and by a mysterious presence of the Mother of the Lord in her images. Not all of us are able to make grand pilgrimages, but each of us can make small ones, inner pilgrimages of the heart, outwardly signified by some gesture of faith.

Visits to the Blessed Virgin Mary

Saint Alphonsus wisely recommends a daily visit to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Listen to him: “And now as to the visits to the Most Blessed Virgin, the opinion of Saint Bernard is well known and generally believed: it is that God dispenses no graces otherwise than through the hands of Mary…. Do you then, be also careful always to join to your daily visit to the Most Blessed Sacrament a visit to the Most Holy Virgin Mary in some church, or at least before a devout image of her in your own house. If you do this with tender affection and confidence, you may hope to receive great things from this most gracious Lady, who, as Saint Andrew of Crete says, always bestows great gifts on those who offer her even the least act of homage.”

Knowledge, Wisdom, and Understanding

Yes, the gifts of God are dispensed through the hands of Mary. This is true of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit because, as the saints teach us, where Mary is present the Holy Spirit rushes in. In today’s First Reading Saint Paul asks that the Colossians be filled with three of these gifts. “We have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” (Col 1:9). Knowledge, wisdom, and understanding: three of the Holy Spirit’s seven gifts.

Obedience and Thanksgiving

Saint Paul prays that the Colossians may be gifted with knowledge of the Father’s will, but the mere knowledge of the Father’s will is not enough or, rather, it is unbearable and utterly beyond us, without the gifts of wisdom and understanding. We are not saved by knowledge. Our Lord makes this clear in the parable of the two sons (Mt 21:28-31). Going to the first son, and then to the second, the father said, “Son, go and work in my vineyard today” (Mt 21:28). The first son refused, and then turned around and obeyed. The second son said, “I go, sir” (Mt 21:30), but did not go. Mere knowledge of the Father’s will does not make us holy. We are saved and sanctified — that is to say, healed and divinized — by grace and by the gifts of the Holy Spirit that make possible for us to say both the “Amen” of obedience and the “Alleluia” of thanksgiving.

In Darkness

Sometimes it pleases God to withhold the knowledge of His will, or so it seems to us. At certain moments, the will of the Father may be to leave us seemingly clueless. At no time are the gifts of the Holy Spirit more necessary than when we find ourselves saying with the psalmist, “Friend and neighbor Thou hast put far from me: my one companion is darkness” (Ps 87:19).

Wisdom: The Taste of Love

The gift of wisdom allows me to believe in love when everything around me says, “There is no love for you here.” The gift of wisdom is the faintest taste of love to the palate of the soul, even in those dark hours when, with Job, I would want to cry out, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Jb 13:15). I am reminded of the words of Father Ernest Lelièvre (1826-1889): “I know and am perfectly certain that, of all the calculations I could make, the wisest is to abandon myself to Him.” It is the gift of wisdom makes that kind of resolution possible.

Father Vayssière

Father Marie-Etienne Vayssière, O.P. (1864-1940) has long occupied a place of honour in my gallery of friends in heaven. Little by little, he is being recognized as a man worthy of a place among the greatest spiritual masters of the Church's history. I regret that he is so little known in the English-speaking world.

Father Vayssière, a Dominican solitary at La Sainte Baume in France, and guardian of the grotto of Saint Mary Magdalene for thirty-two years, was a mystic of the Rosary. His life was marked by illness and, at the same time, by ceaseless prayer. Father Vayssière's particular charism was to guide souls to the heights of contemplation by means of the Rosary. I have translated a few excerpts from his letters explaining the benefits of the Rosary in one's life with God:

Union With Christ

The soul that lives by the Rosary makes her way quickly towards a life of union with Christ. And what are, in fact, the mysteries of the Rosary? They are the very mysteries of Jesus, the mysteries of His life, the mysteries of His grace, the mysteries of His love. The Rosary is the soul truly plunged into Jesus Himself. The Rosary is Jesus filling our spirit, our intelligence, our memory, our imagination, our vision. At each instant and in all the mysteries it is always His Person that comes to the fore, but the reality is always unique, always the same: it is Jesus.

The Flame of Love

The Rosary is not only Jesus filling the spirit; it is also Jesus penetrating and taking over the heart to warm it and set it afire. Can one remain in front of a hearth, of a blazing fire, without being penetrated, in turn, by its warmth? And what comes forth from all the mysteries of the Rosary if not warmth, and the flame of love? How can we not love the One who lavishes such love on us? The One who gives Himself without reserve?

At the Wellspring of a True Holiness

The Rosary is an hour of intimacy with Jesus and Mary, during which all the rest is forgotten. It transports us into what is most intimate to the Christian life to penetrate us with its grace and to rekindle it ceaselessly within us. One who practices the Rosary in this way is at the wellspring of a true holiness.



The Perfume of the Mysteries

One must not only say one's Rosary, but also establish oneself in the atmosphere of the Rosary and in the thought of its mysteries and, there, breathe habitually the divine perfume that emanates from them. One does this by distributing the different mysteries of the Rosary throughout the exercises of the day. The memory of Jesus, of Mary, and of Saint Dominic, impressing itself upon the soul, saves it from the material preoccupations of the day, and allows the soul to live supernatural realities here below. And so, in this way, the Rosary is not merely recited; it is lived.

The Communion of the Evening

In Father Vayssière's time, Holy Mass was always celebrated in the morning. This explains why he loved to call the Rosary "the communion of the evening":

The Rosary is a communion that lasts all the day long, and the communion of the evening that brings into light and into a fruitful resolution the communion of the morning. It is not not merely a series of Ave Marias recited piously; it is Jesus reliving in the soul through the maternal action of Mary.

From Mary to the Trinity

The Rosary is a biblical and trinitarian prayer. It is a kind of lectio divina made in the open book of Mary's Immaculate Heart. The Rosary is a Eucharistic and doxological prayer. Father Vayssière called it, "an enchainment of love from Mary to the Trinity."

Twenty-Second Wednesday of the Year I

Luke 4:38–44

Jesus in the House of Simon

Jesus has just left the synagogue of Capernaum. He was teaching the people on the Sabbath; the word of His mouth struck the ears of all by its indescribable authority. Joining to His word a wonderful action, He delivered a man from the unclean spirit who oppressed him. Today’s Gospel begins with Jesus leaving the synagogue and entering the house of Simon.

Simon's Mother-in-Law

It would have been normal, at this point, for Our Lord to want to take some refreshment and there, away from the crowd, to enjoy a moment of respite after the exertions of His ministry. But upon entering Simon’s house what does He find? Simon’s mother–in–law is ill with a high fever. Those in the house — Simon’s wife and Simon himself, no doubt — “besought Him for her” (Lk 4:38).

To Beseech the Lord

Here Saint Luke shows us the prayer of intercession in action. It is striking in its simplicity: “they besought Him for her” (Lk 4:38). This is the secret of an efficacious prayer of intercession: to beseech the Lord. No other verb conveys quite the same meaning: it means to beg eagerly, to importune another, to supplicate, to beg urgently.

And He Stood Over Her

The Heart of Jesus is touched by this prayer. Saint Luke describes what happened then. “And He stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her” (Lk 4:39). There is something divine, something majestic in the demeanour of Our Lord. He stands over the sick woman; He is Lord over all. His mercy is above every misery. Every infirmity is subject to Him; there is no illness, no brokenness, no affliction that can resist His word. He is the Physician of our bodies and of our souls.

A Reader's Question

Last week a reader of Vultus Christi asked, "How does one kindle (in oneself) a devotion to Mary?" I would answer that one cannot kindle in oneself a devotion to Mary; it is a flame ignited by the Holy Spirit, a fire that descends from above, a gift. One can and should pray for this gift perseveringly. I say this because all true devotion to Mary is a participation in the love of the Heart of Jesus for His Mother. Like every other participation in the sentiments of the Heart of Jesus, love for Mary is communicated to souls by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary

Room made for the Holy Spirit is room made for Mary. And room made for Mary is room made for the Holy Spirit. From the moment of the Incarnation until the end of time, the Holy Spirit is inseparable from His Immaculate Spouse. Mary's "Yes" to the plan of God at the moment of the Annunciation engaged her not only in the mystery of the Incarnation, but also in an ongoing collaboration with the Holy Spirit until such time as the Church, the Body of Christ, attains her plenitude in all the saints (cf. Eph 1:22-23).

Saint Joseph and Saint John

More often than not, true devotion to Mary begins with a gentle impulse or a divine invitation to make room for her in one's life. Saint Joseph obeyed the word of the Angel and took Mary unto him as his wife (cf. Mt 1:20-24). Saint John obeyed the word of the Crucified Jesus and took Mary "to his own" (Jn 19:27). It is significant that Saint Joseph and Saint John, the two men with whom the Blessed Virgin shared her daily life, appeared with her at Knock in 1879.

Images of Mary

Like Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, I am very fond of blessed images of the Mother of God, and convinced of their efficacy as sacramentals. I am especially devoted to Our Mother of Perpetual Help. One can symbolically declare one's readiness to make room for Mary in one's heart and in one's life by placing her image in a place of honour in one's home. Saint Alphonsus recommends a daily visit to an image of the Blessed Virgin.

Different images of the Mother of God speak to the heart according to the changing seasons, struggles, sorrows, and joys of one's life with God. At a given moment one may find oneself drawn to the Black Madonna of Paris, Our Lady of Good Deliverance, the help of those struggling with depression. At another moment, the Virgin of the Miraculous Medal of the Rue du Bac or the Mother of Sorrows will fascinate the soul. My own icon of the Virgin Mother of Christ draws me again and again into adoration of His Eucharistic Face. Our Lady of Knock reassures me because her hands are raised in prayer; she is our all-powerful suppliant before the throne of God and of the Lamb. The countless faces of the one Blessed Virgin Mary depicted in devotional art through the centuries correspond to real life experiences and to the most intimate needs of souls.

The Rosary

What about the Rosary? The Rosary is as suited to the capacity of beginners who want to know Mary and love her, as it is to the capacity of those who have known and loved her for many years. The Rosary is a school of ceaseless prayer, a way of entering slowly but surely into that prayer of the heart that neither slumbers nor sleeps. One book that I recommend for readers who want to explore this further is The Rosary, A Road to Constant Prayer by Father Jean Lafrance. I read the French original, Le Chapelet, many years ago and I still return to it from time to time for a "tuneup." One should also read the classics: The Secret of the Rosary by Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, and The Glories of Mary by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori. In my Rosary Archives one can also find a fair amount of reflection on what is for me and for so many others the sweetest and sturdiest of prayers, a lifeline in danger, and a channel of healing.

At the Monastery of the Glorious Cross, O.S.B., September 4, 5, and 6 will be marked by a triduum of Votive Masses in honour of the Holy Spirit.

The triduum is being celebrated in supplication for the forthcoming General Chapter of the Congregation of the Benedictines of Jesus Crucified, which will be held in Brou-sur-Chantereine, France from September 19th until October 2nd.

1 Thessalonians 5:1-6, 9-11
Psalm 26: 1-4, 13-14
Luke 4:31-37

Come, Holy Spirit

We begin today a triduum of Votive Masses in honour of the Holy Spirit in supplication for the forthcoming General Chapter of the Congregation of the Benedictines of Jesus Crucified, which will be held in France from September 19th to October 2nd. In a certain sense, a General Chapter must have the same characteristics as the apostolic assembly that preceded the first Pentecost in the Cenacle. What exactly are these? From the description given us by Saint Luke in the Acts of the Apostles 1:13-14, we can learn quite a lot.

In the Light of the Eucharistic Face of Christ

The Blessed Virgin Mary and the Apostles went into retreat in the Cenacle immediately following the Ascension of the Lord from Mount Olivet. Each one carried in his heart the memory of that last glimpse of the Face of Jesus, and each one longed to see His Face again. In the time that stretches from the Ascension to the return of Our Lord in glory, His Face is turned toward us in the adorable mystery of the Eucharist. It is in the Eucharist that our gaze meets His. The Eucharist celebrated, adored, and contemplated must be at the heart of the General Chapter, just as it must be at the heart of our life from day to day.

Under the Leadership of Peter

The second characteristic is a reference to the unique mission of Peter in the Apostolic College. Saint Peter is named first in the list of those who went into the Cenacle. The successor of Saint Peter is the Pope, the bishop of Rome. If we consider the example of the saints through the ages, we see that the most accurate measure of one’s attachment to the Church, one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, is the degree of one’s attachment to the Holy Father. Saint Catherine of Siena referred to the Pope as her “sweet Christ on earth.”

Hans Urs von Balthasar warned prophetically of the critical danger of the “anti-Roman complex.” The core of the Protestant heresy was and remains the assertion of the individual’s perception of truth over the “Splendour of Truth” taught and defended by the Successor of Saint Peter and by the bishops in communion with him. The individual Protestant persists in saying, “I know, I choose, I prefer, and I believe,” over and above what Christ teaches and defines through the mouth of Peter. The Protestant body or sect does the same thing; it is a group of individuals who persist in saying, “We know, we choose, we prefer, and we believe,” over and against what Christ teaches and defines through the mouth of Peter.

When Blessed John XXIII convoked the Second Vatican Council, he composed a beautiful prayer to the Holy Spirit; in that prayer he affirmed that a second Pentecost could take place only “under the leadership of Peter.” We must be wary of a certain kind of creeping Protestantism that sets parts of the body against the whole; it causes certain members of the Body to resist the direction given by the Head. Positively, we must renew the vow of obedience in all its ecclesial implications. History demonstrates that religious institutes flourish in proportion to their attachment to the See of Peter; they decline in proportion to the degree to which they are infected with the “anti-Roman complex.”

2 Corinthians 4:1-2, 5-7
Psalm 95:1-2a, 2b-3, 7-8, 10
Luke 22:24-30

Your Servants Through Jesus

We celebrate today the feast of Saint Gregory the Great, a joy for the whole Church and, in a special way, for the Benedictine Order. Like Saint Paul speaking in today’s first reading, Saint Gregory had a passion for preaching “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Cor 4:4). “For we preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ our Lord; and ourselves your servants through Jesus” (2 Cor 4:5).

Father and Doctor

We count Saint Gregory the Great among the Fathers of the Church. He takes his place alongside of Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine and Saint Leo the Great. His fatherhood in the Spirit is an ongoing reality. Saint Gregory continues to be a “father” in the Spirit, sowing the seeds of contemplation even today by means of his writings. The writings of Saint Gregory allow us to hear his voice and to thrive on his teaching. Thus does he continue to help us grow up to maturity in Christ. Saint Gregory the Great is the Doctor of Lectio Divina, the Doctor of Compunction, and the Doctor of Contemplation.

Illumined by the Love of Jesus Christ

Saint Gregory was born into a patrician family in the year 540. His prestigious family background and education prepared him to do great things in Rome. His place was among the learned and esteemed. By age thirty-five, he was well on the way to a successful life, according to worldly standards. And then, like so many saints before him and like so many after him, Gregory was illumined by the love of Jesus Christ in so intimate a way that it changed the direction of his life. “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ Jesus” (2 Cor 4:6).

The Monastic Haven

The Gospels and the Psalms became his inseparable companions. Gregory became a monk, a disciple in the school of the Holy Patriarch Saint Benedict, although not without a struggle. “Even after I was filled with heavenly desire,” he says, “I preferred to be clothed in secular garb. Long-standing habit so bound me that I could not change my outward life.... Finally, I fled all this with anxiety and sought the safe haven of the monastery. Having left behind what belongs to the world (as I mistakenly thought at the time), I escaped naked from the shipwreck of this life.”

Servant of the Servants of God

Saint Gregory was acutely aware of his own fragility. Again, Saint Paul speaks to us today to reveal the soul of Gregory: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency may be of the power of God, and not of us” (2 Cor 4:7). Benedictine obedience, silence, and humility, together with the daily round of the Work of God, prepared Saint Gregory to become the Bishop of Rome, the Supreme Pontiff and, to use his own expression, the Servant of the Servants of God.

The Twenty-Second Sunday of the Year C

Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29
Psalm 67: 3-4ac, 5-6ab, 9-10
Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-24a
Luke 14:1, 7-14

The Sanctuary of Humility

Pope Benedict XVI in pilgrimage today to the Holy House of Loreto, called it “the sanctuary of humility: the humility of God who became flesh and of Mary who welcomed him to her womb.” “In following Christ,” he said, “and imitating Mary, we must have the courage of humility.”

Humility: Saint Benedict’s Twelve Steps

Humility. There is no getting around it. But what exactly is it? Saint Benedict never defines humility? The twelve steps in Chapter Seven of the Holy Rule are not definitions. The twelve steps are the traces of humility, clues allowing one to detect, and to collect, the evidence of humility. You know the twelve steps: (1) fear of God, (2) abnegation of self-will, (3) obedience, (4) patient endurance, (5) disclosure of the heart, (6) contentedness with what is, (7) lucid self-awareness, (8) submission to the common rule, (9) silence, (10) emotional sobriety, (11) restraint in speech and, (12) congruity between one’s inside and one’s outside.

Pride: Saint Bernard’s Twelve Steps

Pride. Saint Bernard, for his part, identifies the twelve steps of pride. If you would diagnose the deadly soul sickness of pride, look for the following twelve symptoms: (1) curiosity, (2) levity of mind, (3) giddiness, (4) boasting, (5) singularity, (6) self-conceit, (7) presumption, (8) self-justification, (9) hypocritical confession, (10) revolt, (11) freedom to sin and, (12) the habit of sinning.

The Dance of the Humble

Saint Benedict uses the image of the ladder. With a little imagination, the twelve steps might also be envisioned as a kind of monastic choreography, as the sacred discipline of the dance, the paschal dance from Cross to tomb, from tomb to glory, from the Amen to the Alleluia. While inflexibility is nearly always an attribute of the proud, the humble sister or brother is supple, flexible. The best dancers are supple, and so too, the best monk.

The Lowest Place

Benedictine humility has about it nothing self-conscious, nothing posed, because the sister or brother living it is too absorbed in dancing the dance to stop in front of mirrors, too caught up in the dynamic of the Crucified to pause for effect. Can one strive for humility? I don’t think so. If one is striving to be humble, one is striving to be something. If I am something, I am not nothing, and if I am not nothing, I have not yet found the way to the “lowest place” (Lk 14:10).

Can one consciously train oneself in humility? Again, I don’t think so, for then I am straining to grasp something, striving to win a coveted prize. Humility achieved is no humility at all; it is a kind of possession, a spiritual trophy that one has to keep polished. If I take the lowest place in order to be seen in the lowest place, I’m no better off than the sister or brother who has taken the first place. If I go to the lowest place, calculating that it will get me invited to the highest place, I’m not being humble, I’m being manipulative and shrewd.

Magnificat I

When you are invited to a wedding feast,
sit down in the lowest place,
that he who invited you may say to you:
“Friend, go up higher.”
Then shall you have glory in the presence of all who sit at table with you (Lk 14:10).

Benedictus

All who exalt themselves will be humbled,
and those who humble themselves will be exalted (Lk 14:11).

Magnificat II

When you give a banquet,
invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind;
and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you,
for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just (Lk 14: 13-14).

The Holy Father is on pilgrimage today to Loreto. My heart is on pilgrimage with him.

Twenty-First Saturday of the Year I
Matthew 25:14-30

The Mediation of Our Lady

On May 11, 2007, during a homily at the canonization of Father Antônio de Sant’Ana Galvão, O.F.M., in Brazil, Pope Benedict XVI gave one of the clearest statements ever made on the Blessed Virgin Mary as Mediatrix of All Graces, when he said: "There is no fruit of grace in the history of salvation that does not have as its necessary instrument the mediation of Our Lady." In saying this, the Holy Father put to rest, once and for all, the scruples and doubts of those who, misinformed of the teachings of the Church after the Second Vatican Council, or simply ignorant of them, somehow thought it inappropriate to call the Mother of Jesus and our Mother the Mediatrix of All Graces.

Grace for Grace

The Blessed Virgin Mary mediates all the graces given us in Christ in two ways. By carrying the Son of God in her virginal womb and by giving Him birth, Mary brought into the world the Source and Author of all graces. “And of His fullness we have all received,” says Saint John, “and grace for grace” (Jn 1:16). The Father, in giving us the Son has also “with Him, given us all things” (Rom 8:32). “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Eph 1:3). The Son, in whom “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:3) is given us through Mary. “And entering the house,” we read in Saint Matthew’s account of the Wise Men, “they found the Child with Mary His Mother” (Mt 2:11). Theologians refer to this as Our Lady’s remote mediation.

Behold Thy Mother

Our Lady’s role did not end with the birth of Jesus, nor did it end with his Ascension, with the Descent of the Holy Spirit, or with her own Assumption into heaven. The motherhood of the Virgin Mary was extended on Calvary to all the members of her Son’s Mystical Body, and this until the end of time. “When Jesus therefore had seen His mother and the disciple standing there whom He loved, He saith to His mother, 'Woman, behold thy son.’ After that He saith to the disciple, 'Behold thy mother.’ And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own” (Jn 19:27).

Munificent

The Blessed Virgin Mary’s universal mediation is an expression of her universal motherhood. By virtue of her peerless participation in the victimal priesthood of her Son, Our Lady received for distribution all the graces merited on Calvary by His immolation. She distributes these same graces to souls according to their need, according to their openness to receive them, and according to her own mercy and munificence.

The Unsearchable Riches of Christ

Mary is the new Eve, the Mother of all the living. Standing at the foot of the Cross and filled in that hour with the Spirit of her Son, she said “Yes” to the unique role in the work of redemption that, from the beginning, the Father had reserved for her. She continues to participate in that work by dispensing “the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph 3:8) to all of us, the old Eve's poor children exiled in this valley of tears.

Mary is a true mother and the best of mothers; she loves to give good things to her children. Hidden in the glory of her Assumption, she has entered in “even within the veil” (Heb 6:19) with Christ, our Eternal High Priest. What she obtains in heaven by her omnipotent supplication, she distributes on earth with an indescribable largesse. Theologians refer to this as Our Lady’s proximate or immediate mediation. Saint Bernard says it this way: “It is the will of God that we should have nothing which has not passed through the hands of Mary.”