April 2008 Archives

Thirty-six years ago, in the springtime of my monastic journey, an elder — he must have been all of 34 at the time — told me that of all the festivals of the Church Year none was more intrinsically contemplative than the Ascension of the Lord. He spoke to me of the virtue of hope, calling it the most monastic of virtues, and meditated with me on the Vespers hymn of the Ascension, the incomparable Fourth Mode, Jesu, Nostra Redemptio. The melody is perfectly suited to the text. It has been, in some way, the musical accompaniment to my monastic journey with its sorrows and joys, with its valleys of darkness and glimmers of light. It expresses better than any other hymn the prayer of yearning by which, already here and now, a monk can hope to be united to his love and his desire. I translated the metred Latin text into prose.

Jesu, nostra redemptio,
Amor et desiderium,
Deus Creator omnium,
Homo in fine temporum.

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

Quae te vicit clementia,
Ut ferres nostra crimina,
Crudelem mortem patiens,,
Ut nos a morte tolleres!

What tender love, what pity
compelled Thee to bear our crimes,
to suffer a cruel death
that we, from death, might be saved?

Inferni claustra penetrans,
Tuos captivos redimens,
Victor triumpho nobili
Ad dextram Patris residens:

Into death’s dark cloister didst Thou descend,
and from it captives free didst bring;
Thy triumph won, Thou didst take Thy place,
Thou, the Victor, at the Father’s right.

Ipse te cogat pietas,
Ut mala nostra superes,
Parcendo, et voti compotes
Nos tuo vultu saties.

'Twas a tender love, a costly compassion
that pressed Thee our sorrows to bear;
granting pardon, Thou didst raise us up
to fill us full with the splendour of Thy face.

Tu esto nostrum gaudium,
Qui es futurus praemium:
Sit nostra in te gloria
Per cuncta semper saecula.

Thou art already the joy of all our days,
Thou Who in eternity will be our prize;
let all our glory be in Thee,
forever, and always, and in the age to come.

Images

Today's feast of Saint Catherine brought to mind how she has moved about in my life at various times. Having grown up in a city graced with a magnificent Dominican church, I knew of Saint Catherine from having seen her in a stained glass window. As a little boy I was profoundly affected by pictures, especially "holy pictures." Images engraved themselves in my memory. I remember having seen Saint Catherine crowned with thorns, and clutching the cross. In my "Lives of the Saints for Children" there was a romantic picture of Christ the King of Glory appearing in the sky over a young Catherine's head. If I recall rightly, her little brother was with her.

The Fire of Love

I must have read about Saint Catherine in my Missal or in The Church's Year of Grace by Pius Parsch, one of my favourite books from about age ten on. Years passed. I entered the monastery. One day I began reading the autobiographical notes of Cardinal Charles Journet. He described his own encounter with Catherine. He related how she erupted into his life as a seminarian, irrigating the dessicated theology of the "manuals" then in use, with a river of fire and of blood. Seminarians at the time were not allowed to read the mystics. They were deemed distractions from "serious theology." The young Abbé Journet read Saint Catherine of Siena in secret. She saved him from the banalization of the Mystery and invited him to surrender not only his mind to the light of God, but also his heart to the Fire of Love.

In the Train to Lourdes

Several years later I was in a train going from Paris to Lourdes. Across from me in my compartment was an elderly Dominican Father engrossed in reading and in telling his beads. I had just finished saying part of the Office, when the Dominican smiled and offered me a "holy picture" from his own breviary. It depicted Saint Catherine of Siena reciting the breviary with Our Lord as they walked side by side. The elderly Dominican turned out to be Père Henri-Marie Manteau-Bonamy, the famous Mariologist.

Praying With Christ

There again, the image from Père Manteau-Bonamy's breviary affected me deeply. I don't know what has become of it. Someday perhaps I shall find it between the pages of a book. The truth it portrayed still challenges and comforts me. When I pray the Divine Office alone in my tiny domestic oratory, I softly sing my verse and then read the following one silently, allowing Our Lord to sing it. Thus do we form a single choir, a single body praising the Father together in the Holy Spirit. I never pray the Office alone. Christ is always present, singing His part, sustaining my weakness, and making my poor prayer all His. Had Père Manteau-Bonamy never given me that "holy picture" of Saint Catherine reciting the breviary with Our Lord, I would not, I think, be praying in quite the same way all these years later.

A Church Ever Youthful

Looking at Saint Catherine of Siena we see a woman fully alive, a woman who, in spite of intense and prolonged sufferings, prodded, poked, and prayed the world-weary, decadent clergy of her own day into the perennial youthfulness that ever manifests the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Catherine cried out the renewing power of the Blood of Christ with every fiber of her being. The vitality and energy of the Church, the Body of Christ, were for her, evidence of the Blood of Christ that circulates eucharistically in all her veins.

Her Sweet Christ on Earth

For Catherine, the Pope was “her sweet Christ on earth.” In The Dialogue, she hears the Eternal Father saying to her: “Consider the gentle Gregory, Sylvester, and the other successors of the chief pontiff Peter, to whom my Truth gave the keys of the heavenly kingdom when he said: ‘Peter, I am giving you the keys of the heavenly kingdom; whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.’”

The Mystic Wine Cellar

Catherine’s insight into the mystery of the teaching Church and her glad reception of that teaching led her to see the Successor of Peter as the “keeper of the keys to the Blood,” the Precious Blood of Christ. For Saint Catherine, the Church is a mystic wine-cellar to which the Pope holds the key. Those who follow Peter into the mystic wine-cellar, those who are eager for the Church’s teaching, those who drink deeply of the Blood of Christ, allowing its fire to enliven and rejuvenate them, are able to say with Saint Catherine: “He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love” (Ct 2:4).

Saint Catherine of Siena
Virgin and Doctor of the Church

The Precious Blood

The image — and the adorable mystery — of the Precious Blood has been with us since Ash Wednesday. On that first day of the Lenten fast, what did Pope Saint Clement I say to us in the second reading at Vigils? “Let us fix our thoughts on the Blood of Christ; and reflect how precious that Blood is in God’s eyes” (Letter to the Corinthians). We began the Paschal journey with our eyes fixed on the Blood of Christ, just as Joshua’s envoys in Jericho fixed their eyes on the scarlet cord suspended in the window of the harlot Rahab. The scarlet cord was the pledge of their salvation (cf. Jos 2:21).

The Spring of the Master's Side

On Good Friday what did Saint John Chrysostom ask us? “Do you wish to know the power of Christ’s Blood? See where it began to flow, from what spring it flowed down from the cross, from the Master’s side. . . . As a woman feeds her child with her own blood and milk, so too Christ continually feeds those whom he has begotten with his own Blood” (Catechesis 3:13–19). The Church responded with the very words of Saint John given us in today’s first reading: “The Blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, purifies us from all sin” (1 Jn 1:7).

Ad Coenam Agni

And what does the Church make us sing daily in the hymn at Vespers during Paschaltide?

Upon the Altar of the Cross
His Body hath redeemed our loss;
And tasting of his roseate Blood,
Our life is hid with him in God.

The Sober Drunkenness of the Saints

One must be very careful to respect the patterns and repetitions of the liturgy by which the Church teaches us. We are to honour and preserve what has been handed on, lest elements that are arbitrary and subjective come to dilute the strong wine of tradition and so deprive us of the sober drunkenness of the saints! If you were to underline in red all the references to the Blood of Christ in the liturgy of Lent and Paschaltide, you would be astonished. The Blood of Christ courses like a torrent through the liturgy of these days. It is “the river whose streams make glad the city of God” (Ps 45:4).

A Mystic of the Blood

It is evident, I think, that today’s feast of Saint Catherine of Siena is a further invitation, a pressing exhortation, to fix our gaze on the Blood of the Lamb, to adore that Precious Blood, to yield every impurity and sin of ours to the torrent that gushes from Christ’s pierced side, and to drink of the Chalice of Salvation. Saint Catherine is one of the great blazing mystics of the Blood. One could also speak of Julian of Norwich and, again, of Blessed Marie of the Incarnation. The Blood of Christ is sprinkled over every page of Catherine’s writings. The Blood of Christ opens and seals her correspondence. The Blood of Christ is on her lips and in her heart.

Sixth Sunday of Pascha, Year A

Acts 8: 5-8, 14-17
1 Peter 3: 15-18
John 14:15-21

At First Vespers

The Magnificat Antiphon at First Vespers of Sunday is our first contact with the Sunday Gospel, the first taste of the Gospel that we will proclaim and hear, and repeat in various ways, praying it, and holding it in our hearts. The Magnificat Antiphon at First Vespers is the key to our Sunday lectio divina. It is a threshold text and, as such, it opens onto the Mystery. It invites into “the banqueting house” (Ct 2:4) so as to be able to say, Sunday after Sunday, with the bride of the Canticle, “With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste” (Ct 2:3).

Another Paraclete

The Magnificat Antiphon is our introduction to Mass on Sunday. “I will pray my Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, alleluia” (Jn 14:16). Even more, the Magnificat Antiphon at First Vespers introduces us into these last two weeks of Paschaltide: days of joy brought to fulfillment, days marked by the glory of the ascending Christ, and by persevering prayer for the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Magnificat Antiphon gives us the mystical core of the Sunday Gospel: Christ’s prayer to the Father and the promise of the Consoler, the Defender sent to our side to “help us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought” (Rom 8:26). The text of the antiphon encloses and reveals the adorable mystery of the Trinity: the Son in prayer to the Father, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

O King of Glory

As this week progresses through the Ascension of the Lord toward Pentecost, yearning for the promise of the Holy Spirit will become all-pervasive in the liturgy. We will intensify our prayer for “the Counselor” (Jn 14:16), “the Spirit of Truth” (Jn 14:17 and dispose ourselves to receive his seven gifts. Already, we are growing into the great cry that will well up from the heart of the Church on the evening of the Ascension: “O King of glory, leave us not orphans; but send upon us the promise of the Father, the Spirit of Truth, alleluia” (Magnificat Antiphon, Second Vespers of the Ascension).

The Simplicity of His One Prayer

The gift of God is proportioned to our desire. Desire grows with prayer, and prayer with desire. I speak not of our desire and prayer but of Christ’s desire and prayer in us. This is what the liturgy communicates to us: the one desire of the Heart of Christ and the one prayer of His Heart to the Father. Growth in holiness has to do with yielding the multiplicity of our desires to His one desire, and the abandonment of the complexity of our prayers to the simplicity of His one prayer. “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (Jn 14:20).

On This Saturday of Our Lady

Today is the liturgical memorial of Our Mother of Good Counsel. I will be celebrating the Mass of Our Lady of Good Counsel in the Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For the history of the miraculous image at Genazzano, read what Terry wrote at Abbey–Roads2.

Old and New

Although I will use the Mass given in the Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary with its beautiful Preface, I find much solace in the texts of the Mass given in the supplement to the 1962 Roman Missal among the Masses By Special Grant In Certain Places.

Never Depart From Her Counsels

The petition of the Collect is especially beautiful. We beseech God to grant that we may never depart from the counsels of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and by this means order our lives after His own Heart:

O God, who hast given the Mother of Thy Beloved Son
to be likewise unto us a mother,
and hast made famous this her beauteous image,
by causing it miraculously to appear in our midst:
grant unto us, we beseech Thee, never to depart from her counsels and,
by this means ordering our lives after Thine own Heart,
one day happily to reach our heavenly fatherland.

Our Hope

One who seeks counsel of the Mother of God is never disappointed and never without hope. She is the most compassionate and effective of all counselors. The liturgy takes a wonderful promise from the book of Proverbs, and places it in Our Lady's mouth: "He that shall find me shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord" (Prov 8:35).

Discernment of Spirits

The verse that follows is also significant: "But he that shall sin against me, shall hurt his own soul. All that hate me love death" (Prov 8:36). One who sins against Mary, hurts his own soul. One who hates Mary loves death. The place given — or not given — to the Virgin Mother of God is a fundamental criterion in the discernment of spirits. The love of Mary is a wellspring of healing and of life. Love Mary, then, and all the rest will be given you besides.

On April 5, 2008 the Holy Father addressed the Pontifical Council of the Family on "Grandparents: Their Witness and Presence in the Family." I was blessed to know all four of my grandparents, the Irish set and the Italian set, as well as my maternal great-grandparents from Italy. My own experience taught me that grandparents have an integral role in family life. Many of the things I cherish most in life were transmitted to me by my grandparents.

The photo is of my Mom and Dad, loving grandparents of eleven grandchildren.

Grandparents in the Life of the Family

In the past, grandparents had an important role in the life and growth of the family. Even with their advancing age they continued to be present with their children, their grandchildren and even their great-grandchildren, giving a living witness of caring, sacrifice and a daily gift of themselves without reserve. They were witnesses of a personal and community history that continued to live on in their memories and in their wisdom. Today, the economic and social evolution has brought profound transformations to the life of families. The elderly, including many grandparents, find themselves in a sort of "parking area": some realize they are a burden to their family and prefer to live alone or in retirement homes with all the consequences that such decisions entail.

Reverence for Old Age

Unfortunately, it seems that the "culture of death" is advancing on many fronts and is also threatening the season of old-age. With growing insistence, people are even proposing euthanasia as a solution for resolving certain difficult situations. Old age, with its problems that are also linked to the new family and social contexts because of modern development, should be evaluated carefully and always in the light of the truth about man, the family and the community. It is always necessary to react strongly to what dehumanizes society. Parish and diocesan communities are forcefully challenged by these problems and are seeking today to meet the needs of the elderly. Ecclesial movements and associations exist which have embraced this important and urgent cause. It is necessary to join forces to defeat together all forms of marginalization, for it is not only they - grandfathers, grandmothers, senior citizens - who are being injured by the individualistic mindset, but everyone. If grandparents, as is said often and on many sides, are a precious resource, it is necessary to put into practice coherent choices that allow them to be better valued.

Spiritual and Moral Reference Points

May grandparents return to being a living presence in the family, in the Church and in society. With regard to the family, may grandparents continue to be witnesses of unity, of values founded on fidelity and of a unique love that gives rise to faith and the joy of living. The so-called new models of the family and a spreading relativism have weakened these fundamental values of the family nucleus. The evils of our society - as you justly observed during your work - are in need of urgent remedies. In the face of the crisis of the family, might it not be possible to set out anew precisely from the presence and witness of these people - grandparents - whose values and projects are more resilient? Indeed, it is impossible to plan the future without referring to a past full of significant experiences and spiritual and moral reference points. Thinking of grandparents, of their testimony of love and fidelity to life, reminds us of the Biblical figures of Abraham and Sarah, of Elizabeth and Zechariah, of Joachim and Anne, as well as of the elderly Simeon and Anna and even Nicodemus: they all remind us that at every age the Lord asks each one for the contribution of his or her own talents.

Today, April 25th, is my nameday. How many readers besides Terry N. remember that great little book by Helen McLoughlin, "My Nameday — Come for Dessert"? Liturgical Press 1962! It was great fun.

Saint Mark's Gospel has been described as a "hastening to the Cross." It is Saint Mark who gives us the confession of faith of the centurion Saint Longinus, while Saint John tells us that the same centurion opened the side of Jesus with a lance. A link with the mystery of the Pierced Heart! And this year my nameday falls on a Friday.

Saint Mark, Evangelist

1 Peter 5: 5b-14
Psalm 88: 2-3, 6-7, 16-17
Mark 16: 15-20

Mark and Peter

Tradition calls Saint Mark the interpreter of Saint Peter; clearly the relationship between Peter and Mark was both strong and tender. In today’s first reading, Saint Peter calls Mark “his son” (1 P 5:13), suggesting the gift and mystery of the Fisherman’s spiritual fatherhood in Christ. Mark was a son to Peter. Personally, I find in this a compelling reason to look confidently to Peter and his successors, and to remain attached to Peter and to his successor, today Pope Benedict XVI, as a son to his spiritual father. Mark laboured at Peter’s side, preaching the Gospel in Rome before carrying it to Venice and then to Alexandria where he gave his life for Christ. To this day the Churches of Rome, Venice, and Alexandria rejoice in the protection of Saint Mark and seek his intercession.

Be Not in Doubt for I am with Thee

Some of you may remember the coat of arms of Blessed John XXIII as Patriarch of Venice. It bore the inscription: Pax tibi, Marce, evangelista meus, “Peace to you, Mark, my evangelist!” I have always taken comfort in these words. They are personal, a kind of message to the heart. My great-great-grandmother was Venetian and would have known this motto well; to this day it is displayed with Saint Mark’s lion on the coat of arms and flag of Venice, La Serenissima. The text is not found in Sacred Scripture; it comes rather from the ancient “passion” of Saint Mark, the account of his martyrdom. The story goes that on the day of Pascha, after singing Mass, Saint Mark was seized, a rope was attached to his neck, and he was dragged through the city of Alexandria until his blood ran upon the stones. After this, he was imprisoned. An angel came to comfort him, and after the angel, the Lord Jesus himself came to visit and comfort Mark, saying, “Peace be to thee, Mark, my evangelist! Be not in doubt for I am with thee and shall deliver thee.” The following day Mark was put to death, thanking God, and repeating the words of the Crucified: “Into thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit” (cf. Lk 23:46).

Saint Mark the Preacher

The word “preaching” occurs in each of the three Proper prayers, the Collect, the Prayer Over the Offerings, and the Postcommunion. Mark was an Evangelist, not only as a writer of the second Gospel, but also as a preacher, spending himself, pouring himself out for Christ. In the Collect we beg for the grace to “deepen his teaching.” The Latin text says proficere which means to gain ground or to advance. This is what lectio divina is all about: gaining ground in the Gospel, penetrating ever more deeply the inexhaustible riches of the Word.

Perseverance

In the Prayer Over the Gifts we ask that the Church may “ever persevere in preaching the Gospel.” The Church, like Saint Mark in his passion, needs the comforting presence of Christ who says, “Be not in doubt for I am with thee,” and she has that comforting presence always in the mystery of the Eucharist. The words of Christ to Saint Mark echo those given us in today’s Communion Antiphon: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20).

The Eucharist: Christ in Us

In the Postcommunion, we ask that what we have received from the altar may “sanctify us, and make us strong in the faith of the Gospel preached by Saint Mark.” This prayer instructs us on the dynamic relationship between the altar and the ambo or, if you will, between the Eucharist and the Gospel. We ordinarily think of the preaching of the Gospel as sending us to the altar, and preparing our hearts for the Holy Sacrifice, and rightly so. But today’s Postcommunion suggests something else as well. The Eucharist fulfills what the Gospel announces: the mystery of holiness, that is, “Christ in us, the hope of glory (Col 1:27).

The Eucharist makes us strong in the faith of the Gospel; it is our viaticum, food for the journey of faith, a remedy for every infirmity. The seed sown by holy preaching is made fruitful by the mysteries of Christ’s Body and Blood. Take away the altar, and the ambo stands in a void. The altar is the guarantee of that abiding presence of the comforting Christ who says to each of us today, as to Saint Mark, “Peace be to thee. . . . Be not in doubt, for I am with thee and shall deliver thee.”

I am overwhelmed by this letter from the Congregation for the Clergy. It expresses all that I have tried to say on Vultus Christi and elsewhere. The subtitles in boldprint are my own. I will be returning to the text of the letter in order to meditate its content. I took the photo of the Altar of the Holy Face in Saint Patrick's Cathedral, New York City.

Vatican City, April 22, 2008
Here is the message published by the Congregation for Clergy for the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests. The day will be celebrated May 30, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Reverend and dear Brothers in the Priesthood,

Focusing On That Face

On the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus let us fix the eyes of our minds and hearts with a constant loving gaze on Christ, the one Savior of our lives and of the world. Focusing on Christ means focusing on that Face which every human being, consciously or not, seeks as a satisfying response to his own insuppressible thirst for happiness.

Hearts Wounded By His Love

We have encountered this Face and on that day, at that moment, his Love so deeply wounded our hearts that we could no longer refrain from asking ceaselessly to be in his Presence. "In the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch" (Psalm 5).

Healed By His Flesh

The Sacred Liturgy leads us once again to contemplate the Mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, the origin and intimate reality of this company which is the Church: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob revealed himself in Jesus Christ. "No one could see his Glory unless first healed by the humility of his flesh.... By dust you were blinded, and by dust you are healed: flesh, then, had wounded you, flesh heals you" (St. Augustine, Commentary on the Gospel according to John, Homily, 2, 16).

Mercy That Embraces Our Limitations

Only by looking again at the perfect and fascinating humanity of Jesus Christ -- alive and active now -- who revealed himself to us and still today bends down to each one of us with his special love of total predilection, can we can let him illumine and fill the abyss of need which is our humanity, certain of Hope encountered and sure of Mercy that embraces our limitations and teaches us to forgive what we ourselves do not even manage to discern. "Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts" (Psalm 42[41]).

Venerated in East and West

April 23rd is the feast of Saint George the Martyr. In the reformed Roman Missal he is honoured with an optional memorial. (It's a pity, but true, that as soon as anything is made optional in the liturgy it tends to disappear altogether. What is made optional is, in the end, suppressed. I loathe options in the liturgy. They do not "foster a greater pastoral sensitivity to the spiritual needs of local communities" — what a lot of balderdash! — they foment chaos and liturgical minimalism! But I digress.) Saint George is venerated with a special cultus in Belgium, Bulgaria, Brazil, England, Georgia, Greece, India, Italy, Lebanon, and Russia.

The Dragon

Among the Proper Offices for Matins of the feast of Saint George the Martyr one finds several "dragon" responsories drawn from the Apocalypse of Saint John. Think what you will of Saint George and the dragon, I find it salutary to recall the old legend. We are all, in one way or another, locked in spiritual combat with the ancient dragon, our hateful foe.

The Weapons of Humility and Prayer

The iconography of Saint George is fabulously rich. I chose two images. In the first, a Byzantine icon, we do not see the dragon. Though real, the ancient dragon is invisible. Saint George is defeating the dragon through prayer alone. His hands are raised in supplication, his head is bowed in humility, and he carries no earthly weapon.

Spiritual Warriors

In the second image, the work of Pisannello (1445) Saint George is shown in the company of another spiritual warrior, Saint Anthony of the Desert. The dragon slithers defeated at Saint George's feet. Saint George is decked out in a gorgeous suit of armour with a plumed chapeau. Saint Anthony wears another kind of armour: the monastic habit. Both spiritual warriors stand under the protection of the Woman clothed with the sun, the Immaculate Virgin Mary. Victory over the ancient dragon comes to those who trust in the all-powerful supplication of the Queen of Heaven and in her Divine Son.

Liturgical Texts

R. Out of the bottomless pit cometh forth the beast, * Against them that do bear their testimony, alleluia. V. The same maketh war against them to overcome them and kill them. Against them that do bear their testimony, alleluia.

R. There is a wonder in heaven, a Woman who is clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars, * For the dragon is wroth with the Woman, and persecuteth the remnant of her seed upon earth, alleluia. V. And he maketh war with those who keep the commandments of God, and hold the testimony of Jesus Christ. For the dragon is wroth with the Woman, and persecuteth the remnant of her seed upon earth, alleluia.

R. And man may overcome the dragon * By the blood of the Lamb and the word of testimony, alleluia. V. Blessed George, defend us in the hour of battle, and help us to gain the victory over our hateful foe. By the blood of the Lamb and the word of testimony, alleluia.

A Little Soul

Readers of Vultus Christi, who missed what I posted last year for the feast of Blessed Maria Gabriella, may want to know a little more about her. She was "a little soul." She has affinities with Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, Blessed Charles de Jésus, Saint Thérèse Couderc, and the young Trappist priest, Blessed Marie–Joseph Cassant.

Grateful Confidence
and Surrender to the Will of God

Maria Gabriella's life was marked by two characteristics:

1) Gratefulness to the Mercy of God. She compared herself to the prodigal son of Saint Luke's Gospel. She was full of thanksgiving for her monastic vocation, for her community, and, above all, for the Mercy of God which called her, set her apart, and sustained her. Even in her final agony, Maria Gabriella was full of gratefulness.

2). The desire to respond to the Grace of God with all her strength, offering herself to the perfect fulfillment of His Will in her.

In her grateful confidence in the Mercy of God and surrender to His Will, Blessed Maria Gabriella's holiness participates in and reflects that of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Although she lived first in a remote village of Sardinia, then in a Cistercian cloister, and finally in a hospital room, Maria Gabriella's holiness is universal, because it shines with the light of the Beatitudes and of the Gospel of Saint John.

Blessed Maria Gabriella's body, found intact in 1957, reposes in a chapel at the Trappist Cistercian Abbey of Vitorchiano. Since her beatification the abbey has been blessed with numerous vocations and has founded new monasteries in Italy, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Her Own Words

"In simplicity of heart I gladly offer everything, O Lord."

"The Lord put me on this path, he will remember to sustain me in battle."

"To His mercy I entrust my frailty."

"I saw in front of me a big cross..., I thought that my sacrifice was nothing in comparison to His."

"I offered myself entirely and I do not withdraw the given word."

"God's will whatever it may be, this is my joy, my happiness, my peace."

"I will never be able to thank enough."

"I cannot say but these words: 'My God, your Glory.'"

Last Thursday, 18 April 2008, Pope Benedict XVI spoke at the Ecumenical Prayer Service held in Saint Joseph’s Church in New York City. Tomorrow the monastic calendar will commemorate a woman whose life illustrates much of what the Holy Father said. Celebrating the saints is integral to what Pope Benedict XVI calls “diachronic koinonia — communion with the Church in every age” that saves us from the narrow uncatholic perspective of the immediate here and now of a given local community.

An Offering to the Father

Blessed Maria Gabriella Sagghedu, a Cistercian nun of Grottaferrata in Italy, died on April 23rd in 1939. Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1983. In his encyclical on Christian Unity, Ut Unum Sint, he presented her again to the whole Church as a model of “the total and unconditional offering of one’s life to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit."

Pope Benedict XVI said last Thursday that, “we must first recall that the unity of the Church flows from the perfect oneness of the triune God. In John’s Gospel, we are told that Jesus prayed to his Father that his disciples might be one, “just as you are in me and I am in you” (Jn 17:21). This passage reflects the unwavering conviction of the early Christian community that its unity was both caused by, and is reflective of, the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Blessed Maria Gabriella offered her life that the unity of the Three Divine Persons might one day be manifested perfectly in the community of believers that is the Church.

Silence Turned to Praise

Blessed Maria Gabriella is one of those who, like the Blessed Virgin Mary, having heard the Word, held it in silence: in the silence of awe; in the silence that confesses God present; in the silence that allows the Word to sink into the deep and secret places of the heart. For Maria-Gabriella, this silence turned to praise: a praise that she found expressed in the priestly prayer of Christ given in the seventeenth chapter of Saint John’s Gospel. At the end of her life she murmured: “I cannot say but these words, ‘My God, your Glory.’”

A Discerning Abbess

The Trappist Cistercian monastery of Grottaferrata (moved to Vitorchiano in 1957) was governed by Mother Maria Pia Gulini (1892–1959), an intelligent and discerning abbess with a broad vision of all things Catholic. She corresponded with the Abbé Paul Couturier (1881–1953), the Apostle of Christian Unity. The Italian abbess nurtured a passion for Christian Unity and communicated that passion to her community. Maria Gabriella was receptive to Mother Gulini's spiritual teaching. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, she asked permission of her abbess to offer her life for the Unity of Christians. The Father accepted her offering, drawing her into the prayer of Christ and into His sacrifice.

The Priestly Prayer of Christ

Blessed Maria Gabriella’s monastic life was brief; she entered the abbey of Grottaferrata in 1935 and died in 1939. She suffered from tuberculosis for fifteen months. The Bridegroom Christ came for her at the hour of the evening sacrifice on Good Shepherd Sunday. The Gospel of Mass that day had been from Saint John: “There will be one fold, and one shepherd” (Jn 10:16). After her death, her little New Testament, worn from use, opened by itself to the seventeenth chapter of Saint John’s Gospel. The pages of Jesus’ priestly prayer, so often touched by Madre Maria Gabriella’s feverish hands, had become almost transparent.

With my morning coffee: reflections on the homily given by the Holy Father yesterday in Yankee Stadium. The subtitles and comments in italics are my own.

A Spiritual Resurrection of the Church in America

And this, dear friends, is the particular challenge which the Successor of Saint Peter sets before you today. As “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation”, follow faithfully in the footsteps of those who have gone before you! Hasten the coming of God’s Kingdom in this land! Past generations have left you an impressive legacy. In our day too, the Catholic community in this nation has been outstanding in its prophetic witness in the defense of life, in the education of the young, in care for the poor, the sick and the stranger in your midst. On these solid foundations, the future of the Church in America must even now begin to rise!

In pondering these words of the Holy Father, I am reminded of Ezekiel's prophecy to the dry bones. "I mean to send my spirit into you, and restore you to life. . . . I will give you breath to bring you to life again; will you doubt, then, the Lord's power?" (Ez 37:5-6). The Holy Father calls for a spiritual resurrection of the Church in America.

The Church's Future

Yesterday, not far from here, I was moved by the joy, the hope and the generous love of Christ which I saw on the faces of the many young people assembled in Dunwoodie. They are the Church’s future, and they deserve all the prayer and support that you can give them. And so I wish to close by adding a special word of encouragement to them. My dear young friends, like the seven men, “filled with the Spirit and wisdom” whom the Apostles charged with care for the young Church, may you step forward and take up the responsibility which your faith in Christ sets before you! May you find the courage to proclaim Christ, “the same, yesterday, and today and for ever” and the unchanging truths which have their foundation in him (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 10; Heb 13:8).

Christ is unchanging, even as the Church moves forward in history. The truths of the faith are unchanging, even as each generation is called to proclaim them anew. "I, too, shall live on in his presence, and beget children to serve him; these to a later age shall speak of the Lord's name; these to a race that must yet be born shall tell the story of his faithfulness, Hear what the Lord did" (Ps 21:31-32).

Open Your Hearts to the Lord's Call

These are the truths that set us free! They are the truths which alone can guarantee respect for the inalienable dignity and rights of each man, woman and child in our world – including the most defenseless of all human beings, the unborn child in the mother’s womb. In a world where, as Pope John Paul II, speaking in this very place, reminded us, Lazarus continues to stand at our door (Homily at Yankee Stadium, October 2, 1979, No. 7), let your faith and love bear rich fruit in outreach to the poor, the needy and those without a voice. Young men and women of America, I urge you: open your hearts to the Lord’s call to follow him in the priesthood and the religious life. Can there be any greater mark of love than this: to follow in the footsteps of Christ, who was willing to lay down his life for his friends (cf. Jn 15:13)?

The Holy Father's appeal for openness to the call of the Lord is, I think, the pledge of a spiritual springtime for the Church in America. "Would you but listen to his voice today! Do not harden your hearts" (Ps 94:8). Fidelity to the unchanging truths of the faith guarantees the future of the Church and will characterize the priestly and religious vocations of rising generations.

Sure Hope

In today’s Gospel, the Lord promises his disciples that they will perform works even greater than his (cf. Jn 14:12). Dear friends, only God in his providence knows what works his grace has yet to bring forth in your lives and in the life of the Church in the United States. Yet Christ’s promise fills us with sure hope. Let us now join our prayers to his, as living stones in that spiritual temple which is his one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. Let us lift our eyes to him, for even now he is preparing for us a place in his Father’s house. And empowered by his Holy Spirit, let us work with renewed zeal for the spread of his Kingdom.

With admirable clarity, the Holy Father teaches that our works are the fruit of divine grace. How do we open ourselves to that grace? By lifting our eyes to Christ who, even now, is preparing a place for us in his Father's house. This "lifting our eyes to Christ" defines contemplation. Contemplata aliis tradere. We will spread the Kingdom only by passing on what we will have discovered in contemplating the Face of Christ.

Turn to Jesus

“Happy are you who believe!” (cf. 1 Pet 2:7). Let us turn to Jesus! He alone is the way that leads to eternal happiness, the truth who satisfies the deepest longings of every heart, and the life who brings ever new joy and hope, to us and to our world. Amen.

Turn to Jesus. This is the essence of conversion, of penitence. This is the first step of spiritual resurrection. "Ever look to him," says the psalmist, "and in him find happiness; here is no room for downcast looks" (Ps 33:6).

What an extraordinary discourse this is! After sharing his the experience of his own youth marked by conflict and suffering, the Holy Father presented the example of the saints under four headings:

The Example of the Saints

Dear friends, the example of the saints invites us, then, to consider four essential aspects of the treasure of our faith:
1) personal prayer and silence,
2) liturgical prayer,
3) charity in action,
4) and vocations.

Prayer

What matters most is that you develop your personal relationship with God. That relationship is expressed in prayer. God by his very nature speaks, hears, and replies. Indeed, Saint Paul reminds us: we can and should “pray constantly” (1 Thess 5:17). Far from turning in on ourselves or withdrawing from the ups and downs of life, by praying we turn towards God and through him to each other, including the marginalized and those following ways other than God’s path (cf. Spe Salvi, 33). As the saints teach us so vividly, prayer becomes hope in action. Christ was their constant companion, with whom they conversed at every step of their journey for others.

Silent Contemplation

There is another aspect of prayer which we need to remember: silent contemplation. Saint John, for example, tells us that to embrace God’s revelation we must first listen, then respond by proclaiming what we have heard and seen (cf. 1 Jn 1:2-3; Dei Verbum, 1). Have we perhaps lost something of the art of listening? Do you leave space to hear God’s whisper, calling you forth into goodness? Friends, do not be afraid of silence or stillness, listen to God, adore him in the Eucharist. Let his word shape your journey as an unfolding of holiness.

The Liturgy

In the liturgy we find the whole Church at prayer. The word liturgy means the participation of God’s people in “the work of Christ the Priest and of His Body which is the Church” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 7). What is that work? First of all it refers to Christ’s Passion, his Death and Resurrection, and his Ascension – what we call the Paschal Mystery. It also refers to the celebration of the liturgy itself. The two meanings are in fact inseparably linked because this “work of Jesus” is the real content of the liturgy.

Through the liturgy, the “work of Jesus” is continually brought into contact with history; with our lives in order to shape them. Here we catch another glimpse of the grandeur of our Christian faith. Whenever you gather for Mass, when you go to Confession, whenever you celebrate any of the sacraments, Jesus is at work. Through the Holy Spirit, he draws you to himself, into his sacrificial love of the Father which becomes love for all. We see then that the Church’s liturgy is a ministry of hope for humanity. Your faithful participation, is an active hope which helps to keep the world – saints and sinners alike – open to God; this is the truly human hope we offer everyone (cf. Spe Salvi, 34).

The Holy Father's celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in Saint Patrick's Cathedral this morning was, in every way, a moment of grace for the Church in the United States. The Holy Father's homily, a true meditatio, deserves to be prolonged in oratio, and in contemplatio. The music of the Mass was worthy of the Holy Mysteries, a sacrifice of praise, and a magnificent demonstration that the Church is, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, "a place where beauty is at home."

Homily of His Holiness
Pope Benedict XVI

Saint Patrick's Cathedral, New York
Saturday, 19 April 2008

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

The Pursuit of Holiness

With great affection in the Lord, I greet all of you, who represent the Bishops, priests and deacons, the men and women in consecrated life, and the seminarians of the United States. I thank Cardinal Egan for his warm welcome and the good wishes which he has expressed in your name as I begin the fourth year of my papal ministry. I am happy to celebrate this Mass with you, who have been chosen by the Lord, who have answered his call, and who devote your lives to the pursuit of holiness, the spread of the Gospel and the building up of the Church in faith, hope and love.

The Grace of a New Pentecost

Gathered as we are in this historic cathedral, how can we not think of the countless men and women who have gone before us, who labored for the growth of the Church in the United States, and left us a lasting legacy of faith and good works? In today’s first reading we saw how, in the power of the Holy Spirit, the Apostles went forth from the Upper Room to proclaim God’s mighty works to people of every nation and tongue. In this country, the Church’s mission has always involved drawing people “from every nation under heaven” (cf. Acts 2:5) into spiritual unity, and enriching the Body of Christ by the variety of their gifts. As we give thanks for these precious past blessings, and look to the challenges of the future, let us implore from God the grace of a new Pentecost for the Church in America. May tongues of fire, combining burning love of God and neighbor with zeal for the spread of Christ’s Kingdom, descend on all present!

The Heart of the New Evangelization

In this morning’s second reading, Saint Paul reminds us that spiritual unity – the unity which reconciles and enriches diversity – has its origin and supreme model in the life of the triune God. As a communion of pure love and infinite freedom, the Blessed Trinity constantly brings forth new life in the work of creation and redemption. The Church, as “a people made one by the unity of the Father, the Son and the Spirit” (cf. Lumen Gentium, 4), is called to proclaim the gift of life, to serve life, and to promote a culture of life. Here in this cathedral, our thoughts turn naturally to the heroic witness to the Gospel of life borne by the late Cardinals Cooke and O’Connor. The proclamation of life, life in abundance, must be the heart of the new evangelization. For true life – our salvation – can only be found in the reconciliation, freedom and love which are God’s gracious gift.

The Joy Born of Faith and the Experience of God's Love

This is the message of hope we are called to proclaim and embody in a world where self-centeredness, greed, violence, and cynicism so often seem to choke the fragile growth of grace in people’s hearts. Saint Irenaeus, with great insight, understood that the command which Moses enjoined upon the people of Israel: “Choose life!” (Dt 30:19) was the ultimate reason for our obedience to all God’s commandments (cf. Adv. Haer. IV, 16, 2-5). Perhaps we have lost sight of this: in a society where the Church seems legalistic and “institutional” to many people, our most urgent challenge is to communicate the joy born of faith and the experience of God’s love.

What is Useless

"A Church which only makes use of 'utility music' has fallen for what is, in fact, useless. She too becomes ineffectual. For her mission is a far higher one. As the Old Testament speaks of the Temple, the Church is to be the place of 'glory', and as such, too, the place where mankind's cry of distress is brought to the ear of God.

The Church must not settle down with what is merely comfortable and serviceable at the parish level; she must arouse the voice of the cosmos and, by glorifying the Creator, elicit the glory of the cosmos itself, making it also glorious, beautiful, habitable, and beloved.

To Turn One's Back on Beauty

Next to the saints, the art which the Church has produced is the only real 'apologia' for her history. It is this glory which witness to the Lord, not theology's clever explanations for all the terrible things which, lamentably, fill the pages of her history. The Church is to transform, improve, 'humanize' the world — but how can she do that if at the same time she turns her back on beauty, which is so closely allied to love? For together, beauty and love form the true consolation in this world, bringing it as near as possible to the world of the resurrection.

High Standards

The Church must maintain high standards; she must be a place where beauty can be at home; she must lead the struggle for that 'spiritualization' without which the world becomes 'the first circle of hell'. Thus to ask what is 'suitable' must always be the same as asking what is 'worthy': it must constantly challenge us to seek what is worthy of the Church's worship."

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
On the Theological Basis of Music
The Feast of Faith

A recurring motif in the Holy Father's words to us is the call to repentance. Hope without repentance is a false hope. Repentance is the beginning of growth in holiness. Here is an excerpt from the Holy Father's homily at yesterday's Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit in Washington, D.C.

Growth in Holiness

Today I encourage each of you to do what you can to foster healing and reconciliation, and to assist those who have been hurt. Also, I ask you to love your priests, and to affirm them in the excellent work that they do. And above all, pray that the Holy Spirit will pour out his gifts upon the Church, the gifts that lead to conversion, forgiveness and growth in holiness.

Prayer From the Depths of the Heart

Saint Paul speaks, as we heard in the second reading, of a kind of prayer which arises from the depths of our hearts in sighs too deep for words, in "groanings" (Rom 8:26) inspired by the Spirit. This is a prayer which yearns, in the midst of chastisement, for the fulfillment of God’s promises. It is a prayer of unfailing hope, but also one of patient endurance and, often, accompanied by suffering for the truth. Through this prayer, we share in the mystery of Christ’s own weakness and suffering, while trusting firmly in the victory of his Cross. With this prayer, may the Church in America embrace ever more fully the way of conversion and fidelity to the demands of the Gospel. And may all Catholics experience the consolation of hope, and the Spirit’s gifts of joy and strength.

The Sacrament of Penance

In today’s Gospel, the risen Lord bestows the gift of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and grants them the authority to forgive sins. Through the surpassing power of Christ’s grace, entrusted to frail human ministers, the Church is constantly reborn and each of us is given the hope of a new beginning. Let us trust in the Spirit’s power to inspire conversion, to heal every wound, to overcome every division, and to inspire new life and freedom. How much we need these gifts! And how close at hand they are, particularly in the sacrament of Penance! The liberating power of this sacrament, in which our honest confession of sin is met by God’s merciful word of pardon and peace, needs to be rediscovered and reappropriated by every Catholic. To a great extent, the renewal of the Church in America depends on the renewal of the practice of Penance and the growth in holiness which that sacrament both inspires and accomplishes.

Last evening, in speaking to the bishops of the Church in the United States, the Holy Father called "the imitation of Christ in holiness of life" exactly what is needed in order for us to move forward. Concretely, what does this mean? "Cultivating the virtues," responds the Holy Father, "and immersing ourselves in prayer. Here are his words:

Holiness of Life

Indeed a clearer focus upon the imitation of Christ in holiness of life is exactly what is needed in order for us to move forward. We need to rediscover the joy of living a Christ-centred life, cultivating the virtues, and immersing ourselves in prayer. When the faithful know that their pastor is a man who prays and who dedicates his life to serving them, they respond with warmth and affection which nourishes and sustains the life of the whole community.

Eucharistic Adoration

Time spent in prayer is never wasted, however urgent the duties that press upon us from every side. Adoration of Christ our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament prolongs and intensifies the union with him that is established through the Eucharistic celebration (cf. Sacramentum Caritatis, 66).

Rosary and Liturgy of the Hours

Contemplation of the mysteries of the Rosary releases all their saving power and it conforms, unites and consecrates us to Jesus Christ (cf. Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 11, 15). Fidelity to the Liturgy of the Hours ensures that the whole of our day is sanctified and it continually reminds us of the need to remain focused on doing God's work, however many pressures and distractions may arise from the task at hand.

The Gifts We Need

Thus our devotion helps us to speak and act in persona Christi, to teach, govern and sanctify the faithful in the name of Jesus, to bring his reconciliation, his healing and his love to all his beloved brothers and sisters. This radical configuration to Christ, the Good Shepherd, lies at the heart of our pastoral ministry, and if we open ourselves through prayer to the power of the Spirit, he will give us the gifts we need to carry out our daunting task, so that we need never "be anxious how to speak or what to say" (Mt 10:19).

"Did it never occur to you that we call the Pope Holy Father because we think of him as our father? That the unity of the Church is not the unity of a machine but the unity of a great family? That our obedience to the Holy Father in that very limited range of affairs in which he demands our obedience is not that of a workman towards the foreman who will sack him if he doesn't work, but is that of children towards their father — each eager to outdo the others in showing affection; each eager to outstrip the others in anticipating hs slightest wish? That we obey him in effect not because we fear him as the doorkeeper of heaven, but because we love him as the shepherd of Christians, of Christ's flock?"

Monsignor Ronald Knox
University Sermons, 379

Solemnity of the Sacred Heart

Friday, May 30, 2008, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, will be the Seventh Annual World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests. Pope John Paul II established the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests in 2002 and decreed that it should be observed every year on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart.

Prayer Over Action

According to the Zenit news services, the April 12, 2008 Italian edition of L'Osservatore Romano contained a message to the priests of the world signed by Cardinal Claudio Hummes and Archbishop Mauro Piacenza of the Congregation for the Clergy. The message invites priests to give priority to "prayer over action." It calls daily celebration of Holy Mass and Eucharistic adoration the very breath and light of priestly life.

Your Response

How will your diocese, your parish, or your community observe the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests? What are you going to do? I invite the readers of Vultus Christi to leave comments sharing their initiatives and plans.

The Benedictine abbot in the photo, an Irishman, is Blessed Columba Marmion (1858-1923). Upon the recommendation of a Trappist Father, I started reading Abbot Marmion when I was fifteen years old. Pope John Paul II beatified Dom Marmion on September 3, 2000.

Monday of the Fourth Week of Paschaltide

Acts 11:1-18
John 10:11-18

Life-Giving Repentance

Today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles recounts Saint Peter’s illumination concerning the integration of Gentiles into the Christian community. It takes place in the city of Joppa while Peter is at his noonday prayers on the roof of the house where he was lodging. This is one of the events commemorated each day at the Hour of Sext, the Church’s Sixth Hour Prayer, corresponding to midday. The point of the reading is, I think, in the last sentence: “It seems God has granted life-giving repentance of heart to the Gentiles too” (Ac 11:18).

Penitence Unto Life

Life-giving repentance — what the Latin text beautifully calls paenitentiam ad vitam, penitence unto life — is a gift of God, an effect of divine grace. Repentance begins when the heart is touched by the Word of God, or by the Finger of God’s Right Hand, the Holy Ghost. We come again to the central notion of compunction. Blessed Abbot Marmion, in his classic Christ the Ideal of the Monk, devotes all of chapter seven to compunction of heart. He treats of it masterfully under six headings, drawing abundantly from Sacred Scripture, the Liturgy, and the experience of the Saints.

Refresher Course

I don’t know when you last picked up Christ the Ideal of the Monk. I just know that there is no book quite like it. It is the work of a saint. And the chapter on compunction of heart is, to my mind, the spiritual core of the book. Treat yourself to a refresher course in Benedictine Life. Go back to the novitiate, at least spiritually. The book hasn’t changed, but you have.

Blessed Abbot Marmion asks: "Where will we obtain the spirit of compunction? How do we acquire so great a good? First of all, by asking it of God. This 'gift of tears' is so precious, it is so lofty a grace, that we will obtain it by imploring it of 'the Father of lights from whom descends upon us every perfect gift.'"

Totus tuus ego sum
et omnia mea Tua sunt.
Accipio te in mea omnia.
Praebe mihi cor Tuum, Maria.

I am all thine,
and all that I have is thine.
I receive thee into everything that is mine.
Give me thy Heart, O Mary.

About a fortnight ago, a bishop whom I hold in the highest esteem gave me a copy of Monsignor Stephen Rossetti's book, Behold Your Mother, Priests Speak About Mary. The book contains the witnesses of ten priests on the presence and grace of the Blessed Virgin Mary in their lives. Monsignor Rossetti introduces and concludes the book. While I found something worth pondering in every chapter, I was most deeply moved by the one written by Monsignor Rossetti himself. He entitled it, "She Will Crush His Head." Here are few excerpts from it:

On Spiritual Combat

"The battleground of the spirit is very real in all Christians: "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Mt 26:41). But I believe that the spiritual battle is particularly important and waged with a special intensity in our priests. They are configured to Christ in a most unique way, and they are directly engaged in Jesus' mission and ministry."

Casting Out Evil

"It is no accident that prayers for casting out evil, including those in Church exorcisms, often mention the Virgin Mary and Michael the Archangel, and invoke Mary's intercession with her Divine Son. The former priest-exorcist of Rome wrote: 'The power of the Rosary and devotion to the Virgin Mary [in casting out evil] are well documented."

Our Lady and Saint Michael

"It is important for us priests, who are so accustomed to helping others, to have the humility to ask for and to let ourselves receive help from others. A confessor and a spiritual director are important guides along the spiritual path. At times, a professional counselor or therapist may be needed when a difficult personal problem surfaces. And we perpetually and universally depend upon the maternal protection of Our Lady and St. Michael in our unseen struggle to walk in the way of goodness."

When I first read The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann, 1973-1983, about eight years ago, I was struck by Father Schmemann's commentary on the Masses celebrated in Yankee Stadium by Pope Paul VI in 1965 and by Pope John Paul II in 1979. The boldface is my own. Father Schmemann asks some hard questions.

Wednesday, October 3, 1979

The Pope of Rome is in New York. We watched him on television in Yankee Stadium. A mixed impression. On one hand, an unquestionably good man and full of light. Wonderful smile. Very genuine — a man of God. But, on the other hand, there are some "buts"! First of all, the Mass itself. The first impression is how liturgically impoverished the Catholic Church has become. In 1965, I watched the service performed by Pope Paul VI in the same Yankee Stadium. Despite everything, it was the presence, the appearance on earth of the eternal, the "super earthly. Whereas yesterday I had the feeling that the main thing was the "message." This message is, again and again, "peace and justice," "human family," "social work," etc. An opportunity was given, a fantastic chance to tell millions and millions of people about God, to reveal to them that more than anything else they need God! But here, on the contrary, the whole goal, it seemed, consisted in proving that the Church also can speak the jargon of the United Nations. All the symbols point the same way: the reading of the Scriptures by some lay people with bright ties, etc. And a horrible translation: I never suspected that a translation could be a heresy: Grace — "abiding love"!

Crowds — their joy and excitement. Quite genuine, but at the same time, it is clear that there is an element of mass psychosis. "Peoples' Pope . . ." What does this really mean? I don't know. I am not sure. Does one have to serve Mass in Yankee Stadium? But if it's possible and needed, shouldn't the Mass be, so to say, "super-earthly," separated from the secular world, in order to show in the world — the Kingdom of God?

Third Saturday of Paschaltide

Acts 9:31-42
John 6:60-69

Paschaltide With Mary

There is a particular grace attached to the celebration of these Saturdays of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Paschaltide. Nobody experienced the joy of the Resurrection as did the Mother of Jesus, just as nobody experienced His bitter Passion as she did. This is why the surest way to enter deeply into the Paschal Mystery is in the company of Mary or, if you will, through her Immaculate Heart.

Hearts Made for Each Other

The Immaculate Conception has a unique and unequaled sensitivity to the joys of the God-Man, her Son, just as she has a unique and unequaled sensitivity to the sorrows of His Sacred Heart. The most pure Heart of Mary is perfectly attuned to the Heart of Jesus. Nothing of what belongs to His experience is foreign to her. And nothing of what belongs to her experience is foreign to Him. Her Heart was made for His, and His Heart was formed for hers by the Holy Spirit in her womb.

Receiving From Her Hands

As Mediatrix of All Graces, Mary dispenses the gift of a share in her compassion to those of her children who are open to receiving it. Similarly, she dispenses the gift of a share in her joy at the Resurrection of her Son to those who are open to receiving it. Our Lady stands above us with open hands, just as she is depicted at the rue du Bac. Streams of grace flow from her hands. Some of these are bright; they signify the graces that souls welcome and receive with desire and gratitude. Others are dark; they signify the graces that she is ready to give, but that no one welcomes. One of the lessons that emerges from the apparitions to Saint Catherine Labouré at the rue du Bac is that a soul does well to say to the Blessed Virgin, “Give me, beloved Mother, the graces that no one else wants; the gifts that no one else claims; the blessings to which no heart is open.”

Third Friday of Paschaltide
Memorial of Saint Stanislaus, Bishop and Martyr

Acts 9:1-20
John 6:52-59

Saint Stanislaus

We celebrate today the feast of Saint Stanislaus, patron of Poland. Like the young Karol Wojtyla, his successor as Bishop of Krakow, Stanislaus wished to embrace monastic life. Divine Providence, however, disposed otherwise. Stanislaus was appointed a canon of the cathedral of Krakow, and later, in 1071, named bishop of the same see by Duke Boleslaus. It was Boleslaus, become King of Poland, who with his own hand murdered Bishop Stanislaus on May 8, 1079, as he was celebrating Holy Mass.

Stanislaus had publicly reproved Boleslaus for his evil life and, as a last resort, excommunicated him. Boleslaus, instead of humbling himself and repenting of his sins, became enraged. One of the surest signs of the capital sin of pride is the inability to accept correction. Pride gives birth to rage. Rage either simmers below the surface, poisoning the soul, or expresses itself in violence. Had Boleslaus imitated the repentance of King David, he might have become a saint. Instead, he grew hard in his pride, and to his other sins added murder.

Saint Gemma

Today is also the dies natalis of Saint Gemma Galgani. When she was twenty years old, Gemma developed meningitis. Mystically befriended by the young Passionist Saint Gabriel of the Mother of Sorrows, Gemma was miraculously cured through his intercession. Sufferings, both physical and emotional, refined Gemma’s soul until her configuration to Jesus Crucified was confirmed by the wounds she bore in her flesh. Gemma died at the age of twenty-five on April 11, 1903. She was beatified in 1933, and canonized in 1940. Like Saint Gabriel, her spiritual brother, Saint Gemma is a powerful intercessor for young people. In Rome, I would sometimes go to pray at the altar dedicated to her in the Basilica of Saints John and Paul.

The Altar

What did the tenth century Saint Stanislaus and the twentieth century Saint Gemma have in common? They ate the Flesh of the Son of Man and drank His Blood. They anticipated the life of heaven by living on earth a life of Eucharistic grace. Saint Stanislaus died at the altar, perfectly identified with Jesus, Victim and Priest. Saint Gemma, worn out by sufferings, died on the altar of her bed, identified in her own way with Jesus, Victim and Priest.

This is the image of Saint Tarcisius that I brought back with from the catacombs of San Sebastiano in Rome. Back in the 1950s and early 60s, Saint Tarcisius was presented to Catholic schoolboys as a model of courageous love for the Blessed Sacrament.

Making A Visit

Terry had an excellent post recently in which in talked about something distinctively Catholic: "making a visit." Just a few generations ago this expression was current in Catholic culture. When, in passing in front of a church, one would say, "Let's make a visit," it was understood that one was proposing a visit to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.

Walking Downtown

As a little boy I would sometimes walk "downtown" with my (Irish) grandmother. Halfway there we would come to Saint Patrick's Church on Grand Avenue. Grandma would say, "Let's make a visit," and in we would go. On hot summer days the church was a dark, cool place. A red sanctuary lamped burned near the altar. We knew that Jesus was there. There was comfort in visiting Him in His house. Sometimes we would light a candle. After a few moments in prayer we would resume our walk. This was the kind of experience that marks a child for life.

After School

It was not uncommon for children to visit the Blessed Sacrament after school. Yes, it is true that the teaching Sisters encouraged visits, but it was something that children did freely. In the context of a family neighbourhood where nearly everyone walked to the bank, the Post Office, and the market, visits to the Blessed Sacrament were simply part of the fabric of Catholic life. Rarely were our neighbourhood churches empty. Nearly always there was someone kneeling in prayer, lighting candles, stopping at Our Lady's altar, or making the Way of the Cross. Then came the so-called "urban renewal," the destruction of so many family neighbourhoods, and the so-called "post-conciliar renewal," of which enough has been said elsewhere in the blogosphere.

Third Wednesday of Paschaltide

Acts 8:1-8
John 6:35-40

Eucharist-tide

The adorable mystery of the Eucharist illumines all of Paschaltide because, for the Christian, it illumines all of life. Paschaltide might just as well be called Eucharist-tide! The Eucharist is the sacrament of Our Risen Lord’s abiding presence, and the sacrifice of His Passion and Death renewed on the altar in an unbloody manner for the sake of the living and the dead.

Saint Thomas Aquinas tells us that for the sick, the Eucharist is an encounter with the Physician of Life; for the unclean, it is the fountain of mercy; for the blind, it is the light of eternal brightness; for the poor and needy, it is the open treasury of the Lord of heaven and earth.

Christus Passus

Our Lord is, in the Most Holy Eucharist, just as He is in the glory of heaven. He stands before His Father, offering Himself as Victim and Priest. He displays His glorious wounds to the Father, and allows them to speak for themselves on our behalf. How well I remember sitting in a classroom thirty years ago, listening to the saintly Dominican Father Urban Mullaney passionately expound the Eucharist as the sacrament of the Christus Passus: Christ in the very act of His passing-over to the Father by suffering, dying, rising, and ascending to His right hand. In the Eucharist there is no remote “there and then.” The mystery perpetually unfolds before the Father, and before the Church, in the “now” of eternity.

Every Year a Year of the Eucharist

Paschaltide is the Church’s spatium laetissimum, her space of exceeding great joy. We read the Acts of the Apostles in order to discover there the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in the Church and among us. And we read the sixth chapter of Saint John in order to receive from it the grace of a Eucharistic renewal affecting all of life. For one who enters deeply into the Church’s Year of Grace, living Paschaltide as the Church intends it to be lived, every year is a Year of the Eucharist.

The Bread of Life

Today’s Gospel gives us but five verses, but they are enough to sustain a lifetime. “It is I who am the bread of life; he who comes to me will never be hungry, he who has faith in me will never thirst” (Jn 6:35). Take these words of Our Lord. Make them your own. Turn them around and address them to Him. “Thou, O Lord, art the bread of life. Thou art the bread of my life, my daily bread, the sustenance without which I will grow weak, and falter, and perish on the way. I come to Thee, that I may never be hungry. Give me faith in Thee, that I may never thirst.

Another Joseph

Reading the Martyrology this morning I discovered that today is the dies natalis of Saint Hermann Joseph, one of my cherished heavenly friends and models. I related this anniversary to a question put to me today by another good friend, this one earthly — the irrepressible Jeron: "How does one keep the Blessed Mother company?" Saint Hermann Joseph shows us how. Hermann Joseph, a twelfth century Premonstratensian Canon, lived in such intimacy with the Virgin Mary that his relationship with her was compared to that of Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse.

Her Chaplain and Her Spouse

The Catholic Encyclopedia says that, "After Hermann had been ordained priest, it was remarkable with what reverence and devotion he offered the Holy Sacrifice. He was known for his gentle demeanour and affability, his humility, his extraordinary mortifications, but, above all, for his affection for the Mother of God, before whose altar he remained for hours in pious intercourse and ecstatic visions, and in whose honour he composed wonderful prayers and hymns. Mary, in turn, showed him her predilection, called him her chaplain and her spouse, and confirmed his surname Joseph, given to him by his brothers in religion. Hermann was sometimes sent out to perform pastoral duties and was in frequent demand for the making and repairing of clocks. He had under his charge the spiritual welfare of the Cistercian nuns at Hoven near Zulpich. Here he died and was buried in the cloister."

He Took Her to His Own

Keeping company with the Blessed Virgin Mary has to do with living in her presence. One who shares with the Mother of Jesus every moment of his day and night, keeping no secrets from her and confiding every struggle, every sorrow, and every joy to her Immaculate Heart becomes a companion of Mary, walking in the footsteps of Saint Joseph, and of Saint John the Beloved Disciple. We read in John 19:26-27:

"When Jesus therefore had seen his mother and the disciple standing 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."

A Blessed Risk

"The disciple took her to his own." There you have it, dear Jeron. Take Mary to your own; that means, into everything that is yours. No secrets. No compartments. No mental reservation. There is, of course, a blessed risk in doing this. Once Mary is taken "to one's own," she sets about setting all things in order. She cleanses. She beautifies. She turns all things to the glory of her Son.

Little Practices

There are humble little practices that can concretize the heart's desire to keep company with Our Lady. I recommend having a special image of the Blessed Virgin in a prominent place. Whenever you pass by that image, kiss it, say an Ave, say with Pope John Paul II, Totus tuus, "I am all thine." (Jeron knows how much I love the icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. It is my favourite image of the Queen and Mother of Mercy who is to me life, sweetness, and hope.) Saint Alphonsus Liguori recommends a daily visit to the Madonna. It is enough to kneel before her image, or sit quietly in her company saying one Ave after another. It goes without saying that the Rosary leads to the highest Marian contemplation, that is, to an abiding awareness of living in the company of the Blessed Virgin.

Total Consecration

Whatever little practices you adopt, persevere in them with the freedom born of love. The "great act" that contextualizes every other expression of Marian devotion is total consecration to Mary. For this, there is no better school than that of Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort. Our Immaculate Mother desires nothing more than to gather us to her Heart. She offers us the grace of her company.

Third Monday of Pascha

Acts 6:8–15
John 6:22–29

Like the Face of an Angel

Saint Luke describes Saint Stephen as having a face like that of an angel. “And all those who sat there in the Council fastened their eyes on him, and saw his face looking like the face of an angel” (Ac 6:25). Those who have glimpsed the faces of angels tell us that they shine with an unearthly radiance and that they are beautiful beyond any mortal beauty.

They Behold the Face of my Father

The brightness of the angels is, like that of the moon, a reflected brightness. They are living spiritual mirrors of the uncreated beauty of God. Our Lord says in Matthew 18:10: “See to it that you do not treat one of these little ones with contempt; I tell you, they have angels of their own in heaven, that behold the face of my heavenly Father continually.” The angels participate in the brightness and beauty that they contemplate in the face of the Father, and in the glory of the Father that, Saint Paul tells us, “shines in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6).

Whoever Has Seen Me

The face of Saint Stephen was like that of an angel because Stephen, being “full of the Holy Spirit” (Ac 7:55) had the eyes of his soul fixed at all times on the adorable Face of Christ. When the Apostle Philip said to Our Lord, “Let us see the Father; that is all we ask,” Jesus answered him, saying, “What, Philip, here am I, who have been all this while in your company; hast thou not learned to recognize me yet? Whoever has seen me, has seen the Father” (Jn 14:8-9).

Misericordia Domini

It is curious (and praiseworthy!) that Lutherans have, for the most part, conserved the Catholic practice of referring to a given Sunday by the incipit, or first words, of the Introit of the Mass. I noticed this not along ago while perusing The Brotherhood Prayerbook edited by The Reverend Benjamin T. G. Mayes, an American Lutheran pastor. Catholics are still accustomed to hearing the Third Sunday of Advent referred to as Gaudete Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Lent as Laetare Sunday and, perhaps, the Second Sunday of Easter as Quasimodo Sunday, but the custom has largely disappeared.

A Triumphal Arch

The Introit of the Mass is, according to Father Maurice Zundel, like a triumphal arch through which we pass into the Holy Mysteries. Each Sunday has its own name derived from the Introit. Today, therefore, is Misericordia Domini Sunday. Mercy has the first word in today's Mass.

The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord, alleluia:
by the word of the Lord were the heavens made, alleluia, alleluia.
V. Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous:
praise is comely for the upright. (Ps 32:5-6)

The Wound of Mercy

The death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ has bathed the whole world in mercy. The Mass, being the sacramental renewal of the Sacrifice of the Cross, remains for all time the wellspring of the inexhaustible torrent of mercy that ever flows from the wound opened by the soldier's lance in Jesus' Sacred Side.

The Lex Orandi

Catholic culture is shaped by the Sacred Liturgy: not only by the calendar of the Church, but also by the Proper of the Mass. I have long argued that the Proper of the Mass is a constitutive element of the Lex orandi — not just the text of the Proper, but also the melodic vesture of the Gregorian chant that clothes it and expresses its meaning.

Termites in the House

The option of selecting an alius cantus aptus (another suitable chant) has, in no small measure, contributed to the dismantling of the Roman Liturgy. The Proper of the Mass is not a decorative element, added onto the fundamental structure of the liturgy as a kind of embellishment; it is, rather, a supporting beam of the whole edifice. Move it, and the whole structure is weakened and, with time, will collapse. Is that not what we have seen over the past forty-five years? The alius cantus aptus has, in most places, replaced the Proper of the Mass, and liturgical termites have infested the whole structure.

Recover the Propers

To my mind, one of the most urgent tasks of The Reform of the Reform is the suppression of the provision for an alius cantus aptus, and the restoration of the traditional texts of the Proper of the Mass, taking care, at the same time, that the texts given in the Missale Romanum correspond to those in the Graduale Romanum. The replacement, in the Missale Romanum of 1970, of the venerable sung texts of the Graduale Romanum with texts destined to be read, was an innovation without precedent, and a mistake with far reaching and deleterious consequences for the Roman Rite.

The Marian Dimension of the Death of John Paul II

In speaking last week of the holy death of the Servant of God John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI alluded to First Saturday of the Month, I thought it might be helpful to recall the origin of the First Saturday devotion and the practices associated with it. This particular image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is the work of a priest of the Congregation of the Oblates of Saint Joseph, Father Gianfranco Verri. He calls it "La Madonna delle Rose Blu — Our Lady of the Blue Roses."

The Blessed Virgin revealed her Immaculate Heart to the three children at Fatima in 1917. On December 10, 1925 she said to Sister Lucia:

Look, my daughter, at my Heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce me at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen decades of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.

In how many places will the Mass of Beata Maria in Resurrectione Domini be celebrated tomorrow? The proper texts of the Mass are found in the Collectio Missarum de Beata Maria Virgine or in the English translation of it, entitled Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Here is the oration I composed to conclude the General Intercessions, and my own translation of the splendid Preface of this Mass. The painting of the Risen Jesus appearing to His Blessed Mother is by Giovanni Francesco Guercino (1599-1666).

Collect at the General Intercessions

Almighty and ever-living God,
who, during the great and silent sabbath
when your Son slept in the tomb,
looked upon the flame of faith and hope
that burned, for the sake of the whole Church,
in the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary,
grant us, we beseech you,
so to follow her in faith and in hope in this life
as to share her joy eternally in heaven.
Through Christ our Lord.

Preface

Truly it is right and just, our duty and our salvation,
always and everywhere to give you thanks,
Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God.

At the resurrection of your Christ
you filled the blessed Virgin with joy beyond all telling
and wonderfully extolled her faith.
In the strength of that faith
she waited for that Day of Light and of Life
when the night of death would be ended,
the whole world would exult,
and the Church at her dawn would tremble with joy
in seeing again her deathless Lord.

Through him the choirs of Angels adore your majesty,
as in eternity they rejoice before your face.
Let our voices, we pray you, be joined to theirs,
in this their joyful hymn:

Home Again

I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma for two days, and returned this morning, abundantly blessed and full of thanksgiving. No sooner was I in the door than I was asked to go to the bedside of a dying man to reconcile him to the Father of Mercies. I recommend this man and his family to your prayers.

The Little Boy and the Old Man

Today, apart from being the First Friday of the month, is the dies natalis of two souls enamoured of the Rosary and of the Most Holy Eucharist: one, an eleven year old boy Blessed Francisco Martos of Fatima (1908-1919); and the other, an eighty-four year old priest, Saint Gaetano Catanoso (1879-1963). The liturgical memorial of Blessed Francisco is celebrated together with that of his sister, Blessed Jacinta, on February 20th, and that of Saint Gaetano Catanoso on September 20th, the anniversary day of his ordination to the priesthood.

Adoration and Reparation

After the apparitions of the Angel, followed by those of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima, little Francisco was drawn, above all, to "console the Hidden Jesus." Having been told by the Mother of God that he needed to pray many rosaries, he used every opportunity to do so. He loved to pray before the tabernacle in his parish church, repeating the prayer of adoration and reparation that the Angel had taught him, his sister Jacinta, and his cousin Lucia:

My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love Thee.
I beg pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, and do not love Thee.

The Prayer of Children

The Angel taught the children to pray with their bodies by bowing down low, their foreheads touching the ground. This heavenly pedagogy of prayer was perfectly adapted to the capacity and the need of little children to converse with God using the repetition of a few words, and gestures engaging their senses. Children love to kneel, prostrate, bow, genuflect, make the sign of the cross, kiss holy images, and . . . above all . . . light candles.

An Adorer of the Eucharistic Face of Christ

Saint Gaetano Catanoso, a Calabrian parish priest, deserves to be better known. I have already written about him on Vultus Christi. Saint Gaetano often said, "Il Volto Santo è la mia vita — The Holy Face is my life." He preached the mystery of the Eucharistic Face of Jesus, saying: "If we wish to adore the real Face of Jesus . . . we can find it in the divine Eucharist, where with the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, the Face of Our Lord is hidden under the white veil of the Host." Pope Benedict XVI canonized Saint Gaetano on October 23, 2005.

A Model for Priests

Saint Gaetano is a radiant model of priestly holiness. You can listen to a recording of the saint's voice, made on his 80th birthday, here. Until now there has been little about him available in English. That is about to change. An American relative of the saint, journalist Justin Catanoso of Greensboro, North Carolina, has written a book entitled, "My Cousin the Saint, A Search for Faith, Family, and Miracles." The book, edited by William Morrow, will be released on May 20, 2008. You can also listen to Justin Catanoso talk about "his cousin, the saint" in a very moving NPR interview from 2005.