July 2008 Archives

Self-Surrender

Romano Guardini relates in his autobiography how, at a critical moment on his journey, when the faith of his childhood was shaken, the fundamental decision of his entire life - his conversion - came to him through an encounter with the saying of Jesus that only the one who loses himself finds himself (cf. Mk 8:34ff.; Jn 12:25); without self-surrender, without self-loss, there can be no self-discovery or self-realization.

Falling into the Hands of God

But how should we lose ourselves? To whom do we give ourselves? It became clear to him that we can surrender ourselves completely only if by doing so we fall into the hands of God. Only in him, in the end, can we lose ourselves and only in him can we find ourselves.

Jesus and His Church

But then the question arose: Who is God? Where is God? Then he came to understand that the God to whom we can surrender ourselves can only be the God who became tangible and close to us in Jesus Christ. But once more the question arose: Where do I find Jesus Christ? How can I truly give myself to him? The answer Guardini found after much searching was this: Jesus is concretely present to us only in his Body, the Church.

Humble Obedience to the Church

As a result, obedience to God's will, obedience to Jesus Christ, must be, really and practically, humble obedience to the Church. This is something that calls us to a constant and deep examination of conscience. It is all summed up in the prayer of Saint Ignatius of Loyola - a prayer which always seems to me so overwhelming that I am almost afraid to say it, yet one which we should always repeat:

Saint Ignatius' Act of Surrender

"Take O Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding and my entire will.
All that I have and all that I possess you have given me:
I surrender it all to you;
it is all yours, dispose of it according to your will.
Give me only your love and your grace;
with these I will be rich enough and will desire nothing more".

Pope Benedict XVI
Address to Priests and Religious
Mariazell, Austria
8 September 2007

Genesis 18:1-10a
Psalm 33:2-11
Luke 10:38-42

A Place of Refreshment for His Heart

Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were all three disciples of the Lord Jesus and, more than disciples, close friends. The house of Bethany was a place of rest for Jesus, a retreat far from the relentless demands and clamor of the multitude. At Bethany, Our Lord was sure of finding warmth, affection, and friendship: values to which His humanity was acutely sensitive. Bethany provided Jesus with more than food, drink, and a quiet place to rest. Bethany offered Jesus a place of refreshment for His Heart.

Behold, I Stand at the Door

In the monastic tradition Martha, Mary and Lazarus are venerated as the patron saints those who are charged with carrying out Saint Benedict's mandate of sacred hospitality: "Let all guests be received as Christ, for He will one day say, I came as a guest and you welcomed me." (RB 53:1). For this reason the Benedictine Lectionary gives us today the story of Abraham and Sarah extending hospitality to the three mysterious visitors by the oak of of Mamre. The feast of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus invites us to practice hospitality of the heart. "Behold," says the Lord, "I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me" (Rev 3:20).

The Very, Very Nervous

Terry Nelson refers to Saint Martha as the patron saint of the very, very nervous. In every family and community there are people who seem to thrive on anxiety. They seem to fret over everything. Anxiety is born of fear. Fear of what? Fear of losing control. Fear of going without something or finding oneself in need. Fear of being asked to change. Fear of failure.

A Contagious Neurosis

The anxious person is forever watching others to see what they are doing or not doing, saying or not saying. Look at Martha in today's Gospel! She had one eye on her casserole and the other on her sister. The anxious person goes so far as to think she knows what another is thinking or not thinking. In families and in communities the very, very nervous person tends to make others very, very nervous. Anxiety is a contagious neurosis. There is a reason why Lazarus stayed out of the kitchen! Surely you noticed that Lazarus is not even mentioned in today's Gospel. Our Lord was very courageous to put Himself between Martha and Mary.

How Many Cares and Troubles

At the same time, Saint Martha was a goodhearted woman. Though she tended to be a busybody, she was generous and willing to do absolutely anything to make Jesus feel at home in her house. Our Lord desired more for her. He saw a woman weighed down by the duties she had assumed. He rebuked Martha, going so far as to tell her what was wrong in the way she was behaving: "Martha, Martha, how many cares and troubles thou hast! But only one thing is necessary" (Lk 10:41-42). Our Lord invited Martha to an inner freedom from disquiet, a freedom that would allow her love to soar to divine heights on the wings of confidence and trust.

Love for Me

Jesus wanted the hospitality of Martha's house to be the outward expression -- the sacrament -- of the inward hospitality of her heart. He desired to raise Martha to a higher love, to the love that listens in silence, to the love that fixes its gaze on his face. Martha's love had busy hands and scurrying feet. Jesus desired to give her love ears and eyes: ears to listen to His word and eyes to contemplate His Face. More than anything else, Jesus wanted Martha to let go of the need to control, to supervise, and to fret over others, so that she could open to Him the door of her heart. "If a man has any love for me," He says, "he will be true to my word; and then he will win my Father's love, and we will both come to him, and make our continual abode with him" (Jn 14:23).

Only One Thing

To some, Mary of Bethany appears dreamy-eyed and passive. On the contrary, by taking her place at the feet of Jesus, she was boldly occupying a post normally reserved to men. Only men were deemed capable of conversing with men. It was fitting for a son of the Law to sit at the feet of his rabbi; women were to stay in the background, listening from behind the curtains. Look at Sarah and Abraham in the First Reading: "And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him" (Gen 18:10). What may have irked Martha in Mary's behaviour was that she was putting herself forward so, and usurping the place reserved for male disciples. Martha thought it unseemly. But Our Lord approved entirely. "Mary has chosen for herself the best part of all, that which shall never be taken away from her" (Lk 10:42).

See, How He Loved Him

Concerning Saint Lazarus, we are certain of one thing. Our Lord cherished him. There was a bond of intimate friendship between them. At the death of Lazarus Jesus "was deeply moved in spirit and troubled; and he said, 'Where have you buried him?' They said to him, 'Lord, come and see.' Then Jesus wept. So the Jews said, 'See how he loved him'" (Jn 11:33-36).

Lazarus: A Patron Saint of Reparation

In the monastic tradition, Saint Lazarus is the patron of converts and penitents. Jesus delivered him out of the putrefaction of the tomb where, after four days, he had already begun to stink. To everyone's surprise, Lazarus came forth from the tomb, still bound in his burial shroud, but fragrant with new life. "Unbind him, and let him go" (Jn 11:45), said Jesus. Where did Lazarus go at that moment if not straight into the arms of Jesus, his beloved Friend and Saviour? Lazarus spent the rest of his "second life," his "new life," living differently. Saint Lazarus is close to all who are delivered by the merciful Christ into a new life and called by Him to spend the days given them in reparation and in joyful penitence.

I Have Learned to Believe

Between today's Gospel episode and the death of her brother Lazarus something changed in Martha's life. It was to Martha that Jesus spoke the liberating words, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die" (Jn 11:25). Martha responded: "Yes, Lord, I have learned to believe that thou art the Christ; thou art the Son of the Living God; it is for thy coming the world has waited" (cf. Jn 11:27). Again it is Martha who said to her sister Mary: "The Master is here, and bids thee come" (Jn 11:28).

From Anxiety to Abandonment

Martha, the patron saint of the very, very nervous, changed. I would like to think that, little by little, she became less controlling, less anxious, and less judgmental. I would like to think that she became a peaceful soul, content to live from moment to moment in abandonment to Divine Providence. And I would like to think that in the end, she no longer intimidated Lazarus to the point of making him stay out of the kitchen. She may even have come to accept that Mary's way was different from hers and that, because it pleased the Lord, she had something to learn from it.

Food for the "Second Life"

The Eucharistic hospitality of God awaits us at the altar. The door of the "banqueting house" (Ct 2:4) is already open to us, as it was open to Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. In it there is room for all of us. The Most Holy Eucharist communicates peace to the anxious and busy soul. The Blessed Sacrament is the Food of Love given to those who, like Mary, are bold enough to sit at the feet of Christ. The Eucharist is sustenance for a new life of reparation and penitence, for that "Second Life" granted each of us by Divine Mercy. "He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love" (Ct 2:4).

This morning I offered the Votive Mass for the Remission of Sins in reparation for the grievous outrages committed against the Most Blessed Sacrament. It is not enough to express shock at the media's reports of acts of desecration; the initial salutary shock must give way to heartfelt sorrow, to love, and to acts of adoration and reparation.

The charism of reparation to Our Divine Lord in the Sacrament of His Love is once again being poured out in great abundance, first of all upon priests and, then, through priests, upon all Christ's faithful. I am grateful to Vincent Uher at Tonus Peregrinus for these prayers:

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

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

Ask What Thou Wilt

"The Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, 'Ask what thou wilt that I should give thee'" (1 K 3:5). What would you do if the Lord were to appear to you in a dream by night and say to you, "Ask what thou wilt that I should give thee"? What would you ask of God? Health? Long life? A life other than the one you have? A change in present circumstances? God, with a disarming simplicity, makes himself available to Solomon. The Almighty places His power at the disposal of one "created a little less than the angels" (Ps 8:6).

And All These Things

Solomon is a little child before God. "I am but a little child," he says, "and know not how to go out and come in" (1 K 3:7). Solomon asks not for power, nor for victory over his enemies, nor for riches. He asks for "an understanding heart" (1 K 3:9) to judge God's people. "And the word was pleasing to the Lord that Solomon had asked such a thing" (1 K 3:10). King Solomon was given a heart so wise and discerning that there has been no one like him in all of history. "Behold," says the Lord, "I have done for thee according to thy words, and I have given thee a wise and understanding heart, insomuch that there hath been no one like thee before thee, nor shall arise after thee" (1 K 3:12). That is not all. The Lord adds, "Yea and the things also which thou didst not ask, I have given thee" (1 K 3:13). Christ, the true Solomon will say, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you" (Mt 6:33).

Through the Eyes of God

By asking for an understanding heart, Solomon was seeking to enter into the mind of God. He was asking to see things from the divine perspective and to judge things through the eyes of God. Only the childlike and humble can see things from God's point of view.

Be Thou My Vision

Pride is the obstacle to understanding; pride is what blinds the eyes of the heart. With humility comes vision, and with vision understanding. The old Irish hymn sings, "Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart." Jesus, whose adorable Face is the vision of every wise heart, of every pure and humble heart, says: "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will" (Lk 10:21).

The World in a Single Ray of Light

To see things as God sees them one must be lifted up into God. Saint Gregory the Great relates that Saint Benedict was once so drawn into God that he saw the whole world gathered up in a single ray of light. Lifted above all created things, Saint Benedict saw all things as God sees them. In Chapter Seven of his Rule, he who saw all things from this divine perspective gives us the Steps of Humility, a way out of the blindness of pride into the seeing that is the joy of the all the saints.

The Little Way

Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus teaches that, in order to be lifted up, one must be very little, very humble. In order to be raised up to the vantage point of God, one must be willing to forsake all other perspectives, and become detached from every other point of view. "If you would see as I see," says God, "confess that all your seeing is blindness."

The Communion of the Saints

We live in the company of the saints. We are in communion with them, and communion implies communication. There is, at every moment, a mysterious exchange taking place between us and the saints who surround us. The Letter to the Hebrews says that we are "watched from above by such a cloud of witnesses" (Heb 12:1).

Naming Your Baby

New Catholic parents used to consult a little booklet, often supplied by the parish, entitled, Is it a Saint's Name? The names of saints are more and more rarely being given to Catholic babies, especially to little girls. While there is a part of ignorance here -- today's parents were the victims of the disastrous lack of catechesis that followed the Second Vatican Council -- there is something more. The pressure to secularize every area of life is picking up momentum. Change what people say, and you will change what they think. The modification of vocabulary -- and in this case the suppression of the glorious heritage of Catholic saints' names -- will lead to a modification of values and, ultimately, of morality.

Living With the Saints

Monasteries have the splendid custom of attributing a saint's name or a biblical name to every room and place -- from the cells to the workrooms to the storage rooms. The significance of this age-old custom is as beautiful as it is profound: the monastery is inhabited not only by the visible people who live within its walls, but also by its invisible residents, the angels and the saints. The naming of a room for a saint is a confession of faith; it flies in the face of secularist ideologies that would have us believe that reality stops with what is visible.

Recovery of the Sacred

The movement to secularize every thing and every place is as pernicious as it is aggressive. It is part of the "smoke of Satan" that Pope Paul VI saw penetrating the Church to foment confusion. It is crucial that we respond to the crisis with courage and with conviction. The invasion of the secular must be countered by a concerted recovery of the sacred, and by re-claiming all things for Christ under the patronage of his saints and his mysteries: our cities, our towns, our homes, our institutions, our rooms, and, yes, our children.

The Saints in the Ordinary of the Mass

Pope Benedict XVI's Apostolic Letter, the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum has generated some very helpful comparative studies of the Rite of Blessed John XXIII (the Mass actually celebrated during the Second Vatican Council) and the 1970 Rite of Pope Paul VI. One of the observations made is that the newer rite, in a misguided attempt to render the Mass less offensive to Protestant sensibilities, removed several key allusions to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to the saints, and to their intercession. I am thinking specifically of the Confiteor, the prayer while kissing the relics in the altar, the Suscipe, Sancta Trinitas at the end of the Offertory rite, and the Libera nos after the Our Father. In no way was this manipulation of the texts authorized by the Conciliar Fathers. It grieved and alienated the venerable Orthodox Churches, who interpreted it as a rejection of the patrimony of the undivided Church.

Saint Thérèse and Her Father

Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, reflecting on Isaiah's prophecy of the Servant, related it to the humiliation of her own father's suffering. When Thérèse was seven years old she had a vision of a man in the garden, dressed like her father, but going about with his head veiled. Only later did she realize that this was a mysterious prophecy of her father's mental illness. Profoundly affected by her father's suffering, Thérèse lived it as an opportunity to deepen her understanding of the humiliation of Christ in His Passion. Thérèse made some profound connections: she related her father in his sufferings to the humiliation of Christ in His Passion, and related the humiliation of Christ in His Passion to the Fatherhood of God.

The Holy Face

The violence against the Face of Christ in His Passion was, at the deepest level, an attempt by the Evil One to disfigure the Fatherhood of God. Our Lord says, "He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?" (Jn 14:9-10). From the beginning, the Evil One has sought to discredit the Fatherhood of God by sowing suspicion and doubt in the hearts of His children. The cruel disfiguration of the Face of Christ with blows, bruises, spittle, and thorns was the Evil One's mad attempt to vilify the Father.

War on the Family

The Evil One pursues the same agenda today. He seeks by every means to humiliate the father and to disfigure the face of fatherhood in society. John Saward, in his splendid book, The Way of the Lamb, The Spirit of Childhood and the End of the Age, writes: "The modern western world seems to have declared war on the family in all its members. It is destructive of the child, disparaging of the mother, and derisive of the father. Feminism, now complacently installed as the worldly wisdom of the West, tends to regard fathers as oppressive monsters . . . . All that is male, even the masculine pronoun, offends the feminist rulers of this age. Sometimes it seems as if the head of every father is veiled in shame, un père humilié."

The Father Under Attack

Every attack on the father is an attempt from below to undermine the headship of Christ, "the image of the invisible God" (Col 1:15) in Whom, "all things hold together" (Col 1:17). Just as Christ holds all things in the universe together, so too does the father hold all things together in the family. Abandoned by the father, the family disintegrates. Nothing so damages the wholeness of the family as the absence of the father.

Forty Years After Humanae Vitae

While pursuing the disgrace of the father, the Evil One continues to pursue the degradation of the mother. The widespread rejection in 1968 of Pope Paul VI's Encyclical Humanae Vitae drove a wedge between conjugal union and openness to the gift of life. As a result, the bride was no longer seen as a woman honouring within herself that most radiant of gifts: potential motherhood. The image of the mother was separated from that of the faithful spouse. By disfiguring the woman -- an image of the Church in her dignity of virgin, bride, spouse, and mother -- Satan seeks to discredit the Church, the Spouse of Christ and ever-fruitful Mother of the faithful.

Dissent from the teaching of Humanae Vitae paved the way for the widespread acceptance of artificial birth control, casual sexual relations, abortion, and the militant homosexual agenda that, seeking to parody marriage between one man and one woman, replaces conjugal fruitfulness with a self-indulgent sterility. The acceptance of abortion leads, inexorably, to the acceptance of parricide (the killing of parents) and infanticide. The society that kills its children becomes patricidal and matricidal. The society that discredits fatherhood and motherhood becomes sterile and dies.

The Consecrated Life

The poisonous trends of the culture of death have not spared the consecrated life itself. The crisis around Humanae Vitae corresponded exactly to the moment when religious began to speak naïvely of "openness to the world." The spirit of the world, the flesh, and the devil seeped through the cracks in the cloister and, in the most pernicious and subtle ways, infected religious and monastic life with the prejudices of the age against the father, the mother, and the child.

The Abdication of the Fathers

Rejection of the father began to manifest itself in the contestation of all paternal authority, focusing on that of the Pope. This was just another manifestation of what Von Balthasar so aptly calls Der Antirömische Affekt, "The Anti-Roman Complex." The very name of Father, in use from the Apostolic Age and honoured in the monastic deserts of Egypt and Palestine, fell into disaffection. Superiors felt the need to be "a brother among brothers," failing to see that by doing so they were abdicating the very grace of state constitutive of their spiritual authority.

The collapse of the religious or monastic family ensued, just as the collapse of the natural family would follow any father's abdication of his paternal authority. The most extreme manifestation of this disaffection for the Father is the kind of cultural patricide we see in society today. The same patricide holds sway in the religious community bent on eradicating every vestige of fatherhood in the name of liberty, fraternity, and equality.

The Mother Under Suspicion

Rejection of the mother was, if anything, even more vicious. The years immediately following the Second Vatican Council saw a widespread critique of the consecrated woman as sponsa Verbi -- bride of Christ -- and a decline in practices of devotion to the Virgin Mother of God. The anti-motherhood propaganda of radical feminism, based on the lie that motherhood limits a woman's freedom to be herself, combined with the rejection of Humanae Vitae to cast suspicion on every expression of maternal authority and spiritual motherhood.

Virtual Matricide

The failure of a few women religious to live the grace of spiritual motherhood wisely and tenderly became an excuse for the extermination of the mother, setting in motion a matricidal revolution. Immature religious women dealing with unresolved emotional conflicts within themselves found in this trend a justification for the expression of an anti-maternal animosity. Superiors were coerced into abdicating their maternal authority or, deceived by the lies of the age, did so willingly, contributing thereby to the disintegration of the spiritual families entrusted to them and to their inexorable descent into sterility.

The anti-maternal lies perpetrated by the culture of death were received uncritically by many religious. The name of Mother, like that of Father, had to be erased at all costs. Meanwhile, Satan laughed in scorn, knowing full well that the extinction of the mother leads to the extinction of life itself and not just to sterility, but ultimately to death.

The Wasteland of the Fatherless and Motherless

A Church without spiritual fathers and mothers will become like a society without fathers and mothers: a barren wasteland populated by an angry people, strewn with the aborted remains of lives that could have been, and defiled by every manner of abuse and by the triple sin of patricide, matricide, and infanticide.

I remember well the promulgation of Humanae Vitae on July 25, 1968. Subsequent history has demonstrated that Pope Paul VI spoke "with a special light of the Holy Spirit," and with a certain grace of prophecy. Here are the sections of Humanae Vitae addressed to priests:

To Priests

28. And now, beloved sons, you who are priests, you who in virtue of your sacred office act as counselors and spiritual leaders both of individual men and women and of families--We turn to you filled with great confidence. For it is your principal duty--We are speaking especially to you who teach moral theology--to spell out clearly and completely the Church's teaching on marriage.

Sincere Obedience

In the performance of your ministry you must be the first to give an example of that sincere obedience, inward as well as outward, which is due to the magisterium of the Church. For, as you know, the pastors of the Church enjoy a special light of the Holy Spirit in teaching the truth. (39) And this, rather than the arguments they put forward, is why you are bound to such obedience.

Speak As With One Voice

Nor will it escape you that if men's peace of soul and the unity of the Christian people are to be preserved, then it is of the utmost importance that in moral as well as in dogmatic theology all should obey the magisterium of the Church and should speak as with one voice. Therefore We make Our own the anxious words of the great Apostle Paul and with all Our heart We renew Our appeal to you: "I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment." (40)

Abounding in Mercy Toward Sinners

29. Now it is an outstanding manifestation of charity toward souls to omit nothing from the saving doctrine of Christ; but this must always be joined with tolerance and charity, as Christ Himself showed in His conversations and dealings with men. For when He came, not to judge, but to save the world, (41) was He not bitterly severe toward sin, but patient and abounding in mercy toward sinners?

The Heart and Voice of the Priest

Husbands and wives, therefore, when deeply distressed by reason of the difficulties of their life, must find stamped in the heart and voice of their priest the likeness of the voice and the love of our Redeemer.

Never to Lose Heart Because of Weakness

So speak with full confidence, beloved sons, convinced that while the Holy Spirit of God is present to the magisterium proclaiming sound doctrine, He also illumines from within the hearts of the faithful and invites their assent. Teach married couples the necessary way of prayer and prepare them to approach more often with great faith the Sacraments of the Eucharist and of Penance. Let them never lose heart because of their weakness.

Saint Sharbel the Miracle-Worker has followed me from the earliest days of my monastic journey. I remember learning of his beatification at the close of the Second Vatican Council in December 1965. Saint Sharbel's three inseparable loves, depicted in this image -- the Most Holy Eucharist, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Word of God -- are the mystical treasure of those who seek, in some way, to follow him in a life of silence and adoration.

Collect from the Missale Romanum 2002

O God who called your priest, Saint Sharbel to the singular combat of the desert and imbued him with every manner of piety, grant us, we beseech you, that by striving to be imitators of the Passion of the Lord we may be found worthy of becoming sharers in his kingdom. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever.

Ex Oriente Lux

Saint Sharbel (also spelled Charbel) of Lebanon is one of those in whom the Holy Spirit fashioned a heart of flesh, a heart exquisitely sensitive to the mystery of Divine Love. The hermit priest Sharbel was beatified by Pope Paul VI on December 5, 1965, at the close of the Second Vatican Council. It was as if Paul VI wanted the Council to end with Rome gazing Eastward.

Another Saint Anthony of the Desert

Just before the beatification, a prelate at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome said to Bishop Francis Zayek, the shepherd of Maronite Catholics in the United States, "Reading about the holy hermits of the desert, we used to consider many reported facts as mere fables. In the life of Blessed Sharbel, however, we notice that these facts are authentic and true. Blessed Sharbel is another Saint Anthony of the Desert, or Saint Pachomius, or Saint Paul the Anchorite. It is marvelous to observe how you, Maronites, have preserved the same spirituality of the fathers of the desert throughout the centuries, and at the end of the nineteenth century, 1500 years later, produced a Sharbel for the Church."

A New Turning

Meanwhile, in Kentucky, a Trappist monk was emerging from a long period of spiritual depression. Thomas Merton had been in the Abbey of Gethsemani for nine years. He wrote in his journal, "Sharbel lived as a hermit in Lebanon -- he was a Maronite. He died. Everyone forgot about him. Fifty years later, his body was discovered incorrupt and in short time he worked over 600 miracles. He is my new companion. My road has taken a new turning. It seems to me that I have been asleep for 9 years -- and before that I was dead." Sharbel, the 19th century hermit of Lebanon, pulled America's most famous 20th century monk out of a spiritual crisis. That is the communion of the saints!

Like a Lebanon Cedar

On October 9, 1977, Pope Paul VI canonized Sharbel, citing the psalm, "The just will flourish like the psalm tree and grow like a Lebanon cedar" (Ps 91:13). The New York Times gave extensive coverage to the canonization in Rome and to the corresponding festivities in Lebanon, days of celebration that brought Orthodox and Catholic Christians together with Muslims.

Holiness in Clusters

Saint Sharbel's influence continues to grow. In Russia he has an immense following of Orthodox Christians. Muslims continue to seek his intercession, going in pilgrimage to his tomb. In Lebanon and in the Lebanese diaspora he continues to teach the way of silence, the way of the Cross, the way of humble love. On May 10th, 1998, Pope John Paul II beatified Saint Sharbel's professor, the monk, Father Nimutallah al-Hardini. Holiness grows in clusters.

A Eucharistic Death

Saint Sharbel suffered a stroke on December 16th, 1898 while celebrating the Holy Liturgy. He was reciting the prayer, "Father of Truth, behold your Son, a sacrifice pleasing to you. Accept this offering of Him who died for me." He fell to the floor holding the Holy Eucharist in his hands. He died on December 24th. Sharbel had lived twenty-three years in solitude. A lifetime of saying "Yes" to Love prepared him for a fully Eucharistic death and an abiding mission in the Church, one that, even today, is prophetic.

Antiphon: The Priests shall be holy;
for the offerings of the Lord made by fire,
and the bread of their God, they do offer,
therefore they shall be holy. (Leviticus 21:6)

V. Pray for us, Saint Peter Julian.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

O God, Who through the preaching and example of Saint Peter Julian Eymard,
didst renew the priesthood of Thy Church in holiness
and inflame many souls with zeal
for the adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar;
we beseech Thee, through his intercession,
to gather priests of one mind and one heart,
from the rising of the sun to the setting thereof,
to keep watch in adoration before the Eucharistic Face
of Thine Only-Begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ
and to abide before His Open Heart,
in reparation for those who forsake Him, hidden in the tabernacles of the world,
and in thanksgiving for the mercies that ever stream
from the Sacred Mysteries of His Body and Blood.
Who liveth and reigneth with Thee
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, world without end.
Amen.

The Friendship of the Saints

I invite the readers of Vultus Christi to join me in making this Novena to Saint Peter Julian Eymard, the Apostle of the Eucharist. I have chosen Saint Peter Julian as one of the patron saints of the Cenacle of the Eucharistic Face of Jesus in the Diocese of Tulsa, Oklahoma. It would be more accurate to say that in some mysterious way, Saint Peter Julian Eymard has chosen to help me.

Years ago, while reading the biography of Père Jean-Baptiste Muard, the founder of the Benedictine abbey of La-Pierre-Qui-Vire, I came upon a line that so struck me that I have never forgotten it. Père Muard said something like this: "It is not we who choose this or that saint to be our friend; it is, rather, the saints who choose those whom they wish to befriend. The saints choose us, and this, in the light of God's wisdom and providence."

The Priest, an Adorer

Saint Peter Julian is sympathetic, I am sure, to my new Eucharistic mission in the Diocese of Tulsa. His own Eucharistic vocation unfolded amidst sufferings of the heart and painful detachments. God called him out of the religious family he loved -- the Marist Fathers -- to begin a new work, a Cenacle entirely devoted to the Blessed Sacrament. From the beginning Saint Peter Julian Eymard's Eucharistic work comprised priests, consecrated women adorers, and laity. He challenged his little family of adorers to set souls ablaze with Eucharistic fire.

O Taste and See

Bishop Slattery has asked me to help his clergy rediscover that "the secret of their sanctification lies precisely in the Eucharist . . . The priest must be first and foremost an adorer who contemplates the Eucharist." (Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus Address, 18 September 2005). My essential work in Tulsa will be to abide before the Eucharistic Face of Jesus in adoration, reparation, thanksgiving, and intercession, and to share with my brothers in the priesthood and diaconate the fruits of my own contemplation by saying, "O taste and see!" (Psalm 33:9).

The Gift Accompanied by the Gift of All Else

A number of very concrete questions arise. For example: Will sufficient funds be donated for the construction of the Cenacle? Will the necessary support be forthcoming? To all of my questions, Our Lord has but one answer, the only one necessary: "Trust me." Does He not say in the Sermon on the Mount, "Make it your first care to find the Kingdom of God, and His approval, and all these things shall be yours without the asking. Do not fret, then, over to-morrow; leave to-morrow to fret over its own needs; for to-day, to-day's troubles are enough"? (Matthew 6, 33-34). My intention is to make this Novena with confidence, in thanksgiving and in peace. To adapt the words of Saint Paul in Romans 8, 32: "The Father gives us His own Son in the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist; must not that gift be accompanied by the gift of all else?"

Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament

Like Saint Peter Julian, I cannot conceive of this Cenacle of the Eucharistic Face of Jesus without the presence of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the first Adorer of the Eucharistic Face, the Mother of Priests, and the Mediatrix of All Graces. Saint Peter Julian called her Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament. "Eucharistic souls," he wrote, "who wish to live only for the Blessed Sacrament, who have made the Eucharist your centre and His service your only work, Mary is your model, her life your grace. Only persevere with her in the breaking of the bread (Acts 2, 42)."

This may be something that happens somewhere between middle and old age but, increasingly, I find myself recalling things read when I was in my teens. Thinking about Saint Mary Magdalene today, I remembered how much this passage impressed me when I came upon it in William T. Walsh's Life of Saint Teresa of Avila.

"I had a very great devotion to the glorious Magdalene, and very frequently used to think of her conversion--especially when I went to Communion. As I knew for certain that our Lord was then within me, I used to place myself at His feet, thinking that my tears would not be despised. I did not know what I was saying; only He did great things for me, in that He was pleased I should shed those tears, seeing that I so soon forgot that impression. I used to recommend myself to that glorious Saint, that she might obtain my pardon." (Autobiography of Saint Teresa of Jesus, Chapter IX)

My friend from long ago, Trappist Father Bernard Bonowitz, may not remember this, but back in the 1960s we both delighted in this passage. In some way it kindled a fire in our hearts.

Saint Mary Magdalen, the Apostle to the Apostles, is one of the patron saints of this blog. The Responsory at Lauds is "Tibi dixit cor meum: Quaesivi vultum tuum": "My heart has said to Thee: I have sought Thy Face" (Psalm 26, 8). Here is something I wrote three year ago on this feast:

Woman of fire,
woman of desire,
woman of great passions
woman of the lavish gesture,
Mary of Magdala!

The icons show you robed in red,
covered in the blood of the Lamb,
a living flame, a soul set afire.
You are there at the foot of the Cross:
kneeling, bending low, crushed by sorrow,
your face in the dust.

You love,
but in that hour of darkness,
dare not look on the disfigured Face of Love.
It is enough that you are there,
brought low with Him,
Enough for you
the Blood dripping from His wounded feet,
Blood seeping into the earth
to mingle with your tears.

You seek Him on your bed at night,
Him whom your heart loves.
David's song is on your lips:
"Of You my heart has spoken: Seek his face.
It is Your face, O Lord, that I seek;
hide not Your face from me" (Ps 26:8-9).

His silence speaks.
His absence is a presence.
And so you rise to go about the city,
drawn out, drawn on by Love's lingering fragrance.
"Draw me, we will run after you, in the odour of your ointments" (Ct 1:3).

You seek Him by night
in the streets and broadways;
you seek Him whom your soul loves;
with nought but your heart's desire for compass.
You seek Him but do not find Him.

In this, Mary, you are friend to every seeker.
In this you are a sister to every lover.
In this you are close to us who walk in darkness
and wait in the shadows,
and ask of every watchman,
"Have you seen Him whom my soul loves?"

Guide us, Mary, to the garden of new beginnings.
Let us follow you in the night.
Wake our souls before the rising of the sun.
Weep that we may weep
and in weeping become penetrable to joy.

The Gardener waits,
the earth beneath His feet watered by your tears.
Turn, Mary, that with you we may turn
and, being converted,
behold His Face
and hear His voice
and, like you, be sent to say only this:
"I have seen the Lord" (Jn 20:18).

Heart-broken with that shame, I pine away, looking round for pity where pity is none, for comfort where there is no comfort to be found.
They gave me gall to eat, and when I was thirsty they gave me vinegar to drink.
(Psalm 68, 21, Offertory of the Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus)

The Sufferings of a Love Wounded and Spurned

Our Lord, when He instituted the Most Holy Eucharist, foresaw outrages and sufferings: the sufferings of a Love wounded and spurned. He still waits for a little compassion from priests, from His priests. Today more than ever, Jesus is looking for priest consolers, that is to say, priest adorers who will make reparation. To one priest He said:

I Want Priest Adorers and Reparators

I want priests who will adore for priests who do not adore, [I want] priests who will make reparation for priests who do not make reparation, not for themselves, nor for others. I want priest adorers and reparators.

All Heaven Weeps

My Father, too, is grieved by the coldness and indifference with which I who am His Beloved Son, His Eternal Priest, His Immaculate Victim ceaselessly offered in the sanctuary of heaven, am treated on earth. This comes not from strangers, but from my very own, from those whom I chose, out of love, to share in my priesthood, to abide in my presence, to nourish my people with the mysteries of my Body and Blood. All heaven weeps over the sins of my priests. For every sin there is mercy in the Blood and Water that flow from my wounded Side, but the sins of my priests call for reparation. Make reparation for your brother priests by adoring me, by remaining before my Eucharistic Face, by offering the love of your heart purified by my great mercy.

I Love My Priests

My Sacred Heart is divinely sensitive to the coldness and indifference of my priests. I ask you to make reparation to me for them. Allow me to love you as I would love each of them. Allow me to heal you, to comfort you, to sanctify you, just as I would heal, comfort, and sanctify any one of my priests. I love my priests -- but few of them believe in my love for them. You, believe in my love for you. I am your Friend. I have chosen you to be in life and in death the privileged friend of my Sacred Heart.

Console Me

I ask you to console me by remaining before my Face. I ask you to console me by staying close to my Heart, pierced for love of you and for all sinners. Be my priest adorer. Console me and make reparation for those who spurn my love, for those who mock my wounds, my Blood, my sacrifice.

Time Before My Eucharistic Face

I want you to learn to remain before my Eucharistic Face, silent, adoring, listening to me, and loving me for those who do not adore me, those who do not listen to me, those who never express their love for me in this way. If only my priests would spend time before my Eucharistic Face, I should heal them, purify them, sanctify them, and change them into apostles set all ablaze with the Living Flame that consumes my Heart in the Blessed Sacrament. But they stay away. They prefer so many other things, vain pursuits and things that leave them empty, bitter, and weary. They forget my words, "Come to me . . . and I will refresh you." My priests will be renewed in holiness and in purity when they begin to seek me out in the Sacrament of my Love.

The Desires of My Heart

How it grieves my Heart when the unique love I offer a soul is spurned, or ignored, or regarded with indifference. I tell you this so that you may make reparation to my Heart by accepting the love I have for you and by living in my friendship. Receive my gifts, my kindnesses, my attention, my mercies for the sake of those who effuse what I so desire to give them. Do this especially for my priests, your brothers. I would fill each one of my priests with my merciful love, I would take each one into the shelter of my wounded Side, I would give to each one the delights of my Divine Friendship, but so few of my priests accept what I desire to give them. They flee from before my Face. They remain at a distance from my open Heart. They keep themselves apart from me. Their lives are compartmentalized. They treat with me only when duty obliges them to do so. There is no gratuitous love, no desire to be with me for my own sake, simply because I am there in the Sacrament of my Love, waiting for the companionship and friendship of those whom I have chosen and called from among millions of souls to be my priests and to be the special friends of my Sacred Heart. Would that priests understood that they are called not only to minister to souls in my Name, but even more to cling to me, to abide in me, to live in me and for me, and by me and no other. I want you to tell priests of the desires of my Heart.

A Company of Priest-Adorers Making Reparation

Oh, how my Heart longs to raise up a company of priest-adorers who will make reparation for their brother priests by abiding before my Eucharistic Face. I will pour out the treasures of my Eucharistic Heart upon them. I want to renew the priesthood in my Church, and I will do it beginning with a few priests touched to the quick by my friendship, and drawn into the radiance of my Eucharistic Face.

I am indebted to my friend, Father Scott Bailey, C.SS.R. for this poignant image of the Eucharistic Face and Heart of Jesus.

Answer Me

Tell me, my people, what I have done, that thou shouldst be a-weary of me? Answer me. Was it ill done, to rescue thee from Egypt, set thee free from a slave's prison, send Moses and Aaron and Mary to guide thee on thy way? Canst thou doubt, then, the faithfulness of the Lord's friendship? (Micah 6, 3-5)

Man's Response, Faithless and Cruel

Today's First Reading from the prophet Micah contains the source of the first of the Improperia, the Great Reproaches that are sung during the adoration of the Cross on Good Friday. The liturgy places the words of the prophet in the mouth of the suffering Jesus; it contrasts the Divine Compassion manifested in the wonders of the Exodus with the faithless and cruel response of those upon whom God had set His Heart.

The Reproaches

O my people, what have I done to thee?
Or wherein have I aggrieved thee?
Answer me.
Because I led thee out of the land of Egypt:
thou hast prepared a Cross for thy Saviour.

Because I guided thee forth through the desert for forty years,
and thee with manna,
and brought thee into a right good land,
thou hast prepared a Cross for thy Saviour.

What more could I have done for that I have not done?
I, even I, planted thee to be my fairest vineyard;
and thou hast made thyself exceeding bitter to me;
for thou hast slaked my thirst with vinegar,
and pierced with a lance thy Saviour's side.

The underlying theme of the Improperia is the tragedy of God's unrequited love. The Improperia are one of sources of the spirituality of reparation that the Holy Spirit has stirred up in every age.

The Idea of Reparation

"The first great revelation of the Heart of Jesus," writes Alfred O'Rahilly in his Life of Father William Doyle, S.J., "is contained in the seventh chapter of Saint Luke's Gospel. 'Dost thou see this woman?' Christ said to Simon. 'I entered into thy house, thou gavest Me no water for My feet -- but she with tears hath washed My feet and with her hair hath wiped them. My head with oil thou didst not anoint -- but she with ointment hath anointed My feet . . . She hath loved much.' This detailed antithesis, this careful balancing of neglect with service, this sensitive juxtaposition of Simon and Magdalen in the Heart of Christ, contains the essence of the idea of reparation. That is, if Our Lord's life and mission is more than a simple historical event and is still accessible to us who live in these latter days.

But Thou?

Many a Simon nowadays treats Christ with studied slight and scorn, and we -- is the role of Magdalen closed to us? Cannot Christ still address the sinner, 'Thou . . . but she . . .?' Cannot our loving much even now prevail and repair? And to the solitary adorer does there not still from the Tabernacle come the whisper, 'The nine -- where are they?' (Luke 17, 17.)"

I first read the life of the heroic Father Willie Doyle, S.J. by Alfred O'Rahilly forty years ago. It was the summer of 1968, and the summer of Humanae Vitae. By God's sweet Providence, I am reading it again, this time with the experience of more than half a lifetime behind me. Father Doyle amazes me, comforts me, enlightens me, sets me straight on certain things, and confirms me in others.

One has to grow into certain books, and there is no growth without groaning. Now and then I will be sharing bits and pieces of this remarkable spiritual biography with you, dear readers of Vultus Christi. Father Willie Doyle was made of the stuff of the Desert Fathers. He is above all a master in the practice of the ceaseless prayer of the heart.

Do nothing without consulting Him in the Tabernacle. But then act fearlessly, if you see it is for His honour and glory, never minding what others may think or say. Above all, 'cast your care upon the Lord and He shall sustain you.' (Psalm 54, 23). Peace and calm in your soul, prayer ever on your lips, and a big love in your heart for Him and His interests, will carry you very far. (November, 1914)

Non in commotione Dominus. ('The Lord is not in the earthquake.' III Kings 19, 11). Labour, then with might and main to keep your soul in peace, but an unbounded trust in His loving goodness. If you live in Jesus and Jesus in you, striving to make each little action, each morsel of food, every word of the Office, etc., an act of love to be laid at His feet as dwelling in your heart, you will certainly please him immensely and fly to perfection. (January, 1912)

This morning during Mass I felt strongly that Jesus was pained that you do not trust Him absolutely, that is, trust Him in every detail of your life. You are wanting in that childlike confidence He desires so much from you, the taking lovingly and trustfully from His hands all that He sends you, not even wishing things to have happened otherwise. He wants you to possess your soul in peace in the midst of the many troubles, cares and difficulties of your work, looking upon everything as arranged by Him, and hence something to welcome joyfully. Jesus will not dwell in your soul as He wishes unless you are at peace. This is the first step towards that union which you desire so much -- but not so much as He does. Don't keep Him waiting, my child, but by earnest and constant efforts empty your heart of every care that He may abide with you for ever. (May, 1913)

Sixteenth Sunday of the Year A

Wisdom 12:13, 16-19
Psalm 85: 5-6, 9-10, 15-16a
Romans 8:26-27
Matthew 13: 24-43

Holding One's Ear to the Word

Wisdom speaks, saying, "Never should thy own children despair" (Wis 12:19). The psalmist sings, "Thou, O Lord, art sweet and mild" (Ps 85:5). The Apostle says, "The Spirit comes to the aid of our infirmity, for we know not how to pray as we ought" (Rom 8:26). Finally, the Word himself, arriving in the Gospel, speaks to those who have ears to hear: "He who sows good seed is the Son of Man. And the field is the world. And the good seed are the children of the Kingdom" (Mt 13:37-38). The Word given us today is not easily synthesized. One must be willing to hold one's ear to today's Word for a good long while before certain harmonics begin to make themselves heard.

The Demon of Routine

The Gospel obliges us to exchange the meaning attached to the images given us in last Sunday's parable of the sower for another level of meaning. Our Lord plays with the same images -- sower and seed, field and harvest -- but today, through them, He is communicating another mystery. The Divine Teacher obliges us at every moment to listen with ears that are quick to hear, and to look with eyes wide open, lest the demon of routine, the enemy of our souls, slip in to sow the confusion of cockle among the wheat.

Sown in the Field of the World

In last Sunday's parable, the seed was the Word. Christ was the sower sent by the Father to sow the seed of the Word profusely, lavishly, almost carelessly, in every human heart. In today's parable, the sower of the seed is again Christ, but the field is the world and the good seed are the children of the Kingdom (Mt 13:37-38). It is not the Word that is sown far and wide; in today's Gospel it is rather the hearers of the Word who are sown in the vast field of the world. The disciples, hearers of the Word, are the seed Christ scatters abroad. Christ implants in the world those in whom His Word has been fruitful, yielding "in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty" (Mt 13:23).

Alongside the Weeds

By planting His Church in every place, Christ has sown His own good seed among the nations, "from the rising of the sun to its setting" (Mal 1:11). We are the seed sown by the Son of Man. We are the seed tossed into the field of the world to "grow together until the harvest" (Mt 13:30) alongside of weeds sown by the enemy.

The Priestly Prayer in the Cenacle

Today's parable is, I think, best illumined by the priestly prayer of Jesus in the Cenacle. It is a prayer for the good seed, "the children of the kingdom" (Mt 13:38), sown in the field of the world. "I have given them thy message, and the world has nothing but hatred for them, because they do not belong to the world, as I, too, do not belong to the world. I am not asking that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them clear of what is evil. They do not belong to the world, as I, too, do not belong to the world; keep them holy, then, through the truth; it is thy word that is truth (Jn 17:14-17). Jesus' priestly prayer shines on today's parable and brings it into focus. Jesus prays not that the seed be taken out of the world, but that the seed be protected from the evil one. He prays for the children of the Kingdom, the seed of His Church, a seed sprouting holiness.

Grace in Weakness

What are the signs of a sprouting holiness in others and in ourselves? The First Reading offers some elements of discernment. First, holiness is the fruit not of striving and straining, nor of any natural talent or psychological predisposition, nor of accumulated good works, nor of a strong will, but of grace. "Of all justice, thy power is the true source" (Wis 12:16). The Vulgate has, "Thy power is the beginning of justice" (Wis 12:16). "My grace is enough for thee," said Christ to Paul, "my strength finds it full scope in thy weakness" (2 Cor 12:9).

Mildness and Forbearance

Second, true holiness is marked by mildness and by forbearance, by what the Vulgate calls the humanitas of God our Saviour (Tit 3:4). "A lenient judge thou provest thyself, riding us with a light rein" says our text from Wisdom (Wis 12:18). Holiness in the children of the kingdom is but the reflection of Christ who alone is holy. The holiness of Our Lord Jesus Christ is characterized, above all, by clemency, mildness, indulgence and mercy. In authentic holiness there is nothing harsh, nothing overbearing, nothing that crushes the spirit or extinguishes hope. We heard the prophecy of Isaiah in yesterday's Gospel: "He will not snap the staff that is already crushed, or put out the wick that still smoulders" (Is 42:3; Mt 12:20). The refrain of today's Responsorial Psalm bears this out, more strikingly in the editio typica. There, we read, Tu, Domine, suavis et mitis es. "Thou, O Lord, art sweet and mild" (Ps 85:5).

To Those Who Pray

Holiness is the Father's gift communicated in Christ Jesus through the inward operations of the Holy Spirit to those accept it, that is, to those who pray. This is where today's passage from Romans comes in. Saint Paul knows the dilemma of those beset by infirmity: those who would pray but do not know how to pray. "The Spirit," he says, "helps us in our infirmity, and intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words" (Rom 8:26-27).

Pray Always

One who stops praying seals his own fate. One who prays is certain of obtaining help in infirmity. Pray for the grace never to stop praying. Listen to the reflection of the saintly Jesuit, Père de Ravignan (1795-1858):

The Holy Spirit

Our Lord does not abandon the good seed scattered by His hand in the vast field of the world. "He who is to befriend you, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send on my account, will in His turn make everything plain, and recall to your minds everything that I have said to you" (Jn 14:25). Even as the good seed grows together with the weeds until the harvest, it is secretly nourished and protected by the Holy Spirit.

The Children of the Kingdom

Drawn down by the epiclesis, the Church's solemn invocation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Divine Paraclete, the Source of all fecundity, is poured out upon the good seed. The Mass is the summit of the intercession made by the Spirit "for the saints according to the will of God" (Rom 8:27). The Father who searches the heart of every child of the kingdom, is pleased, in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, to mark His own with the sweetness and mildness of His Christ. By this are "the children of the kingdom" distinguished from "the children of the evil one" (Mt 13:38). On the day of the great harvest, the angels will be sent out to reap the fruits of holiness sprung from the good seed. And on that day, "the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen" (Mt 13:43).

Mary Coredemptrix

I thrilled to the passage from Saint Bernard that I read this morning at Matins of the Saturday Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Mellifluous Doctor attributes the work of redemption to one Man and one Woman, to Jesus and Mary.

Later in the day, reading the Holy Father's homily at Mass in Saint Mary's Cathedral in Sydney, I discovered that His Holiness spoke of the same mystery: the new Eve cooperating with the new Adam in reversing the disobedience of our first parents.

Saint Bernard this morning at Matins:

"Dearly beloved brethren, one man and one woman grievously harmed us, but, thanks be to God, by one Man and one Woman all things are restored unto us, and there remaineth still due from us a great debt of gratitude. For not as the offence, so was the gift (Rom 5, 15) but the greatness of the benefit far outweigheth the amount of the loss. Thus did it please our most wise and merciful Creator; that which was shaken, He did not break, but made all things new and better, making for us a new Adam out of the old, and changing Eve for Mary."

Pope Benedict XVI this morning in Sydney:

"Dear friends, let me conclude these reflections by drawing your attention to the great stained glass window in the chancel of this cathedral. There Our Lady, Queen of Heaven, is represented enthroned in majesty beside her divine Son. The artist has represented Mary, as the new Eve, offering an apple to Christ, the new Adam. This gesture symbolizes her reversal of our first parents' disobedience, the rich fruit which God's grace bore in her own life, and the first fruits of that redeemed and glorified humanity which she has preceded into the glory of heaven."

Two strophes from this morning's hymn at Lauds seemed to come to life as I sang them in the sunlight of this new Day of the Lord:

Iesu, labantes respice
et nos videndo corrige;
si respicis, lapsus cadunt
fletuque culpa solvitur.

Tu, lux, refulge sensibus
mentisque somnum discute;
te nostra vox primum sonet,
et vota solvamus tibi.

The Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman translates:

Jesu, Master! when we sin,
Turn on us Thy healing Face;
It will melt the offence within
Into penitential grace.

Beam on our bewildered mind,
Till its dreamy shadows flee;
Stones cry out where Thou hast shined,
Jesu! musical with Thee.

Praying Audibly

Diocesan priests, deacons, and others who, for one reason or another, pray the Hours alone will find that if they recite or chant them audibly, respecting the rhythm and pauses of choral prayer, the sacred texts more easily descend into the heart. There one begins to experience the sacramental quality of the Divine Office; it is, in fact, a holy communion with the prayer of the ascended and risen Christ, our Eternal High Priest, to the Father.

With the Body

Whenever possible, even in private recitation, adopt the traditional bodily attitudes and gestures of the Divine Office: standing, sitting, kneeling, bowing, and signing oneself with the Cross. Saint Benedict enjoined those of his monks who found themselves far from the oratory of the monastery at the hour of prayer to perform the Work of God "on bended knee", that is, without omitting the body's tribute to the Divine Majesty (RSB 50).

In a Sacred Space

In this age of locked churches and the decline of parish-based neighbourhoods, it is not always possible to pray in the presence of the Most Holy Sacrament. A domestic oratory, even if it is no more than a corner in one's apartment or an empty closet refreshed with a coat of paint, is a permanent invitation to return to prayer faithfully. The soul finds peace in repairing to a space of beauty set aside for the glory of God. There, by means of sacred images, the "Healing Face" of Our Lord shines into the soul, while the Mother of God, the Angels and the saints offer the comfort of a familiar presence.

Reading Saint Paul

This morning in my lectio continua of Saint Paul, I read Romans 7:14-25. I'm using the splendid translation of Monsignor Ronald A. Knox. It renders the text with a striking clarity. Just listen to this. (I say listen, because it is best read aloud.)

I am a thing of flesh and blood, sold into the slavery of sin.
My own actions bewilder me;
what I do is not what I wish to do, but something which I hate.
Why then, if what I do is something I have no wish to do,
I thereby admit that the law is worthy of all honour;
meanwhile my action does not come from me,
but from the sinful principle that dwells in me.
Of this I am certain, that no principle of good dwells in me, that is, in my natural self:
praiseworthy intentions are always ready to hand,
but I cannot find my way to the performance of them;
it is not the good my will prefers,
but the evil my will disapproves that I find myself doing.
And if what I do is something I have not the will to do,
it cannot be I that bring it about,
it must be the sinful principle that dwells in me.
This then is what I find about the law, that evil is close at my side,
when my will is to do what is praiseworthy.
Inwardly, I applaud God's disposition,
but I observe another disposition in my lower self,
which raises war against the disposition of my conscience,
and so I am handed over as a captive to that disposition towards sin
which my lower self contains.
Pitiable creature that I am, who is to set me free from a nature thus doomed to death?
Nothing else than the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
If I am left to myself, my conscience is at God's disposition,
but my natural powers are at the disposition of sin.

Fellowship of the Inconsistent

"My own actions bewilder me" (Rom 7:15). Paul's bewilderment is strangely comforting to me. Paul takes his place among the fellowship of the inconsistent, the weak, and the flawed. The Apostle asks the question for me: "Pitiable creature that I am, who is to set me free from a nature thus doomed to death?" (Rom 7:24). And straightaway he answers it: "Nothing else than the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom 7:15).

The Ministra Gratiae

Given that today is a Saturday Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I related this text of the Apostle to Our Lady's role in the economy of grace. I am set free by "the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom 7:15), who "took birth from a woman" (Gal 4:5) "full of grace" (Lk 1:28). The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of "the only-begotten Son, full of grace and truth" (Jn 1:15) opens her hands over all of us who are inconsistent, weak, and flawed. She is the ministra gratiae, the dispenser of the all-sufficient grace of Christ. To the inconsistent she communicates reliance on the grace of her Son. The Blessed Virgin Mary strengthens the weak. She reshapes the flawed.

Yes, "my own actions bewilder me" (Rom 7:15) -- but the gracious interventions of the Mother of God, Mediatrix of All Graces, fill me with gratitude and wonder.

Good for Evil and Blessings for Curses

Good rendered for evil; blessings for curses; pardon, peace, concord, and reconciliation. The Collect for the Memorial of Saint John Gualbert speaks the language of the Gospel, ageless and ever new.

Almighty and ever-living God,
source of peace and lover of concord,
to know Thee is to live, to serve Thee is to reign;
establish us in Thy love,
that by the example of the blessed abbot John Gualbert,
we may render good for evil and blessings for curses,
and so obtain from Thee both pardon and peace.

Victory Over Vengeance

John Gualbert's monastic vocation unfolded in dramatic circumstances. A medieval Florentine nobleman, he lived in an age and culture that, in spite of the Gospel, exalted vengeance as a matter of honour. When his elder brother was murdered, John felt compelled to avenge him.

On a certain Good Friday, riding through a narrow mountain pass, John came face to face with his brother's killer. The man was alone. The place was isolated. There was no escape. John drew his sword, ready to exact a bloody vengeance. The murderer raised his arms in the form of a cross and, in the Name of Jesus Crucified, begged John's forgiveness.

The Encounter With Jesus Crucified

Cut to the heart by the grace of the Cross, John dropped his sword, embraced his enemy, and made his way straight to a church in Florence. There, kneeling before the crucifix, John saw Jesus Crucified bow His head, acknowledging his act of forgiveness and, by the same token, forgiving him all his sins. And so, John became a monk.

A splendid stained-glass window telescopes the story into one scene. John is shown as a young nobleman. With his eyes fixed on the image of the Crucified, he is embracing his enemy, the murderer of his brother. The iconography of Saint John Gualbert makes for a fascinating study. In nearly every image the saint is represented looking at Jesus Crucified, embracing Him, or holding the Cross against his heart.

Saints Benedict and Paul

This Solemnity of Our Father Saint Benedict, falling in the Pauline Year, invites us — I want to say, compels us — to reflect on the relationship between the Apostle of the Nations and the Patriarch of Monks. Saint Benedict was imbued with the Epistles of Saint Paul; he quotes the Apostle 23 times in the Holy Rule.

Saint Benedict’s choice of Pauline texts reveals a knowledge of the Apostle that could only have come from years of assiduous lectio divina: the words of the Apostle heard, repeated, prayed, and held in the heart. One finds a similar knowledge of Saint Paul in the writings of Blessed Columba Marmion. The author of Christ the Life of the Soul, Christ in His Mysteries, Christ the Ideal of the Monk, and Christ the Ideal of the Priest was steeped in the writings of the Apostle.

This Year’s Lectio Continua

The Pauline Year offers each of us a unique opportunity to become, like Saint Benedict, imbued with the message of the Apostle Paul. This is the year to let Saint Paul make a difference in your life. This is the year to hear his message with the ear of the heart as if for the first time. This is the year to undertake a lectio continua of his thirteen Epistles, adding for good measure the Letter to the Hebrews, which by an ancient ecclesiastical and liturgical tradition, was also attributed to the Apostle.

Begin with the Letter to the Romans and make your way through the Apostle’s writings. It is better to read several short passages a day, and one before falling asleep. You may want to read a passage before or after each of the Hours of the Divine Office. Find the system that works best for you, but do not let this Pauline Year pass you by without receiving the grace it offers you.

Saint Paul in the Rule of Saint Benedict

Prologue

1. Romans 13:11 And that knowing the season; that it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. 12 The night is passed, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light.

2. 1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God, I am what I am; and his grace in me hath not been void, but I have laboured more abundantly than all they: yet not I, but the grace of God with me.

3. 2 Corinthians 10:17 But he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

4. Romans 2:4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and patience, and longsuffering? Knowest thou not, that the benignity of God leadeth thee to penance?

Chapter 2: What Kind of Man the Abbot Should Be

5. Romans 8:15 For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: Abba (Father).

6. Romans 2:11 For there is no respect of persons with God.

7. 2 Timothy 4:2 Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine.

Chapter 4: The Tools of Good Works

8. 1 Corinthians 2:9 But, as it is written: That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him.

Chapter 5: Obedience

9. 2 Corinthians 9:7 Every one as he hath determined in his heart, not with sadness, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.

Chapter 7: Humility

10. Philippians 2:8 He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross.

11. Romans 8:36 As it is written: For thy sake we are put to death all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

12. 1 Corinthians 4:12 And we labour, working with our own hands: we are reviled, and we bless; we are persecuted, and we suffer it.

Chapter 25: Very Serious Faults

13. 1 Corinthians 5:5 To deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Chapter 27: The Concern the Abbot Must Have for the Excommunicated

14. 2 Corinthians 2:7 So that on the contrary, you should rather forgive him and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.

Chapter 28: The Incorrigible

15. 1 Corinthians 5:13 Put away the evil one from among yourselves.

16. 1 Corinthians 7:15 But if the unbeliever depart, let him depart. For a brother or sister is not under servitude in such cases. But God hath called us in peace.

Chapter 31: What Kind of Man the Cellarer of the Monastery Should Be

17. 1 Timothy 3:13 For they that have ministered well, shall purchase to themselves a good degree, and much confidence in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.

Chapter 40: The Measure of Drink

18. 1 Corinthians 7:7 For I would that all men were even as myself: but every one hath his proper gift from God; one after this manner, and another after that.

Chapter 49: The Observance of Lent

19. Romans 14:17 For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

Chapter 53: The Reception of Guests

20. Galatians 6:10 Therefore, whilst we have time, let us work good to all men, but especially to those who are of the household of the faith.

Chapter 63: The Order of the Community

21. Romans 12:10 Loving one another with the charity of brotherhood, with honour preventing one another.

Chapter 70: That No May Hit One Another

22. 1 Timothy 5:20 Them that sin reprove before all: that the rest also may have fear.

Chapter 72: On the Good Zeal Which Monks Ought to Have

23. Romans 12:10 Loving one another with the charity of brotherhood, with honour preventing one another.

The Experience of Being Loved by Christ

What exactly do Saint Paul and Saint Benedict have in common? A personal experience of the love of Jesus Christ. The Apostle himself could have counseled his spiritual children to “set nothing before the love of Christ” (RB 4:21). He could have instructed his disciples “to prefer nothing whatever to Christ” (RB 72:11). Saint Benedict, for his part, surely said with Paul, “I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal 2:20).

The apostolic vocation of Saint Paul and the monastic vocation of Saint Benedict spring from the same experience of the love of Christ. Allow me, then, to borrow from the Holy Father’s homily for the opening of the Pauline Year, modifying it to bring home my point:

“In the Letter to the Galatians, Saint Paul gives a very personal profession of faith in which he opens his heart to readers of all times and reveals what was the most intimate drive of his life. "I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal 2: 20). All Paul's actions and all Benedict’s begin from this centre. Their faith is the experience of being loved by Jesus Christ in a very personal way. It is awareness of the fact that Christ did not face death for something anonymous but rather for love of him - of Paul, and of Benedict - and that, as the Risen One, he still loves Paul and still loves Benedict; in other words, Christ gave himself for each of them. Paul's faith, Benedict’s faith is being struck by the love of Jesus Christ, a love that overwhelms them to their depths and transforms them. The faith of the Apostle, like the faith of our glorious Patriarch, is not a theory, an opinion about God and the world. Their faith is the impact of God's love in their hearts.” (Pope Benedict XVI, Homily at Vespers for the Opening of the Pauline Year, Saturday, 28 June 2008)

The Most Holy Eucharist

Through the adorable Sacrament of Our Lord’s Most Holy Body and Blood, may it be given each of us to participate today in the experience of Saint Paul and of Saint Benedict. It is in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that Jesus Christ loves us still, and gives Himself anew, inviting us, inciting us to set nothing before His love.

I celebrated the beautiful Votive Mass of Saint Paul this morning. One of my resolutions for the Pauline Year is to offer the Votive Mass of Saint Paul once a week whenever the rubrics permit it. The Propers for this Mass are found in the Missale Romanum, Editio Typica Tertia, 2002, page 1185. I would be curious to know how many of my brother priests will also be celebrating the Votive Mass of Saint Paul during this special year of grace.

Introit

Scio cui credidi, et certus sum quia potens est
depositum meum servare in illum diem iustus iudex.

He, to whom I have given my confidence, is no stranger to me,
and I am fully persuaded that he has the means to keep my pledge safe,
until that day comes, the Lord, that Judge.
(2 Timothy 1, 12; 4, 8)

Collect

Domine Deus, qui beatum Paulum apostolum
ad praedicandum Evangelium mirabiliter designasti,
da fide mundum universum imbui,
qu