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A Pentecost Meditation

Alleluia!
Today the Spirit of the Lord has invaded the cosmos and filled it!
Life spills out of the Cenacle
and, like a torrent of wine,
courses through the streets of Jerusalem.
God arises and His enemies are scattered;
those that hate Him flee before his face,
and those that love Him sing: Alleluia!

Today He who came down to see Babel’s tower
and confused the speech of the proud
visits the Upper Room.
He unties the tongues of the humble
and unites into one holy people those long divided by sin.
Amazed at what she sees and hears,
the Church intones her birthday song: Alleluia!

Today He who on Sinai descended in fire,
causing rocks to quake and peaks to pale,
descends upon Jerusalem;
tongues of fire dance over the heads of those
who, cloistered in the Cenacle, waited to meet their God
and at His coming, they cry out: Alleluia.

Today the valley of dry bones
begins to stir, to rattle, and to reverberate.
Behold, I will cause the Spirit to enter you,
and you shall live:
and they lived and stood upon their feet,
an exceeding great host
singing: Alleluia!

Today the Cenacle sealed like tomb
opens, a joyful Mother’s fruitful womb.
None was ever born of the Spirit
who did not take his birth from her,
and each, claiming from her the springs of his life,
calls her forever glorious, repeating: Alleluia!

Today the Spirit is poured out in superabundance;
today sons and daughters prophesy;
today old men dream dreams and young men see visions;
today menservants and maidservants
join the choir to chant with one many-tongued voice: Alleluia!

Today the Virgin whom the Spirit covered with His shadow
is wrapped in Love and crowned in flame.
Today the Woman who interceded at Cana
tastes New Wine, for the Hour has come.
Today the Mother who stood watching by the Tree
remembers the stream of water and of blood
and filled with sweetness, cries: Alleluia!
Today the Spirit helps us in our weakness
and we who do not know to pray as we ought,
pray in a way that is wonderful and new;
for now the Spirit Himself intercedes for us
with sighs too deep for words.
In the valley of the shadow of death
there rises the canticle of life: Alleluia!

I chose for this meditation the image of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament. She is also Our Lady of the Cenacle; her hand are raised in ceaseless prayer and in readiness for the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. The Infant Christ held within His Most Pure Mother represents the nascent Church, the Church enclosed within the Immaculate Heart of Mary during the days of retreat in the Cenacle. The holy oblations depicted in this icon remind us that the Church, already in the Cenacle, was nourished and sustained by the mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist.

Enclosed in One Place

Beginning with Second Vespers of the Ascension of the Lord, the Church prays intensely, urgently, insistently for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Obedient to the command of Christ, “not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father” (Ac 1:4), we remain quiet and still, “enclosed” in one place. We have entered upon a kind of Advent of the Holy Spirit.

Concrete Gestures

This Advent of the Holy Spirit renews us in the desire for silence and separation from the world. The Mother of Jesus and the Apostles sequestered themselves in the Cenacle. They withdrew to a place apart. Each of us is called, according to his state in life, to separation from the world. During these days preceding Pentecost, one must, in some way, find concrete gestures to make the retreat of the Cenacle real. It is useless to speak in vague and idealistic terms of silence and separation from the world, if our actions and choices belie our pious discourse. For one it will be a resolute “No” to the television, to videos, and to an inordinate use of the internet. For another it will be abstinence from reading those things in newspapers and magazines that excite curiosity and leave troubling impressions on the soul. For yet another it will be a more generous application to that costly outward silence that is the price of inward silence.

O Rex Gloriae

We are in the Advent of the Holy Spirit, the Advent of the Cenacle. It is no mere coincidence that the second mode melody of the Ascension Magnificat Antiphon, O Rex Gloriae is the very one used for the Great O Antiphons of Advent. The same climate of irrepressible and joyful expectation pervades the Church. “O King of glory, Thou Lord of Sabaoth, who on this day didst ascend with exceeding triumph far above all heavens: we pray Thee leave us not comfortless, but send on us the Promise of the Father, the Spirit of Truth, alleluia” (Magnificat Antiphon, Second Vespers of the Ascension).

The Springtime Advent

We cried out, last December, during our winter Advent, for the coming of Christ, the first Paraclete, the Advocate who is to us Wisdom, Adonai, Root of Jesse, Key of David, Dayspring from on high, King of Nations, and Emmanuel. “I will pray the Father,” He said, “and He will give you another Paraclete to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; you know Him for he dwells with you, and will be in you” (Jn 14:16 17). In this springtime Advent of the Holy Spirit, made bold by the prayer of the risen and ascended Christ on our behalf, we cry out for the other Paraclete, the Comforter sent by the Father to plead our cause.

Veni!

We cry out for the coming of the Father of the Poor, the Giver of Gifts, the Light of hearts, the best of all Consolers, the soul’s sweet Guest and gentle refreshment (cf., Pentecost Sequence, Veni, Sancte Spiritus). The Veni Creator is repeated every evening at Vespers from Ascension to Pentecost, swelling with intensity as the Fiftieth Day approaches. The whole prayer of the Church during this Advent of the Holy Spirit is, as it were, condensed in a single aspiration rising “out of the depths” (Ps 129:1), “Veni!”

Seventh Sunday of Paschaltide
Sunday of the Holy Face of Christ

The Most Holy Face of Christ is celebrated on various days of the liturgical year. In the tradition of Carmel, especially in France, the feast of the Transfiguration, August 6th, is marked by loving attention to the Face of Christ. Mother Maria-Pierina De Micheli and the Servant of God Abbot Ildebrando Gregori, O.S.B. promoted the feast of the Holy Face on Shrove Tuesday.

The Congregation of the Benedictines of Jesus Crucified, founded by Mother Marie des Douleurs in 1930, has the custom of turning to the Holy Face in a special way on the Sunday after the Ascension of the Lord. The choice was motivated by the Introit of the Mass:

“Listen to my voice, Lord, when I cry to Thee, alleluia.
True to my heart’s promise I have eyes only for Thy Face;
I seek Thy Face, O Lord!
Turn not Thy Face away from me, alleluia, alleluia” (Ps 26: 7-9).

One of the unfortunate consequences of the lamentable transfer (in some places) of Ascension Thursday to the following Sunday is the loss of the magnificent Proper texts of the Sunday after the Ascension, both for the Mass and the Divine Office . . . and the loss of a Sunday that leaves us with the gaze of our souls riveted to the Face of the Beloved.

A Longing to See Him Again

The soon to be beatified Cardinal Newman wrote somewhere that the Ascension of the Lord is “at once a source of sorrow, because it involves His absence; and of joy, because it involves His presence.” For Our Blessed Lady and the Apostles, standing on the Mount of Olives with their eyes riveted to the heavens, the Ascension was the last glimpse of the Face of Christ on earth. The disappearance of the beloved Face of Christ leaves in the heart of the Church a longing to see Him again, a burning desire for His return.

I Seek Thy Face

This is the reason for Exaudi, Domine, today’s incomparable Introit: “Listen to my voice, Lord, when I cry to Thee, alleluia. True to my heart’s promise I have eyes only for Thy Face; I seek Thy Face, O Lord! Turn not Thy Face away from me, alleluia, alleluia” (Ps 26: 7-9). The desire to contemplate the Face of Christ becomes a persistent longing; this is the experience of all the saints. The vitality of one’s interior life can be measured by the intensity of one’s desire to see the Face of Christ.

John Paul II

Eight years ago in Novo Millennio Ineunte, the Servant of God Pope John Paul II placed the new millennium under the radiant sign of the Face of Christ. Then again, at the beginning of the Year of the Eucharist, the year of his death, Pope John Paul II again directed our eyes to the Face of Christ concealed and revealed in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. The teaching of Pope John Paul II confirms, in a striking way, the spiritual patrimony left by Mother Marie des Douleurs to the Congregation she founded. “Devotion to the Holy Face,” she wrote, “is the particular aspect by which the Holy Spirit makes us learn again all that we need know to become the saints that Jesus desires. This devotion is of such central importance and so vital for us that we cannot live without it.”

The Holy Spirit

I am touched by the connection Mother Marie des Douleurs makes between the Holy Spirit and the Face of Christ. “Devotion to the Holy Face is the particular aspect by which the Holy Spirit makes us learn again all that we need know to become the saints that Jesus desires.” Recall the promise of Our Lord before His Passion: “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 I have said you” (Jn 14:26). “It will be for Him, the truth-giving Spirit, when He comes, to guide you into all truth” (Jn 16:13).

The Holy Spirit teaches souls by referring them to the adorable Face of Jesus. The Sacred Scriptures themselves are illumined by the Holy Spirit who so opens our eyes that we perceive the Face of the Bridegroom shining through the text. “Now,” says the Bride of the Canticle, “He is looking in through each window in turn, peering through every chink” (Ct 2:9).

Many years ago, while searching out the treasures of my missal, I discovered, among the Masses for Certain Places, the Mass of Our Lady of the Cenacle for the Saturday within the Octave of the Ascension. The Proper texts of the Mass stirred my heart.

This particular Mass was not retained in the Collection of Masses in Honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary. If I am not mistaken, even the Religious of the Cenacle, for whom these texts were composed, no longer use them. The orations are, like so many composed in the 19th century, addressed to Our Lord Jesus Christ, rather than to the Father. They contain some wonderfully evocative phrases in the original Latin. I wonder if this Mass was composed before or after the death of Saint Thérèse Couderc, the extraordinarily humble foundress of the Society of Our Lady of the Cenacle.

Collect

Deus, qui beatam Mariam semper Virginem matrem tuam
in Cenaculi solitudine cum discipulis orantem
Sancti Spiritus donis cumulasti:
fac nos, quaesumus, cordis recessum diligere;
ut sic rectius orantes
Spiritus Sancti gratiis repleri mereamur.

O God, who didst fill the Blessed Ever–Virgin Mary, Thy mother,
in prayer with the disciples in the solitude of the Cenacle
with the gifts of the Holy Spirit;
grant that we may cherish the secret places of the heart,
so that by a more insistent prayer,
we may deserve to be filled with the graces of the Holy Spirit.

We began the Solemn Pentecost Novena this morning at the Monastery of the Glorious Cross by singing the Veni, Creator Spiritus at the end of Holy Mass. Today, being the First Friday of the month, was also a day of Eucharistic adoration.

The day was made even more special by eight year old Marcelo's First Confession. After the Gospel Marcelo donned the white garment recalling his Baptism, and received a lighted candle. Marcelo participates in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, a Montessori inspired preparation for the sacraments, at Saint Mary's Church in New Haven, Connecticut. Marcelo will be receiving his First Holy Communion on Sunday.

Creator Spirit! Pow'r Divine!
Come! visit all the souls of thine;
With Heav'n-descending grace pervade
The breasts which Thou Thyself hast made.

Thou who art named the Paraclete!
Rich gift from God's own mercy seat!
O Fount of Life, and Fire of Love!
Soul cleansing Unction from above!

Thou in thy Sevenfold Glories bright!
Thou Finger of God's Hand of Might!
Who dost o'er lips the timely store
Of speech, the Father's promise pour!

Thy light to every sense impart;
Diffuse thy love through every heart;
The weakness of our mortal flesh
With thy unfailing strength refresh.

Drive far away th'assailing foe,
And all thy holy peace bestow;
So thou be our preventing Guide,
No mischief can our steps betide.

Through Thee may we the Father learn,
And know the Ever-Blessed Son;
Sweet Spirit! so of Both receive,
Thee! as we evermore believe.

Praise to the Father, as is meet,
The Son and Holy Paraclete!
So may the Son to every heart,
The Holy Spirit's grace impart. Amen.

May 3
Saints Philip and James, Apostles

John 14:6-14
Psalm 18:2-5
1 Corinthians 15:1-8

Today's Office Antiphons

There is no doubt that the antiphons given in the Divine Office for this feast of Saints Philip and James are among the most beautiful of the Paschaltide liturgy. If you have an Antiphonale, open it and sing them! The Church takes the dialogue of the Gospel and, with an artistry inspired by the Holy Spirit, presents it anew in a series of antiphons interwoven with alleluias:

Domine, Ostende Nobis Patrem

The first antiphon is Philip’s bold request: “Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us, alleluia” (Jn 14:8). Philip’s prayer echoes that of Moses in the book of Exodus: “I pray thee, show me thy glory” (Ex 33:18).

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.

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).

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.'"

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.”