Saints and Angels: November 2008 Archives

The Cross, the Passion, and the Most Holy Eucharist

Today's Saint Silvester Guzzolini (1177-1267), founder of the so-called Blue Benedictines (from the colour of their habit) or Silvestrines, exemplifies the monastic spirituality of the thirteenth century. Nourished by the Word of God, Silvester filled the gaze of his soul with the mysteries of the Passion of Our Lord, contemplating His wounds and desiring nothing so much as to follow Him along the way of the Cross. So strong was this desire of his that on one occasion he was mystically transported to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. As one might expect, Silvester's devotion to the Passion of Jesus found its highest expression in the ardent love he had for the Most Holy Eucharist. This is reflected in the beautiful Secret for his feast:

With all reverence, O Lord,
do we offer these gifts to Thy divine Majesty:
praying that by the devout preparation of our minds
and purity of heart,
we may be made imitators of the blessed Silvester,
and so deserve to receive in a holy manner
the Body and Blood of Thy Son.

The Mother of God

Silvester nurtured a tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Mercy, to whom he entrusted himself entirely. Our Lady responded by demonstrating her maternal love for him with singular graces. On one occasion, he fell in the staircase while descending to the Night Office. The Blessed Virgin came to help him and, in the twinkling of an eye, Silvester found himself safe and sound back in his cell. One hears of similar episodes in the lives of modern saints such as Padre Pio, Marthe Robin, and Mother Yvonne-Aimée of Malestroit.

Communion from the Hands of Our Lady

The most famous Marian prodigy in his life took place when, of a night, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him in a dream and said, "Silvester, dost thou desire to receive the Body of my Son?" With trepidation he answered, "My heart is ready, O Lady; let it be done unto me according to thy word." With that, the Mother of God gave him Holy Communion. Claudio Ridolfi painted the episode in 1632.

The Collects

There are two Collects for today's feast. The first alludes to the horrifying experience that caused Silvester to change his way of life and embrace the monastic state. In 1227, as a fifty year old canon of the cathedral of Osimo, he saw the decomposing body of a man who, in life, had been comely and strong. Silvester then said to himself: "What he was thou art, and what he is, thou shalt be." With that, he decided to withdraw into solitude.

The second prayer, found in the new Antiphonale Monasticum, reflects the two principle graces of his life: solitude and community. The Latin text has this magnificent conclusion: et in humili caritate ad aeterna tabernacula festinare!

O most clement God, Who,
when the holy abbot Silvester,
by the side of an open grave,
stood meditating on the emptiness of the things of this world,
didst vouchsafe to call him into the wilderness
and to ennoble him with the merit of a singularly holy life;
most humbly we beg of Thee, that like him,
we may despise earthly things,
and enjoy fellowship with Thee for evermore.

O God who bestowed upon Saint Silvester
zeal for the sweetness of solitude
and for the labours of the cenobitical life,
grant us, we beseech Thee,
to seek Thee always with a sincere mind
and in humble charity
hasten toward the eternal tabernacles.

Gone and Back Again

Filippino Lippi shows the mystical espousal of Saint Catherine of Alexandria with the Infant Christ. The Mother of God, Saint John the Baptist, Saints Peter and Paul, and Saint Sebastian are there as witnesses.

Saint Catherine of Alexandria vanished from the Roman Calendar in the reform of 1969 and, Deo gratias, reappeared in 2002. Why? Part of the answer can be found, I think, by comparing the lovely old Collect for Saint Catherine with the one newly composed for the 2002 edition of the Roman Missal.

In the traditional liturgy, on November 25th the Church prays:

O God Who gavest the Law to Moses on the summit of Mount Sinai,
and didst miraculously place the body of Thy blessed virgin-martyr Catherine
in the selfsame spot by the ministry of Thy holy angels,
grant, we beseech Thee, that her merits and pleadings
may enable us to reach the mountain which is Christ.

The Collect focuses on the image of Mount Sinai, the sacred mountain which prefigures Christ himself. The first phrase of the prayer takes up Exodus 31:18, the inspiration of the Great O Antiphon that we will be singing on December 18th:

O ADONAI, and Ruler of the House of Israel, who appeared unto Moses in the burning bush and gave him the Law on the summit of Sinai: come to redeem us with an outstretched arm!

Of Monks and Angels

The only problem (although not for me) with the fine old Collect, it would seem, is that it hinges on the legendary miraculous translation by angels of the body of Saint Catherine to Mount Sinai. Ah, but look again! In the Eastern tradition consecrated monks are designated "of the Angelic Habit."

Given that the life of monks, dedicated to the ceaseless praise of the Thrice-Holy God, has often been compared to that of the Angels, monks have, at various times, been called "angels." (See Père Louis Bouyer's classic book, The Meaning of the Monastic Life.) The translation by "angels" may have been carried out by monks!

Unity Among the Churches

The newly composed Collect for Saint Catherine does not make use of the biblical mountain imagery; instead it focuses on the work of Christian unity. Saint Catherine, cherished and greatly venerated in the East, becomes in the new Collect an intercessor for the unity of the Church.

Almighty and eternal God,
who gavest to Thy people the invincible virgin and martyr Saint Catherine,
grant that, by means of her intercession,
we may be strengthened in faith and constancy,
and spend ourselves unsparingly
in working for the unity of Thy Church.

The Patrimony of a Pilgrim Pope

The significance of Saint Catherine's reappearance in the pages of the Roman Missal cannot be understood apart from the historical pilgrimage of Pope John Paul II to the Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai in Egypt on February 26, 2000. Today's feast of the Virgin Martyr of Alexandria recalls the commitment of the Church of Rome to the arduous work of unity with the Churches of the East through prayer and humble dialogue. In the Collect of the 2002 edition of the Missale Romanum we ask that, through the intercession of Saint Catherine, "we may be strengthened in faith and constancy, and spend ourselves unsparingly in working for the unity of the Church."

The homily that Pope John Paul II preached at the Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai is, in its own way, a prophetic word to the churches:

Here He Revealed His Name

Our faith leads us to become pilgrims in the footsteps of God. We contemplate the path He has taken through time, revealing to the world the magnificent mystery of His faithful Love for all humankind. Today, with great joy and deep emotion, the Bishop of Rome is a pilgrim to Mount Sinai, drawn by this holy mountain which rises like a soaring monument to what God revealed here. Here He revealed his name! Here he gave his Law, the Ten Commandments of the Covenant!

Holy Ground

How many have come to this place before us! Here the People of God pitched their tents (cf. Ex 19:2); here the prophet Elijah took refuge in a cave (cf. 1 Kgs 19:9); here the body of the martyr Catherine found a final resting- place; here a host of pilgrims through the ages have scaled what Saint Gregory of Nyssa called "the mountain of desire" (The Life of Moses, II, 232); here generations of monks have watched and prayed. We humbly follow in their footsteps, to "the holy ground" where the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob commissioned Moses to set his people free (cf. Ex 3:5-8).

Adore Him

God shows Himself in mysterious ways - as the fire that does not consume - according to a logic which defies all that we know and expect. He is the God who is at once close at hand and far-away; He is in the world but not of it. He is the God who comes to meet us, but who will not be possessed. He is "I AM WHO I AM" - the name which is no name! I AM WHO I AM: the divine abyss in which essence and existence are one! The God who is Being itself! Before such a mystery, how can we fail to "take off our shoes" as He commands, and adore Him on this holy ground?

Listening to the Word

Pope John Paul II went on to acknowledge the age-old monastic presence on Sinai:

The monks of this Monastery pitched their tent in the shadow of Sinai. The Monastery of the Transfiguration and Saint Catherine bears all the marks of time and human turmoil, but it stands indomitable as a witness to divine wisdom and love. For centuries monks from all Christian traditions lived and prayed together in this Monastery, listening to the Word in whom dwells the fullness of the Father's wisdom and love. In this very Monastery, Saint John Climacus, wrote The Ladder of Divine Ascent, a spiritual masterpiece that continues to inspire monks and nuns, from East and West, generation after generation.

The Things That Unite Us in Christ

The Pope concluded by praying that,

. . . in the new millennium the Monastery of Saint Catherine will be a radiant beacon calling the Churches to know one another better and to rediscover the importance in the eyes of God of the things that unite us in Christ.

The Catholic "Both And"

This, it seems to me, enriches the ancient feast of Saint Catherine of Alexandria with another perspective: "the importance in the eyes of God of the things that unite us in Christ." So then, which Collect should we use today? I would suggest that we do a very Catholic thing and use both of them. My preference would be to retain the traditional prayer at Holy Mass and the major Hours and use the new one at the Little Hours and, perhaps, to conclude the General Intercessions where these are done.

This anachronistic engraving of Saint Columban amuses me. Note that the Hermits of Saint Augustine claim him as one of their own! He is wearing the distinctive Augustinian cincture. And his crucifix is planted right on top of the indispensable skull.

Late November Saints

The saints of these last days of the liturgical year incite us to look beyond the conditions of this present life and to set our hope on the things that God has prepared for us in "the holy city, new Jerusalem" (Ap 21:2), "what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived" (1 Cor 2:9).

Last Saturday, Saint Cecilia was set before us: an icon of the Church, Virgin and Bride, "carrying the Gospel always on her heart and meditating therein day and night, talking with God in prayer" (Responsory).

Today, we monks remember Saint Columban, the Irish missionary monk who demonstrated that the search for God and zeal for the extension of His kingdom go hand in hand.

O God who, in Saint Columban,
wonderfully joined the work of evangelization
to the practice of the monastic life,
grant, we beseech Thee,
that through his intercession and example,
we may seek Thee above all things
and work to increase the number of those who believe.

Today also commemorates the Holy Martyrs of Vietnam, that "great cloud of witnesses" (Heb 12:1) put to death "for their testimony to Jesus and for the Word of God" (Ap 20:4).

Wednesday, November 26th will mark the feast of Saint Sylvester, a holy abbot of the thirteenth century who, according to legend, was shocked into a conversion of life while gazing into an open tomb.

All-merciful God,
who, when the holy abbot Sylvester
stood before an open grave,
called him from the vanity of perishable things
to a life of shining holiness in the wilderness,
we humbly entreat Thee
that, like him, we may prefer nothing to the love of Christ
and live, already in this world,
with our hearts fixed on the joys of heaven.

Death Daily Before One's Eyes

Saint Sylvester is well suited to these last days of November. Together with Saint Benedict, he calls us "to fear the Day of Judgment, to dread hell, to yearn for eternal life with all possible spiritual desire, and to keep death daily before one's eyes" (RB 4:44-46).

Dies Irae

Fittingly, during this last week of the year, the Church gives us ample opportunity to meditate the sublime Dies irae.The place of the Dies irae in Western civilization is immense, gripping the imaginations of poets, artists, and composers. As a small boy I knew only the plainchant setting of the Dies Irae and often hummed it to myself. Peculiar? In 8th grade, however, I sang as a treble in Britten's stupendous War Requiem. The experience gave me quite another impression of the Dies Irae.

In the course of the liturgical reforms following the Second Vatican Council the Dies irae was designated for use in the Divine Office throughout the week immediately preceding the First Sunday of Advent. The Dies irae was originally composed as an Advent hymn, trumpeting the One who comes come to judge the world.

The Trump that Wakes the Dead

In Canto VI of his Lay of the Last Minstrel, Sir Walter Scott condenses the Dies irae into twelve lines. We do well to ponder them this week.

That day of wrath, that dreadful day,
When heaven and earth shall pass away,
What power shall be the sinner's stay?
How shall he meet that dreadful day?

When, shriveling like a parchèd scroll,
The flaming heavens together roll;
When louder yet, and yet more dread,
Swells the high trump that wakes the dead:

Oh, on that day, that wrathful day,
When man to judgment wakes from clay,
Be thou the trembling sinner's stay,
Though heaven and earth shall pass away.

Monks no longer have the custom of keeping an open tomb at the ready as the salutary destination of a daily stroll. We do well nonetheless to bend ourselves to the wisdom of Saint Benedict and the example of Saint Sylvester by "keeping death daily before our eyes." And we do well to ruminate the poetry of the Dies irae.

The Right Perspective

If anything, these practices will place all other things in the right perspective, disposing us to detachment, showing us how narrow and petty are the things that hold us in their grip. In the end, heaven and earth will pass away, but the words of Christ our Lord and merciful Judge will remain.

An Amazing Story

Madrid, Nov 12, 2008 / 09:21 pm (CNA).- The Spanish daily "La Razon" has published an article on the pro-life conversion of a former "champion of abortion." Stojan Adasevic, who performed 48,000 abortions, sometimes up to 35 per day, is now the most important pro-life leader in Serbia, after 26 years as the most renowned abortion doctor in the country.

"The medical textbooks of the Communist regime said abortion was simply the removal of a blob of tissue," the newspaper reported. "Ultrasounds allowing the fetus to be seen did not arrive until the 80s, but they did not change his opinion. Nevertheless, he began to have nightmares."

In describing his conversion, Adasevic "dreamed about a beautiful field full of children and young people who were playing and laughing, from 4 to 24 years of age, but who ran away from him in fear. A man dressed in a black and white habit stared at him in silence. The dream was repeated each night and he would wake up in a cold sweat. One night he asked the man in black and white who he was. 'My name is Thomas Aquinas,' the man in his dream responded. Adasevic, educated in communist schools, had never heard of the Dominican genius saint. He didn't recognize the name"

"Why don't you ask me who these children are?" St. Thomas asked Adasevic in his dream.

"They are the ones you killed with your abortions,' St. Thomas told him.

"Adasevic awoke in amazement and decided not to perform any more abortions," the article stated.

"That same day a cousin came to the hospital with his four months-pregnant girlfriend, who wanted to get her ninth abortion--something quite frequent in the countries of the Soviet bloc. The doctor agreed. Instead of removing the fetus piece by piece, he decided to chop it up and remove it as a mass. However, the baby's heart came out still beating. Adasevic realized then that he had killed a human being,"

After this experience, Adasevic "told the hospital he would no longer perform abortions. Never before had a doctor in Communist Yugoslavia refused to do so. They cut his salary in half, fired his daughter from her job, and did not allow his son to enter the university."

After years of pressure and on the verge of giving up, he had another dream about St. Thomas.

"You are my good friend, keep going,' the man in black and white told him. Adasevic became involved in the pro-life movement and was able to get Yugoslav television to air the film 'The Silent Scream,' by Doctor Bernard Nathanson, two times."

Adasevic has told his story in magazines and newspapers throughout Eastern Europe. He has returned to the Orthodox faith of his childhood and has studied the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.

"Influenced by Aristotle, Thomas wrote that human life begins forty days after fertilization," Adasevic wrote in one article. La Razon commented that Adasevic "suggests that perhaps the saint wanted to make amends for that error." Today the Serbian doctor continues to fight for the lives of the unborn.

I have written several posts on Saint Cecilia in past years. You will find them here, and here, and here.

The title of today's entry comes not from me, but from Saint John Chrystostom. It was Saint John Chrysostom's homily at Matins that struck me this morning. He is preaching on the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, Matthew 25:1-13. Amazing! Would that all priests could preach as he did! My own comments are in italics.

Virginity then, being a thing in itself so great and so much esteemed among many, lest any man having attained unto it, and kept it undefiled, should think that he hath done all, and so leave the rest undone, the Lord putteth forth this parable, in order to show that if virginity, though it have all else, lack mercy, its owner will have his portion without among the fornicators, among whom Christ doth justly place the heartless and pitiless celibate.

Note the allusion to Matthew 23:23:

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you tithe mint and anise and cummin and have left the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and faith. These things you ought to have done and not to leave those undone."

And to 1 Corinthians 1:2-3:

And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

The lust for bodies and the lust for money are two very different things, whereof the flesh is by far the keener and the stubborner appetite. They that strive with the weaker enemy are therefore much less excusable if they fall. Wherefore the Lord hath called such virgins "foolish," for having first won the stern battle, and then been destroyed in the light one.

By the "lamps" spoken of in this parable, the Lord signifieth the actual gift of virginity and holy continency, and by the "oil" gentleness, almsgiving, and helpfulness toward the needy.

A haughty and coldhearted chastity is an affront to the King of Virgins. Purity of heart disposes one to receive the living flame of divine love, a love that manifests itself above all in mercy, in gentleness, and in humility. In this regard, I cannot help but think of Father Lev Gillet -- the "monk of the Eastern Church" -- who synthesized in his very person a childlike purity and a boundless compassion in the face of every weakness and sin.

In one of his dialogues with Our Lord, Father Lev hears Him say:

Take to thyself everything in the sinner which, however deviously, comes from Me and continues to be Mine. Discover in the midst of the visible impurities and egoisms the secret action of My absolute Purity, and of the generosity of Love. Unite thyself to My effort to transfigure what is not of Me. By thy brotherly prayer, by thy sympathy, not for the sin but for the sinner, join in My work of purification (In Thy Presence, p. 64).

In Sinu Patris

In the monastic calendar today is the feast of Saint Mechtilde of Hakeborn. Known as "the nightingale of Helfta" for her beautiful voice, Saint Mechtilde was fascinated by what she called the cor Dei, the heart of God. The Beloved Disciple speaks of it in his Prologue: "No man has ever seen God; but now His only-begotten Son, who abides in the bosom of the Father, has brought us a clear message" (Jn 1:18). (The same theme of the Son abiding in sinu Patris -- in the bosom of the Father -- runs through all the writings of Blessed Abbot Marmion.) For Mechtilde, as for Saint Gertrude, her student and friend in the thirteenth century Abbey of Helfta, there was but one way into the bosom of the Father: through the pierced side of the Son. Both saints would have us know that the soul who desires to abide in the bosom of the Father must enter through "the narrow gate that leadeth to life" (Mt 7:14), that is, the sacred side of the Crucified, opened by the soldier's lance (Jn 19:24).

Clusters of Holiness

We keep the feast of Saint Mechtilde only a few days after that of Saint Gertrude (November 16th), the friend with whom she shared her quest for God and her experience of fruitful union with the Divine Bridegroom. This suggests that holiness, like grapes, grows in clusters. It pleases the Holy Spirit to communicate His graces from one heart to another. There are no saints in isolation. Saints Mechtilde and Gertrude were not alone in their passion for Christ. They burned with the same love for the Word of God. They hastened to the same abbey church, day after day, to exercise their baptismal priesthood by singing the monastic liturgy they so loved.

Laboring at Charity With Chaste Love

The holiness of Saints Mechtilde and of Gertrude flourished within a Eucharistic organism: a living body assembled by the Holy Spirit around one Altar, for the offering of one Victim, by one Priest. Their holiness flourished in a community of women who were not only mothers and sisters by virtue of the same monastic consecration, but also friends. For them, fraternal charity took on the very human expression countenanced by Saint Benedict in the Holy Rule: "making allowance for one another's weaknesses, whether physical or moral; laboring with chaste love at the charity of the brotherhood; loving their abbot with sincere and humble charity" (RB 72:5, 8, 10).

The Gift of Friendship in Christ

The monastery of Helfta, assisted by the friars of the mendicant Orders, radiated the charism of "friendship in Christ" well beyond its enclosure walls into the wider Church, giving holiness a human face. Friendship forged in the praise of God, in listening to His Word, and in partaking of the adorable Body and Blood of Christ from the same altar, is not the friendship of perfect agreement on all things, nor is it the friendship of sentimental attraction. It is, rather, a gift of the Holy Spirit to the Body of Christ, making the voice of the Body sweeter, and making the face of the Body lovelier. It creates a lasting bond among souls: the bond of a single-hearted passion for Christ.

I am beginning today a novena to Father Lukas Etlin, O.S.B., a monk of Conception Abbey known for his tender devotion to the Mother of God and his ardent devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist. Father Lukas, born in Switzerland in 1864, died on December 16, 1927 in Stanberry, Missouri, as a result of injuries sustained in an automobile accident. Readers of Vultus Christi may want to join me in seeking the intercession of this zealous Benedictine adorer of the Most Blessed Sacrament.

Prayer

O God, who didst bestow upon Thy faithful servant, Father Lukas Etlin,
a tender love for the Mother of Thy Son,
fervent devotion to the Holy Eucharist,
and apostolic charity for all,
grant us through his intercession graces and favours,
particularly . . .
so that, through manifesting Thy good pleasure in his merits
and in hastening his beatification,
the Church may be enhanced.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The title of today's entry is from the Magnificat Antiphon: "O how blessed a bishop was he! His inmost heart of hearts yearned on the King Christ, and he had no dread for the power of the Empire! O how holy a soul was his, which passed not away by the sword of the persecutor, and yet lost not the palm of martyrdom."

This wonderful painting, so rich in liturgical details -- look at the gorgeous chasuble -- depicts a famous episode in Saint Martin's life. One day, as he prepared to offer the Holy Sacrifice, Bishop Martin caught sight of a poor beggar in need of clothing. Immediately, he ordered his attending deacon to provide the beggar with a suitable garment. Seeing that the deacon was in no hurry to obey his order, Martin removed his tunic and gave it to the beggar. Later, at Holy Mass, a globe of fire appeared above his head. At the elevation of the Sacred Host, the sleeves of Bishop Martin's alb fell back baring his arms. Straightaway two angels appeared and, with a precious cloth, covered the prelate's arms for the duration of the elevation. The beggar (in the foreground, clothed in Martin's black tunic) and the other faithful looked on in wonder.

The Soldier Announces the Advent of the King

Today's Holy Gospel, focusing on judgment and on the arrival of the Bridegroom-King in glory with all his angels, is perfectly adapted to the eschatological impetus given to the liturgy between All Saints Day (November 1st) and the First Sunday of Advent. In other parts of the Catholic world, a six-week Advent begins on the Sunday following the feast of Saint Martin. This is the tradition of the Church of Milan, for example. The arrival of Martin the soldier announces the arrival of Christ, the true King, the Lord of glory.

The Confession of Saint Martin

Saint Martin of Tours was the first non-martyr to be honoured with a liturgical cult, the first of a long line of "confessors" to make their way into the Church's calendar. The Invitatory Antiphon refers to today's feast as "Saint Martin's confession." Confession here refers both to the saint's profession of the Catholic faith unto death, and to his praise of God. The Magnificat Antiphon will have us sing: "Though he did not die a martyr's death, this holy confessor won the martyr's palm." The magnificent hymn Iste Confessor, sung today at Matins and Vespers, was composed for the feast of Saint Martin.

Benedictines have a tradition of devotion to Saint Martin: Holy Father Benedict dedicated a chapel to Saint Martin at Monte Cassino. Franciscan liturgists of the Middle Ages borrowed from the Office of Saint Martin in composing the liturgy for the feast of Saint Francis, in many cases simply changing Martinus to Franciscus.

The Holy Ghost guided Saint Martin through a succession of states of life. There is Martin the soldier, Martin the catechumen, Martin the monk, and finally, Martin the bishop. this may account for his astonishing popularity. While in North America, Saint Martin is often forgotten, in France, over five hundred villages and over four thousand parishes bear his name and witness to the enthusiastic piety stirred up by his memory. In France and in Italy, Martin (the name of Saint Thérèse), and Martino (my grandmother's name), are common surnames.

Martin the Merciful

The lesson from the prophet Isaiah presents Saint Martin as one filled with the Holy Spirit, as one anointed and sent to bring good news to the poor. Martin binds up broken hearts, comforts those who mourn. He puts praise in the mouths and hearts of the despondent. The Life of Saint Martin by Sulpicius Severus recounts Martin's miracles of compassion, conversion, generosity, and healing. Together with Saint Athanasius' Life of Saint Antony, the Life of Saint Martin became the standard reference for the biographers of holy men.

The Poor Christ

Saint Paul had his blinding light on the road to Damascus; Saint Martin encountered Christ in the person of a poor beggar. Drawing his sword, Martin cut his ample military cloak in two and covered the beggar with half of it. The following night he was rewarded with an apparition of Our Lord, clothed in the same half- cloak.

The whole liturgy today evokes the cloak divided by a sword and given to Christ. A wondrous exchange! Saint Martin clothes the poor Christ with his cloak; Christ clothes the poor Martin with glory. "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich" (2 Cor 8:9). The words of the holy gospel: "I was naked and you clothed me" become "You, Martin, were naked and I clothed you." We celebrate Martin, clothed with grace and with glory by the humble beggar, Christ, whom he had clothed by cutting his prestigious Roman military cloak in half with his sword: the sacrifice of his pride.

Divinely Disproportionate

The naked Christ is all around us waiting to be clothed in whatever remnants our pride will yield to the sword of sacrificial love. In the absence of a sword, a mere pin will do! The paradox is that in clothing the Beggar, we become the beggar, and the Beggar becomes the one who clothes us in a mantle of justice, of grace and of glory. Is not the teaching of that other Martin, Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face? The smallest gesture of sacrificial love on our part unleashes a torrent of transforming love on the part of God. There is no equality here; there cannot be. Fair exchange is utterly foreign to the Kingdom of God. "If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly scorned" (Ct 8:7). The divine response is always magnificently disproportionate to the tiny human gesture.

The Holy Sacrifice

Nowhere is this truer than in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The Mass of the Catechumens (Liturgy of the Word) stirs us to respond in some way to God, Who, in speaking, already gives Himself, and communicates to us His life, His love, and His light. Is this not the prayer of the priest before receiving the Precious Blood: "What shall I render to the Lord for all His bounty to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord" (Ps 115:12-13)?

Suscipe Me



How do we respond? What do we bring to the altar? A little bread, a little wine, a drop of water: poor and humble symbols of ourselves, our life, our work, our joys, and our sufferings, but especially of our desire to, as Blessed Michael Iwene Tansi put it, "to belong entirely to God." What is the bread on the paten, the wine mixed with water in the chalice, if not a silent cry to the living God: Take me! Suscipe me? I surrender to the priestly hands of the Son; I yield to the mysterious action of the Paraclete. I offer myself to the two hands of the Father -- the Son and the Holy Spirit -- that by them, my poverty might become an oblation pleasing in the Father's sight.

Today is also the feast of Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity. These words of hers are not unlike those of her sister in Carmel, Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, who promised to spend her heaven doing good on earth. Elizabeth envisaged that she too would have a mission in heaven:

"I think, that in Heaven my mission will be to draw souls by helping them go out of themselves to cling to God by a wholly simple and loving movement, and to keep them in this great silence within that will allow God to communicate Himself to them and transform them into Himself."

Showing Forth His Face

The Collect for today's memorial of Saint Charles Borromeo contains an extraordinary phrase. We beseech (quaesumus) the Father that the Church, being ceaselessly renewed, and thus conformed to the image of Christ, may show forth His Face to the world: Christi se imagini conformans, ipsius vultum mundo valeat ostendere.

The Face Reveals the Heart

This is the mission of the Church: to show forth the Face of Christ to the world. In showing forth the Face of Christ, the Church invites all peoples to discover the merciful love of His Heart.

Saint Charles and the Holy Shroud

It is no coincidence, I think, that Saint Charles Borromeo, who venerated the Holy Shroud in Turin on October 10, 1578 was profoundly affected by the experience. Could not the allusion to the Face of Christ in today's Collect be a discreet allusion to the great reforming bishop's encounter with the mysterious Face of the Shroud?

Editio Typica

Custodi, quaesumus, Domine, in populo tuo spiritum,
quo beatum Carolum episcopum implevisti,
ut Ecclesia indesinenter renovetur,
et, Christi se imagini conformans,
ipsius vultum mundo valeat ostendere.

My Translation

Preserve in Thy people, we beseech Thee, O Lord,
the spirit with which Thou didst fill the bishop Saint Charles;
that the Church may be ceaselessly renewed,
and, in conforming herself to the image of Christ,
be able to show forth His face to the world.

ICEL 1973

The flawed 1973 ICEL text, still in use after 35 years, is as follows:

Father, keep in your people
the spirit which filled Charles Borromeo.
Let your Church be continually renewed
and show the image of Christ to the world
by being conformed to his likeness.

Discourteous

What is wrong with the ICEL text? First off, you will note that quaesumus is simply omitted. In the 1973 translation one does not beseech God, one rather baldly tells God what to do.

The Infusion of a Charism

In the Latin text, it is the Lord (God the Father) who fills Saint Charles with the spirit, meaning a particular infusion of the grace of the Holy Spirit. In the ICEL text implevisti is not translated; it states, rather vaguely, that the spirit filled Charles Borromeo. "Spirit" here does not refer to the Holy Spirit; it refers to the grace of the Holy Spirit by which Saint Charles worked for the reform of the Church, a Divine inbreathing in view of his mission, a charism.

Bishop

The Latin text refers to the saint as the bishop Charles; the ICEL text eliminates the reference to his hierarchical order, and replaces it with his surname! This reflects the casual, democratizing approach to hierarchical order of the framers of the ICEL texts in 1973, an approach still prevalent, alas, in certain sectors of the Church in the United States.

A Theological Deconstruction

Finally, the ICEL text, by eliminating the subordinate ut clause, completely deconstructs the theology of the prayer. In the Latin text:

(A) we beseech the Lord (God the Father) to preserve the spirit (i.e. grace or charism) of Saint Charles Borromeo in the Church --

(B) ut, SO THAT, or in such wise that, the Church may be ceaselessly renewed --

(C) and, being conformed to the image of Christ,

(D) may be able to show His Face to the world.

The irrefutable logic of the prayer, correctly translated, is this: the Church is able to show the Face of Christ to the world because she has been conformed to His image as result of the spirit (reforming charism or grace) given by God to the bishop Saint Charles, and preserved in the Church in response to her humble supplication.