Recently in Travels Category

Dear readers, please pray for me during these last days of preparation for my move to Oklahoma. A blessing upon each of you!

Father Jacob Restrick, O.P., Mother Mary Gemma, O.P., and the community of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary in Buffalo, New York were most gracious hosts during the Paschal Triduum. My friendship with Father Jacob goes back thirty years. It was a joy to see him again and to serve at the altar with him.

The Dominican Nuns of the Buffalo monastery sing Gregorian Chant, using both the Roman Gradual and the chant books proper to the Order of Preachers. I was invited to sing the Exultet in Latin, using the distinctive Dominican melody with its glorious melisms over key words, such as haec.

This was, by far, the most restful Sacred Triduum I have had in over three decades. Father Jacob and I were able to share the preaching and the officiating. Paul Z. acted as Master of Ceremonies with his customary competency. The community took care of the chant. It was lovely to be able to take a more quiet approach to the heart of the liturgical year!

On Holy Saturday morning, I was very happy to meet young Brendan Y., a Vultus Christi reader in Buffalo. In the afternoon, Father Jacob drove us to Lackawanna to visit the magnificent Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Victory, built by Father Nelson Baker in 1925.

Easter Sunday Mass was at 8:30. After a festive breakfast, Father Jacob drove Paul Z. and me to the airport to catch our flight back to Connecticut. Deo gratias, alleluia, alleluia.

Several years ago, the Reverend Mother of the Perpetual Adoration Convent in Drumshanbo, County Leitrim, invited me to preach a retreat to her community. This past autumn, His Lordship, the Most Reverend Colm O'Reilly, Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnois, asked my Father Abbot at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme if I might accept the invitation. Father Abbot acquiesced, and so on Sunday evening I will be flying to the Isle of Saints and Scholars. The eight day retreat will end on Friday, February 15. I will return to Connecticut the following day. Will I have internet access in Ireland? I don't know. Is there wireless in Leitrim? I'll soon find out.

Before going to lovely Leitrim I plan on spending a few quiet days close to Our Lady of Knock, the Queen of Ireland. Our Lady's apparition on August 21, 1879, together with Saint Joseph and Saint John, in the presence of the Immolated Lamb standing upon the Altar of His Sacrifice, is one of the most significant Marian events of modern times.

I ask the kind readers of Vultus Christi to accompany me and to sustain my preaching with their prayers. Thank you, friends. Blessed Lent to all.

I took this dramatic photo of the cross against a bleak November sky in the village of Saint Maurice d'Orient (Aveyron). The cross bears the instruments of the Passion and is surmounted by Saint Peter's rooster. It was, at one time, common in rural France to erect crosses to commemorate parish missions. Ad te levavi animam meam, Deus meus!

The encounter with Him [Christ Judge and Saviour] is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God. In this way the inter-relation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love. Indeed, it has already been burned away through Christ's Passion.

Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi

I left the Monastery of Notre-Dame d'Orient in Laval-Roquecezière this morning at 5:00. At the moment I am sitting in the airport waiting for my light to Toulouse. Here are a few photos taken during my stay at Notre-Dame d'Orient. The statue of Our Lady is atop a mountain peak from which one can see both the Alps and the Pyrenees.

Tomorrow I will go to the Casa San Francesco in Carsoli (Aquila) to preach a retreat to the Benedettine Riparatrici del Santo Volto Please pray for me during this ministry.

This was the view from my window this morning, shortly after I got up. The Jura mountain region tends to be cold on these early November mornings. I am told that tomorrow, in the Aveyron, the temperature will be exceedingly mild.

Thursday evening I received I call from Mère Marie-Anne du Sacré Coeur, the prioress of the monastery of Craon, asking if I would consider going to serve a monastery in the Aveyron that would, otherwise, be without a priest and without Holy Mass for a fortnight. The monastery is attached to an ancient sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin Mary called Notre Dame d'Orient. The origin of this title of the Blessed Virgin is the phrase, Virgo auriens — the Virgin who gives heed — which came to be translated as Notre Dame d'Orient. Here are two photos of Notre Dame d'Orient. I will leave Nans-sous-Sainte-Anne early Sunday morning. You can imagine my delight at being asked to serve in a sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin!

Another photo taken at Saint-Loup-sur-Aujon. Autumn has been gentle here in northeastern France. The village of Nans-sous-Sainte-Anne, where I am at present, is a marvel of natural beauty. The Jura mountains surround the village, and between the mountain heights are woodlands with brooks that sing, and green pastures. What a gift I have been given in coming here!

I drove several kilometers this morning to connect to the DSL installation in the home of Jean-Baptiste and Thérèse. This evening, and every Wednesday evening, a group of people from the area, including Jean-Baptiste and Thérèse, come to the monastery to pray the rosary and to sing Compline with the community. For the past few weeks I have been giving them a talk as well. Tonight's subject? Purgatory!

The couples who attend will be bringing their children along this evening. French schools are closed this week for the All Saints vacation. All Saints Day remains a national holiday here.

In the monastery, First Vespers of All Saints Day will be marked by the exposition of the treasury of relics of the saints. The holy relics will be placed on a table covered with an embroidered cloth in the middle of the choir. Visibly, the Divine Office will be laus eius in ecclesia sanctorum: the praise of God in the church of the saints! The veneration of the relics of the saints brings with it streams of graces. God is greatly glorified therein, and the intercession of "so great a cloud of witnesses" (Heb 12:1) is a boon for the whole Church.