Suffering With Joy

Seeking God’s Will

July 23, 2010

Over the past couple of months I’ve been thinking of a dear friend, Father Philip Schuster, O.S.B., one of the monks murdered at Conception Abbey on June 10, 2002 by a gunman whose motives will forever remain unknown as he had no connection to any of the monks nor to the abbey and left nothing in spoken word or writing to say why he did it.

Lloyd Robert Jeffress got in his car with an AK 47 and a .22 caliber sawed off rifle and drove a couple of hours from Kansas City to Conception, Missouri to execute as many monks as he could find. Father Philip, age 84 and monastery porter, was shot in the torso and finished off with a shot to the head after he fell.  The bullet hole remains in the hallway floor.  Brother Damian, known as “the weather monk” was also killed.  Two other monks who entered the hallway from their offices were shot, gravely wounded, and recovered after a long time.  When Jeffress couldn’t find anybody else to shoot, he went back down the hall and through the same door to the basilica he had used to enter the monastery, and killed himself.  In the midst of mourning the Abbot re-consecrated the basilica the next day.

I made a some private retreats at the abbey with Father Philip and visited him there with my husband on our way north to see friends.  He had been the novice master of my pastor and he was just the person I needed at that time of my life.  On one of my visits, he gave me a copy of the book he wrote, Seeking God’s Will Through Faith, Hope & Charity, full of the simple wisdom about life only a very prayerful monk with vast pastoral experience could write.

Father Philip was everything a priest should be and solid as a rock theologically.  He set a good example for me in the spiritual life and I often think of things he said in our conferences.  One typical exchange between us happened when I was sitting in his porter’s office and we were discussing the rosary.  Father pulled an old, really old broken rosary out of his breast pocket (it came from a monk who died in 1927 and I have one just like it from the same monk) and waving it in the air said, “I love praying the rosary.  I don’t worry about getting all the prayers in.  Sometimes I just get a good meditation on the mystery and don’t worry about finishing every decade.” In other words, keep to the purpose of what you’re doing and don’t sweat the small stuff. Of the monk who blessed our rosaries so long ago he said, “Father Lucas hung every indulgence under the sun on these rosaries. I don’t mind that it’s broken.  Our Lady doesn’t mind if we pray on broken rosaries.”And Father Philip prayed on his so much he plumb wore it out.

If you boiled down the essence of Father Philip, it would be simplicity and faithfulness in conforming ourselves to God’s will.  He was kind and gentle, but very firm about obeying God’s laws.  He was utterly faithful to his monastic vows and using that old, broken rosary was a perfect example of his approach to the vow of poverty.  He clearly knew what was important and what was not.

Because life itself is threatened with such great intensity from so many sides these days, and peace of soul can be elusive for the person in the world, I decided to read a little of Father Philip’s book again every day and share some passages with you here.  This is a great book that never gets boring no matter how many times you read it. Father Philip was a gift from God to all, but especially to the tortured soul who needs to learn to suffer with joy, and I’m sure he brought many to God.  He lived what he wrote.

From Chapter Two: Faith:

“He who through faith is righteous shall live” (Rom. 1: 17).  In an age when personal freedom is so much stressed, it seems helpful and necessary to try to clarify our notion of faith.

Many of us were born into a Christian family.  Many of us, especially Catholics, were baptized as infants, or when we were very young.  I do not wish to see this practice changed.  I agree with it.  But it does have at least one danger.  We are prone to think that faith, like love, comes easily, naturally, without real effort on our part.  We assume that anyone who professes to be Catholic, and who goes to church, has a deep faith.  I challenge that notion.

It is true that when the child receives the sacrament of baptism, the virtue of faith is implanted in the soul, like a seed.  Whatever else that virtue may be at the time of baptism, it is an inclination, a force, that inclines us, helps us, gives us the attitude of one ready to believe, ready to be taught by God, relying simply on His wisdom, His fidelity, His goodness.  Relying on God who can neither deceive nor be deceived.

“Relying on God who can neither deceive nor be deceived.”  Wherever lies or deception of any kind exists, there is Satan who is the clever master of re-direction and re-definition. We see and hear this every day in the news media.  Something is forever being presented as something it is not and people rely on these deceptions to justify the unjustifiable. A fair question to ask is, am I ready to be taught by God, or do I habitually look elsewhere to be told what I want to hear?

Tags: Catholic Church, conversion, suffering

Prayer from 8th Sunday after Pentecost

July 20, 2010

The Church prays her sacred liturgy as the words of all true believers.  We can never go wrong when we address God through her official prayers. They are chanted in the name of all in her Body, which is the mystical Body of Christ. The thought that all the baptized are members of this Body is truly awesome to contemplate, and we should do our best to help others to become part of it that they may find the great spiritual joy we have.

From the rising to the setting of the sun all over the earth, the Holy Sacrifice is re-presented to our heavenly Father and we benefit from all the graces that come from this perpetual offering.  There is not one moment in time that the Church is not praying and there is not one prayer in the sacred liturgy that fails to show a right relationship with our Father. By praying these words attentively and with all our heart, we are imitating Christ just as much as we imitate Him by doing good to others.

When we pray the sacred liturgy we need never fear that our prayers are not good enough, or that we are praying for the wrong thing, or that our prayers lack sufficient merit, because it is Christ Himself offering the prayers. This is why our sacred liturgy is infinitely pleasing to the Father. With this in mind I take great comfort in the Sunday collect (prayer) which is prayed often in the liturgy throughout the week.  This past Sunday’s prayer is much needed in our day.

Graciously grant to us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the spirit to think and do always such things as are rightful: that we, who cannot exist without Thee, may be enabled to live according to Thy will.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end.  Amen.

How can our heavenly Father not grant this to us? We are asking that our minds and bodies be infused with the Holy Spirit so that we do only that which is just in His eyes and think only of that which is in accord with His law. We can be confident that God will give us what we ask for because we are asking for exactly what He wants to give us.  This prayer opens our hearts to Him, He who is deserving of all our love, honor, and worship.

In today’s age with the supreme arrogance of man wafting over airwaves and satellite day and night, the Church admits (and we with Her) that we cannot exist, and in fact would not exist at all without the power of our Creator.  This humble acknowledgment is the simple truth, and when we pray in total humility, we honor our Father who is offended by those who act as if all power comes from themselves. Moreover, this just prayer benefits all humanity.  We ask these things from God not only for ourselves, but for all our fellow men everywhere. As God was willing to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if Abraham could find only ten righteous men (Gen. 18), so the humble prayers of the few bring grace to the many.

We ask to be enabled to live according to the Father’s will.  We can do this only if we practice daily surrender to His providence and keep our eyes fixed on Christ, our Teacher and Savior.  The entire world becomes a better place when even one person becomes better at thinking and acting like Christ, doing the Father’s will. It’s the ripple effect of good that, if strong, can collide with and turn back the ripples of evil.  The effects of this prayer will be hidden from those who have eyes that do not see (Ez. 12: 2, Jer. 5: 21, Ps. 135: 16, Ps. 115: 5) but will be obvious to those who strive towards God, trusting in His care.

Tags: Catholic Church, liturgy, trust in God

The Pope as Liturgist

June 25, 2010

The May, 2010 issue of Inside the Vatican published Vincent Twomey’s opening address for the first International Liturgical Conference on the theme Pope Benedict XVI and the Sacred Liturgy.  Held on Fota Island, Co. Cork, July 12th-13th, 2008, the conference marked a new beginning in the restoration of the Catholic sacred liturgy. Although this occurred two years ago, Twomey’s address titled “Pope as Leitourgos” is worth revisiting in light of the world’s current mad exaltation of every corrupt deviance in man which appears to be heading towards an explosive and disastrous crescendo.

Twomey first summarizes Pope Benedict’s commentary on Romans 15:16, which reveals St. Paul’s understanding of his own mission, quoting from the Pope’s sermon from the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul in 2008:

[Paul knows he has been called 'to be a leitourgos of Christ Jesus for the Gentiles, serving the Gospel of God as a priest, so that the pagans become an acceptable offering, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.' Only in this passage does Paul use the [Greek] word heirourgein – serving as a priest – together with leitourgos – liturgist.  Paul speaks of the cosmic liturgy, in which the world of men itself must become worship of God, an offering in the Holy Spirit. When the whole world will have become the liturgy of God, when in its reality it will have become adoration, then it will have reached its goal; then it will be whole and saved. And this is the ultimate objective of St. Paul’s apostolic mission and of ours. It is to such a mystery that the Lord calls us.  let us pray in this hour that he may help us carry it out in the right way, to become true liturgists of Jesus Christ. Amen.

In this statement Pope Benedict identifies his mission as Pope with St. Paul’s mission.  Twomey then remarks that the above quote “sums up… the central concerns of the theology that Joseph Ratzinger had systematically developed over the course of his life as a theologian.”  He says that even when speaking or writing on other subjects, especially creation, “the liturgy found a central place in his writings.”

Twomey addresses a core point in the Pope’s theology:

The first account of creation in Genesis has nothing to do with how we were created (such as is proposed by the scientific theory of evolution).  its message, rather, is to convey to the reader why we were created.  According to Ratzinger, the cosmos has been brought into existence for one thing only: worship.

More precisely, God called the cosmos into being so that humanity could share in God’s Sabbath rest and hence experience that life is good, and that creation, especially humanity, is very good. In the Old Testament, creation and covenant form a unity.

In other words, God created humanity so that he might enter into a covenant relationship with us, so that he might heal our infirmities and restore us to the relationship that he intended from the beginning of the world: union with him in Christ, the source of that joy which God intends for humanity and which is the object of the Church’s mission.

As Ratzinger reminds us, St. Paul expressed it in another way: “the whole of creation has been groaning in travail together until now.”  Paul was acutely conscious that “the creation itself will be set free from bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8: 21-22).

After making a number of excellent points about the Pope’s writings on the liturgy, he closes with this:

But the Pope’s concern for a true reform of the liturgy is also expressed in the care and attention he gives to every celebration of Holy Mass according to the new rite over which he presides as Pope.

Today he teaches the Church not only by words but also by example.

As I was reading this address I couldn’t help being reminded of the core truth: that God created everything for the purpose of worship of Him.  Unless and until we are willing to fall on our knees before Him with a clear interior disposition of awe and reverence, we deceive ourselves about our own importance and power. Moreover, the sacred liturgy is the work of the Body of Christ, designed to bring us individually and corporately into a right relationship with God.  It belongs to no one individual but to the Mystical Body as a whole.

I also thought of the nonsense put out by various gurus of positive thinking.  Things like telling people they should stand in front of the mirror and say “Every day in every way I am getting better and better”, and writing books with the theme: “Think and Grow Rich” and other topics designed to give the impression that we are our own masters.  These promisers of earthly success and delights enrich themselves while never pointing to Christ Who is our only true hope.  We achieve our highest calling when we lose ourselves in God in trustful surrender and praise.  Nothing else matters that much in comparison.

Tags: Catholic Church, liturgy

Laser Technology Reveals Tomb Paintings

June 24, 2010

Oldest known image of St. Paul, represented as a philosopher, the Christian Plato

Last June, near the end of the year dedicated to St. Paul the Apostle, L’Osservatore Romano revealed that archeologists had uncovered the oldest known image of the Apostle to the Gentiles in a catacomb beneath a modern Italian office building. The tomb named after St. Thecla, a noblewoman, is not far from the basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls on the Via Ostiense and contains important historical evidence of Christian devotion to the Apostles.

It is through the application of modern laser technology that images of Sts. Peter, Paul, Andrew, and John have been liberated from a crust of calcium carbonate in the basement of an Italian insurance company.  Archeologists say that these paintings in St. Thecla’s tomb are the oldest known representations of the Apostles, dating from the late 300s.

Well into the fourth century Christians always tried to bury the dead near the tombs of martyrs.  If the deceased were wealthy, the walls of the tomb would be decorated with Christian symbols, biblical scenes, and references to the martyr.

St. Thecla is one of the most ancient of virgin-martyrs, having been converted by St. Paul at Iconium.  She was of a noble family who had espoused her to a wealthy young man but she was determined to remain a virgin in spite of their pleading.  At the first opportunity she fled her luxurious home and followed St. Paul.  This act earned the rage of her fiance, who captured her and turned her in to Roman authorities who set her amid lions at the colosseum at Antioch.  The beasts merely laid down and licked her feet while nothing the keepers did to incite them prevailed upon them to tear her to pieces. It is believed that at Rome the authorities attempted to burn her to death, but God protected her and she emerged from the flames unscathed.  She is said to have died a hermit in Seleucia.

St. Thecla attended St. Paul in several of his journeys, following his example of austerity and penance. She was well versed in philosophy, literature and science and is often portrayed wearing the dark brown or gray of the Greek philosophers and surrounded by lions and tigers. She is described by SS. Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Augustine, and others as a virgin and martyr because of the many persecutions she suffered, though St. Bede in his Martyrology writes that she died in peace.  The Roman Church celebrates her feast on September 23rd and the Greeks on September 24th.   Because of her fame as a holy woman in the earliest times of Christianity and the many wonders God worked on her behalf, she has been especially revered over the ages.  It is not surprising, then, that a catacomb in Rome would bear her name.

Christ the Good Shepherd on the ceiling of the burial chamber of the tomb named for St. Thecla

In the burial chamber medalions of the four Apostles mentioned above grace the four corners.  In the center of the ceiling is a painting of Christ as the Good Shepherd, a common theme found in many paintings in the early Christian catacombs. The arch over the vestibule features a fresco of a group of figures Vatican experts describe as “The College of the Apostles.” It’s hard to overestimate the importance of these discoveries because they show that devotion to the Apostles began much earlier in Christianity than historians formerly believed.

Before the advent of laser technology, archeologists would painstakingly scrape away at the white crust with scalpels and brushes, always resulting in the loss of some of the paint.  Now, however, lasers move pinpoint by pinpoint across the walls releasing the images without loss. In this modern age of unbelief and mocking of God, of the attempts by man to glorify himself in wealth and possessions, it seems that God turns the very science man uses to declare his intellectual superiority over previous ages into His own tool.  Again and again, as in the miraculous images of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Holy Shroud, God demonstrates through science that being Christian is timeless, and that what we believe today is the same testimony the early Christians painted on the walls and ceilings of tombs and that testimony is true.

Tags: art, Catholic Church

St. Ephrem, Harp of the Holy Ghost

June 18, 2010

I was born in the way of Truth:  Though my childhood was unaware of the greatness of the benefit, I knew it when trial came.

Today is the feast of St. Ephrem, the Prophet of the Syrians, Harp of the Holy Ghost, Father of Hymnody, Mary’s Own Singer, and other grand titles including Doctor of the Church. He lived from around 306-373 and we are very fortunate to still have large remnants of his writings.

You might think that anything he wrote so long ago  be would be old-fashioned or irrelevant to today’s world, but like all the Doctors of the Church, St. Ephrem’s writings get down to the simplicity and truth of life as found in sacred Scripture. Here is part of a poem he wrote:

There lie those who improved their complexions,

And artfully disguised their faces;

There lie those who painted their eyelids,

And the worm corrodes their eyes…

There lie those who were enemies,

And their bones are mingled together.

The scroll St. Ephrem holds in the icon above says: “Take thou refuge in God, who passes not away nor is changed.” He wrote about the Holy Eucharist, Penance, the primacy of Peter, about the Blessed Virgin and the sufferings of Christ.

St. Ephrem is known as “The Deacon of Edessa” and is the only male Doctor of the Church who was not ordained a priest or bishop. He lived for some time as a hermit and wrote many poems illustrating the doctrines of Christianity. This beautiful work from the Nativity series gives words to Mary:

The babe that I carry carries me, saith Mary, and He has lowered His wings, and taken and placed me between His pinions, and mounted into the air; and a promise has been given me that height and depth shall be my Son’s… [O Lord Jesus,] In her virginity Eve put on the leaves of shame: Thy Mother put on in her virginity the Garment of Glory that suffices for all.  She gave the little vest of the body to Him that covers all.

Blessed is she in whose heart and mind Thou wast!  A King’s palace she was by Thee, O Son of the King, and a Holy of Holies by Thee, O High Priest!

St. Ephrem organized choirs of women and taught them verses to replace the heretical hymns of Bardesanes, a Syrian writer of the early 3rd century who had written 150 of them, while keeping the music.  Today many of the hymns of St. Ephrem are part of the Syrian liturgy.

Pope Benedict XV proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church on October 5, 1920.

Below is a YouTube recording of John Tavener’s Ikon of the Nativity taken from St. Ephrem’s Nativity hymns.  Tavener is a convert to the Orthodox Church and has written a great deal of music for its liturgy that I think is utterly heavenly. You can also find a recording of a Maronite choir singing St. Ephrem’s Hymn of Light. Unfortunately, embedding is impossible.  Just type in “Hymns of St. Ephrem” and it will come up.

Given the deplorable and sometimes heretical hymns foisted upon Catholics since the 1960s, perhaps it would be wise to call on the patronage of St. Ephrem in the restoration of the sacred liturgy.

Tags: Catholic Church, music

Feast of the Sacred Heart

June 11, 2010

The Catholic Church established the feast of the Sacred Heart to encourage people to be more devoted and zealous in the practice of the Faith, inspired by the love Jesus has for us which he showed in His suffering and death.

Here is the beautiful collect (prayer) from the feast:

O God, Who in the Heart of Thy Son, wounded by our sins, dost mercifully bestow on us infinite treasures of love: grant we beseech Thee, that whilst we render It the devout homage of our affection, we may also fulfill our duty of worthy satisfaction.  Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, Who livest and reignest in unity with the Holy Spirit, God, world without end.  Amen.

The entire Gospel for this feast is longer, but here are the last verses of it from St. John, chapter 19:

But one of the soldiers with a spear opened His side, and immediately there came out blood and water. And he that saw it hath given testimony: and his testimony is true.  And he knoweth that he saith true, that you may believe.  For these things were done that the Scripture might be fulfilled: You shall not break a bone of Him.  And again another Scripture saith: They shall look on Him Whom they pierced.

Both the feast of Divine Mercy and the feast of the Sacred Heart are intimately related.  Both derive from the John 19.  Having these feasts are great reminders of the love our heavenly Father has for us, that He sent us the promised Messiah who delivered His people (us) from their sins. I am constantly awed by God’s love and faithfulness, His mercy and power. If only the whole world would accept His love, trust in Him, and live accordingly.

Tags: trust in God

A Catholic Analysis of Illegal Immigration

June 9, 2010

No hotter topic incites commentary than illegal immigration. Ever since Arizona passed a recent law upholding federal laws on immigration as it seeks to protect its residents, every talking head and pundit has weighed in on this issue with opinion after opinion while the mainstream media proceeds to favor continued lawbreaking by mainly promoting those comentators who get some kind of advantage from bloviating on the topic.

My primary apostolate since 1997 has been the restoration of the sacred liturgy with the emphasis since 1999 on the restoration of what Pope Benedict dubbed the “Extraordinary Form” in his 2007 motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum.  One of the services I’ve provided gratis all this time is a monthly newsletter on Catholic tradition. Since 2006 it has been hosted by Una Voce Arkansas Ozarks.

Last month the president of the organization tipped me to a statement by Bishop Slattery of Tulsa, Oklahoma on illegal immigration.  The bishop’s writing led me to feature his statement in the newsletter along with my own article, Enabling Illegal Immigration, Cui bono? where I take on certain moral aspects no one else seems to be covering, even the bishops.  Catholics who are praying for the social reign of Christ the King will find a direct application to this need in the article.

Click on the link in the post to read the article.  You will see the connection between the purpose of this site and the subjects covered in the newsletter.  If you want to be on the e-list for the newsletter, please contact me through this blog.

Tags: Catholic Church

Inside the Bible – Book Review

May 26, 2010

Inside the Bible: An Introduction to Each Book of the Bible by Father Kenneth Baker, S. J. is a handy book to have around to expand your understanding of each book of the Bible.  Father Baker is an old-time Jesuit – one of those whose theology is rock solid. I put him in the same category as Father John Hardon, S. J., whose cause for beatification is already in progress.

Father Baker is the editor emeritus (over 40 years as editor) of the Homiletic and Pastoral Review, a monthly magazine published by Ignatius Press aimed at helping priests preach and counsel parishioners better, as well as understand and celebrate the liturgy better.

Each chapter of the book is a quick and easy read in Father Baker’s clear and organized style.  The chapter sections are: Place in the Bible, Date and Author, Theme, Summary, Theology, Outline, and Reflection which contains a quote from the book for a quick meditation. I found this arrangement very helpful in understanding the meaning and purpose of each book of the Bible as it relates to salvation history.  When we read the Bible with better understanding of the mysteries revealed we cannot help growing closer to God, and even understand today’s events much better from a biblical perspective.

Many of us would like to attend Bible study classes, but are unable to because of various types of limitations.  A book like this can’t take the place of a good study group, but it can help those of us who want to read the Bible on our own with greater understanding.

This book is helpful in another way, too.  I like to look ahead to the Scriptural quotes for the coming Sunday Mass, all of which are linked to the particular season we are celebrating.  Reading the appropriate chapter from Inside the Bible helps me understand the lessons each quote is illustrating better, along with the links between each.

This book is available at a very reasonable price from Amazon.  Just click on the link above or on the image of the book.

Tags: Bible, Catholic Church

Vatican Splendors Exhibit – A Review

May 26, 2010

The Virgin in Prayer, 1640-1650, Sassoferrato (b. 1609, d. 1685, Roma), Oil on canvas, National Gallery, London

Last week we went to St. Louis to visit my aunt and see The Vatican Splendors exhibition in St. Louis.  Even though the two room exhibit was very tiring and elevated my pain levels, I loved it and was glad to have had the chance to see things I would never have otherwise been able to.

Vatican Splendors will be at the Museum of History in Forest Park until Labor Day, so if anyone is planning a trip to the vicinity this summer, it is a great opportunity to learn more about the Catholic “Journey through Faith and art”. Vatican policy is to allow certain items to go on tour, but they must return to the Vatican and remain there for a year before going out again.

From artifact reproductions of items from St. Peter’s tomb to actual paintings by great artists such as Sassoferrato, from sculptures by Bernini to chasubles woven with gold, it all was impressive.  Some of the treasures on display were sent over many centuries to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Shown were an Arabic  painting of Madonna and Child, a painting on rice paper of a Vietnamese funeral in 1840,  a painting of a Chinese funeral from 1791, a petition to Pope Pius IX from Chinese Christians sent in 1847, a gorgeous tempera on paper of Our Lady with Jesus and St. John the Baptist all dressed in clothes of Korean royalty, and many others.

A large part of the exhibit centered around the demolition of the original St. Peter’s Basilica and the many artists and architects who had a hand in designing and constructing the new Renaissance basilica we enjoy today. When the current basilica was constructed, the great obelisk Nero took from the Egyptians was moved to its present location in St. Peter’s square.  An etching showing the thousands of horses and men required to move and raise it gave me a great appreciation of the engineering feat it was.  We also saw Michaelangelo’s calipers, and a pulley and shackle used to erect the basilica.

Two items I will never forget are the chalice and ciborium belonging to Pope John Paul II who used them to celebrate Mass at St. Peter’s. The pictures in the catalogue don’t do them justice.  You must see it in person to have the full beauty sink in.  They are made of gilt silver with lustrous pink gems (called vitreous in the catalogue) and sculpted scenes of Christ.  Looking at these one could never doubt that they are worthy to hold the Sacred Hosts and Precious Blood of Christ.

We hear much today about the need to demonstrate our Catholic identity.  This exhibit showed the continuity of belief and the missionary outreach the Church has faithfully carried on throughout the ages. In spite of all the grave sins committed by her members even today, this exhibit brings home a line from the Apostle’s Creed: “I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church” – a Church who continually strives to bring all to Christ, a Church which, as Bernini’s Colonnade exemplifies, reaches out to embrace all mankind.

Tags: art, Catholic Church

Vatican Splendors Exhibit

May 19, 2010

Tomorrow we are going to St. Louis to visit my 89 year old aunt and attend the Vatican Splendors exhibit to experience, as the web page says, “2000 Years of Vatican Art and History”. Since my aunt does not have the internet, I will not be able to participate in my favorite weekend memes hosted by fellow bloggers.  I will have one or two posts which will appear at this site during the rest of the week, though.

If you have friends or relatives who live not far from St. Louis, encourage them to go to this exhibit.  No doubt I will never get back to the Vatican in this life, so it will be a great opportunity to see things I would not otherwise get to experience.  Unfortunately I cannot show any pictures here today because the Vatican holds the copyright to all the promotional images, so visit the home page of the exhibit at the link above to see some of the magnificent work on display.  You can be sure I will be posting about my visit next week.  Here’s some information on the exhibit:

Vatican Splendors is organized into nine galleries, with content, narrative, objects, and artworks reflecting important developments, moments, people and events that have marked the foundation of the Church and the history of the Vatican.

Tags: art, Catholic Church

Benedict, the German Shepherd

May 17, 2010

April 3, 2010 Urbi et Orbi - Photo by Elisabetta Villa/Getty Images Europe

This weekend I finally got around to reading the April edition of Inside the Vatican magazine, one of the few Catholic publications I subscribe to.  It is the commemorative issue of the fifth anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul II and of Pope Benedict XVI’s ascension to the Throne of Peter.

Editor-in-Chief Robert Moynihan gave us a great issue with many remembrances of both Popes by those who were (are) close to them.  I loved Pope John Paul II because he showed everyone that the Holy Father is indeed a Father to everyone in the world, not just Catholics. His writings are not easy or quick reads, but his love for mankind in imitation of Christ was easily comprehended.  Most of all, by his living with great physical suffering that was obvious to all he was a silent and continuous witness to the dignity of the human person.

Pope Benedict XVI is special to me in a different way.  His writings are a lot easier for me to read, and his steadfastness in the Faith reminds me of the great Pope of my youth, Pius XII, whose writings are also easy to understand and who bravely and prudently led the Church through a dark and murderous time.  As a child I knew in my heart that Pius XII was a saint, and none of the slander against him has dimmed my affections toward him in any way or caused me any doubt.

My affection for Pope Benedict is the same as that for Pius XII.  The clarity of his communications, the relevance of his words and the strength and dignity he shows in the face of falsehood and adversity is an example of the witness all of us followers of Christ must show to the world.

This issue of Inside the Vatican contained some of the words Pope Benedict spoke at his inaugural Mass homily five years ago about his Petrine ministry. The term that comes to mind is “timeless”.

It is really true: as we follow Christ in this mission to be fishers of men, we must bring men and women out of the sea that is salted with so many forms of alienation and onto the land of life, into the light of God. It is really so: the purpose of our lives is to reveal God to men. And only where God is seen does life truly begin.  Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is.  We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God.  Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.

There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ.  There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him. The task of the shepherd, the task of the fisher of men, can often seem wearisome.  But it is beautiful and wonderful, because it is truly a service to joy, to God’s joy which longs to break into the world.

As Christians, we share in the ministry of revealing God to men in the service of God’s joy. We are indeed all willed, loved, and necessary in God’s plan of salvation.  And it is personal.  No one else can do the job that God has created each individual to do.  Like his predecessor, Pope Benedict is the Pope of Life, the Pope of Hope, and the Pope of Truth.  I never get tired of hearing what he has to say.

Tags: Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI

The Meaning of the Rosary

May 7, 2010

Last Sunday RAnn at This, That, and The Other Thing gave her fellow Catholic bloggers a challenge to write a post about the rosary.  Since May is the month of Mary, and the prayer Catholics use to see the mysteries of faith through Mary’s eyes is the rosary, it’s a good time to learn a little more about this special prayer.  I wrote an article some months ago about the history of the rosary that I’d like to share here.

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Still-Life with Symbols of the Virgin Mary, 1672, Dirke de Bray (active 1651-1678 in Haarlem), oil on panel, Amstelkring Museum, Amsterdam

The Rosary, from the Latin “rosarium” meaning “rose garden” or “garland of roses” is one of the most popular non-liturgical devotions in the Catholic Church today.  For at least a millennium before St. Dominic, who is credited with starting the Rosary devotion, Muslims, Buddhists and other non-Christian as well as Christians followed a tradition of counting repetitive prayers on beads or knots, or placing stones in a bowl or pocket to track the number.

Within Judeo-Christian tradition, the practice of reciting the 150 psalms daily transferred from the Old Testament devout Jews to the monks and monasteries of the Catholic Church.  The average person in Europe, however, did not know how to read or write until Guttenberg’s printing press made learning much more widely possible.  As a result, the clergy, who were the best educated for centuries, encouraged the practice of reciting 150 “Our Fathers”, using a string of beads to count them in fifties.  These beads became known as the “PaterNoster” beads. As time went on, a parallel psalter of 150 “Hail Marys” became known as the Marian Psalter. Today most people are educated well enough to pray the official liturgies of the Church, but the Rosary remains a core devotion beyond the liturgy among the faithful.

Unfortunately due to the many religious wars and plagues of the middle ages and early renaissance, a great deal of documentation regarding the rosary and St. Dominic which would have been preserved by monasteries and convents was lost to us through their destruction.  We do know the following:

1. The Hail Mary at the time of St. Dominic consisted only of the first part we recite today from the Gospel of St. Luke 1:28, 42.  The word “Jesus” was not added until the 14th century, and the remainder of the prayer came later.

2. The “Our Father” and the “Glory be” as part of the rosary also came later.

3. The Mysteries of the Rosary were fixed about 250 years after St. Dominic, and were added to by Pope John Paul II in the 2002-2003 Year of the Rosary. [1]

4. A 15th century Dominican named Alan de Rupe, O.P. revived the Rosary devotion 250 years after the time of St. Dominic. He preached the Marian Psalter of 150 Hail Marys and 150 mysteries and divided them into three groups of fifties according to the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries. It was not until the reign of Pope Pius V in 1569 that the fifteen mysteries were officially established.

5. The crucifix and extra beads before starting the mysteries did not come until long after St. Dominic.

St. Dominic of Guzman, 1685, Claudio Coello (b. 1642, Madrid, d. 1693, Madrid), oil on canvas, Museo del Prado, Madrid

6. St. Dominic founded “The Militia of Jesus Christ” which, according to Dominican records, recited the Marian Psalter daily, as did “The Confraternity of Prayer” founded by Dominicans at Piacenza in1259, thirty-eight years after the death of St. Dominic. [2]

7. The Abligensian heresy, a dualism belief similar to Manicheism, became the occasion for St. Dominic to preach using the Marian Psalter interspersed with meditations on the life of Christ.  The prayers on the beads were the body of the rosary and the meditations the soul.

8. From 1521 on, various popes credited St. Dominic with instituting the Rosary and gradually they gave it the form we know today.

The Holy Rosary, as it is sometimes called, means so much to Catholics because it provides an easy way to link the faithful to Jesus and Mary in daily life.  It promotes meditation on the life of Christ and especially fosters a love of his Mother which pleases Jesus as it would please any son. When prayed as a family, it promotes unity.  It was Father Patrick Peyton, CSC (1909-1992), who, seeing the disintegration of Christian values in society striking at the heart of the family, took to the radio in1945 and campaigned for the praying of the Rosary under the slogan, “The Family That Prays Together, Stays Together.” His religious order, the Congregation of the Holy Cross, still carries on the “Rosary Crusade” he founded.

Three Children of Fatima

As Archbishop Domenico Sorrentino said in a Zenit interview in 2004, “If it is well understood,” it is a prayer that says much.” He described it as deeply “contemplative. The repetition, which often from a distance might seem to be mechanical, in fact serves as a breath of the soul which, gazing on Jesus Christ, assumes a contemplative attitude through Mary’s eyes and heart.”

Contemplating Sacred Scripture accompanied by the Blessed Mother through the Rosary inevitably draws the faithful closer to Christ.  She knew him best and she was given to us by him to be our Mother, too, at the foot of the Cross (John 19: 26-27).  Because of its connection with Sacred Scripture, the Rosary means comfort, hope, light, love, and peace as it leads to the contemplation of heaven in the midst of this vale of tears.

[1]  Rosarium Virginis Mariae, Pope John Paul II, October, 2002

[2] The Rosary and its Meaning by Father Francis William, p.26

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We often see St. Dominic painted with the rosary and to this day every Dominican wears a rosary as part of the habit (see painting above).  St. Bernadette Soubirous and other saints are portrayed praying the rosary, too.  Among the messages Our Lady of Fatima brought to the three children was to pray the rosary every day, and there is a famous picture of the three children with their rosaries (see above).

I pray the rosary as I am going to sleep at night and in the morning before I get up.  It’s a good way to calm down at the end of the day and to have a little “God time” before starting a new day. Part of the prayers I say when on a road trip is the rosary for the intention of arriving safely at the destination.  Because of the difficult times we are facing in our country, one of my rosaries each day is dedicated to the Sorrowful mysteries as I pray for deliverance of our nation.  I see Christ suffering in our people. Praying the rosary faithfully helps me understand the Bible better and is a way I can glorify God and honor Jesus through honoring Mary.

My favorite book on the rosary is by St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary.

Tags: Blessed Virgin, Catholic Church

The Heart of Personal Holiness

May 5, 2010

Usually I wouldn’t create a long post, but Bishop Slattery’s landmark sermon at the Solemn Pontifical Mass April 25th on the fifth anniversary of Pope Benedict’s ascension to the chair of St. Peter fits so perfectly with the purpose of this blog I include all his words. Celebrated at the Shrine of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, the Mass was a work of exceeding beauty, glory and praise, with a lesson to all who call themselves Christian.  This homily will go down in the history of the Catholic Church in America as one of the most profound and spiritual ever given by a bishop.

We have much to discuss – you and I …

… much to speak of on this glorious occasion when we gather together in the glare of the world’s scrutiny to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the ascension of Joseph Ratzinger to the throne of Peter.

We must come to understand how it is that suffering can reveal the mercy of God and make manifest among us the consoling presence of Jesus Christ, crucified and now risen from the dead.

We must speak of this mystery today, first of all because it is one of the great mysteries of revelation, spoken of in the New Testament and attested to by every saint in the Church’s long history, by the martyrs with their blood, by the confessors with their constancy, by the virgins with their purity and by the lay faithful of Christ’s body by their resolute courage under fire.

But we must also speak clearly of this mystery because of the enormous suffering which is all around us and which does so much to determine the culture of our modern age.

From the enormous suffering of His Holiness these past months to the suffering of the Church’s most recent martyrs in India and Africa, welling up from the suffering of the poor and the dispossessed and the undocumented, and gathering tears from the victims of abuse and neglect, from women who have been deceived into believing that abortion was a simple medical procedure and thus have lost part of their soul to the greed of the abortionist, and now flowing with the heartache of those who suffer from cancer, diabetes, AIDS, or the emotional diseases of our age, it is the sufferings of our people that defines the culture of our modern secular age.

This enormous suffering which can take on so many varied physical, mental, and emotional forms will reduce us to fear and trembling – if we do not remember that Christ – our Pasch – has been raised from the dead. Our pain and anguish could dehumanize us, for it has the power to close us in upon ourselves such that we would live always in chaos and confusion – if we do not remember that Christ – our hope – has been raised for our sakes. Jesus is our Pasch, our hope and our light.

He makes himself most present in the suffering of his people and this is the mystery of which we must speak today, for when we speak of His saving presence and proclaim His infinite love in the midst of our suffering, when we seek His light and refuse to surrender to the darkness, we receive that light which is the life of men; that light which, as Saint John reminds us in the prologue to his Gospel, can never be overcome by the darkness, no matter how thick, no matter how choking.

Our suffering is thus transformed by His presence. It no longer has the power to alienate or isolate us. Neither can it dehumanize us nor destroy us. Suffering, however long and terrible it may be, has only the power to reveal Christ among us, and He is the mercy and the forgiveness of God.

The mystery then, of which we speak, is the light that shines in the darkness, Christ Our Lord, Who reveals Himself most wondrously to those who suffer so that suffering and death can do nothing more than bring us to the mercy of the Father.

But the point which we must clarify is that Christ reveals Himself to those who suffer in Christ, to those who humbly accept their pain as a personal sharing in His Passion and who are thus obedient to Christ’s command that we take up our cross and follow Him. Suffering by itself is simply the reminder that death will claim these mortal bodies of ours, but suffering in Christ is the promise that we will be raised with Christ, when our mortality will be remade in his immortality and all that in our lives which is broken because it is perishable and finite will be made imperishable and incorrupt.

Crucifixion of St. Peter, 1600, Caravaggio (b. 1571, Caravaggio, d. 1610, Porto Ercole), Oil on canvas, Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome

This is the meaning of Peter’s claim that he is a witness to the sufferings of Christ and thus one who has a share in the glory yet to be revealed. Once Peter grasped the overwhelming truth of this mystery, his life was changed. The world held nothing for Peter. For him, there was only Christ.

This is, as you know, quite a dramatic shift for the man who three times denied Our Lord, the man to whom Jesus said, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Christ’s declaration to Peter that he would be the rock, the impregnable foundation, the mountain of Zion upon which the new Jerusalem would be constructed, follows in Matthew’s Gospel Saint Peter’s dramatic profession of faith, when the Lord asks the Twelve, “Who do people say that I am?” and Peter, impulsive as always, responds “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

Only later – much later – would Peter come to understand the full implication of this first Profession of Faith. Peter would still have to learn that to follow Christ, to truly be His disciple, one must  let go of everything which the world considers valuable and necessary, and become powerless. This is the mystery which confounds independent Peter. It is the mystery which still confounds us: to follow Christ, one must surrender everything and become obedient with the obedience of Christ, for no one gains access to the Kingdom of the Father, unless he enter through the humility and the obedience of Jesus.

Peter had no idea that eventually he would find himself fully accepting this obedience, joyfully accepting his share in the Passion and Death of Christ. But Peter loved Our Lord and love was the way by which Peter learned how to obey. “Lord, you know that I love thee,” Peter affirms three times with tears; and three times Christ commands him to tend to the flock that gathers at the foot of Calvary – and that is where we are now.

Peter knew that Jesus was the true Shepherd, the one Master and the only teacher; the rest of us are learners and the lesson we must learn is obedience, obedience unto death. Nothing less than this, for only when we are willing to be obedient with the very obedience of Christ will we come to recognize Christ’s presence among us.

Obedience is thus the heart of the life of the disciple and the key to suffering in Christ and with Christ. This obedience, is must be said, is quite different from obedience the way it is spoken of and dismissed in the world.

For those in the world, obedience is a burden and an imposition. It is the way by which the powerful force the powerless to do obeisance. Simply juridical and always external, obedience is the bending that breaks, but a breaking which is still less painful than the punishment meted out for disobedience. Thus for those in the world obedience is a punishment which must be avoided; but for Christians, obedience is always personal, because it is centered on Christ. It is a surrender to Jesus Whom we love.

For those whose lives are centered in Christ, obedience is that movement which the heart makes when it leaps in joy having once discovered the truth.

Let us consider, then, that Christ has given us both the image of his obedience and the action by which we are made obedient.

The image of Christ’s obedience is His Sacred Heart. That Heart, exposed and wounded must give us pause, for man’s heart is generally hidden and secret. In the silence of his own heart, each of us discovers the truth of who we are, the truth of why we are silent when we should speak, or bothersome and quarrelsome when we should be silent. In our hidden recesses of the heart, we come to know the impulses behind our deeds and the reasons why we act so often as cowards and fools.

But while man’s heart is generally silent and secret, the Heart of the God-Man is fully visible and accessible. It too reveals the motives behind our Lord’s self-surrender. It was obedience to the Father’s will that mankind be reconciled and our many sins forgiven us. “Son though he was,” the Apostle reminds us, “Jesus learned obedience through what He suffered.” Obedient unto death, death on a cross, Jesus asks his Father to forgive us that God might reveal the full depth of his mercy and love. “Father, forgive them,” he prayed, “for they know not what they do.”

Christ’s Sacred Heart is the image of the obedience which Christ showed by his sacrificial love on Calvary. The Sacrifice of Calvary is also for us the means by which we are made obedient and this is a point which you must never forget: at Mass, we offer ourselves to the Father in union with Christ, who offers Himself in perfect obedience to the Father. We make this offering in obedience to Christ who commanded us to “Do this in memory of me” and our obediential offering is perfected in the love with which the Father receives the gift of His Son.

Do not be surprised then that here at Mass, our bloodless offering of the bloody sacrifice of Calvary is a triple act of obedience. First, Christ is obedient to the Father, and offers Himself as a sacrifice of reconciliation. Secondly, we are obedient to Christ and offer ourselves to the Father with Jesus the Son; and thirdly, in sharing Christ’s obedience to the Father, we are made obedient to a new order of reality, in which love is supreme and life reigns eternal, in which suffering and death have been defeated by becoming for us the means by which Christ’s final victory, his future coming, is made manifest and real today.

Suffering then, yours, mine, the Pontiffs, is at the heart of personal holiness, because it is our sharing in the obedience of Jesus which reveals his glory. It is the means by which we are made witnesses of his suffering and sharers in the glory to come.

Do not be dismayed that there many in the Church have not yet grasped this point, and fewer still in the world will even dare to consider it, but you know this to be true and it is enough, for ten men who whisper the truth speak louder than a hundred million who lie.

If then someone asks of what we spoke today, tell them we spoke only of the truth. If someone asks why it is you came to this Mass, say that it was so that you could be obedient with Christ. If someone asks about the homily, tell them it was about a mystery and if someone asks what I said of the present situation, tell them only that we must – all of us – become saints through what we suffer.

Tags: Catholic Church, sacrifice, suffering

Cardinal Augustin Mayer, RIP

May 4, 2010

Today I read with regret that Cardinal Augustin Mayer, OSB, had passed away at age 98 a few days ago.  Cardinal Mayer is remembered among other things as the first Prefect of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei founded by Pope John Paul II in 1988 to address the need for the restoration of the Catholic traditional liturgies. Mayer was sympathetic and helpful to the Ecclesia Dei movement throughout the world even though many in the hierarchy tried to obstruct his efforts.  It was fitting that a Benedictine monk devoted to the sacred liturgy accepted this important post, fulfilling his episcopal motto: “Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor” — the Love of Christ has gathered us in unity.

Pope Benedict celebrated the funeral Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome May 3rd and gave one of his usual simple but profound homilies.  Here are some excerpts translated by Zenit:

Also for our beloved brother, Cardinal Paul Augustin Mayer, the hour has come to leave this world. He was born, almost a century ago, in my own land, precisely in Altotting, where the famous Marian shrine arises to which many of the affections and memories of us, Bavarians, are linked. Thus is the destiny of human existence: It flowers from the earth — at a precise point of the world — and is called to Heaven, to the homeland from which it comes mysteriously. “Desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus” (Psalm 41/42:2). In this verb “desiderat” is the whole man, his being flesh, spirit, earth and heaven. It is the original mystery of the image of God in man. Young Paul — who later as a monk was called Augustin — Mayer studied this topic, in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, for his doctorate in theology. It is the mystery of eternal life, deposited in us as a seed since baptism, which must be received in the journey of our life, until the day that we give back the spirit to God the Father.

…Every funeral celebration of ours is placed under the sign of hope: In the last breath of Jesus on the cross (cf. Luke 23:46; John 19:30), God gave himself wholly to humanity, filling the void opened by sin and re-establishing the victory of life over death. Because of this, every man who dies in the Lord participates through faith in this act of infinite love, in some way gives up his spirit together with Christ, in the sure hope that the hand of the Father will resurrect him from the dead and introduce him into the Kingdom of life.

…Formed in the school of the Benedictine Fathers of the Abbey of St. Michael in Metten, in 1931 he made his monastic profession. During his whole life he sought to realize all that St. Benedict says in the Rule: “Prefer nothing to the love of Christ.”

…Dear brothers, our life is in the hands of the Lord at every instant, above all at the moment of death. Because of this, with the confident invocation of Jesus on the cross: “Father, into your hands I commend  my spirit,” we want to accompany our brother Paul Augustin, while he takes his step from this world to the Father.

We will miss him, those of us who have given so many years of our lives to the restoration of Catholic sacred tradition, and we look forward to meeting him again in heaven. To read the entire sermon, visit Zenit.

Tags: Catholic Church

Why Am I Catholic?

May 3, 2010

A fellow blogger posted this moving video at his site and I liked it so much I wanted to bring it to my readers.  Prepared for a Confirmation class, it gives six reasons to be Catholic. What I especially liked about the video was its communication of the universality of the Catholic Church, the connection Catholics have with the beginnings of Christianity, and the participation in grace.  In all charity, we should want to share the wealth of our Faith – spread the wealth which never diminishes around. The visuals and music in this are compelling.

If you want to visit another good Catholic blog, try Evan’s Cove.  It’s good to see a Catholic man taking his Faith so seriously.

Tags: Catholic Church