Paul Zalonski: July 2013 Archives

Prophet Ezekiel

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The Church commemorates the Prophet Ezekiel (born c. 622 BC) today. His name means "God will strengthen."  God's strength will be explained by the prophet's persistent and clear call for repentance, purity and holiness.


The Prophet is remembered on various dates among others:


  • Latin Catholics 23 July
  • Byzantine Catholics and Orthodox and some Lutherans on 21 July
  • Armenian Apostolic Church on 28 August
  • It must be noted that Ezekiel, though not named in the Islamic holy Book, is honored.

Ezekiel is said to have been a great teacher and that his lessons were about the renewal and reform of the whole nation through the renewal and reform of each person. But more than a great teacher he was born into a born into a priestly family, meaning that his family was a family of priests in the line of Levi. Ezekiel was a priest who offered sacrifice on behalf of others.


He is remembered for many important things but many will say they are drawn to the miracle he performed of the resuscitation of the dead found in Book of Ezekiel 37. Dry bones are reassembled and live again. An evident foretelling of the Lord's own resurrection from the dead. But aside from brilliant miracles the prophet utterances of Ezekiel's book speak of a vision of God's glory  (the heavens opening) and the restoration of that glory will happen in a dramatic way even though Jerusalem would fall, unbelief of the people in the one God would lead to their destruction (the Jews would understand the abandoned faith was akin to committing national suicide), and that God required the people to do penance for their wandering away from His truth, beauty and goodness.

Saint Mary Magdalen

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Magdalen raised by Angels GLanfranco.jpgThe day dawns, Mary, bright with joy,
The Lord is victor over death;
You hasten to anoint the Christ,
The truth, thought cold and void of breath.

You come in haste but 'tis to hear
A white-robed angel gladly tell,
"The one you're seeking rose again,
He broke apart the gates of Hell."

Your love requires a greater joy,
You ask the gard'ner where He lay,
A "Mary!" turning see the Lord
Your teacher, Jesus Christ, the Way.

The tearful Virgin you upheld,
Beneath the cruel gallows tree
And so Christ chose you first of all
As witness of his victory.

O lovely flow'r of Magdala,
Whose love of Christ earned such apart,
Pray we may also have this gift,
The flame of love within our heart.

Lord Jesus, give us such a love,
To olive like Mary all our days,
And so with her in heaven's life
To sing your ever-lasting praise.

Text trans. Kenneth Tomkins, OSB, 1992, Quarr Abbey, Ryde, Isle of Wight

A little significant theological reflection is needed. What actually is the point of the Incarnation of Jesus? What difference does it make? Why is what happened to Jesus in the Paschal Mystery important for my redemption and salvation? One of my favorite Orthodox theologians/historians of theology, Father Georges Florovsky points to the fact Christ is not for one person, but for all people, and that all people are to become divine. Make sense to you?


Christ Pantocrator, detail of the Deesis mosaic
The Word became man so that we could "become divine," "in order to deify us in Himself." Deification is adoption by God, and "humans sons have become the sons of God." We are "received by the Word and are deified through His flesh" by virtue of the Incarnation. Born from the Virgin, the Word was not united with only one man, but with the whole of human nature. Therefore everything that was achieved in the human nature of Christ is immediately extended to all men because they have a body in common with Him. There is no coercion involved here. Men are more than similar to Christ; they are truly participants in the human nature of the Word. Christ is a vine and we are the branches, "united with Him by our humanity." In the same way that the tendrils which grow from a grapevine are consubstantial with it, so are our bodies consubstantial with the body of the Lord, and we receive what He has accomplished. His body is the "root of our resurrection and salvation." Everyone is renewed, anointed, healed, and exalted in Christ, for "He has taken everyone on Himself." This is not merely similarity or substitution, but actual unity. Therefore all humanity is anointed by the Spirit in the Jordan, dies on the cross, and is resurrected to immortality in Christ because "He Himself bears our body."


Father Georges Florovsky, discussing the theology of Saint Athanasius the Great, in chapter two of Florovsky's patrology.

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Cooling a dog

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Somehow I think the dog has a good deal going for himself. Happy Summer!

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

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I was asking myself why today's feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is a universal feast of the Church. But, why, then, is the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary a widespread feast? Because of the popularity of the devotion is a good approximate answer. Go to Mary for help is a certain gesture of dependence.


The feast recalls a 1226 victory over enemies of the Church and the Carmelite friars, and it also recalls the reception of the scapular by Saint Simon Stock on this date in 1251.


By the 14th century the proposed feast received approval of the Roman Pontiffs Honorius III and later by Sixtus V; over the years it has been questioned by ecclesiastical figures and found to be appropriate for the Carmelite order with a proper vigil Mass and a privileged octave.


Our Lady of Mount Carmel's feast is another feast of the Virgin Mary that focuses our eyes on the Lord. And, we can never have a enough of that.


You may be interested in reading this piece on scapulars.

Shakespeare's Sonnet 116

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Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

William Shakespeare

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One of the famous works of Saint Bonaventure's is his Journey of the Mind to God. You see it in many places for those wanting a glimpse into this significant medieval thinker. It was in the Roman Divine Office of Readings. We always need an insight or two into contemplation, what it means, how it exists, and so forth. There is no exhausting one's search into understanding mystical prayer.


I want you to listen to Veronica Scarisbrick's interview with Franciscan Father Rick S. Martignetti who works in Rome and has authored of Saint Bonaventure's Tree of Life: Theology of the Mystical Journey (Grottaferrata, 2004). It is a study of Bonaventure's understanding on prayer and life in the paschal mystery. I found Scarisbrick's interview both delightful and helpful.


Christ is both the way and the door. Christ is the staircase and the vehicle, like the throne of mercy over the Ark of the Covenant, and the mystery hidden from the ages. A man should turn his full attention to this throne of mercy, and should gaze at him hanging on the cross, full of faith, hope and charity, devoted, full of wonder and joy, marked by gratitude, and open to praise and jubilation. Then such a man will make with Christ a pasch, that is, a passing-over. Through the branches of the cross he will pass over the Red Sea, leaving Egypt and entering the desert. There he will taste the hidden manna, and rest with Christ in the sepulchre, as if he were dead to things outside. He will experience, as much as is possible for one who is still living, what was promised to the thief who hung beside Christ: Today you will be with me in paradise.

Subconsciously we are still studying the history of doctrine as a history of philosophy, and therefore we are bound to miss the very thing. For both theology and doctrine are not philosophy. It is not a speculation on religious topics or problems, even as it does not exclude the theological use of reasons. But it begins, earnestly and emphatically, with revelation -- not with an innate "revelation" of the truth in the human mind, but with a concrete Revelation in history, with a true encounter. It is a personal datum -- not because it is a private business of human personalities, but because it is a self-disclosure and challenge of a Divine Person of the Personal God.


Father Georges Florovsky

Religion and Theological Tensions

In the years since Blessed John Paul introduced his desire to have new work on knowing, living, and sharing the truth of the Catholic Faith, there's been a lot of good energy for the new evangelization. You can think of the Tear of Faith, the encyclicals of the recent popes, and most crucial has been Benedict XVI's establishment of a Vatican office to spearhead evangelization efforts. 


Getting to the heart of what the new evangelization means, how it's supposed to "look" and why it needs our attention is slowing being revealed. I have to say that too many use the word evangelization without precision and without real content and experience. Nevertheless, since John Paul and Benedict, now with Pope Francis we have a new awareness of evangelization's aim: and affection for Christ and to offer a reasonable proposal for faith in a comprehensive way.


I happen to think the Holy Spirit is working diligently and effectively in having us slowly develop the needed resources with regard to persons and materials. Rushing into such work would not be reasonable since it does take time to do the hard work in truly knowing the need in a time of limited resources. The immediate past Pontiff set the Church's face on this renewed manner of living focusing us on the personal relationship with the Lord,, bridging the gap between faith and reason, and by asking us to intimately know Scripture, the Liturgy and the Magisterium (I don't want to call the new evangelization a 'project' because it is about our heart and mind). 


A Cambridge, Massachusetts group of faithful Catholics have responded to Church's call for a "New Apologetics," a new way of proposing Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth and the Life.


"New Apologetics" is a contemporary way of engaging the questions which need to be addressed; those tough issues are often inadequately answered, or worse, dismissed as unimportant. This is a serious, beautiful adventure.


The New Apologetics is group qualified persons working to share the beauty of the truth of the Church today, in the language of today. 


The New Apologetics website is www.NewApologetics.com


May Saint Thérèse of Lisieux guide this new work.

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"Go and make Christ known to all nations." The missionary spirit is once again coming to the table. As Christians, we are baptized to come into communion with God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to live as adopted children of God faithful to the life of the Church. The sacrament of Baptism makes us disciples of the Lord. We can't forget, nor can we neglect, to make the Lord known to all people by the witness of our lives. Our call is the same as the Prophet Isaiah's, "Here am I; send me" (Is 6:8). The preaching of the Lord's Kingdom is not reserved to few; no, the mission to proclaim the presence of the Kingdom is given to all the baptized in all places. Hence, we work doing the new evangelization. Catholics as missionaries in this country needs renewal. We Catholics can't leave the missionary work to the Mormons, the Jehovah Witnesses, the Evangelicals or the Muslims. If we truly believe that the Lord has given us Himself as the way, the truth and the life, then we ought to share this experience. Moreover, in living the Gospel, following the teaching of the Church, the reception of the sacraments, we care for those live on the margins (think of the corporal works of mercy).


I see in Pope Francis calling us to be attentive to the missionary impulse again as fundamental to our faith and life in the Church. The Pope comes as this missionary notion from his own spiritual formation received as a member of the Society of Jesus. No doubt he thinks of the early founders of the Jesuits, and he likely recalls the Jesuit saint Francis Borgia, the third Jesuit Superior General who spent much energy on missionary vocation of the Jesuits, of translating the faith and the Exercises of Loyola into a more concrete expression. We can say that Pope, like Borgia, knows that the missionary work we are called to perform is a ministry that takes on a variety of aspects: preaching, teaching, sanctifying, interceding, healing, guiding others in the spiritual life, administering and governance.


Pope Francis' Sunday Angelus address needs to be studied and prayed about. Think about the points highlighted.


This Sunday's Gospel (Lk 10:1-12.17-20) speaks to us precisely of this: of the fact that Jesus is not an isolated missionary, does not want to fulfill his mission alone, but involves his disciples. Today we see that, in addition to the Twelve Apostles, He calls seventy-two others, and sends them into the villages, two by two, to announce that the Kingdom of God is near. This is very beautiful! Jesus does not want to act alone, He has come to bring to the world the love of God and wants to spread that love with a style of communion and fraternity. For this reason, he forms immediately a community of disciples, which is a missionary community. Iright from the start, He trains them for the mission, to go [on the mission].


Beware, however: the purpose is not to socialize, to spend time together - no, the purpose is to proclaim the Kingdom of God, and this is urgent! There is no time to waste in small talk, no need to wait for the consent of all - there is need only of going out and proclaiming. The peace of Christ is to be brought to everyone, and if some do not receive it, then you go on. To the sick is to be brought healing, because God wants to heal man from all evil. How many missionaries do this! They sow life, health, comfort to the peripheries of the world.


These seventy-two disciples, whom Jesus sent ahead of him, who are they? Whom do they represent? If the Twelve are the Apostles, and therefore also represent the Bishops, their successors, these may represent seventy-two other ordained ministers - priests and deacons - but in a wider sense we can think of other ministries in the Church, catechists and lay faithful who engage in parish missions, those who work with the sick, with the various forms of discomfort and alienation, but always as missionaries of the Gospel, with the urgency of the Kingdom that is at hand.

The Gospel says that those seventy-two returned from their mission full of joy, because they had experienced the power of the Name of Christ against evil. Jesus confirms this: to these disciples He gives the strength to defeat the evil one. He adds, though: "Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. (Luke 10:20)" We should not boast as if we were the protagonists: the protagonist is the Lord [and] His grace. Our joy is only this: [in] being His disciples, His friends. 


May Our Lady help us to be good servants of the Gospel.


Pope Francis

Sunday Angelus Address

8 July 20013

Why is Saint Benedict so important for us today? Why spend so much energy trying to promote his cause and to recall his influence upon civilization? One answer is: "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." You may want to read "Translating St Benedict" by Dom Hugh of Douai Abbey (UK) who does a fine job at locating a piece of our interest.


I also think it's a good day to remember that Europe --and the USA-- needs its heavenly patron to get it out of the moral, political and human confusion that is wreaking havoc today. I wonder what life in the USA would be like if we had a "new" Benedict? The Servant of God Pope Paul VI wrote Pacis Nuntius (1964), an Apostolic Letter by which he names Saint Benedict as the principle patron of all of Europe. In this document we read in an abbreviated form why Abbot and Saint Benedict was important not only to the Pope, but to a continent.


In everlasting memory


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Messenger of peace, molder of union, magister of civilization, and above all herald of the religion of Christ and founder of monastic life in the West: these are the proper titles of exaltation given to St. Benedict, Abbot. At the fall of the crumbling Roman Empire, while some regions of Europe seemed to have fallen into darkness and others remained as yet devoid of civilization and spiritual values, he it was who, by constant and assiduous effort, brought to birth the dawn of a new era. It was principally he and his sons, who with the cross, the book and the plow, carried Christian progress to scattered peoples from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, from Ireland to the plains of Poland (Cf. AAS 39 (1947), p. 453). With the cross; that is, with the law of Christ, he lent consistency and growth to the ordering of public and private life. To this end, it should be remembered that he taught humanity the primacy of divine worship through the "opus Dei", i.e. through liturgical and ritual prayer. Thus it was that he cemented that spiritual unity in Europe, whereby peoples divided on the level of language, ethnicity and culture felt they constituted the one people of God; a unity that, thanks to the constant efforts of those monks who followed so illustrious a teacher, became the distinctive hallmark of the Middle Ages.

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Have you ever thought about the scriptural exhortation that "A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit"? What does it mean? What does it mean for me? Why do I need a contrite (a feeling or showing sorrow and remorse for a sin or shortcoming)  heart to be a person of faith? When I pray the Liturgy of the Hours, or approach the confession box my thoughts and feelings zero-in on contrition, sin and what it all means. Some days I am plagued by the heaviness of sin (separation from God but also living divorced from a good sense of self and relations with others). Here, I am talking about the place of mercy --God's mercy-- for me.


The Responsory for a recent reading in the Office of Readings (Sunday, 14th Sunday through the Year) has us sing: My sins are embedded like arrows in my flesh. Lord, before they wound me, heal me with the medicine of repentance.

A clean heart create for me, O God. Put a steadfast spirit within me. Heal me with the medicine of repentance.


I found myself thinking about what Saint Augustine said about sin in one of his sermons. (The italics is Augustine using Scripture.) Perhaps the following portion of the sermon is of interest for you. The spiritual life, indeed, our whole personhood, needs to consider how we deal with sin in our lives.


Saint Augustine said:

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Today is the Feast of Saint Benedict! It was originally the feast of the translation of his relics, but after Monte Cassino was bombed they discovered that his relics were evidently never translated! Pope Paul changed it to the feast of Saint Benedict Patron of Europe. One of the most sensible things he ever did.


The perduring gift to the Church is the Rule of Saint Benedict. It is a beautiful compilation of how to live together seeking the face of God. One part on humility is worth noting. Benedict's teaching on humility is here.


Father Giussani points out about life in Communion and Liberation:


"Now, we must also say that to live communion is not a small matter; it is all of Christian life, because Christian life is Christ among us who makes us one sole body. And this, I believe, is the heart of the original Benedictine tradition, with which our Movement felt itself to coincide from the beginning. The heart of our Movement is this, and I really believe that it is being disciples of the original Benedictine history that has made our Movement like this. Therefore, it is no small matter; it is the example that has to happen."


A short review of the importance of Saint Benedict and Benedictines in the life of Communion and Liberation is here.


Blessed feast of Saint Benedict.

Benedicite

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Abdel Mohti, Francis, and Raphael were three Maronite laymen killed inside the Franciscan church in Damascus while they were praying. 


On 9 July 1860, the killers entered the Franciscan church in Damascus where the Brothers were in prayer. The Islamic fanatics gave the Brothers a choice: reject Christianity and accept Islam, or, be killed. The Brothers said: "You may destroy our lives but you cannot destroy our faith in Christ and our souls; we are Christians. In the faith of Christ we live and in the faith of Christ we shall die." The three holy brothers were killed as were several of the Franciscan friars.


Pope Pius XI beatified the three Massabki  brothers on 7 October 1926.


Blessed Massabki Brothers, pray for Lebanon, the Church in the USA, and each one of us.

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Today, is the feast of Our Lady of the Atonement. Under her patronage do the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement live their vocation. I was happy to celebrate with a favorite Atonement Sister today!


The Founder of the Franciscans of the Atonement, the Servant of God Father Paul, said of Mary's part in the Atonement:


"She is necessarily "of the Atonement" since it was the will of God that she play a necessary part in the atonement or redemption. This is not to say that without her man would have remained unredeemed but that God's plan gave her a large share in the redemptive work...Mary, although her part is in no way similar in nature to that of her divine Son's, cooperated with Jesus Christ, as no other creature did, in his work of reconciling man with God. Her claim to this high title rests most solidly on the fact that she consented to become, and became the mother of the Redeemer; that she suffered with Jesus during the passion; and that all graces merited for mankind by Christ have come to us through Mary.

When we, therefore, give to our Blessed Mother the title of Our Lady of the Atonement we mean: Our Lady of Unity. As she sits enthroned, as the great wonder of heaven, wearing a crown of twelve stars, clothed with the sun, the moon her footstool, she presents to the universe the highest possible approach of a creature to intimate and exalted union with God.


More on Fr Paul Wattson and the devotion to Atonement.
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Today, the Holy Father, Pope Francis, has accepted the resignation of Bishop Robert J. Shaheen from the pastoral governance of the Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles, and has appointed as Bishop of the same Eparchy the Reverend Father Abdallah Elias Zaidan, MLM, 50, up until now Rector of Our Lady of Mt. Lebanon-St. Peter Maronite Cathedral in Los Angeles. He was ordained a priest on 20 July 1986.


Bishop Robert Joseph Shaheen was the first native American (born in Danbury, CT) to be nominated bishop for the Maronites in the USA, and the second bishop of of the Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles. He was ordained a priest 1964 and a bishop on 15 February 2001.


Bishop-elect Zaidan will be ordained in Lebanon and later enthroned in the United States.


May God grant Bishop-elect Abdallah many years.

Our Lady of Lebanon, intercede for the Eparchy.

Saint Maron, pray for us.

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The Apostle urges the followers of Jesus Christ to allow His Word and life to penetrate hearts and transform lives: to live as a "new creation."


As Saint Ephrem of Syria taught, "Blessed the one who draws near with fear and trembling and dread to the spotless Mysteries of the Savior and has realized that he has received in himself eternal life." 


Hence, wolves changed into sheep; sinners into disciples, zombies into human beings. Now that's a new creation!


The Holy Eucharist and the Divine Office are graces beyond compare.


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I came across a portion of Saint Basil the Great's Letter 90 addressed to the bishops of the West. I like reading these types of letters because they give a great sense of the history of Christian salvation history. In 2000 years we've been exposed to some things more than once. Apparently, Basil is responding to reports of some members of the Church allowing certain influences of society, politics, and unorthodox teaching of the Faith to enter into, to penetrate, the life of the Holy Church. What came to mind was the phrase of Pope Francis a couple of months ago when he warned the Church about theological narcissism. It's not all about me! There are times when a Christian can be too cozy with the culture in which he or she lives.


Saint Basil isn't writing today, he inhabits the 4th century. His words, though, are timeless; his description of the currents are applicable today. It makes no sense to me to merely identify the problems of today without saying that the change can't applied to all others and not be a provocation to my own conversion. Reform is not the responsibility of all others, but conversion of mind and heart is also my own spiritual work before the Divine Majesty.


The zeal for true religion that Basil wants to propose is two fold: the work of God acting in the world today, and our sharing what we have received from Jesus Christ. Zeal for the Kingdom is about God's work, not my own; it is God's creation, God's Church, God's people --not mine. Basil is rejecting a theological narcissism. Isn't that what we face today? The faith we've been given by the Lord is transferred to the life of the Church, as another "Great" once said, Saint Leo. As the Lord Himself turns toward the Father in prayer, so must our orientation be set on the Trinity.


The doctrines of the Fathers are despised; apostolic traditions are set at nought; the devices of innovators are in vogue in the Churches; now men are rather contrivers of cunning systems than theologians; the wisdom of this world wins the highest prizes and has rejected the glory of the cross. Shepherds are banished, and in their places are introduced grievous wolves hurrying the flock of Christ. Houses of prayer have none to assemble in them; desert places are full of lamenting crowds. The elders lament when they compare the present with the past. The younger are yet more to be shown compassion, for they do not know of what they have been deprived. All this is enough to stir the pity of men who have learned the love of Christ; but, compared with the actual state of things, words fall very far short. If then there be any consolation of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, any bowels of mercy, be stirred to help us. Be zealous for true religion, and rescue us from this storm. Ever be spoken among us with boldness that famous dogma of the Fathers, which destroys the ill-famed heresy of Arius, and builds up the Churches in the sound doctrine wherein the Son is confessed to be of one substance with the Father, and the Holy Ghost is ranked and worshipped as of equal honor, to the end that through your prayer and co-operation the Lord may grant to us that same boldness for the truth and glorying in the confession of the divine and saving Trinity which He has given you.

English: US President George W. Bush and his w...
In a meeting with Cardinal Angelo Amato, SDB, Prefect of the Congregation for Saints this morning in Rome, Pope Francis was presented with causes of several persons being studied for beatification and sainthood.

A special Consistory of Cardinals has been called to discuss the proposed canonizations. Notably, the cardinals will discuss the canonizations of Blessed John Paul II and Blessed John XXIII.

In today's Ordinary Consistory of Cardinals and Bishops of the Congregation for Saints, Pope Francis received the favorable votes for both popes canonization. John XXIII, though without the usual required second miracle. Moreover of note, the Prelates favorably voted on the beatification of Bishop Álvaro del Portillo, the successor of Saint Josémaría Escriva. The former Prelate of Opus Dei died in 1994. The Venerable Servant of God was in his early life as a priest a significant contributor of the work of the Second Vatican Council. Several of recognitions of sanctity were made.

The dares for the special Consistory and canonizations has not yet been set, and the canonization is expected to happen by year's end.
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Pope Francis published his first encyclical today. Lumen Fidei ("The Light of Faith"), comes in the middle of the Year of Faith. The Pope told bishops,  "It's an encyclical written with four hands, so to speak, because Pope Benedict began writing it and he gave it to me. It's a strong document. I will say in it that I received it and most of the work was done by him and I completed it."


The full text is here: Lumen Fidei.pdf


Pope Benedict set out to write encyclicals on the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity. Two have been done and Lumen Fidei completes the course of study.


Thus Deus Caritas Est on charity in 2005 and Spe Salvi on hope in 2007. 


Pope Benedict's, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), published in 2009 focused on Catholic social teachings of the Church.


Lumen Fidei was presented Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization. Their presentation is here in various languages.

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Popes Francis and Benedict at opening this morning at the blessing of a statue of Saint Michael the Archangel, near the Vatican Governorate. Pope Francis said,


"In the Vatican Gardens there are several works of art. But this, which has now been added, takes on particular importance, in its location as well as the meaning it expresses. In fact it is not just celebratory work but an invitation to reflection and prayer, that fits well into the Year of Faith. Michael - which means "Who is like God" - is the champion of the primacy of God, of His transcendence and power. Michael struggles to restore divine justice and defends the People of God from his enemies, above all by the enemy par excellence, the devil. And St. Michael wins because in him, there is He God who acts. This sculpture reminds us then that evil is overcome, the accuser is unmasked, his head crushed, because salvation was accomplished once and for all in the blood of Christ. Though the devil always tries to disfigure the face of the Archangel and that of humanity, God is stronger, it is His victory and His salvation that is offered to all men. We are not alone on the journey or in the trials of life, we are accompanied and supported by the Angels of God, who offer, so to speak, their wings to help us overcome so many dangers, in order to fly high compared to those realities that can weigh down our lives or drag us down. In consecrating Vatican City State to St. Michael the Archangel, I ask him to defend us from the evil one and banish him."


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God of justice, Father of truth, who guide creation in wisdom and goodness to fulfillment in Christ your Son, open our hearts to the truth of the Gospel, that your peace may rule in our hearts and your justice guide our lives.

Our prayer today ought to be for the citizens and the government of the USA. As the Collect for today's Mass asks God who is justice and truth: to open our hearts to recognize divine truth and to be rule by His justice. We are not creators of our own destiny as Mr. Obama said today. God has given us our destiny. Our work is to recognize the path laid before us to walk to Him.

Faith and good public order linked graces. 237 years ago the Declaration of Independence was signed; but we are still looking for a good definition of freedom. Let me offer one: freedom for excellence.

What does freedom for excellence mean? One aspect of this type of freedom is that what is expressed in the universal call to holiness. My "I", that is, my whole person, is a gift from God. In this notion of personhood there is a fundamental openness to the Divine Mystery who created all things, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in this life, and in the next. From a Pauline point of view, we live in Christ. And if I live in Christ who is excellence to perfection, then I need not have the disordered attachments of money, power and fame; not be seduced by accomplishments, possessions, interpersonal competition, and reducing my intellect, sexuality and my will to base desires.


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The feast of Saint Thomas is Easter in summer: an opportunity to open a new door in what we  believe about in the Messiah. Saint Gregory notes below, God arranged His mercy particularly for us in concrete experience. He took the initiative once again.


With the Church, we pray:


Grant, almighty God, that we may glory in the Feast of the blessed Apostle Thomas, so that we may always be sustained by his intercession and, believing, may have life in the name of Jesus Christ your Son, whom Thomas acknowledged as the Lord.


From a homily on the Gospels by Saint Gregory the Great, pope


Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. He was the only disciple absent; on his return he heard what had happened but refused to believe it. The Lord came a second time; he offered his side for the disbelieving disciple to touch, held out his hands, and showing the scars of his wounds, healed the wound of his disbelief.


Dearly beloved, what do you see in these events? Do you really believe that it was by chance that this chosen disciple was absent, then came and heard, heard and doubted, doubted and touched, touched and believed? It was not by chance but in God's providence. In a marvellous way God's mercy arranged that the disbelieving disciple, in touching the wounds of his master's body, should heal our wounds of disbelief. The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples. As he touches Christ and is won over to belief, every doubt is cast aside and our faith is strengthened. So the disciple who doubted, then felt Christ's wounds, becomes a witness to the reality of the resurrection.


Touching Christ, he cried out: My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him: Because you have seen me, Thomas, you have believed. Paul said: Faith is the guarantee of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. It is clear, then, that faith is the proof of what can not be seen. What is seen gives knowledge, not faith. When Thomas saw and touched, why was he told: You have believed because you have seen me? Because what he saw and what he believed were different things. God cannot be seen by mortal man. Thomas saw a human being, whom he acknowledged to be God, and said: My Lord and my God. Seeing, he believed; looking at one who was true man, he cried out that this was God, the God he could not see.


What follows is reason for great joy: Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. There is here a particular reference to ourselves; we hold in our hearts one we have not seen in the flesh. We are included in these words, but only if we follow up our faith with good works. The true believer practices what he believes. But of those who pay only lip service to faith, Paul has this to say: They profess to know God, but they deny him in their works. Therefore James says: Faith without works is dead.

stagon.JPGThe are differences in how the Christian churches view priesthood. Generally speaking the priests of the Latin Church are celibate. But there are exceptions made for those who were formerly members of the Anglican Communion as married ministers who come into full communion with the Church of Rome. Then in many of the Eastern Catholic churches there are both married and celibate priests. In the USA, more of the Eastern Catholic priests are celibate due to an implementation of a rule imposed upon because of a strife between a Latin bishop and Eastern Catholics.

Eastern Christianity has had a long and venerable tradition of a married priesthood. Peggy Fletcher of the RNS wrote a very fine story on a family with priests "doing God's work with sincerity and earnestness" in "Like father like son(s): Boys follow their father's calling," (The Washington Post, July 1, 2013). I recommend reading the article.

I am not calling into question the valid spiritual discipline of a celibate priesthood in the Catholic Church; the celibate Catholic priesthood has a valuable spiritual tradition with good reasons for following in this manner. The point here is that among those in the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church a man can validly follow the Lord as being married and being a priest. We have a history of it. Eastern Catholic Christians in the USA have been told by the authorities in Rome that a married priesthood is not possible. Certain biases are evident. American Eastern Catholic bishops say a married priesthood is part of the long, lived theological tradition --and it is part of canonical tradition-- and that they ought to be free to ordain married men without issue. There are practical matters that always need to be accounted for, but one can say that both vocations, being married and being a priest, is possible. The article is less about a political statement than it is about the beauty of two vocations cohering well.
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Today's the anniversary of death (1937) of the Venerable Servant of God Antonietta Meo. She is known by many in Rome as Nennolina. Meo is a six year old candidate for sainthood, indeed a very young girl apparently was in love with Jesus and united her suffering (from cancer) to that of the Lord's.


Actually I had forgotten about Nennolina's anniversary until I saw it noted on a "friend's page" on Facebook.


When I lived for a month with the Cistercians at Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme I came to know about this young sainthood candidate. I seem to recall that a family in Michigan and in Indiana was attributing a miracle through Meo's intercession. Since I've not been following the cause, I don't the state of her sainthood process except that Benedict XVI recognized her heroic virtues in 2007.


Antonietta Meo was a student of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Rome.


Nennolina is buried in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, the same place where the relics of the Holy Passion are located. She was baptized in this church and spent time in prayer there.


Read her letters.

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Saint Thomas

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Was Saint Thomas really doubting, skeptical, or trying understand a new reality he met in the risen Lord?  The so-called skepticism is seen as weakness but in the Christian way of looking at life, weakness is power. Doubt is really clarification. Thomas, is really an apostle of the Lord's glorification as John's Gospel indicates for us. I can also see Thomas as the apostle who loves the Lord with passion, with ardor, as when he tells the disciples to go with the Lord to the cross when witnessing to the death of Lazarus. Thomas is also the apostle of Christology. He asks, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, how can we know the way?" Jesus sets gives one of his clearest teachings of who He is: "I am the way, the truth and the life." But somewhere along the path charted by Jesus Thomas doesn't immediately accept what others have to say about the resurrection from the dead of Jesus but has to personally probe the fact.


Eusebius of Caesarea writes that Thomas evangelized the peoples of Persia; there is also the claim that he evangelized western India, founding what is known today as the Malabar Church, and later martyred there.


Like Thomas, Didymus, we've met the Lord in his glorious wounds and sometimes we miss what those wounds mean. Thomas is here to help us.


"We find Jesus' wounds in carrying out works of mercy, giving to our body - the body - the soul too, but - I stress - the body of your wounded brother, because he is hungry, because he is thirsty, because he is naked because it is humiliated, because he is a slave, because he's in jail because he is in the hospital. Those are the wounds of Jesus today. And Jesus asks us to take a leap of faith, towards Him, but through these His wounds. 'Oh, great! Let's set up a foundation to help everyone and do so many good things to help '. That's important, but if we remain on this level, we will only be philanthropic. We need to touch the wounds of Jesus, we must caress the wounds of Jesus, we need to bind the wounds of Jesus with tenderness, we have to kiss the wounds of Jesus, and this literally. Just think of what happened to St. Francis, when he embraced the leper? The same thing that happened to Thomas: his life changed


Pope Francis

English: Pope John Paul II on 12 August 1993 i...
Several weeks ago word was received that the theologians approved of the findings they were presented on a miracle studied to support Blessed John Paul's cause of canonization. A second miracle is required for the canonization process to certify that the person being presented for canonization is authentic; the person doesn't create the miracle but it is through that person's intercession before God asking Him for the favor.

It is said that this second miracle happen on the night John Paul was beatified. A Costa Rican woman is the subject of the healing. John Paul II died in 2005 and was beatified on 1 May 2011 by Pope Benedict XVI.

The full meeting of the cardinals and bishops of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints met today and likewise approved the report on the second miracle. The Congregation under the leadership of Cardinal Angelo Amato will now write a report and submit it to the Roman Pontiff for his decision.

It is speculated at by December Blessed John Paul could be sainted. Some are also speculating that Blessed John XXIII could be sainted, too.
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Why the face?

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BRF.jpgBitchy Resting Face (BRF) is a syndrome that portrays a sour expression. Thoughtfully sad and silently suffering people, typically women. (There is a male version which I will leave alone for now.) Do you find it hard to match the others joyous attitude in an honest way? Are you smiling?

Societal expectations say that you SHOULD smile all the time. Do you need surgery or just give the person suffering from BRF a break? Here's the parody.

On a serious note, there are many are pop-psychologists and take every opportunity to diagnose what you are thinking and feeling based on a perceived BRF.

Blessed Junípero Serra

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JSerra.jpgOne the outstanding missionaries in the USA, is Blessed Junipero Serra. A Franciscan, who was born in 1713 and ordained priest in 1737 taught theology and philosophy at the University of Padua, followed the direction of his superiors to me a missionary in the new world; his first stop was Mexico City before going up the west coast of the USA founding 21 of the missions, the first of which was 1769 when he was 56. The foundations were not merely places of prayer, but a true Christian society. 

November marks the 300th anniversary of Serra's birth.

As Archbishop Chaput said last week when he was reflecting on Blessed Junipero, "Christian faith is not a habit. It's not a useful moral code. It's not an exercise in nostalgia. It's a restlessness, a consuming fire in the heart to experience the love of Jesus Christ and then share it with others --or it's nothing..."

This, I believe, is what set Serra's heart on fire; this is what sets my heart on fire for Christ and His Church today.


Blessed Junipero Serra, pray for us.
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Pope Francis' intentions for the month of July, the month also dedicated the Most Precious Blood Jesus. We are redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb, and no other.


The fathers and spiritual masters of the Church, like Saint Benedict believed that discernment is about figuring out who I am as a person as it is figuring out the contours of a relationship with God. Let's keep these intentions in place of priority in our prayer this month.


The general intention


"That World Youth Day in Brazil may encourage all young Christians to become disciples and missionaries of the Gospel."


The mission intention


"That throughout Asia doors may open to messengers of the Gospel."

About the author

Paul A. Zalonski is from New Haven, CT. He is a member of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, a Catholic ecclesial movement and an Oblate of Saint Benedict. Contact Paul at paulzalonski[at]yahoo.com.

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This page is a archive of recent entries written by Paul Zalonski in July 2013.

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