Month: August 2012

Saint Jane Frances de Chantal

O God, who made Saint Jane Frances de Chantal radiant with outstanding merits in different walks of life, grant us, through her intercession, that walking faithfully in our vocation, we may constantly be examples of shining light.

visitation cross.jpg

While today is Sunday and Saint Jane’s feast is not celebrated by the Church at Mass, the Visitation nuns will observe her feast with great solemnity. I saw one of the St Louis Visitandine nuns yesterday at the ordination of the two monks and we had a good laugh and a few moments talking about important things, like my coveting the cross of a Visitation nun (look at the picture closely). It is, for me, a strikingly beautiful sign of Christ’s love and human commitment to that love. I really want one!

I pray for the nuns of the Order of Visitation whom I have known over the years and I keep in prayer the Monasteries in Georgetown, St Louis, and Tyrringham.

Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, keep us “walking faithfully in our vocation,” pray for us.

Monks brewing liquid bread

Ampleforth Abbey Beer.jpgNews flash! A growing number of Benedictine monasteries are brewing beer in the USA and in Europe.

Originating in Babylonia and Mesopotamia, around the area of Georgia, about the year of 6,000 BC, beer was brewed. Fast forward several years and you’ll find Benedictine monks perfecting the brewing beer. Rich in vitamin B, beer was seen as safer than drinking water and it had nutritional value, hence, liquid bread.

The monastic communities in Italy, Germany, the Czech Republic, Ireland,  Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands among others have been busy with the brew.

Recently, monasteries have been starting up companies like Abbey Beverage Company (of the Abbey of Christ in the Desert) to meet a demand boutique beers. One can also point to the monasteries of Ampleforth (UK), La Cascinazza (Italy), Norcia (Italy), and Spencer (MA) as new brewers.

Drink up!

Two St Louis Abbey monks ordained deacon







Cassian and Francis ordained deacon.jpgToday, The Most Reverend Robert J. Carlson, archbishop of Saint Louis, ordained two Benedictine monks of the Abbey of Saint Mary and Saint Louis to the Order of Deacon. Brothers Francis Hein and Cassian Koeneman received this sacrament of order at the request of Abbot Thomas Frerking. May God them many years of faithful service!

The archbishop ordained these men to the Order of Deacon and next year, Deo volente, he will ordain them to the Order of Priest.

Brother Francis has been at the Dominican House of Studies (Washington, DC) and Brother Cassian has been at Rome’s Angelicum.

What does the Church teach about deacons? The Catechism answers:


Deacons share in Christ’s
mission and grace in a special way. The sacrament of Holy Orders marks them
with an imprint (“character”) which cannot be removed and
which configures them to Christ, who made himself the “deacon” or
servant of all. Among other tasks, it is the task of deacons to assist the
bishop and priests in the celebration of the divine mysteries, above all the
Eucharist, in the distribution of Holy Communion, in assisting at and blessing
marriages, in the proclamation of the Gospel and preaching, in presiding over
funerals, and in dedicating themselves to the various ministries of charity.


Since the Second Vatican Council the Latin
Church has restored the diaconate “as a proper and permanent rank of the
hierarchy,” while the Churches of the East had always maintained it. This
permanent diaconate, which can be conferred on married men, constitutes an
important enrichment for the Church’s mission. Indeed it is appropriate and
useful that men who carry out a truly diaconal ministry in the Church, whether
in its liturgical and pastoral life or whether in its social and charitable
works, should “be strengthened by the imposition of hands which has come
down from the apostles. They would be more closely bound to the altar and their
ministry would be made more fruitful through the sacramental grace of the
diaconate.” (CCC 1570-71).

The dinner invite that shouldn’t

The white-tie Al Smith Dinner on 18 October may have one of the worst public officials whose record for life issues at a key table: The US President. Mr Obama is known as one of the worst offenders on matters of life. And his dinner partner is Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan of New York. In extending an olive branch to the Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates His Eminence is fueling a fire that may not merely do away with troublesome undergrowth but kill off the roots, too. Exactly, how is inviting Mr Obama and Mr Romney helpful to the pro-life movement?

Continue reading The dinner invite that shouldn’t

The Gremlin still prowls

Gremlin.jpgI’ve been walking past this AMC Gremlin for two years now. I am now taking a picture of it for the sake of culture, even if it’s a wrong side up. This car resides as it were on East 68th Street in NYC.

When I was kid my mother had a silver AMC Gremlin car. It was an interesting looking car but I remember a dreadful driving experience.

According to the stats the AMC Gremlin was manufactured for 8 years (1970-78) and with a production total of 671K. You can more about this car’s cultural relevance at the link above.

May it rest in peace.

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Saint John Marie Vianney

St JM Vianney.jpg

Almighty and merciful God, who made the Priest Saint John Vianney
wonderful in his pastoral zeal, grant, we pray, that through his
intercession and example we may in charity win brothers and sisters for
Christ and attain with them eternal glory.

The August liturgical memorial for Saint John Marie Vianney, the patron of priests, is yet another reminder we ought to have in interceding on behalf of priests. God needs to hear from us n this subject…

May Saint John Vianney approach the Throne of Mercy for all priests.

Rediscover the newness of faith by a gift of self


I’m seeing headlines in the Catholic press that say or
suggest that a persecution of those who claim the importance of Christian faith
as essential to the person. This is making me think of what follows the HHS
mandate. Education and service of the poor? The work of knowing the contours of religious freedom are not for an elite group of Catholic academics, or the clergy, or the daily communicant. It is important for each of us to understand, and to live, and to share with others the fruit of a living faith in Christ. These issues have me searching for what the Church has said and is saying. John Paul II helps to begin to frame the issues.

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Continue reading Rediscover the newness of faith by a gift of self

The risks the fire

A fantasy [that people have] property takes no account of the fact that, for the great majority of mankind, life is a struggle. On those grounds I would see this idea of choosing one’s own path in life as a selfish attitude and as a waste of one’s vocation. Anyone who thinks he already has it all, so that he can take what he wants and center everything on himself is depriving himself of giving what he otherwise could.

Man is not there to make himself, but to respond to demands made upon him. We all stand in a great arena of history and are dependent upon each other. A man ought not, therefore, just try to figure out what he would like, but to ask what he can do, and how he can help. Then he will see that fulfillment does not lie in comfort, ease and following one’s inclinations, but precisely in allowing demands to be made upon one, in taking the harder path. Everything else turns out somehow boring, anyway. Only the man who “risks the fire”, who recognizes a calling within himself, a vocation, and ideal he must satisfy, who takes on real responsibility, will find fulfillment. It is not in taking, not on the path of comfort that we become rich, but only in giving.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

 God and the World, p. 258