Author: Paul Zalonski

Sunday of the Holy cross

Today in the Byzantine Catholic Church it is the Sunday of the Holy Cross. It is a day on which we recall that wood heals wood, the wood of the cross heals the wood that tree in paradise we were told not to eat from. Today we venerate the Holy Cross and it signals mid-Lent. As members of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem we are keenly aware that the cross is intimately connected with the Lord’s victory over death, and thus our salvation.

St John Chrysostom teaches us:

“Therefore, no one should be ashamed of the venerable symbols of our salvation: of the cross, which is the summit of our goods, for which we live and are what we are. Instead, let’s carry the cross of Christ like a trophy everywhere! All things, among us, reach their fulfillment by means of the cross. When we have to be reborn, the cross becomes present; when we feed on the mystical food; when we are consecrated ministers of the altar; when other mysteries are fulfilled, this symbol of victory is always present there.”

Homily on Matthew 54, 551B-552A.

St Joseph

Icon painted Marek Czarnecki for the parish of St Thomas More, Yale University New Haven, 2019.

Today’s the feast of St Joseph, “a righteous man” (Matthew 1:19).

Prayer of Pope Leo XIII to St Joseph:

In our tribulations we turn to thee, O Blessed Joseph; and after imploring the help of thy most holy Spouse we ask with confidence for thy patronage. By the affection which united thee to the Immaculate Virgin, Mother of God, and the paternal love with which thou didst embrace the Child Jesus, we beseech thee to look kindly upon the inheritance which Jesus Christ acquired by His precious blood, and by thy powerful aid to help us in our needs.

Protect, most careful Guardian of the Holy Family, the chosen people of Jesus Christ. Keep us, most loving Father, from all pestilence of error and corruption. Be merciful to us, most powerful protector, from thy place in heaven, in this warfare with the powers of darkness; and, as thou didst snatch the Child Jesus from the danger of death, so now defend the holy Church of God from the snares of the enemy and from all adversity. Guard each of us by the perpetual patronage, so that, sustained by thy example and help, we may live in holiness, die a holy death, and obtain the everlasting happiness of heaven. Amen.

A queen revealed

Spring is time to clean out debris from the bottom board of the hive and to locate the queen, or at least to see the results of the queen’s work by noting if there are eggs and capped brood. These last days I have been going through my hives and of the hives that over-wintered, all of the queens are reigning.

The queen is the mother of the hive. She sets the tone until or unless, the community of bees decides otherwise.

Thanks be to God and the guardian angels of the bees.

Save the bees, save the Church.

Neri 400 years a saint

Today, March 12th is the 400th anniversary of the canonization of St Philip Neri, the Apostle of Rome.

“We are not saints yet, but we, too, should beware. Uprightness and virtue do have their rewards, in self-respect and in respect from others, and it is easy to find ourselves aiming for the result rather than the cause. Let us aim for joy, rather respectability. Let us make fools of ourselves from time to time, and thus see ourselves, for a moment, as the all-wise God sees us. (St Philip Neri)

prayer for peace in Ukraine

Prayer For Peace in Ukraine

O Lord our God, look down with mercy on the Ukrainian people. Protect and save them from the unjust aggressors who seek to subdue them. Grant them steadfast trust in your mercy and protection.

O Mother of God, who gave us your miraculous icon at Zarvanytsia, intercede for the Ukrainian people, who run to the shelter of your mercy in their times of need. O Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.

Grant peace and protection to the people of Ukraine. Give them strength and courage to defend what is good, right, and holy. Keep them safe from harm and provide for all their needs, both temporal and spiritual.

Hear our prayers, O Lord, and deliver us from distress, for You are merciful and compassionate and love mankind.

To You we give glory: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and ever. Amen.

HOLY DESIRE

“The reason we cannot have this sort of peace in this life is that our desire is not completely satisfied until we reach this union with the divine Being. As long as we are pilgrim travelers in this life we have only desire and hunger: desire to follow the right path, and hunger to reach our final destination. This desire makes us run along the way, the road cemented by Christ crucified. For if we had no longing for God as our destination, we would have no concern for wanting to know the way. I want you, then, to have an ever greater true holy desire to follow this way, the road that will bring you to your destination. . .

Take your lesson from Christ, who in his restlessly yearning hunger and thirst for our salvation cried out from the wood of the most holy cross, ‘I thirst!’ It is as if he were saying: ‘I am more longingly thirsty for your salvation than I can show you through this finite suffering.’ Yes, he is tortured with physical thirst, but that suffering is finite. It is the pain of holy desire, shown us in his thirst for the human race, that is infinite.”

(St. Catherine of Siena)

St Gregory of Narek: the Word that Heals

St Gregory of Narek, Doctor of the Church

This is the first time I am highlighting the life of St Gregory of Narek, a saint venerated by the Armenian Orthodox, the Armenian Catholic and the Latin Catholic Churches. Gregory was canonized and recognized as a Doctor of the Church by Pope Francis in 2015.

Many don’t know the 10th century Armenian monk but he’s most known for his “Book of Lamentations”, the “Book of Prayers” of depth and scope; scholars will say it is timeless piece of Armenian literature. Gregory himself said this work was an “encyclopedia of prayer for all nations” and as his final testament, “Its letters like my body, its message like my soul.” The Armenian Church calls Gregory her greatest poet and mystic.

Here is a beautifully insightful video on St Gregory of Narek written and narrated by Robert Ervine, professor at the Armenian Seminary in New York.

While the Church has not yet established his patronage it is widely accepted that St Gregory of Narek is the patron saint who works against the diseases of the mind, including schizophrenia, stress symptoms, depression, Hepatitis C, and periodic unexplained disease of the body.

Let’s leave the final word today on Gregory with St John Paul II who wrote in a 2001 apostolic letter marking the 1,700th anniversary of Christianity in Armenia, praising St. Gregory of Narek as one who “probed the dark depths of human desperation and glimpsed the blazing light of grace that shines even there for believers.”

St Gregory of Narek, pray for us.

Blessed Aloysius Viktor Stepinac generates spiritual fruitfulness

This post on the Blessed Aloysius Viktor Stepinac, a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, was written for another social media outlet for other members of the EOHSJ.

Blessed Aloysius Viktor Stepinac, am oil painting used at the Mass for the 57 anniversary of his death.
(public domain image)

Today is the liturgical memorial of Blessed Aloysius Viktor Stepinac (8 May 1898 – 10 February 1960), served as the Cardinal-Archbishop of Zagreb from 1937 until his death. Among the many things he did was to join the Third Order Franciscans which gave him a framework to be an effective minister of the Gospel. Though he was sentenced to 16 years in prison, Stepinac only served five at Lepoglava Prison before being transferred to house arrest with his movements confined to his home parish of Krašić. He died as the result of poisoning by his Communist captors. Pope John Paul II beatified Stepinac and named him a martyr.

When Pope John Paul beatified our brother Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, Aloysius Viktor Stepinac, he quoted a well known Scripture line saying that it’s the heart of the Mystery of the life, ministry and death of Croatia’s famous bishop:

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). 

Our Catholic faith reveals to us that the “mystery of death and life also comes about in the earthly existence of Christ’s followers: for them too, being cast into the earth to die remains the condition for all authentic spiritual fruitfulness.”

While Stepinac did not shed his blood as martyrs typically do, his martyrdom was one of bearing witness to the Good News and the virtue of the Church under considerable personal suffering. We are told to seek the saints; we are to follow the saints; our faithfulness to the Church means abiding in the mystery of Communion of Saints. Concretely, what does that mean to us in light of Blessed Aloysius Stepinac? What does he give us Knights and Dames of the Holy Sepulchre to follow?

Just as this brother Knight of the Holy Sepulchre Blessed Aloysius was a compass pointing to the realities of faith, charity and virtue, we current Knights and Dames are to be a compass for the same. 

Knight and Dames of the Holy Sepulchre are to have “…faith in God, respect for man, love towards all even to the offer of forgiveness, and unity with the Church guided by the Successor of Peter.” The objectivity of truth was a non-negotiable for Blessed Aloysius: his personal suffering generated a life of virtue that refused to betray his conscience and love for Jesus.

Blessed Aloysius Viktor Stepinac, pray for us.