Prayers for Brother Jeffrey Gros, FSC who died yesterday. He’s been living with cancer.
Brother Jeffrey was a terrific leader in the ecumenical movement in the USA for many years. Brother was indeed, a public thinker in theology, ecumenics, and catechesis; numerous academic papers fill his CV.
May the Holy Mother of God and Saint John Baptist de la Salle assist Brother Jeffrey before the Throne of Grace.
Eternal memory!
I just watched a very fascinating video on the life of the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of Saint Mary Magdalene of Barroux, in short they are referred to as the monks of Le Barroux. It is a young community in history and in membership. An exemplary life according to an older and venerable way of being a Benedictine.
The documentary, “Watchmen of the Night” (2008), covers all the aspects and then some of Benedictine life, or may merely say, a life of truly living the New Testament. A viewer is intensely engaged in an hour long video that’ss in French with English subtitles.
Their work is “to pray in silence, and to pray to God in heaven.” With a clear ultimacy, monks serve no purpose; monks serve a someone. This is a difficult concept to accept for many people in this era: 5-6 hours of prayer, study, and work all for God. It’s a life totally and unconditionally oriented to the Eschaton.
The monastic life is one of many facets in Christian discipleship; it’s a vocation not given to all; and yet it’s an essential vocation in the life of the Church because of a definitive focus on the contemplative life. While all Christians are called to a life of contemplation, not all are called to a seriously focused life as a monk or a nun; all are called to be in relationship with the Lord though liturgical prayer, study, sacraments, mental prayer, and work, but not all are called to live this way in a community.
As the founder of Le Barroux, Dom Gerard (1927-2008) once said, “The monks unintentionally built Europe. It is an adventure that is primarily if not exclusively interior. They are moved by a thirst for the absolute, a thirst for another world. These monasteries, pointing to heaven, an obstinate reminder that there is another world of which this world is but an image, the herald, and the prefiguration.” So we follow the path given to us Christ.
The monks of Le Barroux are unique in some ways, others not so. In the American context Benedictines generally don’t (can’t, won’t?) do what these monks do, which is OK. I have to say, though, Le Barroux’s observances are beautiful. We don’t have to be clones but we have to have a freedom for excellence, which is not what we get in many American Benedictine monasteries. Too many are lackluster and ideological and unwilling to change. I happen to think we would do well to honestly look at Le Barroux to understand their way of proceeding, thus making an examination of conscience, not for the purpose of being “Barroux in the USA”, but to see how we all can walk more closely to what is proposed for salvation in the New Testament, the tradition of Holy Mother the Church and what the Benedictine sensibility-through-the-ages (the Holy Rule and the historical Benedictine charism) have to say today. In my limited knowledge Le Barroux gives a hermeneutic of continuity. The point, then, is to understand the contours of Grace and not to be too zealous by going beyond the grace God has given. Immature zeal will always frustrate the good in front of us.
More than anything else that can be said of the life of Saint Clare of Assisi it is her example of being at the foot of the life-saving Cross. This icon shows us that the cross means sacrifice and service. An abbess, as an example of what the Lord would do, washes the feet of the disciples.
Saint Clare’s radical example is not easy to follow but I think it ought to be an aspiration. May she show us the path to the Lord. I believe that Clare opens a door of what Christian discipleship means.
Prayers for the Poor Clare nuns.
My friend Michael who was present for the papal Mass on the feast of Saint Ignatius on July 31st and posted this recap video. It’s nicely done and it captures a beautiful sensitivity between the the Jesuit bishop of Rome and his brothers who live and work in Rome. A blog post on the papal Mass can be read here.
I posted His Holiness’ homily here so that you can pray with it.
Saint Ignatius of Loyola pray for the Pope, the Church and all of us.
The liturgical and pious legend tells us that when the Deacon Lawrence was asked by the Emperor Valerian and civil authorities to turn over the Church’s treasures (money, vessels, chalices, clothing, etc.), Lawrence gathered the poor, elderly and weak presenting them as the Church’s as the treasures. The holy deacon had the ecclesiastical position that today we would call archdeacon, the one deacon who attended to the material affairs of the Church. Like his mentor Sixtus II and bishop (whose feast was celebrated a few days ago), Lawrence was met his Lord and God with a martyr’s love. Tradition tells us that he was martyred on a grid iron over flames, i.e., BBQ.
Like our current Holy Father, based on the gospel and the Jesuit charism, he has lifted our awareness for the marginalized showing us how very central to our gospel living these gifts are. Let us pray for a deeper love for the poor.
Saint Lawrence is buried in a basilica church dedicated to him outside the original walls of Rome. It’s also the place where Pope Pius IX is buried.
On this feast of the Sainted Deacon Lawrence, let’s pray for all deacons.
Saint Lawrence, pray for us.
Father Bernardo Francesco Gianni, a Benedictine monk of the Olivetan Benedictine tradition posted this image of one the monks with whom he lives, Don Nicola. This witness of Christ and the Benedictine charism is 92 years old celebrating 75 years of monastic profession. He’s enjoying pranzo with a Coke.
Our Lady, Queen of monks, pray for more vocations.
Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica, pray us.
Saint Bernard Tolomei, pray for Don Nicola.
May God bless Don Nicola today, and in the years to come.
The Church’s sacred Liturgy recalls for us an important 20th century woman, scholar and convert, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. She is known in history as Edith Stein who became a professed member of the Discalced Carmelite Order.
Stein made a significant impact on many people because of her extraordinary witness to Jesus Christ and His Church. This is especially true for Blessed John Paul II who himself is said to have had a “Carmelite soul,” so much so one wonders if he really did have a vocation to the Carmelite charism. When John Paul beatified Stein he said,
“We bow down before the testimony of the life and death of Edith Stein, an outstanding daughter of Israel and at the same time a daughter of the Carmelite Order, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, a personality who united within her rich life a dramatic synthesis of our century. It was the synthesis of a history full of deep wounds that are still hurting … and also the synthesis of the full truth about man. All this came together in a single heart that remained restless and unfulfilled until it finally found rest in God” (1 May 1987, Cologne).
It is well known that her intellectual mentor was the renown philosopher Edmund Husserl whose view of reality and our perception of it turns on end the Kantian method. Stein later became a collaborator with Husserl in his phenomenology. Moreover, data tells us that Husserl’s phenomenology led many Christianity. At the same time Stein met the philosopher Max Scheler who suggested that she look into the claims of Catholicism. She read Saint Teresa of Avila’s autobiography and the rest is history.
Edith Stein’s life and acceptance of the beauty, goodness, and truth of the Christian faith was a liturgical procession: born during the Feast of Tabernacles, baptized on feast of the Circumcision of the Lord; confirmed on the feast of the Purification of Mary and later entered Carmel during Jewish feasts of purification and the Church’s approach to the feast of Christ the King and then Advent of 1934. At her final profession of vows on 21 April 1938, Eastertide, Sister Teresa Benedicta wrote the words of Saint John of the Cross: “Henceforth my only vocation is to love.” Her final work was to be devoted to this author. Hers was a liturgy that gave voice to a new epiphany of being a woman of two covenants, that of Abraham and Jesus. One leads to the other. She said, “I had given up practicing my Jewish religion when I was a 14-year-old girl and did not begin to feel Jewish again until I had returned to God.”
Before her desire to enter the Carmelite monastery was realized –she needed time to better comprehend the grace of conversion– Stein was following the indications of Benedictine Archabbot Raphael Walzer of Beuron Abbey who wanted her to speak widely on issues pertaining to women. She said of her time, “During the time immediately before and quite some time after my conversion I … thought that leading a religious life meant giving up all earthly things and having one’s mind fixed on divine things only. Gradually, however, I learnt that other things are expected of us in this world… I even believe that the deeper someone is drawn to God, the more he has to ‘get beyond himself’ in this sense, that is, go into the world and carry divine life into it.”
The rest you know. The Nazi regime hated Jews, including intelligent Jewish convert Catholic women. Sister Teresa was vigorously pursued, as well as many others ,and she tragically died. She was canonized on 11 October 1998.
John Paul named Saint Teresa Benedicta a Co-Patroness of Europe, who, “Even after she found the truth in the peace of the contemplative life, she was to live to the full the mystery of the Cross” (Apostolic Letter Spes Aedificandi).
The Knights of Columbus has now moved to new parts: the Ukraine and Lithuania. Great news! In 2006, the KofC expanded to Poland with great hope and success. The natural progression in Eastern Europe is now to the peoples of the great East and Baltic states.
The roots of this move is heard in the 2005 homily of Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, MSU, now the Major Archbishop emeritus of the Ukrainian Church where he expressed in clear terms his hope that the Knights would come to his country. Let’s recall that in his early life, Cardinal Husar was a member of the Stamford Eparchy. Hence, he is a first hand witness to the good work of the Knights of Columbus in Connecticut, the USA, indeed, worldwide.
The Knights just completed their 131st convention in San Antonio. They wrote the following note on their webpage.
The Archeparchy of Philadelphia for the Ukrainians posted this announcement on their blog, The Way.
May God be glorified!
The people in the media sometimes hear the same words as everyone else does at the same time but they just don’t seem to get the story correct. Misinformation is generated and passed as correct thus obscuring the truth. I want to believe that media professionals are not extraordinarily ideological as much as they have are unable to connect the dots and to think theologically; they have little interest in matters of religion, plus there’s a tendency to reduce what is said to a least common denominator because there is no perceived value in the story. Lack of interest breeds misinformation.
Thinking in a public way the other day, Boston’s Cardinal O’Malley spoke of Pope Francis in these terms: “his tenderness which is not the virtue of the weak but a sign of strength of spirit and a capacity for concern and compassion, for genuine openness to others, for love.” However, what the press reported was that Pope Francis is only concerned for to love others and soft on life issues thus is changing the Church’s teaching on matters like abortion. But that’s not what the cardinal said, nor what the pope thinks and teaches us. The pope has demonstrated that his belief and teaching is in continuity with his predecessors and that he upholds each iota there is in biblical and magisterial teaching. See, for example, Francis’ various homilies and talks in recent months: June’s Evangelium Vitae Day, the Day of Life address in July, his message to the bishops of Latin America and to the Knights of Columbus.
What O’Malley said, in part, was the following:
Some people think that the Holy Father should talk more about abortion. I think he speaks of love and mercy to give people the context for the Church’s teaching on abortion. We oppose abortion, not because we are mean or old-fashioned, but because we love people. And that is what we must show the world. Recently I read about an American relief worker in Africa, who reported on being at a camp for a food-distribution line, it was very chaotic, even scary. He could see that they were running out of food and that these starving people were desperate. At the end of the line, the last person was a little nine-year-old girl. All that was left was one banana. They handed it to her. She peeled the banana and gave half each to her younger brother and sister. Then she licked the banana peel. The relief worker said at that moment he began to believe in God.
We must be better people; we must love all people, even those who advocate abortion. It is only if we love them that we will be able to help them discover the sacredness of the life of an unborn child. Only love and mercy will open hearts that have been hardened by the individualism of our age.
Sean Cardinal O’Mally, OFM Cap
Archbishop of Boston
Address to the Knights of Columbus Convention, excerpt
San Antonio, Texas
Whatever is said by the media about the pope these days needs to be fully scrutinized for its accuracy. You need to read the texts yourself; do your own homework; don’t let other digest what the teaching authority of the Church supposedly said, use your critical thinking skills. Secular news agencies, including some of the Catholic news agencies, count on you not doing your own work –they are happy to do the thinking for you. Some media elites are able to discredit the Church through the person of the pope as well as others because they hope you won’t notice coupled with the fact they accept what the bible and the Church teaches; if the media people don’t believe in the biblically revealed vision of life and happiness that the Church teaches as beautiful, good and true, then how could we accept at face value that they are conveying fact.
Opposition to abortion, care for the elderly, visiting the imprisoned, concern for the poor, uneducated and marginalized are some of the many ways the Church defines human dignity, love and happiness. The embrace of all human beings regardless of status in society is the Church’s way of life.
Conscious of the specific responsibility which the lay faithful have for the Church’s mission, he invites each Knight, and every Council, to bear witness to the authentic nature of marriage and the family, the sanctity and inviolable dignity of human life, and the beauty and truth of human sexuality. In this time of rapid social and cultural changes, the protection of God’s gifts cannot fail to include the affirmation and defense of the great patrimony of moral truths taught by the Gospel and confirmed by right reason, which serve as the bedrock of a just and well-ordered society.
Pope Francis to the Knights of Columbus
San Antonio Convention 2013, excerpt