Author: Paul Zalonski

Mystery Priest revealed: Father Patrick Dowling responds to Missouri accident

You may heard of the August 4th car accident in which a critically injured woman requested a priest to absolve her of her sin, pray for her as she faced great uncertainty in Missouri. The remarkable story of a priest doing what he was ordained to do has circled the globe in a story of a “mysterious priest.” The priest is not an angel. He is a real person who is conformed to Jesus Christ as a priest. The man, Father Patrick Dowling, is a priest of the Diocese of Jefferson City, MO.

The Mysterious Priest story is a terrific human interest story. BUT more importantly for me it is a true narrative about the work of Grace, especially the Grace of Jesus Christ working through the ministrations of a Catholic priest. What can we say about the Church’s sacramentality at work, the priesthood of Jesus Christ in action, and the power of prayer and human need. It is the beauty of simplicity!

The Father Patrick Dowling story is here.

Why is this important to me? Father Dowling’s approach is what is real to me: a recognition of another’s need, a priest who was motivated to respond and the action of the Holy Spirit sustaining all those at work. What struck me was the simplicity of Grace working for someone in need. It seemed like everything coalesced well: the first responders did their work, people cooperated with authority, and a priest responded to someone’s desire to be comforted with prayer, sacraments and companionship in the face of uncertainty. The love  shown by the priest was concrete. Here I’ll define love not as a sentiment but as the Servant of God Father Giussani taught us, love is to have concern for another’s destiny. Indeed, Father Dowling had this concern for Aaron and Katie.

Additionally, that Father Dowling is not an angel but a human being, is important to me because it was another concrete example of the way God speaks through our humanity and not despite it. One last thing: I was struck that Dowling did not make himself the center of attention spoke –this spoke volumes. It is, hence, an irresistible and concrete example of what it means to be have an alive humanity rooted and grounded in Christ. How could one not be moved to the core???

Thank you, Father Dowling.

Brother Jeffrey Gros, RIP

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!

Benedictine monasticism according to the observance of Le Barroux

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.

Saint Clare of Assisi

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.

Francis’ Mass on the feast of St Ignatius 2013, recap

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.

Saint Lawrence

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.

A monk and his Coke at 92

 

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.

Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

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).

Knights of Columbus move to the Ukraine and Lithuania

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!