Paul Zalonski – Page 253

Blessed Charles Eugene de Foucauld

God our Father, you called Blessed Charles to live through your love in intimacy with your Son, Jesus of Nazareth. Grant that we may find in the Gospel the foundation of a more and more luminous Christian life and in the Eucharist, the source of universal kinship.

Blessed Charles de Foucauld (15 September 1858-1 December 1916) the French priest killed as a result of hatred for the faith in Algeria. Hence, he is identified as a martyr.

He made a few attempts at following a religious vocation, first with the Trappist monk, then as a priest and then as a hermit. Charles was inspired to found a manner of living that entailed a fraternal life with adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and hospitality. It was only following Charles’ death did this fraternity get formally accepted by the Church in the form of a religious congregation called the Little Brothers of Jesus.

Benedict XVI beatified Charles on 13 November 2005.

Chaput says Catholic life needs to be reignited; American culture is a new kind of mission territory

Philadelphia archbishop and Capuchin friar Charles J. Chaput writes well about the sobering reality of evangelization in his weekly column for this week. (Get in the habit of reading the Archbishop’s weekly essay.) The content of His Excellency’s essay “The new communities and the ‘New Evangelization‘” has “three simple things today: first, I’ll share some observations on the general state of the Church; second, I’ll talk about the role of new communities and charisms like the Sodalitium in the new evangelization; and third, I’ll offer some thoughts to this group as a brother in consecrated life, based on my own experience as a Capuchin and a bishop. I have a fourth point to mention as well; but it’s really more of a story. I’ll come back to it at the end of my remarks.”

Among the remarks of the archbishop’s are those he talks about the new communities, sometimes called the ecclesial communities. Each group has it’s own gift to give to the life of the Church. Each community answers a need and helps a person to be faithful to the Gospel in a new, vital way: a manner of really living the Good News and recognizing the grace of God right now.

Real Christian discipleship rejects and resists the kind of radical personal license and acquisitiveness that animates a consumerist society. So when the Catholic Church teaches about the dignity of the unborn child, the purpose of human sexuality, economic and immigration justice, the rights of religious communities and believers, and the

nature of marriage and the family – she’s not just “unpopular.” She’s hated as the enemy of individual privacy and personal freedom. And that theme shapes the way the Church is treated in the mass media.

For Catholics in my country to recover their vocation as a Church, they need to be awakened; they need a reason to be zealous again about their faith. They need to hear the witness of people like yourselves who live the Catholic faith with confidence and joy. They need to see their Church growing and fruitful, and young again, instead of constantly retreating and in decline.

This is the value of the new ecclesial communities and movements. They’re alive in Jesus Christ, and their new life and energy spill out into the whole Church.

For those of us who follow/live within the ambit of an ecclesial community whose founder is dead, what we compromise on? What will sacrifice to fit into the culture at large? Will we lose touch with the reasons that was the impulse of the founding of our community? Answer: may be; but I hope not.

Read the essay –it won’t take you long.

Our Lady, Star of the New Evangelization, pray for us.

Living in Joyful Hope

During Advent and Christmas we await and celebrate
the birth of Christ in order to tune our hearts to await and celebrate the
fulfillment of God’s “plan for the fullness of time, together up all things in
Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:10. What better way
to tune our hearts than by listening, with great care and attention to the work
of God?

In her book, Living in Joyful Hope, Suzanne Lewis offers short
verses from the Bible with reflections and prayers to serve as a springboard
for our personal reflection on the Word of God. Suzanne’s mediations are based on the theology of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. Follow the link above.

Saint Andrew

Dicit Andreas Simoni fratri suo:

Inveniemus Messiam,
qui diciture Christus; et adduxit eum ad Iesum.

translation

Andrew said to Simon his
brother:

We have found the Messiah!

(which is interpreted, the Christ);

and he
led him to Jesus.

Saint Andrew, the First Called, brother of Saint Peter, at first a disciple of the Baptist, is the patron saint of many places, Constantinople, Amalfi, Scotland, Russia, among others.

Our prayer offered to Saint Andrew for his intercession is for the unity of the Christian Churches, most particularly between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Today, the Bishop of Rome sends a delegation to the Bishop of Constantinople for the celebration of today’s feast.

Let’s pray with the Church

We humbly implore your majesty, O Lord, that, just as the blessed Apostle Andrew was for your Church a preacher and pastor, so he may be for us a constant intercessor before you.

Pope Benedict’s prayer intentions for December 2012

The December prayer intentions of the Pope have us praying for migrants and for the Light of the Incarnation to radiate from our own faces as witnesses to someone greater than ourselves. These are particularly poignant set of prayer intentions for us in the USA: we are a nation of immigrants; we are a City set on a hill. Our solidarity in prayer if not in other concrete ways ought to remind us of our roots.

Let’s us join with Pope Benedict to pray for those who have left their home in the hope of finding work, peace, love and acceptance in other lands. Are we still hospitable children of God?

The general intention

That migrants throughout the world may be welcomed
with generosity and authentic love, especially by Christian communities.

The missionary intention

That
Christ may reveal himself to all humanity with the light that shines forth from
Bethlehem and is reflected in the face of his Church.

The Season of Advent proposes reclaiming the Garden of Eden

I love the Syriac tradition of liturgical theology. Often I find it a far more satisfying liturgical tradition than the Latin church craziness I face. It is Semitic, very biblical and rich in humanity. I recommend that you immerse yourself in the poetry of Saint Ephrem, deacon and Doctor of the Church.

The Maronite Church is one of whose heritage is West Syrian theologically; historically it’s rooted in the mountains of Lebanon. Their Advent Season has already begun with what is called the Season of Announcements (follow this link for more info on the season). This past Sunday was the Announcement to Mary. This coming weekend the Maronites will celebrate the Visitation of Elizabeth.

Father Steven Bonian, SJ, writes frequently on the sacred Liturgy of the West Syrian Church, the Maronites. See how he connects the Creator, creation and the Liturgy; the image of the Garden is key here for us Christians who are seeking salvation, that is, to dwell again in the Garden of Eden.

Father Bonian said about the Sunday of Mary’s Announcement:

Today, the Letter of Saint Paul to the Galatians (3:15-22), reminds us of how the promise made to Abraham is now being fulfilled through those who believe; those who live by the Law and the Torah of the heart through righteousness. To such as these –like Mary– is the gift of God and his promise handed down through his angels. The Gospel of Luke makes it clear that Mary is the righteous one who has gained the favor of God, and thus, inherited this Gift (Christ) and the Promise (Salvation).

In the Gospel-Icon of Mary and the Angel drawn for us by Saint Luke, and framed for us in this Sunday’s prayers –in the context of the relationship of the creator with his creation –the mountains, the earth, the sea, and the waves are rejoicing in God’s Word! Mary herself has become the New Earth (as Saint Ephrem would teach us) and true representative for all of God’s creation. The Son of God comes to dwell in her, and through her God has returned to live –as in Paradise— in the midst of his creation. Now in Mary, the new covenant, and God’s plan of salvation is being fulfilled. She has become the Cloud, the Pure Womb, the Fountain of Life and Blessings!

Continue reading The Season of Advent proposes reclaiming the Garden of Eden

James Schall hits the target: On the “Art of Jesuitism”

I hate Jesuitism. Perhaps you do too. We stand in good company with Nietzsche and of course with Jesuit Father James Schall.

Full disclosure: I love Father Schall’s work. I love Nietzsche. Both get things correct. It may be surprising that someone as “crazy” as Nietzsche would interest me, or even Catholics. Several years ago I began to believe, after reading another Jesuit’s use of Nietzsche’s thought in one of his essays that we Christians need to take this man seriously. Whether you agreed with the philosopher and Schall is unimportant. What is crucial is that your horizons are stretched and forced to clarify and verify what we know to be true. Nietzsche means to be provocative, even nasty, but to dismiss him is wrongheaded.

Father Schall published an essay “On the Art of Jesuitism” looking at Nietzsche’s experience of Jesuits and their approach. You will be challenged in what both philosophers have to say.

Father James V. Schall, SJ, is a professor at Georgetown University and a well-published author. Father Schall is due to retire from GU.

Dorothy Day’s 32nd anniversary of death

Today is the 32nd anniversary of death of the Servant of God Dorothy Day. The Benedictine Oblate from Brooklyn Heights, NY, who is remembered for her conversion to Christ and His Church and with Peter Maurin founded The Catholic Worker Movement.

In recent days we’ve learned that the bishops of the USA are standing behind Day’s cause for canonization advancing it to the next canonical stage. While the process may be protracted for some, it is a good and substantial process to ascertain the claim of sanctity of the person in question. As an editorial, I tend to think 30 years is a good amount of time between the death of a person and the study process commencing; in my humble opinion I think it was far too short of time for Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II beatifications; both are saints in my opinion, but I think the process can’t be shortchanged because of cosmic popularity.

Day was a Benedictine Oblate of St Procopius Abbey.

The Archdiocese of New York is in charge of the cause of canonization. You can contact the office at 212-371-1000, ext. 2474.

The following letter to the editors by Kenneth Woodward regarding the funeral of Dorothy Day which sheds some light on the New York Archdiocese’s involvement. Many are falsely led to believe the Church was callous because no bishop was present at the funeral Mass. Apparently, truth prevails. Read the letter.

To the Editors:

Your story on Dorothy Day and the bishops ignores a number of facts concerning her funeral, which I attended.

As it happened, Cardinal Terrance Cooke of New York wanted her funeral held in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where the congregation would certainly have included many bishops, but the Catholic Worker community insisted that the funeral held in the neighborhood where Dorothy had lived so the poor could attend. Few actually did. At the church door each mourner was greeted by Cooke himself, not dressed in a cardinal’s finery but in a simple black cassock. Cooke did not stay for the mass because he did not want his presence to draw attention away from the woman for whose sake we mourners had gathered. Later, he held a memorial mass for Dorothy at the cathedral.

Cooke was a conservative churchman. So was Cardinal John O’Connor who formally initiated the cause on behalf of Dorothy Day’s canonization. Paradoxically, it was Father Daniel Berrigan and other members of the “Catholic Left” who opposed the effort to canonize Dorothy Day. Details can be found in my book, “Making Saints,” first published in 1996. Berrigan feared that in the canonization process the narrative of Day’s life would be stripped of its radical Christian elements. Those fears would indeed be realized if “Saint Dorothy” were to be venerated solely for her remorse for having had an abortion in the years prior to her conversion to Catholicism.

Kenneth L. Woodward

You also be interested to read the Eulogy given by the former Dominican Friar Geoffrey B. Gneuhs on December 2, 1980.

Benedictine Father Michael Zielinski appointed Head of Office for the Pope’s Worship Office

The Pope appointed Benedictine Abbot Christopher Michael John Zielinski to the be the Head of the Office (office manager) of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments on Saturday, 24 November 2012. He is the number 3 person in the Congregation serving with Antonio Cardinal Cañizares, Archbishop Arthur Roche and Father Anthony Ward, SM.

Dom Michael, 59, a native of Lakewood, Ohio, is a monk of the Olivetan Congregation of Benedictines having professed monastic vows in 1972, who studied at Sant’Anselmo and ordained in 1977. Dom Michael is a past religious superior of the Abbey of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Pecos, NM). Until now and since 8 May 2008, he’s been the vice president of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church and the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archeology.

He is also a consultor to the same Congregation.

Dom Michael gave an interview that covered his thinking on the Tridentine Mass in 2007.

You may be interested in his essay: The Cultural and Hertitage of the Classical Roman Rite, 2010.pdf

Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Saint Bernard Tolomei, pray for Abbot Michael in his new work for the Church.