Paul Zalonski – Page 297

Benedict to new Cardinals: you are entrusted with the service of love: love for God & for Church –it’s absolute and unconditional

Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam.

With these words the entrance hymn has led us into the solemn and evocative ritual of the ordinary public Consistory for the creation of new Cardinals, with the placing of the biretta, the handing over of the ring and the assigning of a titular church. They are the efficacious words with which Jesus constituted Peter as the solid foundation of the Church. On such a foundation the faith represents the qualitative factor: Simon becomes Peter – the Rock – in as much as he professed his faith in Jesus as Messiah and Son of God. In the proclamation of Christ the Church is bound to Peter and Peter is placed in the Church as a rock; although it is Christ himself who builds up the Church, Peter must always be a constitutive element of that upbuilding. He will always be such through faithfulness to his confession made at Caesarea Philippi, in virtue of the affirmation, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”.

The words Jesus addressed to Peter highlight well the ecclesial character of today’s event. The new Cardinals, in receiving the title of a church in this city or of a suburban Diocese, are fully inserted in the Church of Rome led by the Successor of Peter, in order to cooperate closely with him in governing the universal Church. These beloved Brothers, who in a few minutes’ time will enter and become part of the College of Cardinals, will be united with new and stronger bonds not only to the Roman Pontiff but also to the entire community of the faithful spread throughout the world. In carrying out their particular service in support of the Petrine ministry, the new Cardinals will be called to consider and evaluate the events, the problems and the pastoral criteria which concern the mission of the entire Church. In this delicate task, the life and the death of the Prince of the Apostles, who for love of Christ gave himself even unto the ultimate sacrifice, will be an example and a helpful witness of faith for the new Cardinals.

Continue reading Benedict to new Cardinals: you are entrusted with the service of love: love for God & for Church –it’s absolute and unconditional

Church is right on sex, women, birth control and abortion: admit it

Several days ago the Business Insider published a fascinating story: “Time To Admit It: The Church Has Always Been Right On Birth Control” by Michael Brendan Dougherty and Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry. Read it. You may agree with the exposition of the authors. Can’t contradict experience. Recall: this publication is not connected with the Catholic Church.

Pope Paul VI continues to be vilified for teaching the beauty of sex is indeed Catholic, beautiful and reasonable, that the contraceptive mentality leads to a wrong, destructive end of humanity, that abortion is always wrong and that women should not be used as objects (e.g., porn).

Let those who have ears, hear.

A prayer on Saint Valentine’s Day

For some cynics in our world today’s feast of Saint Valentine is not worthy our memory, especially in ecclesial settings. Sad, really. How else is God revealed but in the revelation of love? Scripture and tradition teaches us this fact. Our friends in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd a prayer is given to us for this holiday that celebrates love:

You are the love inside of me. Alleluia, Alleluia.

I am happy to be with you, Oh Lord.

Happy is He and me!

Oh Lord, oh Lord, it’s time for me to say,

“You give the earth love and people love

that’s from you and will never be given away.”

Kathryn, eight years old

Des Moines, Iowa

Saints Cyril and Methodius

A lot of westerners are not too aware of Saints Cyril and Methodius. However, there’s a Polish parish in the Hartford and Bridgeport dioceses and a seminary in Michigan that bear the names of these rather famous saints. So, they are not too obscure but they’re not that well-known as they ought to be. In 1985, Blessed John Paul II paid tribute to these two saints in an Encyclical, Slavorum Apostoli, to show the vividness of their witness.

In Russian Orthodox circles, the celebration of Cyril and Methodius is connected with a cultural festival on Salvonic literature. The holy brothers are known for the formation of the Glagolitic alphabet –now called the Cyrillic alphabet– that was instrumental in the evangelization and education of the Slavs.

Here we have saints not only of great zeal for the Kingdom of God but of culture. The true and orthodox faith the lived and taught is the one we desire, too.

The Church prays

O God, who enlightened the Slavic peoples through the brothers Saints Cyril and Methodius, grant that our hearts may grasp the words of your teaching, and perfect us as a people of one accord in true faith and right confession.

Saint Valentine

Today is a dedicated in the secular world to Valentine. But the more excellent way, the Church, proposes an observance of a saint whose love for God and others, Valentine, is more noteworthy because it focuses not on the temporal but on the eternal. Indeed, Saint Valentine is invoked for his intercession by young people, for happy marriages, and authentic love. A holy priest, Valentine withstood the persecution inflicted on him by those who did not hold belief in the Lord of Lords, King of Kings, Jesus Christ. In many circumstances the Lord healed and cured many people through the intercession of Saint Valentine. Would we be able to do the same?

The 2011 post is here.

The 2009 post is here.

In the soil of our heart God first planted the root of love for him

Today, the Holy Father announced his Good Shepherd Sunday missive on vocations. Singed on 18 October 2011, Benedict wrote this letter for the 49th World Day of Prayer for Vocations that’s celebrated on the 4th Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday. The Pope’s message is exactly what I was trying to teach to the RCIA people yesterday: God’s love is total and our love for Him needs to be an icon –that is, mirrored– to the world. His theme this year is: Vocations, the Gift of the Love of God. A few paragraphs of the text follow:

In a famous page of the Confessions, Saint Augustine
expresses with great force his discovery of God, supreme beauty and supreme
love, a God who was always close to him, and to whom he at last opened his mind
and heart to be transformed: “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever
ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was
outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged
into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with
you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they
would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my
deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed
your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted
you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your
peace.” (X, 27.38). With these images, the Saint of Hippo seeks to
describe the ineffable mystery of his encounter with God, with God’s love that
transforms all of life.

Continue reading In the soil of our heart God first planted the root of love for him

Blessed Jordan of Saxony

In the Order of Friars Preachers today is the feast of day of Blessed Jordan of Saxony. Blessed Jordan, from Paderborn, Germany (a Saxon noble) known for his piety and charity, was educated at the famed University of Paris. In 1220, he was admitted to the Order by Saint Dominic himself in and a year later was the Prior Provincial for the friars in Lombardy, and a year later he succeeded Dominic as the Master of the Order.

Blessed Jordan’s preaching was known to be powerful to the point of bringing Saint Albert the Great to the Order and by extension you might say that he brought Thomas Aquinas to the fraternity. Jordan died in a shipwreck off the coast of Syria in 1237 on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Pope Leo XII beatified Jordan in 1825.

The Collect is noted here.

Healing the leper in all of us…Jesus touches our hearts

The Church prays today,

O God, who teach
us that you abide in hearts that are just and true, grant that we may be so
fashioned by your grace as to become a dwelling pleasing to you.

What other grace do we need but the grace to abide in Christ? The priest’s prayer at Mass in the anamnesis tells us and God that He lives hearts that are just and true.

The Gospel today relates something that calls to mind the work of Saint Damian of Molokai and Blessed soon-to-be-saint Marianne Cope who worked with and evangelized lepers in Hawaii. Their love was extroverted. No doubt the Lord’s touch and the saints’ humanity was likely the first substantial, real contact these “outcasts” experienced. The Lord’s touch of the leper is as the Prayer over the Offering prays, it “cleanses and renews” for the sake of our salvation. So much for us, too. May the Lord touch our uncleanness and sinfulness so that we may be close to Him.

What other than love and compassion did the Lord have for the marginalized? The medical leper and the spiritual leper always have on their lips Psalm 32: “I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation.”

Saint Scholastica, the persistent twin sister

As we celebrate anew the Memorial of the Virgin Saint Scholastica, we pray, O Lord, that, following her example, we may serve you with pure love and happily receive what comes from loving you.

Scholastica according to the tradition of the Church, was the twin sister of Saint Benedict having been born in 480 in Nursia. As twins do, Saint Scholastica followed her sibling. One could say that poor Benedict couldn’t dodge his sister but the love they had for one another was intense and natural that nothing else would suffice.

The Saint went to Monte Cassino (just south of Rome) known today as the Arch-Coenobium and died there in 547. Scholastica founded a monastery for women following the Rule compiled by her brother.

As the Mass collect above says, let’s follow Scholastica’s example of service of the Lord with a love that is pure and receive what the Lord gives happily.

Let us pray for the intentions of the Benedictine nuns in the USA, particularly nuns of the monasteries of Regina Laudis (Bethlehem, CT), the Glorious Cross (Branford, CT), St Emma (Pittsburgh, PA), St Walburga (Virginia Dale, CO), Immaculate Heart of Mary (Westfield, VT) and Our Lady of Ephesus (Kansas City, MO).

Re-read a post on keeping focus on Christ…

Saint Josephine Margaret Bakhita

The Lord has loved me so much: we must love everyone…we must be compassionate!

The Church liturgical memorial today commemorate Saint Josephine Bakhita, a woman from the Sudan who was enslaved as a young girl, purchased by an Italian family, educated by the Canossian Sisters in Italy where she was converted and became a member of that religious community.

At Mass for Saint Josephine, we hear the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids (Matthew 25); the Communion antiphon is also from that Gospel. Pope Benedict has spoken of Saint Josephine several times in past years. Let us run out to meet the Lord our Saint today did.

The antiphon at Communion:

The five prudent bridesmaides were prepared with much oil in their flasks, along with their torches. In the gloom of the midnight, a shout was heard by them: “Behold! the Bridegroom comes! Go out to meet Him, the Christ, our Lord!”