Author: Paul Zalonski

Chaput talks about acceptance of Catholic teaching

The new Archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, OFM, Cap., is doing what Saints Peter and Paul would have done: teach the Faith with clarity but pastorally: if you don’t accept the teachings of Christ as found in the New Testament and articulated by the Church, then you really aren’t Catholic. You may be Christian, but not really Catholic. Cafeteria Catholics –Catholics who pick-and-choose what to believe– don’t trust in Christ, nor do they believe in the objectivity of truth taught by the Church. The promises of Christ and the Church aren’t too good to be true. The teachings of Christ and the Church are the way, the truth and the life for all Christians. Chaput has been clear about what it takes to be an authentic Catholic and picking and choosing is not the method. Sorry.

A recent AP interview with Archbishop Charles can be read here.

Here’s a moment of truth: are we going to walk on water OR sit in the boat and talk about what we know? Will you do great things for God and His Church? Archbishop Charles is making this clear….

Religious life 2011: Profession of vows, entrances and ordinations

Call of Peter and Andrew LVeneziano.jpgAbout this time of each year I look at the numbers of who professed vows, entered religious life and/or ordained of a select group of religious orders of the mixed, apostolic life and monasteries since Autumn 2010.

Locating the public vocation in Christ and therefore in the Church, we have to note what Pope Benedict has taught:
“The Eucharist is the source of that ecclesial unity for which Jesus prayed on the eve of his passion: “Father… that they also may be one in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (Jn  17:21). The intense communion favors the growth of generous vocations at the service of the Church: the heart of the believer, filled with divine love, is moved to dedicate itself wholly to the cause of the Kingdom” (World Day of Prayer for Vocation, 2007).
No vocation makes sense without the Eucharist and the ecclesial unity the Eucharist creates. All vocations, are therefore born from an intense desire for unity in Jesus Christ, the Eucharistic Lord.

This year’s vocation stats:
Monastic Life

St Meinrad Archabbey (St Meinrad, IN): 1 novice was given the habit.
Conception Abbey (Conception, MO): 1 monk was ordained to the Order of Deacon; 2 novices were invested.
St Joseph’s Abbey Covington, LA): 2 professed simple vows; 1 entered the novitiate.
Subiaco Abbey (Subiaco, AK): 2 monks professed simple vows; 2 entered the novitiate and 3 men entering the postulancy.
Our Lady of Glastonbury Abbey (Hingham, MA): 1 entered the novitiate.
Prince of Peace Abbey (Oceanside, CA): 1 monk professed solemn vows.
Mount Michael Abbey (Elkhorn, NE): 1 monk ordained to the Order of Deacon and 1 monk ordained to the Order of Priest.
Monastero di San Benedetto (Norcia, Italy): 1 monk professed solemn vows, one ordained to the Order of Deacon and is expected to be ordained to the Priesthood on September 24. The monastery now has 8 solemnly professed monks.
St Louis Abbey (St Louis, MO): 1 postulant entered. The monks also re-elected Abbot Thomas for a 3rd 8-year term of service.
St Vincent Archabbey (Latrobe, PA): 3 monks profess solemn vows; 4 profess simple vows; 7 junior monks renew their temporary vows; 2 monks were ordained deacons.
St John’s Abbey (Collegeville, MN): 1 monk professed solemn vows; 2 professed simple vows; 3 invested as novices; 13 monks in formation.
Belmont Abbey (Our Lady Help of Christians, Charlotte, NC): 1 monk solemnly professed vows.

Abbot Barnabas blessings postulants 2011.jpg

St Benedict’s Abbey (Atchison, KS): 1 monk professed solemn vows, 2 professed simple vows and 3 were admitted as postulants.
St Mary’s Abbey (Morristown, NJ): 1 monk professed solemn vows, 3 professed simple vows; 1 novice entered.
St Bernard’s Abbey (Cullman, AL): 1 ordained a priest, 1 solemn vows, 1 made simple profession and 1 received into the postulancy.
St Martin’s Abbey (Lacey, WA): 1 monk professed solemn vows and 1 monk was ordained priest.
Abbey of Saint Walburga (Colorado): simply professed 2 nuns in 2011 who join 3 other junior nuns.
Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles (Kansas City-St Joseph, MO) had 3 profess first vows and 2 enter the novitiate. These sisters follow the traditional Liturgy.
 
St Dominic’s Monastery (Linden, VA): 4 novices, 3 postulants, 2 aspirants. This community is a very young community of women living the vocation of an enclosed Dominican Nun.
The Dominican nuns of Summit, NJ, the Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary, there are 8 nuns in formation: 3 temporary professed, 4 novices, 1 postulant.
 
The Carmelite Monks (Cody, WY) had 2 enter the novitiate, a perpetual profession and 2 professed temporary vows.
Daylesford Abbey (Paoli, PA): 1 ordained to the priesthood (December 2010) and 1 ordained priest (September 2011); 1 simple profession.
St Michael’s Abbey (Silverado, CA): 1 canon was ordained to the priesthood and 2 were ordained deacon; 1 professed solemn vows.
Holy Theophany Monastery (Olympia, WA): a novice will be invested with the habit in November. This is monastery is only a few years old and lives according to the Byzantine tradition.
Apostolic religious men
The Capuchin friars of St Mary’s Province (New York-New England) simply professed 2 friars; there will be 5 friars professing solemn vows; 3 were admitted to the novitiate and 4 to the postulancy.
The Capuchin Friars of the Saint Augustine Province simply professed 4 friars.
 
The Capuchin Friars of the Province of Saint Conrad (Mid-America) 2 novices entered, 1 friar was ordained a deacon and 1 friar was ordained a priest.

Investiture 2011.JPG

Conventual Franciscans: several provinces sponsor a common novitiate in Mishawaka, IN: 5 friars professed simple vows; 7 men received the habit.
Franciscan Friars of the Renewal: 4 friars professed final vows; 5 professed simple vows and 5 postulants entered.
Franciscan Friars, Holy Name Province: 2 were ordained priests; 2 professed solemn vows, 3 entered the novitiate; 5 became postulants.
Congregation of Holy Cross (Notre Dame, IN): 1 professed final vows in the USA, 5 professed final vows in East Africa; 6 professed simple vows in the USA. The same American who professed final vows was ordained to the Order of Deacon.
The Dominicans of the Province of St Joseph: 16 professed simple vows, 9 friars professed solemn vows and 5 ordained priests, 13 entered the novitiate.
The Dominicans of the Province of St Albert the Great: 7 professed simple vows; 6 men were admitted to the novitiate.
Apostolic Women religious

Sr. Christine Ann Hoffner with Bp Michael Cote.jpg

Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Hamden, CT): 1 sister professed perptual vows; 2 entered the first year of the novitiate; joining 3 second year novices; and there are 3 junior professed sisters.
Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration (Clyde, MO): 1 sister was received who’s transferring from another Benedictine congregation of sisters.
Sisters of St Benedict (Ferdinand, IN): 2 professed solemn vows; there’s 1 novice and 1 postulant. You may want to read The Sisters’ blog.
The Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia (Nashville): 7 sisters professed perpetual profession; 15 novices made their first profession; 11 sisters renewed their vows for 2 years; 24 postulants were admitted to the novitiate. The sisters have a convent in Australia.

Mary Mother of the Eucharist novices 2011.jpg

Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist (Ann Arbor, MI): 4 sisters professed perpetual vows; 7 professed simple vow; 18 received the habit for the 1st year of novitiate with a total of 36 novices.
The Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal had 3 sisters enter the postulancy.
Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist (Meriden, CT) 1 sister professed final vows; 1 professed simple vows; there’s 1 novice; 1 sister transferred to the Congregation.
The Sisters of St Francis of the Martyr St George (Alton, IL) 23 junior sisters renewed their vows; 2 professed simple vows, 3 entered the postulant program, 3 entered the 1st year novitiate and 3 moved to the 2nd year novitiate.
Sisters of Life: 5 sisters profess first vows.
Previous blog post: September 9, 2010

John Paul II’s Laborem exercens makes 30 years

John Paul II’s Laborem exercens (On Human Work; September 14, 1981), celebrates 30 years next week. Itself was a document written on the 90th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s landmark work Rerum Novarum. I think we ought to give more attention to the meaning of work and its connection with the work of the Creator. Too often we disparage work and its place in the daily experience of men and women. This morning at Lauds, by Providence, I read from the Apostle’s work that a person who doesn’t work, doesn’t eat. I could help thinking about the implication of this teaching. THence, today, is an appropriate to think about work and it’s meaning. 

Some paragraphs from LE:

workers in the field.jpeg

Through work man
must earn his daily bread and contribute to the continual advance of science
and technology and, above all, to elevating unceasingly the cultural and moral
level of the society within which he lives in community with those who belong
to the same family. And work means any activity by man, whether manual or
intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstances; it means any human activity
that can and must be recognized as work, in the midst of all the many
activities of which man is capable and to which he is predisposed by his very
nature, by virtue of humanity itself. Man is made to be in the visible universe
an image and likeness of God himself, and he is placed in it in order to subdue
the earth. From the beginning therefore he is called to work. Work is one of
the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose
activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable
of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence
on earth. Thus work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of
a person operating within a community of persons. And this mark decides its
interior characteristics; in a sense it constitutes its very nature.

Continue reading John Paul II’s Laborem exercens makes 30 years

Labor Day: “the Church has been and is on the side of the worker”

Pope Leo XIII small pic.jpgWhen Pope XIII published Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of Labour) in 1892, it was considered a brilliant piece of  thinking on the Church walking closely with the average man and woman because it demonstrated that in reality, once again, the Church situated herself in the reality of human existence: in the social, political and economic spheres with a keen recognition of human dignity; the protection of basic economic and political rights, including the right to a just wage and to organize associations or unions to defend just claims; the right to private property; the rights of labor over capital; the just organizations of society for the common good.

 

Pope Leo rejected not only a communistic philosophy but he did not ignore the basis of its appeal to workers and condemned the exploitative nature of the liberal-capitalist alternative. He wanted the Church on all levels to be engaged with the social order which slowly took shape in the later years of the 19th century and then in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Continue reading Labor Day: “the Church has been and is on the side of the worker”

Saint Moses

St Moses.jpgToday is the feast of Saint Moses. Indeed, the very same Moses who gave us the Ten Commandments and led the Israelites to the Promised Land. In the Mass and Divine Office we currently pray, that is the Ordinary Form, Moses is not commemorated in the sacred Liturgy. But he is remember in the liturgical anamnesis.


The Roman Martyrology tells us: 

Commemoratio sancti Moysis, prophetae, quem Deus elegit, ut populum in Aegypto oppressum liberaret et in terram promissionis adduceret; cui etiam in monte Sina sese revelavit dicens: “Ego sum qui sum”, atque legem proposuit, quae vitam populi electi regeret.  Ille servus Dei in monte Nebo terrae Moab coram terra promissionis plenus dierum obiit.

Artistic expression is part of that “way of beauty” that leads to God

Pope Benedict gave the following teaching on beauty –a subject near to his heart– on August 31. Some of the paragraphs are here (the entire address is here). Isn’t what the Pope says true???? The beautiful expressed in food, music, art, architecture, the human body, the poerty and friendship is the extroversion of the Holy Spirit.

 

Today, I would like to consider briefly one of these channels that can lead us to God and also be helpful in our encounter with Him: It is the way of artistic expression, part of that “via pulchritudinis” — “way of beauty” — which I have spoken about on many occasions, and which modern man should recover in its most profound meaning. 

 

Perhaps it has happened to you at one time or another — before a sculpture, a painting, a few verses of poetry or a piece of music — to have experienced deep emotion, a sense of joy, to have perceived clearly, that is, that before you there stood not only matter — a piece of marble or bronze, a painted canvas, an ensemble of letters or a combination of sounds — but something far greater, something that “speaks,” something capable of touching the heart, of communicating a message, of elevating the soul. 

 

Wells cathedral.jpgA work of art is the fruit of the creative capacity of the human person who stands in wonder before the visible reality, who seeks to discover the depths of its meaning and to communicate it through the language of forms, colors and sounds. Art is capable of expressing, and of making visible, man’s need to go beyond what he sees; it reveals his thirst and his search for the infinite. Indeed, it is like a door opened to the infinite, [opened] to a beauty and a truth beyond the every day. And a work of art can open the eyes of the mind and heart, urging us upward.

 

Continue reading Artistic expression is part of that “way of beauty” that leads to God

Saint Gregory the Great

Gregory the Great Matthew Aldreman.jpgFor Gregory the Great, a hinge figure between the ancient world — the Senate of Rome last met while Gregory was the city’s bishop — a hinge between the ancient world and the grand experiment called Christendom, for Gregory this awareness that to look upon the face of Christ brought knowledge of God inspired an extensive exploration of Scripture to discern how God would have us live, how the Church and its leaders could best serve those seeking to know Christ Jesus and the Father. Since rightful authority comes from God, Gregory reasoned, its exercise must ever include a pastoral intent.

 

 

Father James Flint, OSB

Saint Procopius Abbey

3 September 2011

 

 

 

 

Let us pray for the Benedictine monks of Portsmouth Abbey, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, on this their abbey’s patronal feast day. May God prosper the work of their hands!

 

You may also be interested in the 2010 blog post that has a hymn to Saint Gregory the Great by J. Michael Thompson. 

Saint Joshua

St Joshua.jpgThe Roman Martyrology notes Saint Joshua’s feast day today. You remember him, Joshua, son of Nun, servant of the Lord, who became inspired by the Holy Spirit after Moses laid hands on him and who led the Israelites into the Promised Land. The Righteous Joshua is said to have lived for a 110 years reposing c. 1440 BC.