Paul Zalonski – Page 360

Bernadette Soubirous is the lens Communion & Liberation engages reality

The yearly Communion and Liberation Mass was celebrated earlier this evening by our friend Bishop Peter A. Rosazza, auxiliary bishop emeritus of the Archdiocese of Hartford, at Saint Mary’s Church, New Haven, CT. His homily focused on the young girl that had the vision of Our Lady of Lourdes, Saint Bernadette Soubirous.

The Sacrifice of the Mass is celebrated for the good of Communion and Liberation –that is, so that it remain faithful to the charism given it by the Holy Sprit and articulated by its founder, Monsignor Luigi Giussani and for the peaceful repose of the soul of Monsignor Giussani.

2011 recalls for us that today is the 29th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s approval as a valid charism for the Church. It is also the 6th anniversary of Giussani’s death.

Continue reading Bernadette Soubirous is the lens Communion & Liberation engages reality

In Christ’s wounds we are healed: World Day of the Sick and Our Lady of Lourdes

We celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes and the 19th World Day of the Sick.

God of mercy, we celebrate the feast of Mary, the sinless mother of God. May her prayers help us to rise above our human weakness.

By his wounds you have been healed (1 Peter 2:24)

Many in the world suffer. That is a given and we ought to keep the suffering of others in the forefront of our minds. I think this is appropriate for no other reason than the example of Jesus who showed had compassion on all suffering people, healing them in body, mind, and soul. He even allowed Himself to be conquered by evil and suffering, though we know that He ultimately defeated death by death itself when on the third day he rose from the dead. Jesus’ own suffering and rising is proof of a love that knows know limits. As Benedict has said in various places that “Only a God who loves us to the extent of taking upon himself our wounds and our pain, especially innocent suffering, is worthy of faith.”

Continue reading In Christ’s wounds we are healed: World Day of the Sick and Our Lady of Lourdes

Saint Scholastica

With the Church in her Liturgy we pray to the Lord:
“…we may serve You with love and obtain perfect joy.”

Vocations: “…everyone will know that you are my disciples…”

Released earlier today, the Pope gave the Church his thinking and hopes for the living and the promotion of vocations. Very clear is the Pope’s insistence on one’s being familiar with the Scriptures, friendship with the Lord cultivated through personal and liturgical prayer. Also, one’s own self-awareness factors into the discernment of one’s vocation, whether to religious life, priesthood or to the lay state. May the Lord of the Harvest grant an increase.

The 48th World
Day of Prayer for Vocations, to be celebrated on 15 May 2011, the Fourth Sunday
of Easter, invites us to reflect on the theme: “Proposing Vocations in the
Local Church”. Seventy years ago, Venerable Pius XII established the Pontifical
Work of Priestly Vocations. Similar bodies, led by priests and members of the
lay faithful, were subsequently established by Bishops in many dioceses as a
response to the call of the Good Shepherd who, “when he saw the crowds,
had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd”,
and went on to say: “The harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few.
Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his
harvest!” (Mt 9:36-38).

Continue reading Vocations: “…everyone will know that you are my disciples…”

Lubomyr Cardinal Husar, MSU, Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, retires

His Beatitude, Lubomyr Cardinal Husar, MSU, 78, retired from serving the Ukrainian Catholic Church today. The Holy Father accepted the Cardinal’s request to retired due to health concerns. He has served the Church in his present position since 2001.

His Beatitude has been a bishop since 1977. Husar has done a terrific job for the Church these past years and is owed a debt of gratitude.

The Cardinal has a terrific sense of humor, friendly and insightful. My sadness is that he never was granted the title of Patriarch, a title he’s entitled to use given the state of his Church but the pope’s have been reticent to grant the patriarch’s title in fear of what the Russian Orthodox Church would say.

CNS’ Cindy Wooden’s article on His Beatitude’s resignation; looking to the future…

Saint Maron

In honor of the 1600th anniverssary of the death of Saint Maron, the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI blessed and unveiled a new statue of the saint at the Vatican basilica of Saint Peter’s.

For the past year, Maronites and others around the world have been observing a jubliee year called by His Beatitude, Patriarch Nasralla Peter Sfeir. In a letter to the Maronite Church around the world he said, in part,

Our Church was not built after a name of a See or Apostle, but rather took its identity from the radiance of a man and a monastery: the Maronite Church, a Church of asceticism and adoration attached from the beginning to a solitary man, not a man of rank or a Church leader.

The faith lived out by the hermit Maron became the inner strength of a people’s history. As for the successive migrations from Syria (in the 5-10th centuries), the Maronites gave them one meaning, that is, giving up land, wealth and comfort in Syria moving toward a poor land where anxiety and austerity prevail, so they could preserve their faith and remain attached to their freedom … This event is not a simple historical fact among others … it is the very beginning of a new history, the history of the Maronites.

The Jubilee Prayer

Lord, Jesus, You called Your chosen one, Saint Maron, to the monastic life, perfected him in divine virtues, and guided him along the difficult road to the heavenly kingdom.

During this jubilee year, commemorating 1600 years since the death of Your chosen one, Saint Maron, when he was called to the house of Your heavenly Father, we ask You, through his intercession, to immerse us in Your love that we may walk in Your path, heed Your commandments, and follow in his footsteps.

May his holy example resonate throughout our lives. With Your love, may we achieve that final distination reached by our father, Saint Maron, and carry Your Gospel throughout the world.

Through his intercession, may we attain the glory of the resurrection and everlasting life in You.

Glory and thanks are due to You, to Your blessed Father, and to Your living Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

Saint Josephine Margaret Bakhita

Jesus left his throne in heaven,

Humbly coming as a slave,

Here his love and his obedience

Were the ransom that still saves:

Strong the song the Church now raises

For this humble virgin’s day,

Praising God that, through all struggles,

She was led to Christ, the Way.

As a child torn from her fam’ly,

Made a slave, great suff’ring bore,

And by those who took her childhood,

Named “Bakhita” everymore.

Brought to Italy and rescued

By Cannosian sisters there,

She found Christ and then was baptized,

Lived in service and in prayer.

As the virgins in the Gospel,

Josephine was filled with light,

Daily serving at her convent,

Greetings all with heaven’s sight;

Loving all with Jesus’ mercy,

Treating each as she would him–

Persevered through pain and sorrow,

Making life her off’ring-hymn.

Glory to the loving Father

Who has made us for his own;

Glory to the Son, who saves

And who lifts us to his throne;

Glory to the Holy Spirit,

Never-ending font of love!

With our saint, the “one most blessèd,”

We raise songs to God above!

J. Michael Thompson

8787D; BEACH SPRING

A previous post on Saint Josephine

Saint Colette

Saint Colette is the famous 15th century reformer of the Poor Clare nuns. You see her reform noted as the Colettine Poor Clares. She follows to a “T” the rigorous life set down by Saint Clare herself in hearing the words “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” She did; so did others.

King Henry VIII would compare Saint Colette to “a diligent bee that gathers exquisite honey from the precious flowers of the most rare virtues.”

The Prayer Over the Gifts for Saint Colette’s Mass reads:

Lord, may the gifts we bring You help us to follow the example of Saint Colette. Cleanse us from our earthly way of life, and teach us to live the new life of Your kingdom.

Here the Church wants us to receive the gift of singular focus on the new we’ve received already through Baptism, Confirmation and the Holy Eucharist. The new life preached by Christ and the Church today.

According to the Roman-Franciscan Sacramentary of 1974, February 7 is the liturgical memorial of Saint Colette, not March 6 as noted in other places. A previous blog post on Saint Colette can be read here.

Saint Paul Miki and his companions, martyrs

The Church observes the liturgical memorial of Saint Paul Miki and his companions, martyrs for believing in Jesus. The only thing a person of true faith in Christ can say is what the Apostle Paul said in his letter to the Galatians: “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.”

A beautiful for the feast

O Christ, the source of endless life,

We bring you thanks and praise today

That martyrs bold your name confessed

And, through their pain, held to your Way.

The gospel preached within Japan

Converted both adult and child,

And flourished there by your rich grace

Despite oppression fierce and wild.

When hatred for this infant church

Broke out in persecution’s might,

Your martyrs knew you as their Lord

Who shined in darkness as their light.

O Father, Son, and Spirit blest,

To you all glory now is due.

As were the Martyrs of Japan,

May we to Christ be ever true!

J. Michael Thompson

LM; TALLIS’ CANON, BRESLAU”

Real change in history not administrative but of the heart, Discalced Carmelite superior says

Personal and corporate renewal is always a timely topic. Recently, the Superior General of the Discalced
Carmelites, Father Saverio Cannistrà, speaking about the hope of renewing his
order answered a question in what he saw as essential to renewal. I think the renewal is not only for the Carmelites but for all us. Don’t you think?

In part Father Cannistrà said:
“it is rather like the way of prayer Saint Teresa [of Avila] talks about: a growth that
happens day by day, passing through moments of consolation and desolation, but
with the determination to forge ahead, without giving up. The real changes
which have had an effect on history, are not mere administrative reorganizations:
they are changes of heart, as Scripture tells us. If we do not expose our heart
to the beneficial tempest of the Spirit, then generous and prophetic
initiatives cannot be born from it. Formation, both initial and ongoing, would
probably be the sole help that we could offer, as an institution, to tread this
path.”