Author: Paul Zalonski

At the Altar

At the altar comes the focus we ought to have: Jesus Christ as the center. Holy Mass centers our attention on what it means to be in relationship with all that is by grace. I am convinced that the sacred Liturgy is the vehicle of faith, the lex orandi [the law of prayer], is theologia prima serves powerfully to teach, to form, and to unite us.

One should read Benedict XVI’s Sacramentum Caritatis which speaks to the centrality of the Eucharist as the identity of the Church. We know from experience that the Eucharist is irreducible to another religious practice. That is, the Eucharist is not one ritual among others. It is, however, the privileged way that the Church encounters the mystery of love in Jesus Christ.

Order of Malta CT observes Baptist feast

In advance of the solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, the Order of Malta—CT North East Area met for a meeting, Mass, and lunch. Part of the day was at the Clelian Center at Mount Sacred Heart in Hamden, CT. Sister Susan Francis Graham gave a presentation on the spirituality of the Sacred Heart.

Bishop Peter Rosazza blessed the neck cross once worn by our Magistral Chaplain, Father Thomas Kelly who died 2 months ago today.

St. John the Baptist is a principal feast of the Order of Malta.

Mary, Mother of Christ, helper

“Mother of Christ,
help me to be willing
to accept the suffering
that is the condition of love.
Help me accept
the grief
of seeing those whom I love suffer,
and when they die
let me share in their death
by compassion.
Give me the faith
that knows Christ
in them,
and knows that His love
is the key
to the mystery of suffering.
Help me,
Blessed Mother,
to see with your eyes,
to think with your mind,
to accept with your will.
Help me to believe
that it is Christ
who suffers in innocent children,
in those who die in the flower of life,
in those whose death is an act
of reparation,
in those who are sacrificed
for others.
Remind me
that their suffering
is Christ’s love
healing the world,
and when I suffer for them
and with them,
I too am given the power
of His redeeming love.”

Caryll Houselander

Our goal is for true worship

Today, the Roman Church recalls the memory of the first century philosopher and Christian apologist, St. Justin Martyr. The question before every Christian is the one based on what Justin taught, “No one who is right thinking stoops from true worship to false worship.” Are we right thinking? How do we objectively measure this notion of right thinking and true worship? What does it matter? Is there a societal and personal impact of false worship? And, what is right and true worship versus false worship, anyways, since much has been changed since the 16th century?

Some will explain these ideas away to justify almost anything. While to interrogate the truth of the experience we have before the Triune God and Tradition ought to speak for itself.

Happy feast of Saint Justin, martyr!

Meeting to worship the Lord in friendship

On Thursday, May 30, the traditional day for the feast of Corpus Domini, in some quarters, Corpus Christi, four members of the Eastern Lieutenancy of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem met at the Georgetown Oratory in Redding, CT, for a solemn Mass and procession for Corpus Domini. It was a beautiful Mass: sacred music, preaching, ars celebrandi, servers and the faithful.

The Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem assembled as possible to give witness to the reality of the Eucharistic Lord, his friendship with us and our friendship with each other. The witness to our salvation is Eucharistic and crucial to our living faith today as it demonstrates what we hold to be true and what we hold to be real.

The principal celebrant and homilist Father Michael Clark preached using one of Flannery O’Connor‘s reflections on the Eucharist, where she responds to a friend claiming to be a Catholic and that the Eucharist was a “pretty good symbol.” O’Connor said, “If it’s just a symbol, to hell with it.”

This sentiment remains today among many Catholics: the Eucharist is a pretty good symbol. Well, I should say O’Connor’s response remains clear and correct. Reduction of the Eucharist to an aesthetic or worse, to ethics, makes the Eucharist a mere subjective experience renouncing the objectivity of what Jesus did on Holy Thursday, and what the churches have taught based on experience and the reality of revelation and Tradition. Symbolic presence alone is weak and irritating.

We were also reminded that O’Connor was a communicant of this Georgetown Oratory for a brief period in her life.

The picture has Charles, Ruth and PAZ. Missing was Oratorian Brother Paul. A few more members of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre were slated to be there but circumstances of life changed their plans.

Blessed Vilmos Apor

Vilmos (William) Apor, born 1892, was a Hungarian bishop who earned a special reputation for his service to the poor, especially during the months of hardship that came toward and at the end of World War II. Named Bishop of Gÿor in 1941, he chose as his motto: “The Cross strengthens the weak and makes the strong gentle.” During the many air raids he opened his home to those whose houses had been destroyed. When Russian troops entered the city in 1945, many women including religious took refuge in his episcopal residence. On Good Friday 1945 three Russian soldiers came to the residence and demanded that the women be taken to their barracks. Bishop Apor refused and placed himself in front of the women. One of the Russians shot and wounded him. Out of fear they then fled, leaving the women unmolested. Bishop Apor lived in great agony for three days and died on 2 April, Easter Monday.

Blessed William Apor, Bishop and Martyr, was a Conventual Chaplain ad honorem of the Order of Malta.

Collect: Almighty and Eternal God, through your grace, Bishop William, by courageously shedding his blood for his flock, earned a martyr’s crown. Grant that we, despite the difficulties of our daily lives, may do your will and offer our good works for the salvation of our brothers and sisters. We ask this through Our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Blessed Vilmos Apor, PRAY FOR US!

*from the biography

National Eucharistic Pilgrimage begins in New Haven

Members of the CT – North East Area represented the Order of Malta in New Haven CT with members of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem at the launch of the Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Procession for the National Eucharistic Revival Pilgrimage. Archbishop Christopher J. Coyne, Archbishop of Hartford, celebrated the sacred Liturgy. Following Mass the congregation formed a procession in the Church’s neighborhood.

The group photo was taken in the basement of St. Mary’s Church, the founding location of the Knights of Columbus, with Father Peter J. Langevin, KHS, Chancellor of the Diocese of Norwich, and Father Joseph MacNeil, Parochial Vicar at Blessed McGivney Parish (New Haven, CT).

This fourth route will journey through the major cities of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the Mid-Atlantic states to the Indianapolis Convention on July 17. One of the traveling Pilgrimage vans, which was parked at the Blessed MIchael McGivney Pilgrimage Center, contains the Tabernacle to securely transport the Blessed Sacrament for travelling Adoration .

Br. Benedict Maria ordained deacon at Portsmouth Abbey

Today my friend, Brother Benedict Maria, a Benedictine monk of Portsmouth Abbey, was ordained to the Order of Deacon by the Bishop of Providence, Richard G, Henning, STD.

He’s doing his seminary studies at the major seminary in Florida.

The Portsmouth Abbey family is blessed to have him among us.

Deacon Benedict Maria’s family came from India and countless friends from around the USA came to the ordination including the many members of the impressive ecclesial movement, Jesus Youth.

May God grant Benedict Maria many years of fruitful ministry.

The Transitus of a friend

After several months of prolonged sickness and more than 8 years of thrice weekly kidney dialysis, my friend of 37 years, Chorbishop Joseph Francis Kaddo made his transition to the Lord of Life, today at 4:30 a.m.

Joe was a Maronite priest from Troy, NY, who served as the founding pastor of two parishes, pastor of a few of a more, a former Vicar General for two Maronite bishops and the friend of many.

My love of the Eastern Church came through Joe Kaddo through our long years of friendship. Thanks be to God.

This is the final picture of the two of us on 30 December 2023, just a few hours before being admitted to the hospital.

Joe’s funeral rites will be on Sunday and Monday, 5-6 May 2024 at St. Anthony of the Desert Church, Fall River, MA. He will be laid to rest with his parents in Troy.

UPDATE: Chorbishop Joseph Francis Kaddo’s obituary is posted here.

May the Lord forgive his sins and admit him the beatific vision.

May Joe’s memory be eternal.

Sunday of the Paralytic Man 2024

In speaking about the liturgical contours of today’s commemoration, Fr David Petras uses St. John Chrysostom to draw our attention deeper into the mystery we are presented in the Gosepl. Chrysostom “tells us that if an unbeliever enters a church during a baptism, all he sees is people being washed. But a believer sees people being reborn in the Spirit. The unbeliever sees only with the eyes of the body, the believer sees with the inner eyes of the soul. When we are baptized all our body sees and feels is water, but by the Spirit our sins are washed away and we become children of God.”

Why Chrysostom identifies for us applies to all of the spiritual life and the sacraments of the Church. For example, when we receive Holy Communion, if we only see and taste with the eyes and mouth bread and wine but not with the eyes of the Holy Spirit we will miss on the fact of the Lord’s love, forgiveness of sins and and healing and the deepest reality of salvation. The Mystery of the bread of life is more than a social pact or a sense of social respectability. Receiving the Eucharistic Lord is communion with the God and with one another as it is the divine pledge of eternal life: new life.

The Sunday of the Paralytic Man teaches us that the water of Bethesda is meaningless if we neglect the fact the word given by Jesus is full of power and energy to transform thus identifying the presence of God. Jesus speaks the word and gives the man the strength to walk.
The water of the Bethseda pool is a type of Baptism. The waters of Baptism not only wash and make us adopted children of God. The waters of Baptism heals us spiritually and physically. One aspect of today’s Gospel is that illness is “a lesser manifestation of death. Here Jesus’s word exercises power over the man’s illness pointing our attention once again to his own power over death.

What do we learn on this 3rd Sunday after Pascha? What is the take-away lesson? First, we don’t make ourselves. Everything we have and are is given and sustained by God. Second, our identity as Christians is based not on a theory or a vague theological idea but on the person of Jesus the Christ. Third, we learn that by ourselves we cannot forgive, heal or love or be saved. Human nature can’t forgive without the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

On Wednesday, April 24, we are mid-way to Pentecost. The Gospels we read at the Divine Liturgy bring our focus of faith into greater clarity as we approach the solemn feast of Pentecost.

Christ is risen!