Author: Paul Zalonski

Wisdom and knowledge unfold in the Sacred Heart of Jesus

The great feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and with that the opening of the Year of the Priest (June 19), ought to be a time for us to focus on our study and prayer on the mercy and medicine offered to us by the Lord. Why is this feast an apt time for us to focus our energies on the theology of the Sacred Heart? Because as the psalmist says, seek His face; it is a true school of the Lord’s love. I believe, as you might, that the feast of the Sacred Heart is a propitious time to come to understand the wisdom and knowledge of the Divine Heart.

Father Richard Neilson’s 1988 article “The Sacred Heart and the Eucharist” is a good place to start.

World Youth Alliance: video documentation on the work for human dignity

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A global coalition of youth, the World Youth Alliance, founded in 1999, has more than a million followers, that is a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) at the United Nations with special consultative status, this Salt and Light TV interview gives us insight into the great work begun by Anna Halpine just over 11 years ago. Doing something great for humanity beginning with real experience is God’s grace to us.
Building a culture of life: the World Youth Alliance is  a reasonable voice proposing a life-giving vision for humanity, by making the reality of human dignity a known fact.

Watch the documentary video on the World Youth Alliance which works to promote the fact that every person has human dignity, that it’s intrinsic and it lasts forever.

Suicide and Catholic help: Being aware of the signs in order to help

Yesterday there was a story that caught my attention at the Catholic News Service (CNS) site: “Father’s suicide attempt leads Catholic family to help others.” The odd thing for me is that yesterday I put out in the parish vestibule a booklet on suicide (see below) thinking it might be helpful to some of the parishioners because the topic seems timely and since a young man accidentally committed suicide last year here.

Facing our own human frailty and that of others confronts us daily. Few escape serious impact of personal issues which belong to us, or of those of others, especially if you are pastoral care worker, teacher, nurse, doctor, priest, etc. Mental illness, the various forms of depression, emotional issues, un-processed feelings and the like all impact our lives in ways that may or may not be known to us. Certainly, some people attempt suicide to get attention, others involuntarily commit suicide while still others actually intend to do that desperate act. My first experience of suicide was during my high school years when a teacher of mine committed suicide. Over the years I’ve known of others –through pastoral engagements– who wanted out of life and others who were playing a game and one-thing-led-to-another. The fact is, suicide is a reality in our lives and we have to deal with it sensitively and competently.
When I was at the Catholic Information Service at the Knights of Columbus I edited what I think is a helpful booklet to assist students, parents, clergy, pastoral care workers, teachers, really anyone interested in helping another understand the reality of taking one’s life and how to be attentive to suicidal signs. It is not enough to parrot the Church’s teaching and point someone to the necessary resources; you have to act like Christ and be knowledgeable enough to respond humanely and spiritually. Professionals have their work to do and friends, family and other friendly people have theirs.
Read “Coping with a Suicide: Catholic Teaching and Pastoral Practice.” You can order a hard copy by sending an email to cis@kofc.org.

Saint Ephrem

St Ephrem.jpgO God, Who has willed to enlighten Thy Church by the wondrous learning and excellent merits of the life of blessed Ephrem, Thy Confessor and Doctor: we humbly beseech Thee that by his intercession Thou may defend it by Thine everlasting power against the snares of error and wickedness.

Gerard Manley Hopkins: 120th anniversary of death

Today is the 120th anniversary of death of Father Gerard Manley Hopkins, the Jesuit poet.

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Peace

When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut,

Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?

When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I’ll not play hypocrite

To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but

That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows

Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?

 

O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu

Some good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite,

That plumes to Peace thereafter. And when Peace here does
house

He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo,

He comes to brood and sit.

Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral to become a basilica?

Old St Pat charcoal.jpgAccording a news article in today’s Daily News, Archbishop Dolan is petitioning the Holy See  to name Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral a minor basilica (the Wiki article as some other useful info). There are 2 basilicas in the Brooklyn Diocese but none in the Archdiocese. While it is largely an honorary distinction, it is seen as important and therefore prestigious. The old cathedral is quite a place as it continues to serve the spiritual needs of God’s people. For example, Holy Mass is celebrated in English, Spanish and Chinese each week.

Yesterday, June 7, 2009, Archbishop Dolan inaugurated the 200th anniversary of the cathedral.
There are three distinctions for basilicas: there are four major basilica, directly connected with the Pope, and therefore are called “papal” (St Peter’s, St Paul outside the Walls, St John Lateran and St Mary Major); there are eight pontifical minor basilicas (all in Italy); and the rest of the world’s basilicas are “minor” basilicas but no less distinguished because they too are connected with the Holy Father but they don’t have “papal altars and thrones.” 

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In the USA there are 60+ minor basilicas. If the Holy See makes Old Saint Patrick’s a basilica it would take precedence over the other NY churches except for the Cathedral, have the use of the tintinabulum (a bell on a pole which would signal the arrival of the pope) and an umbrella (carried over the

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 pope for protection) and carried by the laity behind the processional cross; the rector would be able to wear a grey mozzetta. The list of basilicas can be read here.
A helpful, but dated article but there’s some reliable info for us in the United States.

Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity


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The Church professes her faith in the one God, who is at the
same time the Most Holy and ineffable Trinity of Persons: Father, Son and Holy
Spirit. The Church lives by this truth contained in the most ancient symbols of
faith. Paul VI recalled it in our times on the occasion of the 1900th
anniversary of the martyrdom of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul (1968), in the
symbol he presented which is universally known as the Credo of the People of
God.

Only “he who has wished to make himself known to us, and who
‘dwelling in light inaccessible’ (1 Timothy 6:16) is in himself above every
name, above every thing and above every created intellect…can give us right
and full knowledge of this reality by revealing himself as Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, in whose eternal life we are by grace called to share, here below in
the obscurity of faith and after death in eternal light.”

God is incomprehensible to us. He wished to reveal himself, not only as the one creator and Almighty Father, but also as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This revelation reveals in its essential source the truth about God, who is love: God is live in the interior life itself of the one divinity. This live is revealed as an ineffable communion of persons. This “mystery the most profound, the mystery of the intimate life of God himself” has been revealed to us by Jesus Christ: “He who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known” (John 1:18). The last words with which Christ concluded his earthly mission after the resurrection were addressed to the apostles, according to St. Matthew’s Gospel: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:119). These words began the Church’s mission and indicated her fundamental and constitutive task. The Church’s first task is to teach and baptize, to baptize means “to immerse” (therefore one baptizes with water) so that all may come to share God’s trinitarian life.

(Pope John Paul II, General Audience, October 9, 1985)