Monks and nuns are prime candidates in being martyrs for the Catholic Faith. Today, the Benedictine Congregation of St Ottilien (a missionary group of missionary monks) collectively honor those who shed their blood for Christ between the years of 1889 and 1954. Laying down one’s own life by accepting death bears witness to faith in Jesus Christ and His Church.
Many of these monks died in Asia and Africa.
The liturgical life of the Church is a prism which diffuses the blinding light of revelation into the variegated hues that we can perceive and whose colors gladden the hearts of the faithful. The metrical homily of Mar Jacob of Sarug on the Encounter of the Lord sheds light on why the righteous elder Simeon and the aged Anna the prophetess were chosen to greet the new-born Savior. “It was right too that one ancient in days should bear witness to the Elder Who became a Child at the end of the times.” The aged ones are a sign to us the Pre-eternal God-made-man has come at the end of time. In this context we recall the words of another Syriac father, Mar Isaac of Nineveh, “Life is given to us for repentance: let us not squander it in idle pursuits.”
h/t SMRC
Today, Pope Francis nominated as the new Apostolic Exarch for the Catholics of the Greek Byzantine Church, Reverend Archimandrite Manuel Nin, OSB. This local church has approximately 6000 faithful. Bishop-elect Nin, 59, has served the Church until now as the Rector of the Pontifical Greek College (Rome) and teacher at Pontifical Atheneum of Sant’Anselmo (Rome).
The new exarch is the titular bishop of Carcabia, a professed monk of the Abbey of Montserrat, and has been a priest for 18 years. He is currently a consultor in the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff, a member of the Liturgical Commission of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, and first assistant to the president of the Subiaco-Cassinese Congregation. May God grant Bishop Manuel many years!
Rome is a VERY fascinating place to visit due to the intersection of culture, religion, politics, and art. There is a rich sense of the human and a love of life. One important basilica is Saint Paul’s (my personal favorite). These brief videos give perspective.
The Catholic Church in Korea is atypical because it was established and sustained by the laity. The missionary impulse of Catholicism was not a clergy enterprise but a lay one. This particular church faced persecution from day one. Today, we honor several of the lay martyrs who were beheaded on 31 January 1840 in Dangkogae, Seoul, Korea.
They are:
• Saint Agatha Kwon Chin-i – Married lay woman
• Saint Agatha Yi Kyong-I – Lay woman.
• Saint Augustinus Park Chong-Won – Lay catechist
• Saint Maria Yi In-Dok – Young lay woman
• Saint Petrus Hong Pyong-Ju – Lay catechist
A rather unknown beatus is the lay woman from the archdiocese of Valencia, Spain, who vocation it was to be a Catechist and Martyr is honored today. Blessed Carmen Marie (1888-1937) was born in Nantes, France; she met the Lord after being raped and martyred in the Spanish Civil War; burned alive on 30 January 1937 in Torrent, Valencia, Spain.
A brief biography available in French can be read here.
John Paul II beatified García Moyon on March 11, 2001.
Blessed Carmen Marie, pray for all teachers of Christian Doctrine and those who live with the trauma of rape.
The Church in the Ordinary Form gives us for today the feast of the great Dominican saint and theologian Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church. He stands head and shoulders over all of our thinkers.
Saint Thomas’ great love passed down to us is the Holy Eucharist. Aquinas wrote many Eucharistic hymns especially for the Feast of Corpus Christi, whose observance had been urged by the Premonstratensian canoness Saint Juliana of Liege.
In this image by Peter Paul Rubens, the ‘Defenders of the Eucharist’ we have Saint Thomas with Saints Augustine and Norbert.
Prayer for the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul
O glorious St. Paul, who, from being a persecutor of the Christian name, didst become its most zealous Apostle, and who, to carry the knowledge of Jesus, our Divine Savior, to the uttermost parts of the earth, didst joyfully suffer prison, scourgings, stonings, shipwreck and all manner of persecutions, who didst finish thy course by shedding the last drop of thy blood: obtain for us the grace to accept, as favors bestowed by the mercy of God, the infirmities, sufferings and misfortunes of this life, that we may not grow slack in our service of God by reason of these vicissitudes of our exile, but that we may rather show ourselves all the more devoted, through Christ Our Lord. Amen.
V. Pray for us, St. Paul the Apostle.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us pray: O God, Who has taught the multitudes of the Gentiles by the preaching of blessed Paul the Apostle: grant unto us, we beseech Thee, that we who keep his memory sacred, may feel the might of his intercession before Thee. Through Christ Our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, One God, forever and ever. Amen. (500 days — plenary if recited daily for one month.)
The Church gives us the reading for Gospel today the narrative of Jesus teaching in the synagogue for the 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time.
Origen teaches: “When you read about Jesus teaching in the synagogues of Galilee and everyone there praising him, take care not to regard those people as uniquely privileged, and yourselves as deprived of his teaching…. Throughout the world Jesus looks for instruments through which he can continue his teaching.”
This is a crucial point: the mission of Jesus required human participation when walked as we do today. We are His instruments of preaching and teaching and doing good works. Origen pinpoints the contemporaneous nature of the Lord teaching the Good News. As Jesus speaks to the Synagogue teachers he speaks to me right now.
Saint Jerome spoke these words in a sermon for today’s feast: “This is a virgin’s birthday; let us follow the example of her chastity. It is a martyr’s birthday; let us offer sacrifices; it is the birthday of holy Agnes: let men be filled with wonder, little ones with hope, married women with awe, and the unmarried with emulation. It seems to me that this child, holy beyond her years and courageous beyond human nature, receives the name of Agnes [Greek: pure] not as an earthly designation but as a revelation from God of what she was to be.”
Two very young lambs were blessed by Pope Francis in the Urban VIII Chapel. When the wool is ready, they will be shorn and the wool used to make the pallia for the recently appointed metropolitan archbishops. At this writing, there are no new archbishops in the USA who will receive one of the pallia unless a new archbishop in Anchorage is appointed soon.
You would recognize the pallium as the outer stole worn by the Pope and the archbishops while they offer Holy Mass. Each pallium is white decorated with six black crosses and 3 pins symbolizing their pastoral communion and authority share with the Pope. The white connects the purity of heart each bishop ought to have with the chaste love he has for the Church. The white pallium recognizes her faithfulness. The quote taken from Saint Jerome above gives the real sense of what is going on today with the lambs viz. Agnes viz. the archbishops.
The name Agnes means “lamb” in Latin and “pure” in Greek. The young virgin-martyrd Agnes lived in the early 4th century and was known for her consecrated virginity. Her life was taken from her because she believed in Jesus Christ as the Messiah and not pagan gods. Saint Agnes is buried in the Basilica of Saint Agnes on the via Nomentana.
The Trappist monks raise the lambs to a certain age before they given to the Benedictine nuns at St Cecilia Abbey in Trastevere weave the pallia and given to the Apostolic Household to be placed in an urn at the tomb of Saint Peter until the Pope blesses them on June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.