Solemnity Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

Christ washing Peter's feetThe 34th Sunday through the Church Year is known in the Ordinary Form of the Mass as the Solemnity Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (today); the communities who use the Extraordinary Form of the Mass celebrated this feast on the last Sunday of October.

Pope Pius XI, in 1925, instituted this feast as a response to the rise of modern totalitarian states and growing secularism. We feel the effects of the ideology today.  In the Pope’s mind, Christians were to keep their eyes focused on the goal of creation – the fullness of the Kingdom of God in a complete way through Jesus Christ. Consider what Saint Paul wrote to the Colossians: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.”

“The Son of Man ‘came not to be served but to serve’…that King whom to serve is to reign” Thus, the “‘state of royal freedom’ proper to Christ’s disciples: to serve means to reign!”

In Jesus of Nazareth, Holy Week, Pope Benedict wrote:

“Jesus performs for his disciples the service of a slave, he ’emptied himself’ (Phil 2:7).

“What the letter to the Phillipians says in it great Chrisotological hymn –namely, that unlike Adam who had tried to grasp divinity for himself, Christ moves in the opposite direction, coming down from his divinity into humanity, taking the form of a servant and becoming obedient even to death on a cross (cf. 2:7-8) — all that is rendered in a single gesture. Jesus represents THE WHOLE OF HIS SAVING MINISTRY IN ONE SYMBOLIC ACT. He divests himself of his divine splendor; he, as it were, kneels down before us; he washes and dries our soiled feet…” (p,56-7)

The image for today’s feast is Jesus washing the feet of Peter which demonstrates in a most profound way Jesus’ kenotic essence (kenosis means Jesus taking on human nature in a total way without sin and decay; you can think of the Lord’s Infancy narratives) thus representing his kingship in a new way rather with a crown (as is ofttimes the representation). Jesus could have easily come with earthly symbols of power and honor but according to his loving, merciful, kenotic reality he chose the very opposite. 

And Saint Therese of Lisieux has an interesting way of pointing us: “Here on earth, where everything changes, only one thing doesn’t change: the King of Heaven’s way of acting as regards his friends. Ever since he raised up the standard of the cross, it is in its shadow that all must fight and gain the victory over ourselves.”

Presentation of Mary in the Temple

Presentation of Mary in the TempleThe feast of the Presentation of Mary is a contemplation on we relate to the Temple following Mary as the Perfect Disciple (the paradigmatic believer), relate to us. This feast asks the question of how we, in our bodies, are meant to live in the Temple of the Lord. Our bodies are meant for the Lord. You ought to read Saint Paul’s First Letter to Corinthians in the 6th chapter: our bodies are members of Christ. So, what is it that we are called by the Lord? What is Mary’s place in the economy of Salvation and how do we relate to the same economy? What has happened to us in Christ?

We the Church we pray:

As we venerate the glorious memory of the most holy Virgin Mary, grant, we pray, O Lord, through her intercession, that we, too, may merit to receive from the fullness of your grace.

We need to appeal to the Byzantine Liturgy which proclaims,

“Today is the prelude to God’s munificence, and the announcement of salvation: in the Temple of God the Virgin is seen openly, foretelling to all the coming of Christ…The most pure temple of the Savior, his most precious bridal chamber, the Virgin, sacred treasury of God’s glory, enters today into the house of the Lord, bringing with her the grace of the divine Spirit. Wherefore the angels of God are singing: “Behold the heavenly tabernacle!…Wherefore let us cry out to her with all our strength: ‘Joy to you fulfillment of the Creator’s plan!'” At the moment when the young girl Mary was presented in the glorious Temple “everything that humans build was already diminished by the praise in her heart” (Rilke)

As a Benedictine Oblate, today is the day we renew our Oblation to our particular monasteries. As Through the intercession of Mary of the Temple may we Oblates recognize our true end in Christ. The hymn verse says it all: “Today, this day, is the day of the Lord. Rejoice, people, for lo, the bridal chamber of the Light, the book of the Word of Life, the Temple of the living God, has come forth from the womb, and the gate facing east, newly born, awaits the entrance of the great High Priest. She alone brings into the world the one and only Christ for the salvation of our souls.” God became flesh through Mary. So we should also be the Temple of the Lord today.

Here is an exposition of this feast by the Orthodox priest Father Thomas Hopko on Ancient Faith Ministries.

Our Lady of Providence

OL of ProvidenceI didn’t know that today was the feast day of Our Lady of Providence or Our Lady of Divine Providence until I saw it noted on a friend’s FB page. This title given to the Mother of God is a reference to Mary as the Mother of Jesus who lives in relationship with Divine Providence.

As my friend noted, “Devotion to Mary, Mother of Divine Providence began in the first house of the Congregation of the Clerics Regular of St. Paul (Barnabites) in Rome at San Carlo ai Catinari church around year 1611. Around 1580, the Italian painter Scipione Pulzone created a work titled “Mater Divinae Providentiae,” which depicted the Blessed Mother cradling the Infant Jesus. This painting was given to the Barnabite religious order in 1663.”

“In 1774, Pope Benedict XIV authorized the Confraternity of Our Lady of Providence, a lay organization created for the purpose of promoting special works of Christian charity or piety. Pope Gregory XVI elevated it to an Archconfraternity in 1839. In 1888, Pope Leo XIII ordered the solemn crowning of the “Miraculous Lady” and approved the Mass and Office of Mary, Mother of Divine Providence.”

On 5 August 1896, Superior General of the Barnabites Father Benedict Nisser decreed that every Barnabite have a copy of the painting in their home.

For a variety of reasons, this new information is a great “find” for me. I entreat you to call upon Our Lady of Providence right now!

Noah the Patriarch

Noah monacoToday, November 18th, the Roman Martyrology notes the liturgical remembrance of Patriarch Noah. Biblical history tells us that Noah was the son of Lamech, and ninth patriarch of the Sethite line, who, with his family, was saved in the Ark from the Deluge, dying 350 years later at the age of 950. Noah was the Father of Sem, Cham and Japhet.

In Western and Eastern Christianity we note that there is developing of “master-theme” of covenant with Noah as a method and a way to explain the relationship God has with humanity: a covenant is the deepening of what it means to belong to the family of God. With the person of Noah a new covenant was made with humanity by the image of a new creation formed after the great  flood. In the flood God “rewrites” the original covenant made with Adam and Eve. It is God who completely obliterates, He drowns the blood line of Adam. Noah enters into a deeper relationship with God. Through Noah we have a man who “walked with God” and “found favor” with God, in many ways Noah is a new Adam.

In biblical theology, there are several covenants and a variety of meanings of what a covenant in the OT means. And, of course, the Catholics (and Orthodox) speak of a NEW, and unique covenant made by Jesus at the Last Supper. In brief, a covenant has, as Scott Hahn indicated, familial, legal and liturgical elements. The Last Supper has all of the elements of the past and a newness not seen before. But the point here is to look at Noah as a precursor to the Lord in generating something new and pointing beyond the “now.”

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church we read about The Covenant with Noah:

After the unity of the human race was shattered by sin God at once sought to save humanity part by part. The covenant with Noah after the flood gives expression to the principle of the divine economy toward the “nations”, in other words, towards men grouped “in their lands, each with [its] own language, by their families, in their nations”.

This state of division into many nations is at once cosmic, social and religious. It is intended to limit the pride of fallen humanity10 united only in its perverse ambition to forge its own unity as at Babel.11 But, because of sin, both polytheism and the idolatry of the nation and of its rulers constantly threaten this provisional economy with the perversion of paganism.

The covenant with Noah remains in force during the times of the Gentiles, until the universal proclamation of the Gospel. The Bible venerates several great figures among the Gentiles: Abel the just, the king-priest Melchisedek – a figure of Christ – and the upright “Noah, Daniel, and Job”. Scripture thus expresses the heights of sanctity that can be reached by those who live according to the covenant of Noah, waiting for Christ to “gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” (56-58).

New Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Gewargis III

This is old news for some, but it bears sharing here because it opens up the valued question of communio. The Assyrian Church of the East, of the ancient Christian churches, has good news in their attempt to revision their ministry in the 21st century. Christine Chaillot wrote the following piece trying to explain the complexities of this particular church. Let us pray for the Christians in Iraq, Catholic and Orthodox as they make their way in the face of the Islamist regime. The communion of churches and how we witness to Christ in the error of war and ideology is going to make or break Christianity.

Church of the East Patriarchal electionOn September 22, 2015, the journalist, John Burger [a New Haven, CT resident], entitled his article : «As Refugees Stream. Out of Middle East, One Exiled Church May Be Headed Back. Assyrian Church of the East elects a new leader, and they may be already building his home in war-weary Iraq.

The return of the Church of the East to Erbil to elect the new Catholicos-Patriarch is highly significant. In 1933 Mar Shimun XXIII Eshaia, the Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East was obliged to leave Iraq and went into exile in the USA where the see was established in Chicago. When his successor, Mar Dinkha IV, passed away on March 26 2015 after an incumbency of almost forty years, elections were organised and the Holy Synod chose Mar Gewargis III who was enthroned at St. John’s Cathedral in Erbil on Sunday, Sept. 27 2015.  He had previously been Metropolitan of Iraq, Jordan and Russia. Born in Habbaniyah, Iraq and educated at the University of Baghdad, prior to his ordination as a deacon in 1980, Mar Giwargis taught English in several Iraqi schools. In 1981, he was elevated to Metropolitan of  Baghdad and all Iraq. His long experience of life and politics in Iraq, with its accompanying political upheaval and displacement will be invaluable in steering the Church of the East.

The consecration of Catholicos-Patriarch Gewargis III was attended by an international array of bishops from the Church of the East, who travelled from the USA, Canada, Australia, Iran, Syria and Sweden (where the bishop is responsible for all Europe) and of course India where the Church of the East was the first Christian presence since the beginning of Christianity, in Kerala (south west India). Also present were representatives of several Churches from Iraq  (among them the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Mar Louis Sako and bishops, the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Ephrem and bishops) and from abroad, including from the Vatican and from the World Council of Churches. Political personalities were also present, including a Chinese delegate, recalling the remarkable misssionary activity that the Church of the East conducted for almost a millennium across Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia reaching Mongolia and China. Today, the Church of the East has a new internationalism, but is firmly rooted in Mesopotamia.

Christianity has been present in Iraq since apostolic times; its founders were St Thomas of the Twelve Disciples and Ss. Addai (Thaddaeus) and Mari of the Seventy Apostles. The first location of the see of the Church of the East was in Seleucia-Ctesiphon, then the Persian capital, near present Baghdad. In the 9th century the patriarchate moved to Baghdad and then through various cities in what is now northern Iraq and also northwest Iran. In September 2015 the see was transfered from Chicago to Erbil, the present capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) administered region of northern Iraq, a move that returned to historic roots since Erbil, the capital of the kingdom of Adiabene, was a very early bishopric in the first centuries of the Christian era. Currently, a new patriarchal building (on a grand avenue and opposite a large, new mosque) is being built in Erbil, on land donated by the KRG authorities. At the time of the consecration of Mar Gewargis III, the construction had not yet been completed, but the extensive grounds should also accommodate auxiliary buildings, including a seminary and a print-shop.

As well as physical growth, there have been attempts to heal the schism between the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East that erupted in the mid 1960’s. The patriarch of the Ancient Church of the East, Mar Addai, has resided in Bagdad since 1964. Talks prior to the patriarchal election aimed at reconciliation. Although the reunification of the two factions has not yet been realised, further negotiation to this end will continue in the future. The patriarchal election heralds a new era for the Church of the East and all Christians in Iraq and the Middle East. As hundreds of thousands of people stream from war-torn areas of the Near East and Africa into Europe and elsewhere —and Christian leaders are desperately trying to keep their flocks in their ancestral homelands— the return of the Church of the East to  the KRG admininistered region of northern Iraq in order to have the see ‘back home’ and for the Catholicos-Patriarch to be close to his faithful and encourage them to stay in their traditional homeland is heroic and very Christian. The return of the Catholicos-Patriarch within their midst is celebrated with great joy by all the faithful of the Church of the East in Iraq and also by the diaspora communities.

Saint Hugh of Lincoln

St Hugh of Lincoln“Saint Hugh’s primary emblem is a white swan, in reference to the story of the swan of Stowe which had a deep and lasting friendship with the saint, even guarding him while he slept. The swan would follow him about, and was his constant companion while he was at Lincoln. Hugh loved all the animals in the monastery gardens, especially a wild swan that would eat from his hand and follow him about and yet the swan would attack anyone else who came near Hugh.”

Hugh is a 12th century monk, priest and bishop of Lincoln. The monk-bishop is a reformer. One reform was that the priests needed to live at the parishes they were assigned and to minister to the sick and the needy. He is the patron saint of sick children, sick people, shoemakers, and swans. Hugh is the first Carthusian to be canonized.

Saint Elizabeth of Hungary

Sts Francis and Elizabeth Piero della FrancescaToday, the Church celebrates the liturgical memory of Queen Saint Elizabeth of Hungary or Thuringia (1207-1231), patroness of the Brothers and Sisters of Penance, the Franciscan “Third Order.”  (The Third Order has evolved over time: today it has a the Third Order Laity known as the Secular Franciscan Order, and the Third Order Regular, which is the group of men and women who take the evangelical counsels and live in religious houses as priests, brothers, & sisters.)

Elizabeth was the daughter of the King of Hungary who at the age of four was sent to be raised with her future husband, heir to the country of Thuringia, at the Wartburg Castle, near Eisenach, Germany. Elizabeth’s heart was always drawn to prayer and works of charity. As a consequence of good preaching, teaching and good example, particularly her education in the ways of Saint Francis, Elizabeth’s compassion for the poor grew and was extroverted. The presence of dynamic Franciscans  in Eisenach was a good help.

There seems to be contradictory information floating around that her husband was against the charitable work of his wife, Queen Elizabeth. The Franciscan tradition actually holds Ludwig in esteem as being loving and supportive of her efforts. When King Ludwig died in 1228, Elizabeth made a consequential gift of self allowing herself to take up the God-given mission of giving all “to the things that our Savior had counseled in the Gospel” and by placing herself under the spiritual authority of the Franciscan friars at the church in Eisenach. She dispossessed herself of her material belongings and devoted herself to the care of the sick in a hospital she had established in Marburg. Queen Elizabeth died at the age of 24, and was canonized in 1235.

Saint Elizabeth lived out Holy Father Saint Francis’s call: “Let us love our neighbors as ourselves . . . Let us have charity and humility and give alms because it washes the stains of our sins from our souls. For although people lose everything they leave behind in this world, they, nevertheless carry with them the rewards of charity and the alms they have given, for which they will receive a reward and a fitting repayment from the Lord” (Admonition and Exhortation, 30, known also as The Letter to the Faithful).

With the feast day of Saint Elizabeth, we ought to have a special concern for those Catholics who have as their particular charism the care for the marginalized, those who require hospital care, and other works of charity influenced by Matthew 25.

Saint Joseph Moscati

MoscatiSaint Joseph Moscati is known as the first modern physician to be canonized.

Seventh of nine children. Joseph’s family moved to Naples, Italy when the boy was four years old; he made his First Communion at age eight, Confirmation at ten. Friend of Blessed Bartolo Longo and Blessed Caterina Volpicelli. Received his doctorate from the University of Naples in 1903. Worked at and served as administrator of a hospital for the incurable while continuing to study and do medical research. Assisted in the preparation for and recovery from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on 8 April 1906, but refused any recognition for the work. Led the work to stop cholera in Naples. Member of the Royal Academy of Surgical Medicine in 1911, and received a doctorate in physiological chemistry. Directed several hospitals and medical societies, and was one of the first to experiment with the use of insulin for diabetes. Tried to enlist in the army in World War I, but was refused and instead ran a hospital for the wounded; personally treated almost 3,000 soldiers. He healed (sometimes miraculously), taught at numerous universities and hospitals, and supported the poor and outcast; could sometimes diagnose a patient‘s illness and prescribe for it without having seen the patient. Knew when and how to use a patient‘s faith and the sacraments to effect a cure.

Saint Gertrude the Great and the Sacred Heart

St. Gertrude the Great“O Sacred Heart of Jesus, fountain of eternal life, Your Heart is a glowing furnace of Love. You are my refuge and my sanctuary. O my adorable and loving Saviour, consume my heart with the burning fire with which Yours is aflamed. Pour down on my soul those graces which flow from Your love. Let my heart be united with Yours. Let my will be conformed to Yours in all things. May Your Will be the rule of all my desires and actions. Amen.”

~St. Gertrude the Great