Last Catholic priest at South Pole

Fr Dan DoyleThis story is making the rounds: the Catholics at the South Pole won’t have regular contact with a Catholic priest as they have had in the past. The Catholic Church through her priests has been ministering not only to Catholics but others for a long time at US McMurdo Station on Ross Island –at the end of the earth. Very few can say they’ve been to the end of the earth!

A military priest will visit from time-to-time. I happen to think the decision to cut funding is short-sided –“Where 2 or 3 are gathered there I am” comes to mind. Here is the BBC story about Fr Dan Doyle in the South Pole.

Saint Alphonsus Liguori

Alphonsus LiguoriToday, the Church honors the memory of Saint Alphonsus Liguori. The particular clarity of our Pontiff emeritus Benedict XVI gives a brief primer on the saint; he draws us to the essential. Let’s consider what he says.

In his day, there was a very strict and widespread interpretation of moral life because of the Jansenist mentality which, instead of fostering trust and hope in God’s mercy, fomented fear and presented a grim and severe face of God, very remote from the face revealed to us by Jesus. Especially in his main work entitled Moral Theology, St Alphonsus proposed a balanced and convincing synthesis of the requirements of God’s law, engraved on our hearts, fully revealed by Christ and interpreted authoritatively by the Church, and of the dynamics of the conscience and of human freedom, which precisely in adherence to truth and goodness permit the person’s development and fulfilment.

Alphonsus recommended to pastors of souls and confessors that they be faithful to the Catholic moral doctrine, assuming at the same time a charitable, understanding and gentle attitude so that penitents might feel accompanied, supported and encouraged on their journey of faith and of Christian life.

St Alphonsus never tired of repeating that priests are a visible sign of the infinite mercy of God who forgives and enlightens the mind and heart of the sinner so that he may convert and change his life. In our epoch, in which there are clear signs of the loss of the moral conscience and — it must be recognized — of a certain lack of esteem for the sacrament of Confession, St Alphonsus’ teaching is still very timely.

Together with theological works, St Alphonsus wrote many other works, destined for the religious formation of the people. His style is simple and pleasing. Read and translated into many languages, the works of St Alphonsus have contributed to molding the popular spirituality of the last two centuries. Some of the texts can be read with profit today too, such as The Eternal Maxims, the Glories of Mary, The Practice of Loving Jesus Christ, which latter work is the synthesis of his thought and his masterpiece.

He stressed the need for prayer, which enables one to open oneself to divine Grace in order to do God’s will every day and to obtain one’s own sanctification. With regard to prayer he writes: “God does not deny anyone the grace of prayer, with which one obtains help to overcome every form of concupiscence and every temptation. And I say, and I will always repeat as long as I live, that the whole of our salvation lies in prayer”. Hence his famous axiom: “He who prays is saved” (Del gran mezzo della preghiera e opuscoli affini. Opere ascetiche II, Rome 1962, p. 171).

In this regard, an exhortation of my Predecessor, the Venerable Servant of God John Paul II comes to mind. “our Christian communities must become genuine ‘schools’ of prayer…. It is therefore essential that education in prayer should become in some way a key-point of all pastoral planning” (Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, nn. 33, 34).

Among the forms of prayer fervently recommended by St Alphonsus, stands out the visit to the Blessed Sacrament, or as we would call it today, “adoration”, brief or extended, personal or as a community, before the Eucharist. “Certainly”, St Alphonsus writes, “amongst all devotions, after that of receiving the sacraments, that of adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament takes the first place, is the most pleasing to God, and the most useful to ourselves…. Oh, what a beautiful delight to be before an altar with faith… to represent our wants to him, as a friend does to a friend in whom he places all his trust” (Visits to the Most Blessed Sacrament and to the Blessed Virgin Mary for Each Day of the Month. Introduction).

Alphonsian spirituality is in fact eminently Christological, centred on Christ and on his Gospel. Meditation on the mystery of the Incarnation and on the Lord’s Passion were often the subject of St Alphonsus’ preaching. In these events, in fact, Redemption is offered to all human beings “in abundance”. And precisely because it is Christological, Alphonsian piety is also exquisitely Marian. Deeply devoted to Mary he illustrates her role in the history of salvation: an associate in the Redemption and Mediatrix of grace, Mother, Advocate and Queen.

In addition, St Alphonsus states that devotion to Mary will be of great comfort to us at the moment of our death. He was convinced that meditation on our eternal destiny, on our call to participate for ever in the beatitude of God, as well as on the tragic possibility of damnation, contributes to living with serenity and dedication and to facing the reality of death, ever preserving full trust in God’s goodness.

Saint Pantaleon

The Church has many stellar men and women who consciously served God and their neighbor. The Church, from the time of Jesus, cared for the health of people. Recall the miracles of cure that Jesus did for his hearers; the miracles were carried over to the Apostles who healed people in the Holy Name of Jesus. Then, several people come to mind who have special patronage either on the spiritual plane or the physical or both: Saint Luke, Saint Agatha, Saint Blase, Saint Peregrine, the 14 Holy Helpers and today’s saint, Pantaleon (the Eastern Church spells his name as Panteleimon, meaning “holy compassionate one”). The artists have rendered Pantaleon healing a child or  being in the middle of his execution for being a Christian.

The hagiography of Panteleon reveals that he was from a wealthy pagan father and a Christian mother, well-educated, a physician who was martyred in the fourth century. His cult was alive and well in the Middle Ages.

Saint Pantaleon, pray for us.

New Armenian Catholic Patriarch of Cilicia

Today, PoGregory XXpe Francis responded to the letter of the new Armenian Catholic Patriarch of Cilicia, His Beatitude, Grégoire Pierre XX Ghabroyan, requesting ecclesiastical communion with him, and See of Rome. With this letter of the Holy Father communion between the two churches is confirmed.

In history, the patriarch was known as Bishop Krikor Ghabroyan (emeritus bishop of the Eparchy of France having retired in 2013). As with the bishop of Rome, the new Patriarch has assumed a new name. A new name and office bears a new title: Grégoire will carry the title of “Catholicos-Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenians” and the patriarchal headquarters is located in the convent of Bzommar and his residence in Beirut.

Pope Francis’ letter indicates his joy at the Patriarch’s election with the hope that his new ministry will bear many fruits for the Kingdom. One line worth noting: “illuminated by the light of faith in the risen Christ, our vision of the world is full of hope and mercy, because we are certain that the Cross of Jesus is the tree that gives life.”

His Beatitude Grégoire Pierre XX succeeds Patriarch Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni who died on June 25, 2015.

The Armenian Catholic Patriarch of Cilicia has jurisdiction over 18 eparchies world-wide.

His Beatitude Grégoire Pierre was born on November 15, 1934 in Aleppo, Syria, ordained a priest March 28, 1959, and consecrated bishop 13 February 1977. At his next birthday the Catholicos will be 81.

Saint Sharbel Makhlouf

Today is the feast of Saint Sharbel Makhlouf, the great Lebanese Saint (1828-1898). He is the first Lebanese Ssaint to be canonized formally by the Church of Rome. Most of Sharable’s life was marked chaos in the world, in particular with the Ottoman empire. The war destroyed 40 Lebanese villages and killed over 22,000 Maronites in Lebanon and Cyprus.

The monastic life of Sharbel was that of being a hermit: a life of penance, prayer and supplication before the Lord. His reputation spoke of him as a Miracle Worker of the East. He is an apostle of peace.

Saint Mary Magdalen

Mary Magdalene and the Risen LordSaint Mary Magdalen is honored today on our liturgical calendar. We know her for a variety of reasons but the most important one is that she is the first to encounter the Risen Christ. This meeting gave her the duty and responsibility to announce the Risen Lord to the Apostles. According to the Gospel of Saint John Mary is thus honored as the Apostle to the Apostles.

Pious tradition speaks of Saint Mary Magdalen being dedicated to prayer, and solitude. Saint Mary is the patron saint of those religious and laity committed to the contemplative life. The Order of Preachers have Mary as a co-patron, also as the patron of preachers.

Saint Mary Magdalen calls us to rejoice in the Risen Christ, to witness Him to the world, and to re-dedicate ourselves to prayer.

Saint Camillus de Lellis

DeLellisCamillus went to Rome for medical treatment on his leg and he met Saint Philip Neri, the great apostle to Rome. Because he lacked an education, Camillus began to study with children when he was 32 years old. Sounds like he followed in the footsteps of Ignatius of Loyola.

At particular point Camillus founded the Congregation of the Servants of the Sick (known as the Camillians or Fathers of a Good Death) whose charism was to care for the sick both in the hospital and at home. The Congregation expanded to several countries. Gospel clarity of Matthew 25 gave Camillus honored the sick as living images of Christ. The service to the sick allowed Camillus to hope that he did sufficient penance for the sins of his youth.

What does Saint Camillus teach us? The answer comes from the opening prayer for the Mass of the saint. We ask for the grace that allows us to have the perspective and desire to service with “charity towards the sick,” because in serving God in our neighbor, we may enter into beatitude when it is our time –at the hour of our death. What we saw in Christ passes now over to the Mystical Body of Christ.

Georges Lemaître remembered at birthday

Lemaitre and EinsteinToday is the birthday of Father Georges Lemaître, born in 1894 in Charleroi, Belgium.

Father Lemaître studied civil engineering at the Catholic University of Louvain before serving in the Belgian army during World War I. After the war he trained to become a priest and a cosmologist. He succeeded in both endeavors. He is a great witness to work of faith and reason and faith and science.

In 1923, he was ordained a Catholic priest for the Archdiocese of Malines. He was a secular a priest and not a Jesuit as some assume. Father received his PhD in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1960 Saint John XXIII bestowed the title of Monsignor on Lemaître. Also in 1960, Lemaître became the presidentof the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences.

A biographer writes: In 1927 he published his most famous paper, “A Homogeneous Universe of Constant Mass and Growing Radius Accounting for the Radial Velocity of Extragalactic Nebulae,” in which he applied Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity to the entire universe. According to Lemaître’s analysis, the universe was in a state of constant expansion, having begun at a specific point in time. Two years later, Edwin Hubble published his observations of distant galaxies that supported the idea. Although Lemaître remained a devout Catholic, he opposed efforts to link the creation and expansion of the universe to divine action.”

“He successfully persuaded Pope Pius XII to refrain from making proclamations about cosmology. Lemaître died on 20 June 1966, two years after the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation provided experimental evidence in favor of his bold idea.”

Monsignor died at the age of 71 on June 20, 1966 in Leuven, Belgium.