Communio – Page 118 – …bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Sts Peter and Paul

A meditation on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul

“Conduct yourselves with fear in the time of your sojourning” (1 Peter 1:17).

These are the words of the great Apostle Peter, words that have a dual foundation: heavenly inspiration and personal experience. By divine inspiration, Peter, a simple fisherman, became a teacher of the people, a pillar of the Faith and a powerful miracle-worker. According to his own experience he learned that all of his wisdom and power was of God and, because of that, one should possess the fear of God. No other fear, except the fear of God.

The foolish one becomes frightened only when lightning flashes and thunder cracks but the wise man fears God every day and every hour. The Creator of lightning and thunder is more awesome than both of them and He does not appear before you, from time to time, as lightning and thunder rather He is continually before you and does not move away from you. That is why it is not enough, from time to time, to have fear of God, but one must breathe in the fear of God. The fear of God is the ozone in the suffocating atmosphere of our soul. This ozone brings purity, easiness, sweet fragrance and health. Until he had become strengthened in the fear of God, Peter was only Peter and not an apostle, hero, teacher of the people and miracle-worker.

O my brethren, let us not rejoice before the harvest. This, our life, is not a harvest but rather, it is a sowing, labor, sweat and fear. The plower lives in fear until he has gathered the fruits from the field. Let us also delay our rejoicing for the day of harvest, for now is the time for labor and fear. Will I be saved? This question should torment every one of us, in the same way that the plower is tormented by the question: “Will I reap the fruit of my labor in the field?” The plower labors and fears everyday. Let us also labor and fear “all the time of our sojourning” on earth.

O awesome and powerful Lord, sustain us in Your fear.

To You be glory and thanks always. Amen.

Take from the Prologue from Ochrid

Saints Peter and Paul

We honor the great apostles of the Church, Saints Peter and Paul. Across the Christian community they are celebrated today. The Gospel reveal the wonderful words to Jesus, such as “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” and “Lord you know that I love you.”

Peter and Paul set the standard: they sometimes get relationship wrong, as in the denials (and persecution) of Christ. Both reject the Jesus at first but the Lord has the final say. Both show their willingness to be open to grace which I find striking and inviting. My patron, Paul, on the other hand, gives us sublime spiritual theology about Jesus Christ, the Church, grace, generativity, and much more for the Christian life.

The dual feast today gives us a clear example of how to live in a profound complementarity with Christians so that our witness can deeply nourish the spiritual life of the Church and generate the hundredfold Christ promised us.

Let us pray for the unity of the Church!

Sister Nirmala, who succeeded Mother Teresa, died

Sister Nirmala Joshi, MC, the woman who succeeded Mother Teresa as the leader of the Missionaries of Charity, in 1997, has died at the age of 81. She had been suffering from a heart condition.

Sister Nirmala was the superior of the order until 2009, when she stepped down because of ill health. Before that she held positions of leadership in the congregation including being a founding member of the contemplative branch of the Missionaries of Charity. Sister Mary Prema Pierick, a German sister, was elected superior general.

Historically, Sister Nirmala was born the second of 10 children on July 23, 1934 to a Nepalese Hindu family in the Bihar state. Her given the name Kusum, meaning flower. Sister graduated with an undergraduate degree from Patna Women’s College, administered by Apostolic Carmel nuns and later earned a Master’s degree and a law degree.

We carry our cross

Daily I am reminded that life is not easy for others, and for me. We carry burdens of health, the spiritual life, economy, of relationship and psychology. How is our heart affected? The burdens we carry are only lightened when we make a connection with Jesus who first carried the cross for us.

Remember that each of us has his own cross. The Golgotha of this cross is our heart: it is being lifted or implanted through a zealous determination to live according to the Spirit of God. Just as salvation of the world is by the Cross of God, so our salvation is by our crucifixion on our own cross.

St. Theophan the Recluse

Saint Anthony of Padua

God has given us a saint that is more important merely a person who finds loss items. Saint Anthony of Padua is really the model of being pure of heart. A rare virtue these days.

The liturgical memory of Saint Anthony of Padua (1191/5-1231), recalls for us that one of the most renowned Franciscans of history can be real, humble and call all to greater freedom in Christ. No one was immune to the preaching of Anthony: even the fish were converted to the Lord. The record gives us:

Historically, he was baptized Ferdinand into a family of knights in Lisbon, Portugal, then on the frontiers between the Christian and Muslim cultures, he entered the canons regular of St. Augustine as a young man, first stationed in Lisbon and then in Coimbra, where he received an excellent education in the Scriptures. The Friars Minor arrived in Portugal in 1217, and Ferdinand, inspired by five friars who were martyred in Morocco in 1220, joined them, taking the name Anthony after the small Franciscan hermitage outside Coimbra. He ended up in Italy, and within a few years, became a noted preacher in Northern Italy and in Southern France. Given permission by Saint Francis to teach theology to the friars, in 1227 he became provincial minister of Northern Italy and developed a strong association with the city of Padua. His preaching made a strong link between conversion to the Gospel and social justice. He died on this day in 1231 and was canonized the following year.

A thought from Saint Anthony’s homily for the Fifth Sunday after Easter. “Brothers and sisters, let us pray that the Lord Jesus Christ pour his grace into us by means of which we ask for and receive the fullness of true joy. May he ask the Father for us; may he grant us true religion so that we may merit to come to the kingdom of eternal life.”

For a more detailed popular biography click on this link.

If you look at the picture you’ll notice that Saint Anthony holds the lily, the symbol of purity of heart. The presence of the Christ child in the saint’s scripture book is meant to indicate that Saint Anthony discovered the living Christ in the pages of Scripture.

Sacred Heart of Jesus

Today is the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. So many things to think of and to pray for to the Heart of Jesus. We ought to sing with Scripture “With joy you will draw water from the fountain of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3). For that, in fact, is the key to open the door to this feast: Christ wants to give so many graces as a fountain of salvation.

What an intense day of prayer already! I am reminded that Saint John Marie Vianney considered “The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus .”

All are welcome into His Divine Friendship.

The reflection comes from the Franciscan Saint Bonaventure:

“’They shall look on him whom they pierced.’ The blood and water which poured out at that moment were the price of our salvation. Flowing from the secret depths of our Lord’s heart as from a fountain, this stream gave the sacraments of the Church the power to confer the life of grace, while for those already living in Christ it became a spring of living water welling up to eternal life.”

It is traditional to pray this prayer today:

COMING to Jesus and seeing that He was already dead, they did not break His legs, but one of the soldiers opened Jesus’ side with a spear and immediately there came forth blood and water.

V. You shall draw waters with joy.
R. From the fountains of the Savior.

Let us pray:
O God, who in the Heart of Thy Son, wounded for our sins, dost mercifully lavish upon us the treasures of Thy love; grant, we beseech Thee, that with our devout homage we may also offer Him worthy reparation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Saint Barnabas

When he converted to Christ from being a Cypriot Jew, Joseph changed his name to Barnabas, a name that means “son of encouragement.” Barnabas seems to be the cousin of John Mark, the author of the Gospel of Mark.

Barnabas’ conversion was total: all of his money and property were given to the Church (Acts 4:32); he completely and unreservedly gave his life to Jesus. Like Paul, Barnabas was an apostle without being part of the 12. The Lord sent (the meaning of the word ‘apostle’) him as a powerful missionary and preacher; he worked with Saint Paul. Barnabas’ concern was to advocate that pagans (unbelievers) could be baptized as Christians without being circumcised. “The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch…for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith” (Acts 11).

The Episcopal and Lutheran liturgical calendars note Barnabas as an Apostle and a martyr. Biblically, Barnabas is mentioned 27 times in the New Testament. He exhorted the Antioch community: “With steadfast purpose of heart remain with the Lord.” Good advice for all Christians.

Some will say that Barnabas was the first bishop of Milan and is credited with bringing Clement to Christian faith (who later became the 4th bishop of Rome). Saint Barnabas was martyred by stoning.

Blessed Anna Marie Taigi

Today’s saint was unknown to me until now: Blessed Anna Marie Taigi (1769-1837). She was known as a mystic, wife, mother, and penitent. She was a tertiary member of the Trinitarian order.

The beatus’ remains are interred in the Church of Saint Crisogono, Trastevere, Rome, Italy, the neighborhood where she lived. Until about 1920 Taigi’s body was incorrupt but since then a wax face and hands have been in-place to cover for what nature destines us.

Anne was married on 7 January 1789 to Dominico Taigi, a butler to the noble family of Chigi. Together they were married for 48 years, and the parents of seven, two of whom died very young. Marriage was a crown she bore.

Blessed Anna Marie was fortunate to have found holy spiritual directors who directed her spiritual life that ultimately put her on the path to real sanctity. She was a woman of Matthew 25: gave all she could to the poor, visited the sick, and counselled many of the patients at the hospital of San Giacomo of the Incurables; worked hard to evangelize her own family, changing her husband’s demeanor, and they all regularly assembled in a small personal chapel to pray together.

Anne Marie devoted herself to a life of prayer as a lay woman and God richly blessed her with mystical gifts, particularly the gifts of prophecy and reading hearts. One ought not to underestimate the power of asking the Holy Spirit for gifts necessary to do the Father’s will: you may just get what you ask for. It is recorded that she went into ecstacies, and received heavenly and prophetic visions. The gift of counsel allowed her to be a counsellor to cardinals, royalty and to three popes.

As a person in-touch with the need for forgiveness, Blessed Anna Marie is especially important for those who think their past sins cannot be forgiven!

The charismatic gifts, and her lack of concern about worldly matters, Anne was often the topic of gossip and sander, but she was the recipient of public veneration soon after her death, and her Cause for sainthood began in 1863.

The recorded acts that has encouraged the Church to study the life of Anna Marie has now given us Blessed Anna Marie Taigi, a woman who had a simple presence and a powerful effect on many –she was instrumental with many conversions. It was Pope Benedict XV on May 30, 1920, who declared Anna Marie a blessed of the Church. More of her life can be read here.

Saint Norbert

Brian Fitzgerald’s 2014 essay, “Teaching by Word and Example: St Norbert of Xanten”(Crisis Magazine online) gives an insightful glimpse into a man we in the USA don’t know too much about but who continues to impact the way we live our common Catholic faith in communio. In some ways, the 11th century Norbert was a new “St Paul.” His contemporary Saint Bernard of Clairvaulx called Norbert “heavenly water pipe” yet no word of this text survives these centuries. Norbert founded a community of canons who followed the Rule of St Augustine which adhered to the idea: “docere verbo et exemplo” (to teach by word and example).

Several things that we ought to clue-in on from Norbert:

1. the centrality of preaching and Liturgy to the apostolic life;
2. the unity of the active and contemplative lives, the “mixed life”
3. Christians are to be “imitators of Christ’s disciples”
4. the Christian faith makes sense only in the communal aspect.

Saint Norbert, pray for us.

Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs of Uganda

The group of saints we have today are commonly called the Martyrs of Uganda, led by Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions. They met their destiny in 1886. In this era of ours we tend to look for witnesses that are coherent in their Christian following. The story of Saint Charles is the story of so many people today. Attend to the narrative:

King Mwanga of the Baganda in Uganda was a cruel and capricious ruler. One of his first acts, after becoming king at the age of eighteen, was to order the murder of James Hannington, the newly appointed Anglican bishop. The Christian missionaries, he believed, were the advance guard of encroaching European powers; they were tempting his people to abandon their traditional ways and thus posed a threat to his own rule. What is more, they also reproached him for demanding sexual favors from the young men who served as his pages.

In May 1886 Mwanga summoned all his pages and ordered the Christians among them to step forward. Fifteen of them approached, including the eldest, twenty-four-year-old catechist Charles Lwanga, as well as the youngest, a boy of thirteen whom Charles had baptized only the night before. After declaring that they were Christians and intended to remain so, the king ordered them put to death.

The group was marched to an execution spot on Lake Victoria, more than sixteen miles away. There they were wrapped in reeds, stacked on a pyre, and set aflame. The martyrs offered no protest, but simply murmured their prayers. Lwanga’s last words were “My God.”

Reports of these deaths, and many more in succeeding weeks, spread quickly, resulting in many conversions. The martyrs were canonized in 1964 by Pope Paul VI, who made a pilgrimage to their shrine.

St. Charles Lwanga said, “Poor, foolish man . . . you are burning me, but it is as if you were pouring water on my body.”

Credit: Give us our daily bread