St Vincent de Paul

Today we are given the liturgical memorial of the often overlooked saint who has led by an experience of Christ, a man of deep desires to serve the Church, and a man who is a model of service to faith and the poor. St Vincent de Paul, the 17th century French priest is recalled not only for personal holiness and for what has become known the Vincentian charism. The importance of the Vincent’s influence is likely more important to our era than I dare say the Ignatian heritage. While Loyola’s real gift to the Church is not necessarily the least Society of Jesus and the educational system, but really the Spiritual Exercises and the method of discernment. Vincent’s gift to the Church is the integration of evangelization and charity.

What is also key to understanding and appreciating what Vincent did for us –and continues to do for us– is the spiritual bond he had with St Louise de Marillac. Vincent and Louise worked in complement to each other. Three Vincentian values that are often spoken of are spirituality, friendship and service. For me, the key value is friendship. Friendship is the sun to which one’s spiritual life and service orbit. What is the quality of our relation to God, others, the Church, the poor, to seminarians, and to ourselves? Without a flourishing and mature relationship with others, and principally with the Lord, then all else falls apart or doesn’t even get off the ground. As a young man and student under the Vincentians, I was taught that by example, Vincent indicated that our service to the poor is first nourished by our spiritual life, by personal and corporate prayer. Time spent praying before the Most Blessed Sacrament has an abundance of grace. Short of spending hours in prayer our friendship with those we work and serve is banal. In the end, we recall a gem in the crown of saints and blesseds in the crown of the Church.

St Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Saints Cleopas and Simeon at Emmaus

We know the Gospel narrative of encounter of the Risen Lord at Emmaus. Read Luke 24:13-35. We know there were two men with Jesus. Many of us don’t know the names of these two men.

The Roman Martyrology tells us: “At Emmaus, the birthday of the blessed Cleopas, Disciple of Christ. It is related that he was killed by the Jews, for the confession of our Lord, in the same house in which he had entertained Him and where he was honourably buried.”

Piecing together information from other sources we have consider the entry of the renown historian, Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, who quotes the earlier chronicler, Hegesippus, writing in c. 180, that he had years before interviewed the grandsons of Jude the Apostle and learned that Clopas was the Brother of St Joseph, spouse of the Virgin Mary: “After the martyrdom of James, it was unanimously decided that Simeon, Son of Clopas, was worthy to occupy the See of Jerusalem. He was, it is said, a Cousin of the Saviour.” Hegesippus noted, that Clopas was a Brother of Joseph. Epiphanius adds that Joseph and Cleopas were Brothers, sons of “Jacob, surnamed Panther.”

And then there’s the surviving fragments of the work Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord of the Apostolic Father Papias of Hierapolis, who lived c. 70–163, Cleophas and Alphaeus are the same person: “Mary the wife of Cleophas or Alphaeus, who was the Mother of James the Bishop and Apostle and of Simon and Thaddeus and of one Joseph.”

Here in sacred Scripture and in Tradition we meet the Risen Lord, and we meet hope. Saints Clops and Simeon at Emmaus communicate to us that the heart’s desires are fulfilled in the Lord, in the Breaking of the Bread, where all else falls away and centers us on the one we desire: God Himself.

Meeting friends

Earlier today approximately 75 members of Communion and Liberation gathered at the Cabrini Shrine in Washington Heights, NYC for the CL Beginning Day. Conversation, a witness, a lesson and the Vigil Mass for Sunday was offered. The Day was awash with an abundance of rain but spirits weren’t dampened. The U.S. Responsible for Communion and Liberation, Father Michael Carvill, FSCB, led the day.

The “nice thing” is that some members of weekly a zoom School of Community took a photo. Unique here is that many zoom meetings rarely afford the personal meeting of people. For me, this group is a mix of old and new friends; some friends live at a distance from New York so the photo becomes a sign of friendship.

Lourdes in a Day

Today, we had the Lourdes in a Day encounter with the Lord of Life organized by Mark and Cherith Sullivan of the Order of Malta (Eastern CT Area) with the assistance of other members of the Order of Malta.

Lourdes in a Day is meant imitate what happens in miniature of happens when the sick are taken to the Lourdes Shrine in the Spring. to provide the sick and those others needing the healing graces of the sacraments of Confession, Anointing of the Sick, and the Holy Eucharist. Join us in prayer. The Rosary was prayed, personal intentions made, and Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament.

About 200 people joined us in prayer and joined for lunch.

Pope Francis addresses Benedictine Oblates September 2023

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

I extend to you a warm welcome and I am pleased to meet with you on the occasion of your World Congress.

The Benedictine Oblate, “in his or her own family and social environment, recognizes and accepts the gift of God… inspiring his or her own journey of faith with the values of the Holy Rule and of the monastic spiritual tradition” This is from article 2 of the Statutes of the Italian Benedictine Oblates. Here, I am thinking of your charism which, I believe, can be summarized in a certain way by the very beautiful expression of Saint Benedict, who invited his followers to have a “heart expanded by the unspeakable sweetness of love” (Rule of Saint Benedict, Prologue, n. 49).

How beautiful is that phrase: a heart expanded by the unspeakable sweetness of love! This expanded heart characterizes the Benedictine spirit, which invigorated the spirituality of the Western world and subsequently spread to all continents. This expression, “an expanded heart”, is very important. Throughout the centuries the Benedictine charism has been a charismatic herald of grace, for its roots are so firm that the tree grows well, weathering the ravages of time and bearing the savoury fruits of the Gospel. I believe that this expanded heart is the secret of the great work of evangelization that Benedictine monasticism carries out, and to which you promise yourselves as Oblates, “offered up” in the footsteps of the great Holy Abbot. So I want to reflect briefly with you on three aspects of this “expansion of the heart”: the search for God, enthusiasm for the Gospel and hospitality.

The Benedictine life is marked first of all by a continual search for God, for his will and for the wonders he works. This search takes place principally through his word, with which you are nourished each day by lectio divina. Yet you also do this by contemplating creation, by letting yourselves be challenged by daily events, by experiencing work as prayer, to the point of transforming the very means of your work into instruments of blessing, and finally through people, in those brothers and sisters whom divine Providence leads you to encounter. In all this, you are called to be seekers of God.

A second important characteristic is that of enthusiasm for the Gospel. Following the example of the monks, the lives of those who take their inspiration from Saint Benedict are given as a gift, whole and rich. Like the monks, who make the places where they live fruitful and mark their days with industriousness, you also are called in this way to transform your everyday settings, wherever you live, by acting as a leaven in the dough, with skill and responsibility, and at the same time with gentleness and compassion. The Second Vatican Council outlines this missionary enthusiasm in an eloquent way when, speaking of the role of the laity in the Church, it says that they are called “to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will… from within, like leaven” (Lumen Gentium, 31). In this sense, we should be mindful of what the presence of monasticism, with its model of evangelical life marked by the motto ora et labora and the peaceful conversion and integration of numerous peoples, was able to build during the transition period from the fall of the Roman Empire to the birth of medieval society! All this zeal was born out of enthusiasm for the Gospel, and this, too, is a very timely matter for you. Indeed, nowadays, in a globalized but fragmented and fast-paced world devoted to consumerism, in settings where family and social roots sometimes almost seem to disappear, there is no need for Christians who point fingers, but for enthusiastic witnesses who radiate the Gospel “in life through life”. This is always a temptation: go from being “Christian witnesses” to “Christian accusers”. There is only one accuser, the devil. We should not assume the role of the devil but of Jesus. We are students of the school of Jesus, of the Beatitudes.

The third characteristic of the Benedictine tradition that I want to reflect on is that of hospitality. In his Rule Saint Benedict devoted an entire chapter to this (cf. Ch. LIII, On the Reception of Guests). The chapter begins with these words: “Let all guests who arrive at the monastery be received as Christ, for he will one day say: ‘I was a stranger and you took me in’ (Mt 25:35)” (n. 1). Venit hospes, venit Christus. And he continued by indicating some concrete attitudes to be taken by the whole community with regard to guests: “let them go forth to meet him, showing him their love in every way;… let them pray together and then let them associate with one another and exchange the kiss of peace” (n. 3), that is, they should share with the guest what they hold most dear. Benedict then spoke of those who are “special” guests, saying: “Let the greatest care be taken, especially in the reception of the poor and pilgrims, because Christ is received more specially in them” (n. 15). As Oblates, your wider monastery is the world, the city and the workplace, for it is there that you are called to be models of welcome with regard to whoever knocks at your door, and models in preferential love for the poor. This is what it means to welcome yet we are confronted with the temptation to close ourselves off. Today in our society, our culture, even a Christian culture, one of the ways of closing ourselves off from others is through gossip. Gossip “dirties” other people. “I close myself off from another person because he or she is a wretch”. Please, as Benedictines, let your tongue be reserved for praising God, and not for gossiping about others. If you are able to change your lives in such a way that you do not speak ill of others, you will have opened the door for your causes of canonization! Move forward in this way. Sometimes it seems that our society is slowly suffocating in the locked vaults of selfishness, individualism and indifference. Gossip locks us into this reality.

Dear brothers and sisters, I want to bless the Lord with you for the great patrimony of holiness and wisdom of which you are custodians, and I invite you to continue to expand your heart and entrust it every day to God’s love, never ceasing to seek it, to bear witness to it with enthusiasm and to welcome it in the poorest whom life leads you to encounter. I offer my heartfelt thanks for your oblation, and ask you, please, to remember to pray for me. Thank you!

Super moon 2023

Super Blue Moon before matins on 9/1 at Portsmouth Abbey, Rhode Island.

I am not quite sure what a super moon is except that it is not blue in color AND that it is an unusual occurrence in astrophysics. The phrase “once in a blue moon” indicates a rare event has happened and it comes into focus.

A blue moon is the second full moon within a single month.

Scientists tell us that moon’s orbit is closest to Earth at the same time the moon is full.

The next time a super moon shows up in 2037.

Bl. Ildefonso Schuster

Today is the liturgical memorial of Blessed Ildefonso Schuster of Milan who died in 1954. Schuster is the celebrated monk, abbot, bishop and liturgical scholar. He led the Diocese of Milan for 25 years.

Among his works on the sacred Liturgy, Schuster became known for his Liber Sacramentorum, later translated into English as The Sacramentary. The value of the multivolume work is that it takes you through the liturgical theology of each Sunday of the year.

When his tomb was opened in 1985, his mortal remains were found to be intact; he was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1996. You may be interested to know that the miracle for Cardinal Ildefonso’s sainthood cause was the curing of glaucoma.

Let’s pray for Blessed Ildefonso Schuster’s intercession.