National Eucharistic Pilgrimage begins in New Haven

Members of the CT – North East Area represented the Order of Malta in New Haven CT with members of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem at the launch of the Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Procession for the National Eucharistic Revival Pilgrimage. Archbishop Christopher J. Coyne, Archbishop of Hartford, celebrated the sacred Liturgy. Following Mass the congregation formed a procession in the Church’s neighborhood.

The group photo was taken in the basement of St. Mary’s Church, the founding location of the Knights of Columbus, with Father Peter J. Langevin, KHS, Chancellor of the Diocese of Norwich, and Father Joseph MacNeil, Parochial Vicar at Blessed McGivney Parish (New Haven, CT).

This fourth route will journey through the major cities of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the Mid-Atlantic states to the Indianapolis Convention on July 17. One of the traveling Pilgrimage vans, which was parked at the Blessed MIchael McGivney Pilgrimage Center, contains the Tabernacle to securely transport the Blessed Sacrament for travelling Adoration .

Br. Benedict Maria ordained deacon at Portsmouth Abbey

Today my friend, Brother Benedict Maria, a Benedictine monk of Portsmouth Abbey, was ordained to the Order of Deacon by the Bishop of Providence, Richard G, Henning, STD.

He’s doing his seminary studies at the major seminary in Florida.

The Portsmouth Abbey family is blessed to have him among us.

Deacon Benedict Maria’s family came from India and countless friends from around the USA came to the ordination including the many members of the impressive ecclesial movement, Jesus Youth.

May God grant Benedict Maria many years of fruitful ministry.

The Transitus of a friend

After several months of prolonged sickness and more than 8 years of thrice weekly kidney dialysis, my friend of 37 years, Chorbishop Joseph Francis Kaddo made his transition to the Lord of Life, today at 4:30 a.m.

Joe was a Maronite priest from Troy, NY, who served as the founding pastor of two parishes, pastor of a few of a more, a former Vicar General for two Maronite bishops and the friend of many.

My love of the Eastern Church came through Joe Kaddo through our long years of friendship. Thanks be to God.

This is the final picture of the two of us on 30 December 2023, just a few hours before being admitted to the hospital.

Joe’s funeral rites will be on Sunday and Monday, 5-6 May 2024 at St. Anthony of the Desert Church, Fall River, MA. He will be laid to rest with his parents in Troy.

UPDATE: Chorbishop Joseph Francis Kaddo’s obituary is posted here.

May the Lord forgive his sins and admit him the beatific vision.

May Joe’s memory be eternal.

Sunday of the Paralytic Man 2024

In speaking about the liturgical contours of today’s commemoration, Fr David Petras uses St. John Chrysostom to draw our attention deeper into the mystery we are presented in the Gosepl. Chrysostom “tells us that if an unbeliever enters a church during a baptism, all he sees is people being washed. But a believer sees people being reborn in the Spirit. The unbeliever sees only with the eyes of the body, the believer sees with the inner eyes of the soul. When we are baptized all our body sees and feels is water, but by the Spirit our sins are washed away and we become children of God.”

Why Chrysostom identifies for us applies to all of the spiritual life and the sacraments of the Church. For example, when we receive Holy Communion, if we only see and taste with the eyes and mouth bread and wine but not with the eyes of the Holy Spirit we will miss on the fact of the Lord’s love, forgiveness of sins and and healing and the deepest reality of salvation. The Mystery of the bread of life is more than a social pact or a sense of social respectability. Receiving the Eucharistic Lord is communion with the God and with one another as it is the divine pledge of eternal life: new life.

The Sunday of the Paralytic Man teaches us that the water of Bethesda is meaningless if we neglect the fact the word given by Jesus is full of power and energy to transform thus identifying the presence of God. Jesus speaks the word and gives the man the strength to walk.
The water of the Bethseda pool is a type of Baptism. The waters of Baptism not only wash and make us adopted children of God. The waters of Baptism heals us spiritually and physically. One aspect of today’s Gospel is that illness is “a lesser manifestation of death. Here Jesus’s word exercises power over the man’s illness pointing our attention once again to his own power over death.

What do we learn on this 3rd Sunday after Pascha? What is the take-away lesson? First, we don’t make ourselves. Everything we have and are is given and sustained by God. Second, our identity as Christians is based not on a theory or a vague theological idea but on the person of Jesus the Christ. Third, we learn that by ourselves we cannot forgive, heal or love or be saved. Human nature can’t forgive without the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

On Wednesday, April 24, we are mid-way to Pentecost. The Gospels we read at the Divine Liturgy bring our focus of faith into greater clarity as we approach the solemn feast of Pentecost.

Christ is risen!

Thomas J. Kelly, priest, RIP

In Christian charity please remember the repose of the soul of Fr. Thomas J. Kelly, who died earlier today. Thom was a priest of the Archdiocese of Hartford, and the Magistral Chaplain for the Eastern Connecticut Area of the Order of Malta. A longtime friend and collaborator, Thom, served the Lord well in his Church. His sudden and unexpected death is very much a surprise. His presence will be felt.

Fr. Kelly’s funeral will be next week at the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Motherhouse in Hamden, CT.

May Fr. Kelly’s memory be eternal.

Blessed Gerard, pray for Thom and for us.

Pope once again the Patriarch of the West

It seems the Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis, is once again the Patriarch of the West, according to the Annuario Pontificio 2024. It was removed from the list of papal titles by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. An act that was unfathomable to me.

The Annuario has on the front page the Pope with his original title: “Francis, Bishop of Rome”.

The current list of titles that the Roman Pontiff claims for himself:

Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Pontifex Maximus of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Province of Rome, Sovereign of the State of Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God”. And now, add Patriarch of the West.

Each title has a history and has a place in our ecclesiology. Titles as they are make certain claims in light of service (diakonia) and faith.

There was no shortage of irritation among the churches of the East by the change effected by Benedict since it was among the appropriate titles because it affirms a basic ministry of the Roman Pontiff. The title, also allows us to understand our place among the communion of churches viz. the gift of headship and fatherhood.

The power of Christ’s blood

God’s Friday is a remarkable day to deeply ponder the fact of Jesus death on the cross and his shedding his blood for us. Christians believe that what is called Good Friday is the day of our salvation. The Byzantine tradition calls it “Holy and Great Friday,” but “Good” Friday is an appropriate name for it. It is a day of sorrow, however, and it is a holy day.

For, despite the pain and suffering of our Lord, this sacrifice was “good” for the salvation of all. There are many layers of meaning to this feast.

As Fr. David Petras reminds: “Jesus replaces the Passover Lamb, he becomes our food and drink. He establishes a spiritual kingdom as we are united in the one body of our Lord, and in the sacrifice of his blood. This is the fulfillment of all sacrifices, whose purpose is to unite God and us mortals, and to unite us to one another.”

From the Catecheses by Saint John Chrysostom, bishop
The power of Christ’s blood

If we wish to understand the power of Christ’s blood, we should go back to the ancient account of its prefiguration in Egypt. “Sacrifice a lamb without blemish,” commanded Moses, “and sprinkle its blood on your doors.” If we were to ask him what he meant, and how the blood of an irrational beast could possibly save men endowed with reason, his answer would be that the saving power lies not in the blood itself, but in the fact that it is a sign of the Lord’s blood. In those days, when the destroying angel saw the blood on the doors he did not dare to enter, so how much less will the devil approach now when he sees, not that figurative blood on the doors, but the true blood on the lips of believers, the doors of the temple of Christ.

If you desire further proof of the power of this blood, remember where it came from, how it ran down from the cross, flowing from the Master’s side. The gospel records that when Christ was dead, but still hung on the cross, a soldier came and pierced his side with a lance and immediately there poured out water and blood. Now the water was a symbol of baptism and the blood, of the holy Eucharist. The soldier pierced the Lord’s side, he breached the wall of the sacred temple, and I have found the treasure and made it my own. So also with the lamb: the Jews sacrificed the victim and I have been saved by it.

“There flowed from his side water and blood.” Beloved, do not pass over this mystery without thought; it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolised baptism and the holy Eucharist. From these two sacraments the Church is born: from baptism, “the cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit,” and from the holy Eucharist. Since the symbols of baptism and the Eucharist flowed from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church, as he had fashioned Eve from the side of Adam. Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the story of the first man and makes him exclaim: “Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh!” As God then took a rib from Adam’s side to fashion a woman, so Christ has given us blood and water from his side to fashion the Church. God took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us the blood and the water after his own death.

Do you understand, then, how Christ has united his bride to himself and what food he gives us all to eat? By one and the same food we are both brought into being and nourished. As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with his own blood those to whom he himself has given life.

Transitus of St Benedict

Today is the solemnity remembrance of the death of our Holy Father St Benedict. He died in AD 547.

St Benedict as we know, was an ordinary man who bequeathed to us an extraordinary legacy of monastic life and culture with the founding a monastery at Monte Cassino (and several monasteries) and curating his ‘rule for beginners’. The daily reading of the Holy Rule continues to inspire others to seek God as disciples and friends of Jesus.

Image courtesy of Ampleforth Abbey

Cyril of Jerusalem keeps our eyes on salvation

There’s no reason we would know about Cyril of Jerusalem, a bishop and a liturgical theologian and ultimately a saint. For those of us who make the claim to be liturgical historians, Cyril’s a big deal. Liturgy people know the 4th-century pilgrim Egeria who happened to be in Jerusalem to witness the Holy Week and Easter liturgies led by Bishop Cyril. Egeria is the earliest record we have of the liturgical rites of the time. Her descriptions has long fascinated and puzzling. Egeria’s eye-witness account was a progression (and a procession) of several days of liturgy as it was lived then; the witness she gives the nature of the promise of life given be the Lord. What Egeria and thus Cyril did was to recount the narrative of creation and salvation history as known through the lens of the Lord’s Paschal Mystery, i.e., the Lord’s passion, death, resurrection, and ascension.

The people in front of Cyril were reminded that by Easter all was done. No, he pointed us to think differently about the questions of life and the longing for God in a different way. Cyril reminds us, even in 2024, that we are made for a Promise –that is, eternal life– that they we are now just getting started. Cyril tells us that with Jesus Christ, Love incarnate, is here to redeem us.

As it is stated elsewhere, we should never think of Lent as a stand-alone season. When Lent is over it’s not really over; Lent is the preamble to a lifetime of reflection on Jesus, his Gospel and the sacred duties (Tradition) to which he calls each of us.

The importance of Cyril for us today is that he brings to the table the awareness that we are a people of a promise, of expectation and desire. The awareness is that of truly living, fully flourishing as human being. We are human beings where desire, expectation, promise give us the power, the stimulus to move ourselves forward out a negativity or a nihilism to truth and life. He makes me look at myself with wonder.