Communio – Page 206 – …bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Saint Augustine of Canterbury

The “Apostle of the English,” Saint Augustine of Canterbury is the one most credited for proclaiming the Gospel and organizing the Church in England in late sixth and early seventh centuries, a mission given to him by Pope Saint Gregory the Great.

We know little of Augustine’s birth or of his early life. Scholars think, however, he was as a Roman, in fact, a member of a noble family. The vocation he followed was to the monastic life under the Rule of Saint Benedict. Augustine’s Benedictine life was lived in a recently for formed colony of monks under Gregory, later pope, saint, and doctor of the Church.

What know of Augustine’s mission is in light of Pope Gregory’s missionary impulse for the deeper conversion of the Anglo-saxons. Data tells us that in around 595, five years into Gregory’s 14-year pontificate, Augustine was sent, with about 40 monks, to England to develop a plan for evangelization. Even though the gospel had been planted in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, the faith was weak or not well taught and so it was thought that the people needed to be evangelized anew. The mission was given in June 596 but the monks didn’t end up leaving until the spring of 597. In time, Augustine‘s talents surfaced and was nominated the superior and then archbishop.

Through the preaching of the monks, King Ethelbert would later convert, and eventually even be canonized; his wife Bertha became exemplary in the practice of the faith.

Augustine and Gregory both died in 604.

Saint Augustine, pray for Great Britain, and us.

The Most Holy Trinity

In case you heard a dreadful homily on the Holy Trinity today, you may rely on Saint Augustine. To be fair, this dogma is difficult to comprehend but we do have to give a reasonable explanation to what we believe. The Catholic faith is reasonable on all levels.

In the sacred Liturgy, our first theology, we prayed and lived in the last weeks the mysteries some of the crucial pieces of Christian life and salvation: the Paschal Mystery — the life, death, Resurrection, the Ascension, the Pentecost– and today, the Most Holy Trinity, and soon Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The teaching of the Church is that the Father created us, we are redeemed by Jesus (the Son) and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. The communio of the Persons of the Trinity demonstrates how we are to live and gives voice to what we aspire: life with God. The most important thing to understand about the Trinity is that God is not a solitary unit, but a community of persons: a community of Love. If God were a single person the love spoken of would be ego-centric. But what is revealed to us is the God is a community of three persons whose other name is Love (or, Mercy) and that Love is shared among themselves and with us. The communio of the Trinity is expressed and lived dynamically with others, that is, in relationship with others.

“There is, accordingly, a good which is alone simple, and therefore alone unchangeable, and this is God. By this Good have all others been created, but not simple, and therefore not unchangeable. “Created,” I say,-that is, made, not begotten. For that which is begotten of the simple Good is simple as itself, and the same as itself. These two we call the Father and the Son; and both together with the Holy Spirit are one God; and to this Spirit the epithet Holy is in Scripture, as it were, appropriated. And He is another than the Father and the Son, for He is neither the Father nor the Son. I say “another,” not “another thing,” because He is equally with them the simple Good, unchangeable and co-eternal. And this Trinity is one God; and none the less simple because a Trinity. For we do not say that the nature of the good is simple, because the Father alone possesses it, or the Son alone, or the Holy Ghost alone; nor do we say, with the Sabellian heretics, that it is only nominally a Trinity, and has no real distinction of persons; but we say it is simple, because it is what it has, with the exception of the relation of the persons to one another. For, in regard to this relation, it is true that the Father has a Son, and yet is not Himself the Son; and the Son has a Father, and is not Himself the Father. But, as regards Himself, irrespective of relation to the other, each is what He has; thus, He is in Himself living, for He has life, and is Himself the Life which He has.”

Saint Augustine, City of God, 11.10

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

God our Father, who by sending into the world the Word of truth and the Spirit of sanctification made known to the human race your wondrous mystery, grant us, we pray, that in professing the true faith, we may acknowledge the Trinity of eternal glory and adore your Unity, powerful in majesty.

For many preachers don’t handle the “idea feast” of the Most Holy Trinity. Their method is typically confused. Admittedly, the theology of the Trinity is not well represented in sacred Scripture in a direct way. You have to be able to read and interpret the indications given by Revelation. You can also read what the theologians have said, but you also may go to the poets and musicians (see the previous post today) but we have other spirited people like the saints. A reflection from Saint Hildegard of Bingen, last Doctor of the Church may shed some light on how we relate to this sublime of Mysteries. I happen to think that the saints and many artists are more successful in teaching some complexities of our faith, for example, a triune God but one.

“Before time, all creatures were in the Father. He organized them in himself and afterwards the Son created them in fact. How is that to be understood? It is similar to the situation among human beings when one carries the knowledge of a great work in herself and then later through her word brings it to the light of day, so that it comes into the world with great acclaim. The Father puts things in order; the Son causes them to be…The Holy Spirit streams through and ties together ‘eternity’ and ‘equality’ so that they are one. This is like when someone ties a bundle together – for there would be no bundle if it weren’t tied together; everything would fall apart. Or it is like when a smith welds two pieces of metal together in a fire as one…The Holy Spirit is the firmness and the aliveness. Without the Holy Spirit eternity would not be eternity. Without the Holy Spirit equality would not be equality. The Holy Spirit is in both, and one with both of them in the Godhead. The one God.”

Saint Philip Neri

O God, who never cease to bestow the glory of holiness on the faithful servants you raise up for yourself, graciously grant that the Holy Spirit may kindle in us that fire with which he wonderfully filled the heart of Saint Philip Neri.

Let’s remember the Congregation of the Oratory and the loyal sons of Saint Philip Neri. I am thinking particularly thinking of the Oratories found in Brooklyn (NY), Sparkill (NY), and the new Oratories in Lewiston (ME), Cincinnati (OH) and St Louis (MO).

The life of Saint Philip Neri was known as one of joy. The Apostle to Rome was a provocative witness to holiness and the happiness that results in being close to the Lord.

A sermon by Saint Augustine, “Rejoice in the Lord always,” talks about joy and therefore an apt meditation on Neri.

The Apostle tells us to rejoice, but in the Lord, not in the world. Whoever wishes to be a friend of this world, says Scripture, will be reckoned an enemy of God. As a man cannot serve two masters, so one cannot rejoice both in the world and in the Lord.

Let joy in the Lord prevail, then, until joy in the world is no more. Let joy in the Lord go on increasing; let joy in the world go on decreasing until it is no more. This is said, not because we are not to rejoice while we are in this world, but in order that, even while we are still in this world, we may already rejoice in the Lord.

You may object: I am in the world; if I rejoice I certainly rejoice where I am. What is this? Do you mean that because you are in the world you are not in the Lord? Listen again to the Apostle, speaking now to the Athenians: in the Acts of the Apostles he says this is of God and the Lord our creator: In him we live and move and have our being. If he is everywhere, where is he not? Surely this was what he was exhorting us to realize. The Lord is near, do not be anxious about anything.

This is a great truth, that he ascended above all the heavens, yet is near to those on earth. Who is this stranger and neighbor if not the one who became our neighbor out of compassion?

The man lying on the road, left half-dead by robbers, the man treated with contempt by the priest and the levite who passed by, the man approached by the passing Samaritan to take care of him and help him, that man is the whole human race. When the immortal one, the holy one, was far removed from us because we were mortal and sinners, he came down to us, so that he, the stranger, might become our neighbor.

He did not treat us as our sins deserved. For we are now sons of God. How do we show this? The only Son of God died for us, so that he might not remain alone. He who died as the only Son did not want to remain as the only Son. For the only Son of God made many sons of God. he bought brothers for himself by his blood; he made them welcome by being rejected; he ransomed them by being sold; he honored them by being dishonored; he gave them life by being put to death.

So, brethren, rejoice in the Lord, not in the world. That is, rejoice in the truth, not in wickedness; rejoice in the hope of eternity, not in the fading flower of vanity. That is the way to rejoice. Wherever you are on earth, however long you remain on earth, the Lord is near, do not be anxious about anything.e in the hope of eternity, not in the fading flower of vanity. That is the way to rejoice. Wherever you are on earth, however long you remain on earth, the Lord is near, do not be anxious about anything.

Trinity Sunday

Holy, holy holy! Lord God Almighty!

Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;

Holy, holy holy, merciful and mighty!

God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Holy, holy holy! All the saints adore Thee,

Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;

Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,

Who was, and is, and evermore shall be.

Holy, holy holy! Though the darkness hide Thee,

Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see;

Only Though art holy; there is none beside Thee,

Perfect in pow’r, in love and purity.

Holy, holy holy! Lord God Almighty!

All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;

Holy, holy holy! merciful and mighty!

God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.

Reginald Heber (1783-1826)

Anglican Bishop of Calcutta

poet

Congrats to the newly ordained

In recent days several dioceses and religious orders have ordained men to the priesthood.

The priest is to “understand … imitate … and conform” his life to the Cross of Jesus. The bishop exhorts the man to be ordained to see that he believes what he reads, that he teaches what he believes and practices what he teaches.

Here is a random sample:

The Archabbey of Saint Vincent: 1

The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal: 4

The Order of Preachers, New York: 6

The Idente Missionaries of Christ: 1

The Archdiocese of Boston: 5

The Archdiocese of Hartford: 7

The Archdiocese of New York: 6

The Archdiocese of Newark: 5

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia: 3

The Archdiocese of Los Angelus: 2

The Eparchy of Newton: 1

The Eparchy of Saint Maron, Brooklyn: 2

The Diocese of Bridgeport: 7

The Diocese of Paterson: 9

Saint John Mary Vianney, pray us.

A new bishop for Oakland: Jesuit Michael Barber

Father Michael Charles Barber, SJ, was ordained a bishop today for service in the Diocese of Oakland. Last eve he professed his Catholic faith and took the oath of fidelity. The Sacrifice of the Mass with the Rites of Episcopal Ordination were offered at 11am pacific time.

With prayer to the Holy Spirit and the laying on of hands by Metropolitan Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, Jesuit Bishop Carlos Sevilla (emeritus bishop of Yakima) and Bishop Thomas Daly. Sevilla is also a member of the California Province of Jesuits. For trivial purposes only, Bishop Gordan Bennett, SJ, bishop emeritus of Mandeville, former auxiliary bishop of Baltimore, is also a California Jesuit.

Father Barber is the first member of the Society of Jesus to be elected a bishop by his fellow Jesuit and Pope, Francis. The appointment was made on May 3. Barber is the first Jesuit to be a bishop who will serve in the USA since Bishop George Vance Murry (Youngstown, OH).

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Saint Bede the Venerable

Today in 725, Saint Bede the Venerable, the sole English Doctor of the Church died, at his monastery in Jarrow. His liturgical memorial is kept today. Here is the account of his death.

“On Tuesday 24th May 735 Bede took grievously ill but continued to teach, he cheerfully suggested to his pupils that they learn quickly as he may not be with them long. The next day Bede taught until nine in the morning. He then dictated part of his book to Wilbert. That evening Wilbert said to Bede “Dear master, there is still one sentence that we have not written down.” Bede said “Quick, write it down.” Wilbert then said “There; now it is written down.” Bede replied “Good. You have spoken the truth; it is finished. Hold my head in your hands, for I really enjoy sitting opposite the holy place where I used to pray; I can call upon my Father as I sit there.”

“And Bede then as he lay upon the floor of his cell sang the Gloria and as he named the Holy Spirit he breathed his last breath. His only possessions – some handkerchiefs, a few peppercorns and a small quantity of incense were shared amongst his brother monks as he had wished.

Learning Latin is still possible, and encouraged

The Latin language is far from being extinct even though you only hear it at times in Church. Our common experience today at Mass prayed in the Ordinary Forum is often in the language of the people. The official language of the Catholic Church, however, remains Latin: the texts of the church, the texts of the pope, and importantly, in the prayer of the Church. Fear not. The “house” language today, the daily work of the curia is Italian. It is possible that at some point English will replace Italian.

The Carmelite friar Father Reginald Foster is the renown contemporary father of the Latin language. He spent several decades in Rome working, teaching and writing in Latin. Now he’s retired from active teaching but he keeps his hands in the field by consulting, developing teaching materials, writing and attending some initiatives. One of his works is Corpus Latinitatis.

A recent Reuters article brings to life in a brief fashion the influence of Father Reg in “Spreading the word that Latin lives…”

Our Lady Help of Christians, Our Lady of Sheshan: a prayer for Chinese Catholics

Today is the day that Benedict XVI designated to be a World Day of Prayer for China, particularly our Chinese Christian brothers and sisters. The Catholics in China, indeed, all Christians in China have not been respected for the their belief in Jesus Christ and His sacrament, the Church. Pope Francis has reminded us of this act of charity.

At Wednesday’s General Audience in Rome, Francis recalled that under the patroness of Our Lady, Help of Christians, we go to God.

The Chinese Catholics venerate under the title of Our Lady of Sheshan, Shanghai.

Pope Francis said:

I urge all Catholics around the world to join in prayer with our brothers and sisters who are in China, to implore from God the grace to proclaim with humility and joy Christ, who died and rose again; to be faithful to His Church and the Successor of Peter and to live everyday life in service to their country and their fellow citizens in a way that is consistent with the faith they profess.

Making our own a few words of prayer to Our Lady of Sheshan, together with you I would like to invoke Mary: Our Lady of Sheshan, sustain all those in China, who, amid their daily trials, continue to believe, to hope, to love. May they never be afraid to speak of Jesus to the world, and of the world to Jesus.

Mary, Virgin most faithful, support Chinese Catholics, render their commitments, which are not easy, more and more precious in the eyes of the Lord, and nurture the affection and the participation of the Church in China in the journey of the Universal Church.”

Benedict XVIs prayer for today, inaugurated in 2008 for the Feast of Our Lady Help of Christians; Our Lady of Sheshan, states:

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