Communio – Page 248 – …bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

The Greater Antiphons, the Church’s prophetic utterances…

The tradition of the “O Antiphons” is now upon us. We will hear them beginning tonight at Vespers.

ERO CRAS is a convenient nemonic device, meaning, “tomorrow, I will come.”

During the 8 days before Christmas, the Church has collected, one for each
night, a biblical verse from the Advent Prophets Isaiah and Micah (that is, an “antiphon”)
that is known to be prophetic of the birth of Jesus; each notes a title of the
Messiah. Each offers us a key to understand the gift of the Messiah promised through the use of typology.

The Octave of Advent begins on December 17th and concludes on the 23rd.
Seven different antiphons are traditionally sung prior to and following the
Magnificat during Vespers as part of the Divine Office (the Liturgy of the
Hours). The eighth day of the octave is Christmas Eve, so Vespers for that
evening is the Christmas Vigil. Each antiphon begins with the word, “O” in the
incipit. Hence, “O Antiphons.”
Most of us are familiar with the Advent hymn, “O Come, O Come,
Emmanuel,” the content of which the O Antiphons form the structure Vespers at
this time of the liturgical year.

The Church always distinguishes what she
says and since in our theology we derive our belief from the manner in which we
pray, the O Antiphons give ample food for what we belief the Messiah to be, who
he is. Secularism gives the world an emasculated Santa Claus but the Church
gives us a Messiah. He is known through his titles, that is, his activities. In
the final stretch before Christmas use this time to pray with the O Antiphons:
they provide a beautiful framework for reflection before the Nativity.

Past Communio blog entries here, here and here.

Advent Three, Gaudete

Our worship of God began today with the Church quoting Saint Paul who wrote, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice. Indeed, the Lord is near” (Phil. 4:4-5).

Hard to hear these words today following the tragic events of Friday the 14th where the citizens in Newtown, Connecticut, indeed, the nation, faced horrific acts of evil. As we “faithfully await the feast of the Lord’s Nativity” our affect, our prayer, our humanity has a new orientation, a new recognition: a cry of anguish and a cry of joy. That’s the Christian paradox. We are sad (troubled and grieved) to have young people gunned down. Lives cut short. The living who are searching for ways to go on with meaning and peace. The somber joy of the Third Sunday of Advent is an invitation, a recognition, a way being, to a life of joy found only in God no matter the circumstance.

Advent, like every day of our liturgical lives is call to be aware of God; to be reawakened to the movements of grace in the depths of our being.

The Liturgy concludes with the petition that the divine gifts received in the Eucharist “cleanse us of our faults and prepare us for the coming feasts.” That’s the challenge we all face together: to begin our conversion with the awareness that sin can have deleterious effects in each of us if not attended to. What can be said of Adam Lanza with his crime, personal sin and affective disorder can happen to each of us. There is that line that’s sometimes helpful to remember: There I go but for Christ’s grace. The measure of life is not our passion but the Mystery of Christ.

The anxiety of these days is mitigated by what the Lord does in our hearts: He loves us.

I noticed in the first Scripture reading for today’s Mass the phrase: the Lord is near. It ought to echo for you where you hear the Great O Antiphon, O Emmanuel, God with us. Is that our belief? Is there a true awareness that the Lord is near in the way we live our lives in the particular circumstances in which we find ourselves? Are there concrete ways that we recognize the nearness of the Lord in His gift of the Holy Eucharist, in the proclamation of the Word, in lectio divina, in the community of faith that worships and does works of charity?

The New Evangelization and St Benedict

Some Year of Faith initiatives

The monks, nuns and oblates of Saint Mary’s Monastery and Saint Scholastica Priory in Petersham, MA, had a day of reflection on October 20th that covered the New Evangelization and the Benedictine charism. Dr. Philip Zaleski, an Oblate of the monastery and Father Christophe Vuillaume, OSB, a monk at Saint Mary’s gave the two presentations.

Audio files

The Year of Faith and the New Evangelization

Saint Benedict and the Life of Faith

Dr Zaleski is a professor at Smith College and a published author, and Dom Vuilaume is a priest and monk who as served at the request of the Subiaco Congregation in various locations,as of now he’s serving at Saint Mary’s.

The Monastery is celebrating 25 years of foundation this year. The monks belong to the Subiaco Congregation which is one of the largest groupings of monks and nuns in the world. Most often monasteries in the Subiaco Congregation do not engage in outside works and rely on the generosity of others. At Saint Mary’s. the Divine Office is prayed according to the traditional form of the Antiphonale Monasticum; Holy Mass is celebrated according to the Novus Ordo with the ordinary of the Mass prayed in Latin.

The nuns of Saint Scholastica Priory follow a traditional monastic life. They share the monastic church with the monks for some of the prayer times and Mass but have their own work. They were blessed recently to have two novices profess simple vows.

Saint Lucy

May the glorious intercession of the Virgin and Martyr Saint Lucy give us a heart, we pray, O Lord, so that we may celebrate her heavenly birthday in this present age.

Saint Lucy’s life is rather obscure now with the passage of time and the lack of accurate records from her period in history. She died c. 304 during the time of Diocletius. Since Saint Gregory the Great added Lucy’s name to the Roman Canon in the 6th century we hear her name with other virgin martyrs.

Remembering liturgical history, the liturgical memorial of Saint Lucy was commemorated on the shortest day of the year on the Julian calendar. The meaning of “Lucy” is drawn from the Latin word “lux,” light, hence Lucy illumines our path to Christ; her light shines in the darkness.

Today, December 13, is no longer the shortest day of the year with the least amount of light but we retain the memorial of Lucy, a woman linking us to the Lord through the light of her life of virtue.

Hagiography points us in a direction:

Light is beautiful to look upon; for as Ambrose says: it is the nature of light that all graciousness is in its appearance. Light also radiates without being soiled; no matter how unclean may be the place where its beams penetrate, it is still clean. It goes in straight line, without curvature, and traverses the greatest distances without losing its speed. Thus we are shown that the blessed virgin Lucy possessed the beauty of virginity without trace of corruption; that she radiated charity without any impure love; her progress toward God was straight and without deviation, and went far in God’s works without neglect or delay.

Blessed James of Voragine
The Golden Legend

Lucy’s courage, like that of Saint Agatha’s (to whom she prayed for her mother’s conversion), Saint Barbara and the other virgin-martyrs is a key reminder that we ought to focus our attention on the Lord in a single-minded manner.

I’d like to remember those who live with physical blindness, particularly my late maternal great aunt Bea and uncle Walter. They were such good examples of courage. Just as it is said that Saint Lucy’s eyesight was restored before her death, may those who lived in blindness see clearly the beauty of the Lord.

And, prayers ought to rise up for the Xavier Society for the Blind in NYC.

Prior posts in 2010 and 2011.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

O God, Father of mercies, who placed your people under the singular protection of your Son’s most holy Mother, grant that all who invoke the Blessed Virgin of Guadalupe may seek with ever more lively faith the progress of peoples in the ways of justice and of peace.

The icon of Mary revealed on the tilma of Saint Juan Diego shows the “depth of her love for humanity…her maternal love” [for all peoples]. The Virgin “…desires intimacy with us, just as the Father desires intimacy with us, just as Jesus does… [Mary] is the one who leads us more fully to Jesus,” said Archbishop Samuel Aquila in Rome in a address, “The Encounter with Jesus Through Mary” on December 10, 2012.

I’d like to entrust the soul of Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ, who died on this date in 2008. He was a good man, holy priest, and a faithful friend. May the Virgin of Guadalupe bring him to Jesus.

Papal twittering has a history

The real history of papal tweeting.

Millions tweet, even the Pope

We now have a Pope that tweets. It’s big news. Now there seems to be close to a million people following Pope Benedict’s Twitter account @pontifex in a variety of languages.

Below the fold in today’s USA Today Cathy Lynn Grossman wrote a story, “Papal faithful a-Twitter” looks at the phenomenon of papal twittering. Now we have papal cars, papal vestments, papal candidates, papal infallibility and now papal tweets. Among some incident things Ms. Grossman profiles Rachel Amiri who asked the Pope a really great question:

“Holy Father, what is the best way to show others that God is Love in a world that thinks Christians only hate?”

Ms. Amiri hit the nail on the head. I hope her question gets chosen to be answered but if it doesn’t we now have the benefit of asking ourselves how we would answer Amiri?

Following the Pope’s lead I reactivated my Twitter account @paulzalonski because I thought he’s right to engage in social media because it is consistent with the missionary impulse of Jesus and it’s plain good sense to respond to those who are genuinely seeking God (cf. Saint Benedict & Saint John Bosco). We need to have their questions responded to. Want to effect change, want to inspire faith, want to show the beauty of the faith of the Church –you and me– need to be present in the lives of people.

The personal is the only way to evangelize but it’s a little difficult with 1.3 billion Catholics in the world. To close the gap Twitter is one among many ways to attempt to be personal. Nothing replaces the personal presence of another; nothing is better that hearing another’s voice and feeling their hand extended in friendship. That’s the Divine lead we follow in the Incarnation: God so loved us that He sent His only Son. Let’s face it, we all want to know that those who lead us are actually listening to and caring for us. Sadly, many of the bishops and priests aren’t listening to faithful. Perhaps tweeting will yet again make the personal nature of the Incarnation known and love and followed. Perhaps the papal tweeting will help all of us see the face of Christ.

Will you follow the Pope, me?

Massimo Camisasca, FSCB, ordained bishop

On Friday, Monsignor Massimo Camisasca, FSCB, 66, was ordained a bishop at Basilica of Saint John the Lateran (the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome) by Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, Archbishop Adriano Bernardini and Bishop Adriano Caprioli.

Camisasca is now the bishop of Reggio Emilia-Guastalla, a diocese that has had a bishop since the first century. The bishop is the founder and until his episcopal election was the superior general of the Fraternity of Saint Charles Borromeo, which follows the charism of the Servant of God Father Luigi Giussani (& Communion and Liberation).

Bishop Massimo said of his new ministry,

This is the fundamental reason for my episcopate: to
announce Christ, the Son of God made man, who underwent the Passion and the
Cross for love of us, is risen and so is living, and acts in the history of
mankind with the attractive force of his divine humanity through his Body in
history, which is the Christian people, his Church.

Massimo Camisasca, FSCB

Bishop of Reggio Emilia-Guastalla, Italy

Ordained to the episcopate, December 7, 2012

Perhaps what Bishop Massimo clarifies a little what Blessed John Paul said about CL,

Communion
and Liberation, therefore, has chosen and chooses to indicate not a road, but
the road toward a solution to this existential drama. The road, as you have
affirmed so many times, is Christ. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, who
reaches the person in his day-to-day existence.

Bishop Massimo is one of two bishops who are members of the Fraternity of Saint Charles Borromeo and 15 other bishops who follow the charism of the Servant of God Father Luigi Giussani and the life of Communion and Liberation.

Veni Sancte Spiritus.

Veni per Mariam.

Mother Marie des Douleurs, the anniversary of death of a spiritual mother of mercy

Today marks the 29th anniversary of death of Mother Marie des Douleurs, known in history as Suzanne Wrotnowska (1902-1983), the foundress of the Congregation of Benedictines of Jesus Crucified. A true spiritual mother of all who need mercy, especially women who would not be able to enter the monastic life due physical impediments. Mother Marie’s spiritual maternity extended also to priests who haven’t repented of their sin.

The vocation of a Benedictine sister of Jesus Crucified is to be a victim, a total offering of self to the Lord for priests in view of who we know our Messiah to be, Jesus Christ, priest and head of the Church (Christ the King). The law of the gift is lived par excellence in union with those in most need of mercy. The vocation is especially needed today for those priests, bishops and deacons who are public sinners and who have not repented of their sins. We are all aware of our own sin, we all need forgiveness and to forgive, we also note that not all the clergy have been living a life of purity of heart. And for this intention a Benedictine of Jesus Crucified promises to offer prayer and sacrifice.

A friend, Father Mark tells us, upon learning from Father Luc de Wouters, OSB, who wrote the biography of Mother Marie, who said that she was facing death Mother Marie said,

In the eventide of my life, I have such a need of recollection, such a need to obey and to humble myself. I am unworthy of having been chosen to found the Congregation. I suffer being pulled between heaven and earth. The cross grows heavy. The Lord gave me as my portion the souls of guilty priests…my own soul disappears beneath an accumulation of iniquities! But I had asked for this humiliation! How is that the Lord was able to make use of so little a thing? His fidelity, His consuming love, this all my life, my light my death.

Mother Marie des Douleurs is also the author of Joy Out of Sorrow (1965).

In the US, there is one monastery of 17 nuns at the Monastery of the Glorious Cross, Branford, CT.

The biography of Mother Marie is written by Father Luc de Wouters, OSB, Le Sperpent et la croix, is available by writing to Soeur Marie-Isabelle, OSB, Monastère Saint Benoît, 25330, Nans-sous-Sainte Anne, France.

Thomas Merton, a light still shining

Hear with favor our prayers, which we humbly offer, O Lord, for the salvation of the soul of Father Louis (Thomas Merton), your servant and Priest, that he, who devoted a faithful ministry to your name, may rejoice in the perpetual company of your Saints.

The famous Trappist monk, Thomas Merton (b. 1915) died on this date in 1968.

In very many ways Merton was a consummate human being: loved pleasure and engaged his freedom only to transform pleasure and his version of freedom with his embrace a life of prayer and silence as a Strict Observance Cistercian (a Trappist monk) in a Kentucky abbey. In the monastery Thomas Merton was known as Father M. Louis, a name I still prefer to use because of his commitment to the monastic life. At the command of his abbot, Merton wrote of his conversion in his 1949 best seller, The Seven Storey Mountain, introducing millions of people to the monastic life. No other book since this one has had such a critical impact on Catholics. His conversion story was only one of many books and essays published by Merton and even in death Merton continues to publish due to the finding of new materials or the repackaging of thought into new books. The irony of Merton’s life as a monk is that he died in Asia conferencing with an international and interfaith group of monks and nuns. His body was brought home in a steel casket on a military transport.

In his lifetime Merton was a voice of reason, a voice of sanity, a voice speaking the Word of God. As typical of public thinkers he became a voice and an influence for a variety of types of people, from artists, intellectuals, religious types, peace and nonviolence promoters and the like.

Key for me and dare I say for Benedictines of all stripes, Merton argued for a contemplative life which engages the reality of the world so that the monk, nun, oblate could intercede on behalf of the world for others (read The Sign of Jonas). Father Louis helps me to understand the Benedictine charism better when he says,

The Benedictine life is simply living the Gospel without fanfare…. The mainspring of everything in Saint Benedict is the love of Christ in Himself, in the poor, in the monastic community, in the individual brethren…. This is the key to the monastic life and spirit.

A life totally cut of is good for a few, like the Carthusians, but for Benedictines and the Cistercians (a reformed group of Benedictines) who form a school of prayer and love in Christ, nothing is out-of-bounds. Merton, indeed, opened the doors to a new manner of living the vitally important monastic life today.

He sought to be a saint, that is, be yourself, is the vocation that all of us ought to consider doing with seriousness. The Pope echoes this notion, so does Communion and Liberation. Great minds think alike.

Watch Father Jim Martin’s video presentation on Thomas Merton.

Thomas Merton’s work continues with the initiative of The Merton Institute for Contemplative Living.