St Benedict

Today is the summer feast of the Holy Patriarch Benedict.

It is a day to heed the advice of Benedict: seek the Lord and listen to him. It is also a day to celebrate the feast with beer made by monks.

Benedict’s vision for monastic life is that the monk/nun live in community. One’s life in a stable, permanent community locates and lives the reality of the Lord’s Incarnation. We are keenly reminded that in Benedict’s experience human interaction shows an experience of Christ: the abbot holds the place of Christ; Christ in the guest, in the young monks, and in the seniors. Ultimately, no one is excluded in the Benedictine vision monastic life: every human interaction the monk/nun meets the Lord, in the flesh. This is keenly true for the Oblate and every other person.

I am remembering the words of Saint John Paul II had for the sons and daughters of Benedict: “May every Benedictine community present itself with a well-defined identity, like a “city on a hill,” distinct from the surrounding world, but open and welcoming to the poor, to pilgrims and to all who are searching for a life of greater fidelity to the Gospel!”

As with all solemn feasts in the Tradition of the Church there is an octave. It is a way to continue to enjoy and relish and to attend to the graces of the feast! Over the next 8 days how will you celebrate St Benedict? What grace will you beg from the Holy Spirit? How will you live the charism bequeathed to us by Benedict and his children through the ages?

Happy 4th

Blessed US Independence Day –July 4th

The Prophet Amos had something to say about politics worth listening to today: “many of the religious leaders were corrupted and tied to political leaders more than to the Lord.” Are you tied to the Lord and His promises, or to political leaders and their vainglory? The Psalms also offer us great perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAZ8QJgFHOg&fbclid=IwAR1sB1bAGt4T2Q1y3o-_cf-9rgQshdD1N1zLkmcDM9ohTUlQ-7ARMvbn7-I

The Warrior Nun

“It’s like Buffy the Vampire Slayer got religion.”

Well, if you like comedy and religion, you likely will like the new Netflix series, Warrior Nun. The trailer is fun.

As a monk friend said,

The character “Ava is done very well and Beatrice too, and while I am not too keen on the nun aspect (the idea itself verges on the ludicrous), I think they do a good job of it; and the person who plays the priest in charge of them does a very good job also. The more one sees the better it gets I think. Like Buffy it shows the personal difficulty, isolation even, of dealing with supernatural evil that most people don’t believe in much less see. (All people want to be normal, and this kind of life is not normal. As Buffy once said, we want to be “destiny free.”) In the end, Buffy failed because the creator was not up to the vision, and if one really doesn’t believe in this sort of thing–at least in a general sense–it will fall flat no matter how funny, smart and witty one is since you cannot keep it up. Of course, these shows can never show the positive side of the supernatural (which I admit is harder to show visually), of which these darker elements are merely parasitic however scary and powerful they may be.”

What did the pope really say?

DID THE POPE REFER TO FAITHFUL PRIESTS AS ADOLESCENTS?

Kudos to Mark Castor for looking past the inflammatory and irresponsible Breitbart headline to the Pope’s actual words.

ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT OF THE POPE’S WORDS FROM THE VATICAN WEBSITE:

“In recent months, people have not been able to participate in the liturgical celebrations, but have not stopped feeling like a community. They prayed individually or in the family, also through the means of social communication, spiritually united and perceiving that the embrace of the Lord went beyond the limits of space. The pastoral zeal and the creative concern of the priests have helped people to continue on the path of faith and not to remain alone in the face of pain and fear. This priestly creativity that has won some, few, “adolescent” expressions against the measures of authority, which has an obligation to protect the health of the people. Most of them were obedient and creative. I admired the apostolic spirit of many priests, who went by phone, knocking on doors, ringing houses: “I need something? I do the shopping … “. A thousand things. Proximity, creativity, without shame. These priests who remained beside their people in caring and daily sharing: they were a sign of the consoling presence of God. They were fathers, not teenagers. Unfortunately, not a few of them have died, as well as doctors and paramedical staff. And also among you there are some priests who have been sick and thank God they are healed. In you I thank all the Italian clergy, who have shown courage and love to the people.”

(Pope Francis, Address To Doctors, Nurses and Healthcare Professionals From Lombardy, 20 June 2020)

Mary unites heaven and earth

Today, following yesterday’s Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, is the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The following passage is from St. Maximilian Kolbe:

In the union of the Holy Spirit with her, not only does love bind these two beings, but the first of them (the Holy Spirit) is all the love of the Most Holy Trinity, while the second (the Blessed Virgin Mary) is all the love of creation, and thus in that union heaven is joined to earth, the whole heaven with the whole earth, the whole of Uncreated Love with the whole of created love: this is the vertex of love.

St Jude, relative of the Lord

The holy apostle Jude, relative of the Lord is honored by the Byzantine Church today. In addition to being an apostle he is in-charge of difficult cases. He is frequently invoked by medical professionals and those who are living with illness.

“Like many of the other apostles, Jude’s name has several variations. In the Gospels he is called Judas; Luke adds, “son of James,” and John says parenthetically, “not the Iscariot.” Matthew and Mark call him Thaddeus, no doubt because of the odium associated with the name Judas. Jude, as we know him, was one of the Twelve, and a relative of Christ through James.

Aside from mention of Jude in the Gospels and his own letter which is part of the New Testament Canon, there is nothing known of his life or manner of death.

The Epistle of Jude is addressed to all Christians. His work was a contribution to the complex struggle of the infant Church against heresy. Jude’s letter is witness to the Church’s steadfast confirmation of Apostolic Tradition and law.” (NS)

Blessing of Agriculture

“That Thou wouldst please to give and preserve the fruits of the earth…we beseech Thee hear us.”

“Bless, O Lord, Almighty God, this land; may health and purity, goodness and meekness, and every virtue reign here.”

Today we had the blessing of agriculture using the Latin prayers (with a English translation provided for some). Two of our priest friends in the Order of Preachers and some friends, came out to the North Guilford Monastery (the Dominican nuns) to bless the honey bees, the chickens, the cows, the pigs, the land, the orchard and a mode of transportation. Because the nuns are cloistered the land, gardens and forest were blessed with them in spirit.

As a beekeeper, I am keen on having my bees and hives receiving the Lord’s blessing.

Since we do not have the Catholic Rural Life chapter in Connecticut, CRL’s influence is rather negligible but as a national, Catholic nonprofit organization it is dedicated to the vitality of the America’s agriculture.

Blessing of Honey Bees

O Lord, God almighty, who hast created heaven and earth! Thou didst create all living things for man’s use. Moreover, Thou didst order by the ministry of Thy Church that candles made from the industry of bees shall burn during the Sacred Mystery in which we consecrate and consume the most holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ Thy Son. Send Thy holy blessing upon these bees and this beehive to make them numerous and productive, and to preserve them from harm, so that their yield of wax can be turned to Thy honor, and to the honor of Thy Son and Holy Spirit and to the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Through the same Christ Our Lord. Amen.”

Beauty in our life through ritual

The life we lead is informed by the gestures and intentions we do and have. I ask myself what judgment –that is, what is the meaning– of how and why I do things, and how the things I say and do have an impact on my own soul and that of others. The perspective of the author is the Byzantine Liturgy but if one looks a little deeper into the Latin similar gestures are present but often neglected. Catholicism, East and West, is an embodied faith. Consider what the Lord did with the 12, with the 72, and how He engaged and loved them. What was seen with Jesus is now passed into the Church. But sometimes we have neglected the body ethic to our detriment. It does not have to be THAT way. We can attend to how we use our bodies to worship the Lord, to pray, to contemplate holy things, and to act as witnesses to the Good News revealed to us.

“How do we make our life a work of art? One of the important benefits of liturgical prayer and the rituals that accompany it is that it teaches us how to meet each moment with our best intention, and to approach our daily life as an arena of spiritual practice. By focusing on the quality of our presence at Divine Liturgy, for example, by consciously entering into the ritual movements that accompany the prayer — the sign of the cross, the reverence, the kissing of the icon — our presence during this time becomes choreographed. There is nothing artificial in this, but rather it is a means of creating beauty. Our body is responding to the mystery that is before us, and this in turn conditions us to pay attention to our movements outside liturgy, in the various rhythms of daily life. If we are conscious and mindful of God’s presence throughout the day, life can increasingly become a work of art, one that honors the dignity of our humanity.” (NS)

Communion and Liberation sainthood causes

The Fraternity of Communion and Liberation has four people who are in some process of beatification/canonization and study for thereof. There is, of course, the Servant of God Father Luigi Giussani, the Servant of God Andrea Aziani, the Servant of God Enzo Piccinini and the soon to be beatified Carlo Acutis.

 

The other day on the website for Communion and Liberation there was an update on beatification of Enzo Piccinini. The update is that the nulla osta for the cause of beatification has been received from the Congregation for Saints. Only twelve months ago was the cause opened. The news came on “twenty-first anniversary of the death of the Modenese surgeon, friend and collaborator of Fr. Giussani, celebrated on Tuesday, May 26.” The nulla osta from the Holy See means that the diocesan inquiry for the cause can officially begin.

The announcement can be read be here.

In addition, we in the Movement are also waiting on the diligent work on the sainthood caused for Father Luigi Giussani, Andrea Aziani and the beatification of the Venerable Servant of God Carlo Acutis. We await word of a date for the beatification ceremony for Acutis.

The Acutis Family doesn’t have a history of practicing the Catholic Faith and there is speculation that the Polish woman who cared for Carlo introduced him to the person of Jesus. Known as a techi, Carlo was involved with CL and the Rimini Meeting. Two brief intros into the life and person of Carlo Acutis are from OSV and Crux. Acutis is a saint whose mission is (and was) to draw our attention to the reality of the Holy Eucharist and our devotion to the Most Blessed Sacrament.

Andrea Aziani died 12 years ago while serving the Lord in Peru, where as a consecrated member of CL’s Memores Domini, he taught Philosophy at a school he helped to establish, Sedes Sapientiae University. His was a life to dedicated to Christ through the service of the poor. His cause proceeds.

Aziani’s postulator is Father Antonio Nurena.

Saints beget saints.