St Joseph models work

Yesterday (May 1), we observed the Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker. The history of this feast is rooted in the ideology of work propagated by Communists and Pope Pius XII wanted to remind Catholics that theory of work of the Communists contradicted what the Church (and by extension St. Benedict) taught about work so he instituted the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker. That was 1955.

Pius XII considered St. Joseph to be the model of work: “The spirit flows to you and to all men from the heart of the God-man, Savior of the world, but certainly, no worker was ever more completely and profoundly penetrated by it than the foster father of Jesus, who lived with Him in closest intimacy and community of family life and work.”

In his encyclical Laborem Exercens, Pope St. John Paul II wrote: “…the Church considers it her task always to call attention to the dignity and rights of those who work, to condemn situations in which that dignity and those rights are violated, and to help to guide [social] changes so as to ensure authentic progress by man and society.”

The coronavirus has many of us on a work hiatus it so it seems like a good time to break this great encyclical out and read or reread it. Do you consider your professional work to have meaning for your life in the family, does your professional life have dignity and an importance that you can see it as cooperating with the work of God in building up the Kingdom of God? Is there a creative genius that connects with the care of the land as proposed by Genesis 2:15?

 

Roman woman fined for walking turtle

I am sure the turtle appreciated the fresh air and sun. But that’s not excuse for breaking the Italian State’s restrictions. The turtle’s owner, however, now supports the Roman state with the $440 fine for breaking the coronavirus restrictions for taking her turtle for a walk. “The 60-year-old woman was caught outside her home without a justifiable reason” and fined, Roman police said, according to a statement.

Italian Police reported issuing a record 13,756 fines were issue on Easter Sunday and another 16,545 fines on Easter Monday.

Christ is risen!

We little fishes, after the example Christ

For Christians Eastertide has multiple associations: the Resurrection of Jesus, new life, enlightenment, the Holy Spirit, birth of the Church, and Baptism. During this week, Baptism has caught our attention.

Thinking about Baptism we are led by Tertullian (AD 160-240?), a prolific, bombastic, and brilliant Roman North African who lived in Carthage. He left his mark on the Church until this age. He is the Father of Latin Christian Literature. He famously said, “I believe [in Christ] because it is absurd.”

On Baptism:

Happy is our sacrament of water, in that, by washing away the sins of our early blindness, we are set free and admitted into eternal life! …The consequence is, that a viper of the Cainite heresy, lately conversant in this quarter, has carried away a great number with her most venomous doctrine, making it her first aim to destroy baptism. Which is quite in accordance with nature; for vipers and asps and basilisks themselves generally do affect arid and waterless places. But we, little fishes, after the example of our ΙΧΘΥΣ Jesus Christ, are born in water, nor have we safety in any other way than by permanently abiding in water; so that most monstrous creature, who had no right to teach even sound doctrine, knew full well how to kill the little fishes, by taking them away from the water!

On Baptism

More on the person of Tertullian, please listen to this brief podcast by a friend, Mike Aquilina, you won’t be disappointed: Tertullian and the Theology of Sarcasm

The Orthodox Church in the Time of COVID-19

“The Orthodox Church in the Time of COVID-19”

The Wheel Journal (@wheeljournal) has an extraordinary online Symposium “The Orthodox Church in the Time of COVID-19” is available on YouTube.

The conversation is moderated by Joseph Clarke. The panelists include: Archpriest Alexis Vinogradov, Sister Vassa Larin, Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun, Father Peter Scorer, Dr. Gayle Woloschak, Archpriest Andrey Kordochkin, Deacon Nicholas Denysenko.

I highly recommend listening the symposium. It will open up some new perspectives.

The Gospel Proclaimed in Greek at St Peter’s, 2020

The Gospel Proclaimed in Greek at Pope’s Easter Mass doesn’t seem newsworthy unless you have a special concern for the catholic Church’s Sacred (Divine) Liturgy. Yesterday caught our attention.

If you watched Pope Francis’ Easter Mass at St Peter’s Basilica yesterday, then you may have noticed the very moving gospel of the Resurrection sung in Greek. The deacon, Gianpiero Vaccaro, from the Italo-Albanian Eparchy of Lungro (Calabria, Italy, is also a student of the Pontifical Greek College in Rome.

It was a good thing to see this “tradition” for Easter as it gives one the sense of greater universality of the Catholic Church. As you know, the Church is much more that Latin; for that matter, it is much larger than the Greek Churches, too. We do have the Armenian, Chaldean, Coptic, and Syriac families! Wouldn’t be nice to hear the Gospel sung in liturgical Armenian or Syriac (or Aramaic)?

In the meantime, let us pray for Deacon Gianpiero Vaccaro and his ministry for the Eparchy of Lungro.

https://www.facebook.com/fr.d.duvelius/videos/10158199961882512/UzpfSTY5MTA2MzY2NToxMDE1NzM4MDU3MDMwODY2Ng/

Jesus dies upon the Cross

“From noon until the third hour in the afternoon there was darkness over all the earth. At the third hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Hearing this, some of those who were present said,“He is calling upon Elijah.” And suddenly one of them ran to fetch a sponge and, soaking it in vinegar, he stuck it on a reed and gave him to drink. The others said, “Let be; let us see if Elijah comes to save him!” And Jesus, with a loud groan, gave up the spirit.”

We are sinners and the death of Christ saves us. The death of Christ makes good whatever our past may be, but our past is full of that shadow we call sin. And it is the death of Christ that saves us. We cannot recognize Christ upon the cross without immediately understanding and feeling that this cross must touch us too, that no longer may we make any objection to sacrifice; no more objection to sacrifice, now that Lord has died.

Through that same gaze of ours fixed upon the cross – where He looks upon us with the constant eye of eternity, constant in pity and the will to save us, having pity upon us and our nothingness – through that gaze fixed constantly upon the cross, what would otherwise be something so strange as to seem to us detached from reality, arbitrary, senseless, becomes an experience of redemption. It is by keeping our gaze fixed upon the cross that we learn to perceive, by direct experience, the penetrating Presence and the ineluctable necessity of grace for the perfecting of our lives, for the joy of our lives. In Our Lady our heart’s adoration finds its exemplar and form. In fact the cross is not just for Christ: the death of Christ upon the cross saves the world, but not merely as an isolated event, in itself. Not by Himself alone does Christ save the world, but also by the cleaving of each one of us to suffering and the cross. Saint Paul says so: “I make up in my human flesh what is lacking in the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross – in the passion of Christ.”

With you, O Mary, we see that the renunciation of our lives that is required of us is not punishment, but is necessary for their salvation, their exaltation, their growth. Mary, let our offering, the offering of our lives, be of help to the poor world, this poor world, to enrich itself with the knowledge of Christ and to rejoice in the love of Christ.

~Meditation of the Servant of God Father Luigi Giussani on the Rosary

Good Friday 2020

The cross is a paradox of radiance. In Jesus, God places divinity in the midst of the worst darkness and suffering to reveal that nothing — no hell of our own or another’s creation — can ultimately block out the transfiguring light of God’s unfathomable light. The hope contained in the cross of Christ is not literally a payment for a cosmic sin that has kept humanity shackled ever since our first parent’s fall. It is rather the revelation of the extent God will go to make us understand the real nature of his love. That realization is what saves us.

New Skete Monastery
29 May 2019