The fate of Eastern Christianity to be discussed in October; but what about now?

The hard work of collaborating and witnessing to Jesus Christ for 14 million Eastern Christians is indeed a difficult task, but one that is only sustained by prayer, mutuality and study.

During his trip to Cyprus Pope Benedict released what he things is a reasonable agenda for the forthcoming Synod of Bishops for Christians in the Middle East. But don’t be fooled in thinking that this Synod is merely for those in funny hats doing the Liturgy in a different manner. On the contrary, this Synod, as all Synods, have a direct impact on our Christian lives here in the USA for those living outside of the Middle East. What happens to our brothers and sisters in the East impacts the life of the Church across the world whether we realize it or not. So often, we neglect our Christian brothers and sisters in other parts of the world because there seems to be little identifiable connections between what and how they live there, and what and how we live here. Remember, Christ our Lord and Savior lived, died and resurrected in the Middle East. Why wouldn’t we be concerned with the Christians in the Holy Land and neighboring countries? You and I don’t have to be Melkite, Maronite, Coptic, Syriac or Hebrew Catholics to care for the other. Let’s not wait to later to do this caring, let’s do it now.

The Lineamenta (the agenda for the Synod of Bishops) is built under the title of “The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness.” Acts 4:32 sets the framework: “Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul.”

The heads (and assistants) of Eastern Churches in the Middle East have been preparing for the Synod of Bishops to be held in Rome 10-24 October 2010.
An H2O News interview explores some themes.
The Holy Father in consultation with the bishops and many experts speaks of the point of the Synod in this manner, which sets the bar pretty high in my opinion:
1. to confirm and strengthen Christians in their identity through the Word of God and the sacraments;
2. to deepen ecclesial communion among the particular Churches, so that they can bear witness to the Christian life in an authentic, joyful and winsome manner.
In the Pope’s mind these 2 goals are only possible through an ecumenical approach “if Christian witness is to be genuine and credible.” For Pope Benedict, and I pray for all the bishops and religious orders and secular institutes in the Middle East, and for this blog dedicated to communion theology, that communion among Christians will lead to a unified Christian mind and heart which will in turn revitalize Christian life together. That is, that one day full, visible communion among the Churches and ecclesial communities will be a fact.
I urge you to read the working document (the lineamenta) noted above. Beg the Holy Spirit to guide your reading. Take the questions posed in the document with a degree of seriousness to see what can be done from your context to build a deeper bond of communion with Christians in the Middle East and with those who have immigrated to the West.
Let us all be united in prayer to the Holy Spirit and to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, to assist the bishops and the experts in dealin with the critical issues being faced by Eastern Christians at this time.

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

On this our liturgical remembrance of Our Lady’s birthday, it is apt to recall what Saint Andrew of Crete, preached: 

This is the highest, all-embracing benefit that Christ
has bestowed upon us. This is the revelation of the mystery, this is the emptying-out
of the divine nature, the union of God and man, and the deification of the
manhood that was assumed. This radiant and manifest coming of God to men most
certainly needed a joyful prelude to introduce the great gift of salvation to
us. The present festival –the nativity of the Theotokos– is that prelude, while
the final act is the foreordained union of the Word with flesh. Today the Virgin
is born, tended and formed, and prepared for her role as Mother of God, that
God who is the universal King of all the ages!

Birth of Mary DGhirlanaio.jpg

With the choirs of saints and angels,

Let the Church be joined as one,

Binding earth to highest heaven,

Praising Jesus, Mary’s Son

Son of God-the Father’s glory

Who took flesh that we might be

Reconciled, reborn, forgiven,

From the pow’r of sin set free!

On this solemn, joyful feast day

Let us sing a song of praise,

Thanking God for Mary’s witness

Faithfully kept all her days.

From her birth to blessed Anna,

Mary listened to God’s word,

And, when summoned by the angel,

Lived in faith what she had heard.

Glory now to God the Father,

Who has made us for his own;

Glory now to Christ our Savior,

Who has raised us to his throne;

Glory now to God the Spirit,    

Who renews us in his grace: 

Laud and honor, never ceasing,  

Be to God from all our race!

J. Michael Thompson

Copyright © 2009, World Library Publications 

87 87 D; PLEADING SAVIOR, or IN BABILONE

Blessed Frédéric Ozanam


Bl Frederic Ozanam.jpeg

Prayer for the Canonization of Blessed Frederic Ozanam

God, our Father, You alone have the power to bestow those precious gifts of yours which we rightly call miracles. If it be Your will, be pleased to grant such a gift on behalf of [mention a person’s name here]. We humbly ask that You grant this favor so that Blessed Frederic Ozanam may be canonized by our Holy Mother the Church. We make this prayer through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son. Amen.

The name “Frederic Ozanam” may not be well-known to many in the USA, but those who know of or work with the Saint Vincent de Paul Society know well their father in the faith and their founder. Ozanam followed in the foot steps of Saint Vincent de Paul and is a terrific model for all people, particularly the laity because he puts the gospel and the Liturgy into action.

The Saint Vincent de Paul Society has a membership of more than three-quarters of a million people in 47, 000 conferences in 131 countries on 5 continents.

Frederic Ozanam was a married man, a father, well educated, a person who travelled in high society, a man of faith and action. Many people today consider Blessed Frederic to be a precursor to the Second Vatican Council’s vision of the laity in the Church.

Ozanam’s vision of the Church can be seen in an address he gave on the 4 marks of the Church (one, holy, catholic and apostolic). Here is an excerpt of a talk he gave:

One

One only
means of salvation remains to us, that is, that Christians, in the name of
love, interpose between the two camps (of rich and poor) passing like
beneficent deserters from one to the other … communicating mutual charity to
all, until this charity, paralyzing and stifling the egotism of both parties,
and every day lessening their antipathies, shall bid the two camps arise and
break down the barriers of prejudice, and cast aside their weapons of anger and
march forth to meet each other, not to fight but to mingle together in one
embrace, so that they may form but one fold under one pastor. 

Holy

Will we be
satisfied to lament the barrenness of the present time, when each bears in his
heart a germ of holiness, which a simple desire would be sufficient to develop?
It we do not know how to love God as the saints did, it is because we see God
with the eyes of faith alone, and faith is so weak. But the poor we see with
the eyes of flesh. They are present. We can put our fingers and our hands into
their wounds, the marks of the crown of thorns are plainly visible on their
heads. There is no place for unbelief here … You poor are the visible image
of the God whom we do not see, but whom we love in loving you.

Catholic

A
Catholic university (Louvain) should be a cause of rejoicing to the Church, to
see raised within her yet another monument to the immortal alliance of Science
and Faith.

Apostolic

You have felt the emptiness of material pleasures, you
have felt the hunger for truth crying out within you; you have gone for light
and comfort to the barren philosophy of modern apostles. You have not found
food for your souls there. The religion of your forefathers appears before you
today with full hands; do not turn away, for it is generous. It also, like you,
is young. It does not grow old with the world. Ever renewing itself, it keeps
pace with progress, and it alone leads to perfection.


More about Blessed Frederic Ozanam can be read here, his chronology, and a brief biography.

Mauro-Giuseppe Lepori –new Abbot General of the Cistercian Order

Generalabt Maurus Lepori von Hauterive .jpgThe General Chapter of the Order of Cistercians elected Dom Mauro-Giuseppe Lepori, 52, as their new Abbot General, succeeding Abbot Mauro Estevez. It is reported that Lepori received 109 of 134 votes. His work as abbot general will last for the next 10 years with about 1700 monks and nuns of the Order of Cistercians throughout the world.

Abbot Mauro-Giuseppi, until now has been a monk and the abbot of the Abbey of Hauterive. He entered the abbey in 1984 and was elected abbot on May 16, 1994 when he was 35 years old. The Cistercian of Hauterive is outside of Fribourg, Switzerland. Abbot Mauro earned a licentiate in philosophy and theology from the Catholic University of Fribourg. The new abbot general is a Swiss-Italian born (from Lugano) monk who, before his entrance into the cloister was an active follower of the ecclesial movement of Communion and Liberation (but entrance into the monastery only meant that he didn’t attend all the meetings of CL but he kept up with work of the Movement!).

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Abbot Mauro-Giuseppi is the author of Simon, Called Peter: In the Company of a Man in Search of God. The Forward to the book was written by Angelo Cardinal Scola, Patriarch of Venice, a close friend of the late Monsignor Luigi Giussani and who continues to be active in following Communion and Liberation.

A 2003 interview with Abbot Mauro at the CL Rimini Meeting can be read here and a brief article in Traces by the abbot can be read here.

Saints Robert, Alberic, & Stephen, pray for us.

Saint Bernard, pray for us.
Saint Aelred, pray for us.
Saint Alice, pray for us.
Saint Jeanne de Lestonnac, pray for us.
The English Cistercian Martyrs, pray for us.

Fr Bruno Cadoré –new Master of the Order of Preachers, elected

Fr Bruno Cadore at Vespers.jpgThe 2010 Dominican General Chapter opened on August 31st (and will close on September 21st) and the 130 capitulars elected Father Bruno Cadoré, 55, as the 86th successor of Saint Dominic; he immediately succeeds Father Carlos Aspiroz Costa who has served for the last 9 years. Father Bruno, until now, has been the Prior Provincial of the French Province and trained as a pediatrics physician with an interest in child hematology and in bio-ethics. He’s also lived and worked in Haiti.

Father Bruno will live at the Convent of Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill in Rome.
The Dominican General Chapter meets every three years and elects a new Master of the Order every nine. This is the 290th General Chapter.
UPDATE: Father Master Bruno Cadore gave an insightful interview on H2O News and says some important things about the Word of God and how it shapes our lives, about the necessity and joy of the fraternal life and the unity we are called to live as brothers and sisters. Watch the video here.
 
Saint Dominic, pray for us.
Blessed Jordan of Saxony, pray for us.
Saint Raymond of Penyafort, pray for us.
Saint Bruno, pray for us.
Saint Catherine of Siena, pray for us.
Blessed Margaret of Castello, pray for us.
Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, pray for us.

Blessed Catherine Racconigi

Blessed Catherine Racconigi.jpgO Lord, our hope, You enriched Blessed Catherine with an abundance of heavenly gifts and filled her heart with You alone. With the help of her prayers may Christ be fastened to our hearts as He was fastened to the cross for our salvation.

As early as 5 years old Catherine had a relationship with God to the point of having profound mystical experiences. Catherine knew she was being drawn to the Lord as his spouse and who gave her His heart. The Blessed Mother gave Catherine a wedding ring which could only seen by Catherine herself as was similar to that of Saint Catherine of Siena. The Lord gave Catherine the grace (and burden) of the stigmata which was invisible and unknown to others except by her confessor.
Family opposition to Catherine’s desire to enter a monastery, she instead became a tertiary (a third order Dominican); The mystical experiences were well-known to the others which the devil used to strike division among the faithful, even to the point of the Dominican friars sending her away. But sanctity won out in the end.
Born in Piedmont, Italy in 1487 and died in 1574. Catherine was beatified by Pope Pius VII in 1810.
What can we learn from Blessed Catherine? For me, Catherine demonstrates that we need to take seriously the religious experience and desires of the heart. God speaks to children as clearly and profoundly as He does to adults. This is the same insight Sofia Caveletti and Maria Montesorri had when they began the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.

Saint Gregory the Great

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When I think of Saint Gregory I think that without him we’d know little of the person of Saint Benedict, Saint Augustine of Canterbury (& others) and without Gregory we’d know little of what the worship of God was like and how faith was developed. Others will latch on to the fact that Gregory increased the ministry of the papal office but his lasting legacy for us is his efforts in showing us the reality of holiness, the desire in understanding the other person and how Christ sees him or her. This is fact true, the papacy under his guidance was expansive for the sake of the Gospel: the salvation of souls was most important to Gregory, as it ought to be for us.

His skill in preaching, teaching, governing and listening was stunning; his plan for missionary work stellar, his trust in Providence  beyond compare. Gregory worked hard to lead the Church to Christ in the unity of the Church especially with  Christians in the East, and those who needed to know Christ in Britain. He was true to himself: servus sevorum Dei.

We hold in prayer today Pope Benedict, abbots and abbesses, bishops and pastors of souls, musicians, the people of Britain, diplomats, and those engaged in the work of evangelization.
Servant of the Lord’s own servants,
Faith-filled shepherd of the sheep,
Gregory, as bishop, nurtured
All the Church, Christ’s ways to keep.
Writing, preaching, leading, loving,
Saint Peter’s steps he trod,
Raising singers up and training
Them to praise and worship God.
In his writings still he shows us
How to love and serve the Lord,
Counting not the cost and leaving
Al, so God might be adored.
To the Father, Son, and Spirit,
God the holy Three-in-One,
With Saint Gregory in glory
Let our work of praise be done!
J. Michael Thompson
Copyright © 2009, WLP
87 87 Stuttgart, Merton or
87 87 D Hyfrydol, Abbot’s Leigh

You received divine grace from heaven, O blessed Gregory, and strength from His divine power. You sought to follow the way of the Gospel, and your journey’s end brought you Christ’s reward. O blessed saint, beg Him to save us! (Troparion)

You became very much like shepherds of Christ. You led the flocks of monks into the heavenly sheepfold. There you taught your flock the law of Christ, O blessed father and now you sing in the heavenly abode, and you rejoice, happy in their company. (Kontakion)

The September Martyrs: Blessed John du Lau & companions

September Martyrs.jpgThe Benedictines and Carmelites in some places in the USA, and of course in England and France, liturgically remember the September Martyrs, also called the Paris Martyrs; you will also see the memorial listed as “Blessed John du Lau and companions” after the Archbishop of Arles, the highest ranking prelate among the 191 martyrs. The Benedictine nuns of Stanbrook Abbey are connected with the Carmelite nuns and retain some of the relics. Historians tells us that about 1500 clergy and religious were killed in 1792. And this act of martyrdom inspired the writing of Georeges Bernanos’s “Dialogues of the Carmelites” and the famous opera of Francis Poulenc, by the same name.

The French “virtue” of liberty was not applied to the Church. In fact, quite the opposite. Just a few years after the French Revolution there was a purge of high and low clergy, religious and laity. The killing of the clerics happened because the republican government seized control of the Church, a matter that was (and, remains so today) unacceptable to Catholic ecclesiology. As the state has its duty and responsibility for civic order and leadership, the Church’s mandate is found in sacred Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium and not in positive law; in short all things pertaining to the salvation of souls. Matters of state are not the same for the Church and vice versa unless these matters concern the moral law. This, however, was not the reigning ideology. The Republicans passed legislation that rejected the authority of the Church and it wanted the bishops and priests to uphold the new laws giving the state control over the Church. Something similar had with the Oath of Supremacy in England. Clergyman and religious weren’t the only one to offer their lives as a gift to the Lord. the laity lost their lives too, aristocrats and peasant alike. Refusing to take the oath got you the label: “non-jurors.”
Some of the 191 were killed in cold blood, others were asked a question and depending on how they answered determined if they lived or died. No mental reservation was kept when it came to following the wisdom of the Church or the wisdom of man.
One observer noted that common among those put to death was that all faced death in a happy manner as one who would’ve gone to a wedding. Indeed, the wedding feast the martyrs were going to was the Wedding Feast of the Lamb (see the Book of Revelation).
The names beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1926 are listed here.

Liturgical New Year for the Byzantine Church

Happy New Liturgical Year for the Byzantine Church! Have a blessed 7519!!! The Byzantine Church understands this date to be the years since the creation of the world. A new liturgical year, a new beginning to give God glory, honor and praise!!!!

We bless God’s holy name with the singing of the Great Doxology

Vision of the Thorne of the Lord.jpg

Glory to God in the highest, and to people on earth peace and good will.
We praise you, we bless you, we worship you, we glorify you, we thank you for your great glory.
Lord God, heavenly King, Father almighty; Lord, only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit!
Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father: you take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us. You take away the sin of the world, hear our prayer. You are seated at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us.
For you alone are holy; you alone are the Lord, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father. Amen.
I will bless you day after day, and praise your name forever. Make us worthy, O Lord, to be kept sinless this morning. Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our Fathers, and praiseworthy and glorious is your name forever. Amen.
May your mercy, O Lord, be upon us who have placed our hope in you.
Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your commandments.
Blessed are you, O Master; make me understand your commandments.
Blessed are you, O Holy One; enlighten me with your commandments.
O Lord, you have been our refuge for one generation to the next.
I said: Lord have mercy on me, heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.
O Lord, I have fled to you for refuge.
Teach me to do your will, for you, O Lord, are my God.
In you is the source of life and in your light we see light.
Extend your mercy to those who know you!