Communio – Page 409 – …bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

It is the Holy Spirit who gives us the sense that the Mystery of Christ is need

‎”The moment when we sense the mystery of God, or better, the mystery of Christ, as something pertinent to our own lives, as –in some way– for we cannot imagine the “how” of it-something useful and connected to life, is the gift of the Holy Spirit, it is grace.”

Monsignor Luigi Giussani

talk to university students at La Thuille, Italy

August 1992

Saint Lawrence

As blessed Lawrence lay on the gridiron, to which the
torturers held him fast with forks over the burning coals of fire, he cried out
to the wicked magistrate: “The roasting is done! turn now the carcass and
devour, for the rest of the substance of the church, which you desired, has
been garnered up into heaven by the hands of the poor! (an antiphon)

In today’s Office of Readings of the Roman Divine Office the Church gives to us for meditation a piece written on the martyr Saint Lawrence by the great Saint Augustine of Hippo:

The Roman Church commends to us
today the anniversary of the triumph of Saint Lawrence. For on this day he
trod the furious pagan world underfoot and flung aside its allurements, and so
gained victory over Satan’s attack on his faith. As you have often heard, Lawrence
was a deacon of the Church at Rome. There he ministered the sacred blood of
Christ; there for the sake of Christ’s Name he poured out his own blood. St.
John the Apostle was evidently teaching us about the mystery of the Lord’s
Supper when he wrote, “Just as Christ laid down His life for us, so we
ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” Lawrence understood this,
and, understanding, he acted on it. Just as he had partaken of a gift of self
at the table of the Lord, so he prepared to offer such a gift. In his life,
Lawrence loved Christ; in his death, he followed n Christ’s footsteps.

Holiness is a disposition of the heart

Christian hope is not based on personal merit, nor
upon good works, nor good intentions, for all these are too transitory, and too
utterly disproportionate to the attainment of God; rather, our hope is based
upon God himself, upon Christ the one Mediator and Savior.

For hope not to
become rashness, it must obviously be accompanied by personal effort and
diligence; still we must be convinced that all our good will and good works are
always insufficient; only God can sanctify us, only God can raise us up to himself
and give us himself as our possession. Only God, the object of our hope, is
also the support of hope, its buttress, its fulcrum.

With this in mind St.
Therese of the Child Jesus wrote: Sanctity does not consist in this or that
practice; it consists in a disposition of the heart which make us humble and
little in the arms of God, conscious of our weakness, and confident to the
point of audacity in the goodness of our Father (Novissima Verba, pg. 29).

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, OCD

Divine
Intimacy

Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

The youngest child of 11 of a pious Jewish family, Edith Stein was born 1891 in was a one time Germany and what is now Wroclaw, Poland). Early in life she knew what it meant to face adversity with the death of her father and four of her siblings. By the time she was a teen Edith was not practicing her faith.

Through her study of philosophy, particularly Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology which introduced her to the notion of transcendence which then led her to experience the reality of a transcendent God revealed in Jesus Christ. Philosophy was the condition of Edith’s conversion to Christianity. In 1921 Edith read the autobiography of Saint Teresa of Jesus (Avila) and the catechism; in January 1922 she was baptized.

At 42, Edith Stein entered the Cologne Carmelite monastery after attending the Holy Week Services. The priest who celebrated the Holy Thursday Mass was reason for her following her heart’s desire. She wrote: “I told our Lord that I knew it was His cross that was now being placed upon the Jewish people; that most of them did not understand this, but that those who did would have to take it up willingly in the name of all. I would do that. At the end of the service, I was certain that I had been heard. But what this carrying of the cross was to consist in, that I did not yet know.” In the convent she was devoted to the Carmelite way of life and she was allowed to continue her writing. Her last work was The Science of the Cross. With the Cross in mind, at the age of 50 was killed at Nazi death camp, Auschwitz. It was reported that Edith’s interior strength allowed her to be completely centered and focussed on Christ offering her sufferings and those of others to the Crucified Christ.

Pope John Paul II beatified Sister Teresa Benedicta on May 1, 1987 and canonized her on October 11, 1998. At that time, John Paul said, “Learn from St Teresa to depend on God alone and serve Him with a wholly pure and detached heart. Then, like her, you will be able to say, ‘I do not regret that I have given myself up to love.'”

The liturgical prayer and some links for Saint Teresa Benedict is here…and a good biography is noted here.

14 Holy Helpers

Almighty and merciful God, who didst adorn Thy Saints
George, Blase, Erasmus, Pantaleon, Vitus, Christopher, Denis, Cyriacus, Acacius,
Eustace, Giles, Margaret, Barbara and Catherine with special privileges above
all others, so that all who in their necessities implore their help, according
to the grace of Thy promise, may attain the salutary effect of their pleading,
grant to us, we beseech Thee, forgiveness of our sins, and with their merits
interceding, deliver us from all adversities, and kindly hear our prayers.

All but Saint Giles are martyrs, these “auxiliary” saints are widely known in some parts of the world for their reliable intercession before God on our behalf. Frequently, these holy helpers are asked to intercede on our behalf when illness or other natural disaster occurs. In Germany in the 14th century these saints were asked to intercede before God for help during the black plague. On God’s part, he made a promise to the holy men and women that whomever asks for their prayers He would answer, as is evidenced in the liturgical prayer noted above.

Saint Dominic de Guzman

The Lord opened his mouth in the assembly, and filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding, and clothed him in a robe of glory.

God of truth, You gave Your Church a new light in the life and preaching of our father Dominic. Give us the help we need to support our preaching by holy and simple lives.

Blessed Cecilia’s description of Saint Dominic is how we know what he looked liked. And we have to be grateful for ancient chroniclers! They not only feed our curiosity but they show us concrete expressions of how God works through humanity … Descriptions like this one help us imagine what a person 8 centuries looked which helps to connect more closely to his reality. Blessed Cecilia wrote:

“This was St Dominic’s appearance. He was of
middle height and slender figure, of handsome and somewhat ruddy countenance,
his hair and beard of auburn, and with lustrous eyes. From out his forehead and
between his eye brows a radiant light shone forth, which drew everyone to
revere and love him. He was always joyous and cheerful, except when moved to
compassion at anyone’s sorrows. His hands were beautiful and tapering; his
voice was clear, noble, and musical; he was never bald, but kept his religious
tonsure entire, mingled here and there with a few grey hairs.” (From the
Legend of St. Dominic by Bl. Cecilia Cesarini)

A blessed feast of Saint Dominic, the great light to the Church!

Arrupe’s prayer for collaborating with Christ

Lord, meditating on our way of proceeding, I have discovered that the ideal of our way of acting is your way of acting.

Give me that sensus Christi that I may feel with your feelings, with the sentiments of your heart, which basically are love for your Father and love love for all men and women.

Teach me how to be compassionate to the suffering, to the poor, the blind, the lame, and the lepers.

Teach us your way so that it becomes our way today, so that we may come closer to the great ideal of Saint Ignatius [of Loyola]: to be companions of Jesus, collaborators in the work of redemption.

(A prayer written by the Servant of God Father Pedro Arrupe, SJ, 28th superior General of the Society of Jesus. Father Arrupe was Basque, lived in Japan at the time of the atomic bomb and died in Rome in 1991 after suffering the effects of a stroke (in 1981) at 84 years old. He is buried in the Church of the Gesu, Rome.)

Blessing of Grapes

A pious liturgical custom is for the priest to bless grapes on the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Why do we bless grapes on the Transfiguration? Symbolically and on a concrete level grapes represent real transformation, an old vine produces new fruit, a new harvest for God. As the Lord was transfigured on Mount Tabor, so we too are given the grace by God to transform our lives more and more according to His will, the Gospel. The hard of personal conversion is done by authentically following the Church.

Theologically, one might say that the grape is symbolic of new life; think of the fruit derived from grapes, wine, used at Mass. That after the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit and the prayer of consecration the wine becomes the Precious Blood of Christ. It is by His Blood we are saved, given new life, a pledge of future glory with the Blessed Trinity in heaven. Many liturgical families, including the Latin, Byzantine and Armenian Churches have a liturgical theology and rite for the blessing of grapes and situate the blessing of grapes as a needed reminder of our real and on-going conversion to Christ in hearts and minds of Catholics. (Read this blog post on the blessing of grapes where the author brings together several elements: work, harvest, offering, human transformation by God, liturgy, new life, etc.).

The prayer

Priest: Our help is in the name of the Lord.

Response: Who made heaven and earth.

Priest: Let us pray to the Lord.

Response: Lord, have mercy.

Bless, O Father, this new fruit of the vine, which you permitted to ripen through good weather, and drops of dew and may it bring joy for us who will partake of this fruit of the vine, and forgiveness of sins to those who offer it, through the pure Body and Blood of Your Christ, with whom You are blessed, together with Your all holy, good and life-giving Spirit, now and always and forever and ever.

R. Amen.

(this blessing is taken from the August Menaion, Byzantine Melkite Euchologion published by the Melkite Eparchy of Newton.)

Transfiguration of the Lord

The Master came with his three friends
To climb Mount Tabor’s height
There he was changed,
transfigured with God’s uncreated light.

As Daniel, seer of old, had seen
One like a Son of Man,
On whom were kingship, sov’reignty,
And place at God’s right hand,

So too, said Peter, we have seen
His glory, come from God,
Revealed to us, who with him lived
And walked in ways he trod.

“This is my Son,” the Father said,
“In him is my delight.
To him give ear, that all your ways
May be within my light.”

Bring us, O Lord, to hear your Son
That, walking in his ways,
We as your daughters and your sons
May praise you all our days.

Christ, the life of the Church

Are you thinking about the Transfiguration yet? You know, tomorrow’s feast. I think an excerpt from Samuel H. Miller’s The Life of the Church (p. 44ff) gets me pondering the person of Christ and who I want to be. And you?

He was careless about himself, we are careful.

He was courageous, we are cautious.

He trusted the untrustworthy, we trust those who have good collateral.

He forgave the unforgiveable, we forgive those who do not really hurt us.

He was righteous and laughed at respectability, we are respectable and smile at righteousness.

He was meek, we are ambitious.

He saved others, we save ourselves as much as we can.

He had no place to lay his head and did not worry about it, while we fret because we do not have the latest convenience manufactured by clever science.

He did what he believed to be right regardless of consequences, while we determine what is right by how it will affect us.

He feared God but not the world, we fear public opinion more than we fear the judgment of God.

He risked everything for God, we make religion a refuge for every risk.

He took up the cross, we neither take it up nor lay it down, but merely let it stand.

He was a scandal to the Jews proud of their tradition, a scandal to the scribes proud of the law, a scandal to the priests proud of the temple, scandal to his family proud of respectability, a scandal to the disciples proud of their ambitions.