Nothing more important than Sacred Liturgy

There is nothing on Earth, higher, greater or more holy than the divine liturgy, nothing more solemn, nothing more life-giving.

~Saint John Kronstadt

Experience and the witness of the saints on the importance of the sacred Liturgy (or Divine Liturgy, if you will) has a correspondence to truth that is undeniable. Much of what passes as the worship of the Triune God is unspeakable. What needs to happen in the Church, especially here in the Northeast, is a move to adopt a living sense of the Catholic Tradition.

Holy Prophet Micah

In the Liturgy of the Latin Church the the holy prophets are not recalled except that the Roman Martyrology remembers. The Eastern Churches have the prophets on their liturgical calendar and commemorated in the Liturgy. I find it important to remember in the sacred Liturgy the prophets because they are a distinct part of our biblical history and literature, our moral thinking and acting, our spiritual and liturgical lives. Today, is the memorial of the famous holy prophet, Micah (even if commemorated with our Eastern brethren).

Micah prophesied between 750 and 687 bc. He was a contemporary of Amos and Isaiah. Micah’s words were an indictment against the rich, the avaricious money lenders, swindling merchants, families divided by rivalry, and all petty tyrants and bureaucrats, whether dressed as judges or rulers, priests or prophets. They were the very antithesis of the divine ideal he preached, namely, “to deal justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with God.”

Failure to do these things, Micah warned, will bring punishment. He specified the destruction of Samaria and the fall of Jerusalem, but he also held out a hope for the faithful remnant. He described the birth of a peaceful king who will pasture the flock of the Lord. Micah foretold that this event would take place in Bethlehem of Ephratah, which was known as “the least of the clans of Judah.” (NS)

Prayer to Bless New Honey

Prayer to Bless New Honey

Priest: Let us pray to the Lord.
Laity: Lord, have mercy.

O Lord Jesus Christ, Whose mercies cannot be contained and Whose bounties are ineffable; Who are wondrous in glory and Who works miracles, Who by the operation of the Holy Spirit once blessed Israel and nourished them with honey from a rock and fed ascetics with honey: as the same Lord, look down now from above on this Your work, and with Your heavenly blessing bless and consecrate this honey.

Grant to the honey the action of a blessing beyond all perfection, so that all tasting of it, receiving it and eating it, may find good health, and by this nourishment be satisfied and filled with all good things.

For You are He Who bestows all good things, and to You we ascribe glory, together with Your Father Who is without beginning, and Your Most-holy, Good and Life-creating Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

The priest sprinkles the honey with Holy Water, saying:

This honey is sanctified by the sprinkling of this Holy Water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

***Typically, the blessing of new honey among the Eastern European Byzantines happens on the first day of the Dormition Fast (on the new Gregorian calendar that would be August 1) but the blessing can happen on other days for example on the Transfiguration like many of the Ukrainian Byzantine Catholics from the Eastern part of the country.

Blessings on the Transfiguration 2019

At the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy for the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, Father Iura (St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church, New Haven, CT) blessed grapes, harvested fruits and vegetables and honey.

According to the Gospel of John, Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches, apart from me you can do nothing.” Grapes connect us to the wine changed in the Blood of Christ at the Liturgy, the fruits and vegetables return to the Lord the blessings He’s bestowed on us, and honey reminds of the sweetness of the Beauty of God.

The blessings, therefore, remind us of place of the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Liturgy and how we are transfigured into someone new in Christ.

As close followers (disciples) of Jesus Christ we know we don’t give ourselves anything; everything we have is a gift. Therefore, we say we depend on God for everything in our lives. It was same recognition that Moses had and taught the people of Israel to offer their first and finest harvest back to the Lord.

St Ignatius of Loyola

“God freely created us so that we might know, love, and serve him in this life and be happy with him forever. God’s purpose in creating us is to draw forth from us a response of love and service here on earth, so that we may attain our goal of everlasting happiness with him in heaven. All the things in this world are gifts of God, created for us, to be the means by which we can come to know him better, love him more surely, and serve him more faithfully. As a result, we ought to appreciate and use these gifts of God insofar as they help us toward our goal of loving service and union with God. But insofar as any created things hinder our progress toward our goal, we ought to let them go.” ― Ignatius of Loyola

Familiarity with God’s Word

Are you familiar (at the deepest possible level as able) with sacred Scripture? Daily, it is recommended, to spend time doing lectio divina.

While John Paul is addressing members in consecrated life, the teaching is fitting and prudent for the laity, too.

“As the church’s spiritual tradition teaches, meditation on God’s word, and on the mysteries of Christ in particular, gives rise to fervor in contemplation and the ardor of apostolic activity. Both in contemplative and active religious life, it has always been men and women of prayer, those who truly interpret and put into practice the will of God, who do great works.

“From familiarity with God’s word they draw the light needed for that individual and communal discernment which helps them to seek the ways of the Lord in the signs of the times. In this way they acquire a kind of supernatural intuition which allows them to avoid being conformed to the mentality of this world, but rather to be renewed in their own mind, in order to discern God’s will about what is good, perfect, and pleasing to him (see Romans 12:2).

Saint John Paul II, The Consecrated Life

St Phocas the Gardener

Today we remember St. Phocas the Gardener. He is the patron of farmers, fieldworkers, agriculture, and gardeners. He was a man connected to his land and to his neighbor, and who understood ecology in the deep sense of not living just for oneself but for all. He was both a bishop and a simple farmer, and he devoted everything he grew to be given to the poor.

He is also the patron of hospitality. When soldiers came looking for him to execute him for being a Christian, he welcomed them with open arms, and practicing the command of Christ to love one’s enemies, he fed them and treated them as Christ himself. The soldiers did not realize that their host was the same Phocas they were to execute, and St. Phocas promised them that he would help them find their target.

When Phocas revealed himself to them, they were reluctant to kill him. Phocas, however, refused to fight them or to hinder their duty, and instead invited the soldiers to do what they were there to do, offering his neck. For this he was martyred.

St. Phocas is also the patron of sailers. There is an old sailing custom whereby at each meal, a portion is set aside called ‘St. Phocas portion.’ This portion is sold and the money collected is donated to the poor whenever port is reached. In this way, Phocas’ love for strangers, enemies, the poor, the land, and his neighbors continued to extend even past his death.

Holy Phocas, pray for us!

thanks to In Communion

St Mary Magdelene

The Church, East and West, liturgically honor St Mary Magdalene. She often bears the titles of “The holy myrrhbearer”, “equal of the apostles” and as scripture shows, she was “apostle to the apostles.” These titles give a deeper perspective on this woman called by Jesus.

The Byzantine Liturgy sings this kondakion for the feast:

Today, let us sing a special hymn in honor of that friend of the Lord who was the first to anoint him in death. Let us praise Mary Magdalen for being the messenger of joy for his disciples, and let us fall before the Lord himself, filled with wonder, that he should lavish on the world such a fountain of grace.

Scripture reveals Mary’s life as a devoted follower of Christ whose loyalty remained firm when even the faith of the other twelve apostles wavered.

As the monks of New Skete say in their hagiography of Mary, “The Church gives Mary Magdalene special honor as the most faithful companion of Jesus as she was at the foot of the cross when he was crucified, and was the first to witness his resurrection. Her encounter with Christ on her way to perform the funeral anointing, as recorded by John, earned her an apostles’ task, for it was she who was commissioned to tell the other apostles that Christ had risen.”

Keeping a perspective on today’s feast, it was Pope Francis who raised the level of liturgical remembrance from a memorial to a feast. The Pope, aligning himself with established tradition, names Mary Magdalene “Apostolorum Apostola” (Apostle of the Apostles). Keeping in line with his year of Mercy Francis gives Mary as a witness of mercy. It was said that St Mary Magdalene’s feast day is a call for all Christians to “reflect more deeply on the dignity of women.” In the Western liturgical tradition of the Church, most liturgical celebrations of particular saints are formally identified as memorials and those classified as feasts are reserved for key events in Christian history; saints of particular closeness to the Lord, the liturgical days like the Twelve Apostles are known as feasts. Hence, as equal to the Apostles is honored with a feast day not merely as a memorial.

Of the religious orders in the Western Church, the Order of Friars Preachers, has St Mary Magdalene as one of the patronesses of the Order (the other is St Catherine of Alexandria). It was Blessed Humbert of Romans, second Master of the Order after St. Dominic who wrote, “After Magdalene was converted to penitence the Lord bestowed such great grace upon her that after the Blessed Virgin no woman could be found to whom greater reverence should be shown in this world and greater glory in heaven.”

Why make much of St Mary Magdalene? For several reasons. In light of the Dominicans, the Order of Preachers, where we find several expressions of the Dominican vocation which complement the friar-priests, that is, there are brothers, nuns, sisters and laity –I think today she shows us that to be a preacher of the Good News of Jesus Christ a woman (or a layman) need not be a priest. The ministerial priesthood is now being questioned or revised herein. We have in our ecclesiology the priesthood of baptized, or it is called the global priesthood. The second reason I will give: do not underestimate the power and necessity of the witness one gives with the manner of life, our words AND our actions. Third, it is important to recall with intensity who was the first to proclaim the Good News of the Resurrection. God in His wisdom gave us Mary to draw our attention to the miracle of the conquering of death by death itself. Finally, Mary Magdalen is important because the Church esteems her as a model of how repentance opens us up to the grace of Jesus’ mercy and her ability to lead others to Christ. In short: there is always a need for God’s forgiveness known in the Sacrament of Confession.