Communio – Page 435 – …bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

The newly baptized, the new lambs: Isti sunt Agni novelli

who proclaimed the
glad tidings: Alleluia! recently come to
the waters, and full of God’s
light and splendor. Alleluia! Alleluia!

Lady, Queen, whom
grace from heaven, Has preferred to
all on earth, Now renewed, the
world is brightened, By your holy
virgin-birth.

Oh, how lovely and
how wondrous, Is the cure that
saved us all: Jesus, in His love,
becomes now, Victim for His people’s
fall!

Now renewed through
holy washing, In the font of our
rebirth, Soon the chrism’s
oil and fragrance, Will give strength
to us on earth!

To each Christian
now is given, Christ’s own Flesh
as Bread of Life. Christ’s own Blood
becomes the sweetest, Source of joy in all our strife!

Easter week brings so many joys, graces and consolations. One such joy, grace and consolation that I’ve been thinking and praying about all week during Mass and praying the Divine Office, is the is new life in Christ that those received into the Church at the Easter Vigil and on Easter Sunday. The gift of salvation given to us is has once again been given to other called not by human concern but by the Holy Spirit. The Neophytes –the newly-initiated Christians who were baptized and confirmed and communicated– live differently now that the doors of our God-given destiny has been received. Musically we can think of the chant text given above, “Isti sunt Agni novelli,” taken from the Cistercian collection Laudes Vespertine (Westmalle, Belgium, 1939) which gives a keen insight into this beautiful mystery of faith. May Christ shower His blessing on all of us!

MedConference: Medical Care and the Person: The Heart of the Matter

The MedConference is a three-day medical conference open to physicians, nurses and students of medical and nursing schools.

The theme of the 2010 MedConference will highlight the central role of the ‘person’ in medical care and will focus on the complex need of the patient, including the need to be healed and the need to find a meaning for their suffering.

Medical Care and the Person: The Heart of the Matter

July 16-18, 2010

Hyatt on the Hudson

Jersey City, NJ

Visit the website to see the preliminary program and to enroll (keep in mind that places are limited): 2010 MedConference

Gabriel Gibbs: founding abbot of Massachusetts abbey RIP

A generation of big names in “East coast Catholicism” in the past two years have died, and Right Reverend Father Gabriel Gibbs is numbered among them. Abbot Gabriel, 84, was the first abbot of Saint Benedict’s Abbey, Still River, MA.

Abbot Gabriel is likely to be remembered most for his questioning of religious liberty (no salvation outside the Church) that came to head in the doctrine put forward by the Second Vatican Council, though it was much discussed by theologians and bishops in the 1940s. Early in his life Abbot Gabriel was part of a robust Catholic center in Harvard Square, The Saint Benedict Center, where Jesuit Father Leonard Feeney lectured. After suffering for sometime with cancer, Abbot Gabriel died on March 27. Abbot is pictured above on the far right.

The abbot and I shared a friend in Cardinal Dulles and a few other monks. And so, we pray for God’s mercy on the abbot and his eternal rest.

Abbot Gabriel’s obit can be read here and here.

May his memory be eternal.

Christ’s resurrection changes everything

After your descent into Hades, O Christ, and your
Resurrection from the dead, the disciples grieved over your departure. They returned to their occupations and attended to their nets and their boats; but
their fishing was in vain. You appeared to them since you are the Lord of all; you
commanded them to cast their nets on the right side. Immediately your word
became deed. They caught a great number of fish, and they found an unexpected
meal prepared for them on the shore; which they immediately ate. Now, make us
worthy to enjoy this meal with them in a spiritual manner, O Lord and Lover of
us all!

The poetic text above draws our attention to the fact that for the believer, that is, the person who is aware of his or her humanity and spiritual need, Christ is the answer …

Shrine of St Anthony in Ellicott City, MD –breaking for spring

Easter week is time for spring break this year, especially after a very busy Holy Week schedule. And getting away from the ordinary was required. Like all graduate students on break, I went to visit friends at a Conventual Franciscan friary in Maryland.

One of my friends there is Friar Brad, the Father Guardian (and formation director) of the student brothers and postulants. My other friend Friar Gabriel who’s originally from the New Haven, CT area and preparing to profess vows and to follow more intensely the Franciscan way of life. Besides preparing for priesthood, Gabriel and I share a number of common things in life; the important part of the visit was seeing him in situ and understanding his religious life as a Conventual friar (the group first founded by St Francis of Assisi). Being among the friars was restful and delightful. I wasn’t there too long but I did get to Washington, DC, Georgetown, WTU and the Shrine of St Anthony, Ellicott City, Maryland. Sadly, the cherry blossoms were gone by the time I bounced on the scene.

A ministry of the Conventual Franciscan Friars, the Shrine of St Anthony is a place of welcome of pilgrims come from far and near for a period of prayer. The Shrine is located in the farmlands of Howard County in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Situated on about 200 acres, you know you are in farmland by sight and scent: the working farms dot the landscape. As good stewards of the land, the friars rent a good portion of the land to the University of Maryland for their learning. Architecturely the shrine will remind you immediately of Tuscan architecture with the tile roof, gardens, stone and wood work. I had an immediate sense of home. The friar’s chapel has an exquisitely carved set of choir stalls. As a spiritual “program” the friars provide a horizon for reconciliation, healing, spiritual direction, meditation and contemplation. Outdoor shrines are dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Maximillian Kolbe and the Way of the Cross all which capture the theological imagination and propel the retreatant or causal visitor to work on holiness. The shrine chapel staff provides a regular schedule of the Mass, confession, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and Vespers. There’s also Tuesday’s Novena of St Anthony and 3 healing Masses a month.

On the 800th anniversary of St Anthony’s birth the friars received a gift of a reliquary of St Anthony from the Italian province of Conventual Franciscans enthroned in a walnut-tree house. Historically St Anthony lived and preached in a walnut tree house.

Christ’s glorified body heals us of disbelief

Looking at Luke 24:38ff Christ says, “Why are you troubled, and doubts arise in your heart? Look at my hands and my feet, touch and see.”

Commenting on appearance of Christ in His glorified body, Saint Augustine of Hippo in Sermon 246 tells us that Christ wanted to offer evidence of His resurrection from the dead as a reality! “Was He perhaps already ascended to the Father when He said: ‘Touch me and see’? He let His disciples touch Him, indeed, not only touch but feel, to provide a foundation for faith in the reality of His flesh, in reality of His body [ut fides fiat verae carnis veri corporis]. The well-foundedness of the reality had to be made obvious also through human touch [ut exhibibeatur etiam tactibus humanis solidatus veritatis]. Thus He let Himself be touched by the disciples.”

Later on Augustine asks about the women who were asked by the Lord not to touch Him because He had yet made the ascension, “What is this inconsistency? The men could not tocuh Him if not here on earth, while the women would be able to touch Him once He ascended to heaven? But what does touching mean if not believing? By faith we touch Christ. And it is better not to touch Him with faith than feel with the hand and not touch Him with faith.”

Augustine points us to the proof Christ offers: faith. “The scar of the wound on His flesh served to heal the wound of disbelief.” The Lord wanted to cure those who disbelieved.

LA gets Gomez as archbishop

Joyful noise was made upon hearing the appointment of San Antonio’s archbishop, José Horacio Gomez, S.T.D., 58, as the next archbishop of Los Angeles (the 5th).

The spin doctors (Peters and Palmo) are rejoicing in their common prediction that His Excellency would be chosen by the Holy Father to pastorally lead the Los Angeles Catholics but most of reasonable sense could have predicted this gesture. Of course we know that they have the pulse on the Church in America!

Archbishop Gomez is the first Mexican-American to lead an archdiocese in the USA; and he’s also a former member of the Opus Dei.

Archbishop Gomez faces a sizeable challenge as the new shepherd of LA: 5 million Catholics (of 11 million people) in 3 counties (87,000 sq miles), 288 parishes in 120 cities, 224 grammar schools, 50 high schools. 70% of the Catholics are Latino.

Thanks be to God for Archbishop Gomez’s positive response to the Lord’s call to serve in this way.

Take a look at some of Archbishop Gomez’s writings:

The Encounter with Jesus Christ and the New Evangelization of American Culture (2007)

Disciples and Teachers of the Word: Living the Gospel Message of Reconciliation (2007)

Immigration in 21st-Century America: Its Root Causes and the Obligations of Catholic Social Teaching (2008)

To Seek God in the Spirit of Truth (2008)

La predicación y la enseñanza: Evangelization, Education, and the Hispanic Catholic Future (2009)

Men of Brave Heart: The Virtue of Courage in the Priestly Life (OSV, 2009)

Looking at Benedict through another lens –truth

The picture one is getting in the press today of Pope Benedict is that of an out-of-touch old man in 3000 miles away. Somehow from what is commonly known and personally experienced of Benedict XVI, I don’t quite think the editors of the NY Times and other press agencies have it right, much less some scheming lawyers trying to make as much money off the sexual abuse crisis. I sometimes wonder if the newspapers and legal profession comprehend reality as it is presented or if fiction is the only genre worth digesting in their diets.

Bishop William Lori offers another view of the Pope, and he outlines some interesting facts of the clergy sex abuse industry and what the Church actually did in an article titled, “The Holy Father I Know.”

Saint Vincent Ferrrer

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the
those who bring glad tidings of peace, joy and salvation.

Almighty and
ever-living God, you taught us through the preaching of Saint Vincent to run
the path to our heavenly home in expectation of the Savior. With the help of
his prayers may we be fervent in labor and in love and seek no lasting city
here below, but an eternal dwelling place to come.

Christ is Risen!

Love is stronger the life!

Happy Easter