Blessed Angela Salawa

Bl Angela Salawa.jpgIn Scripture and the Liturgy we read: “Come, blessed of my Father, says the Lord: I was ill and you comforted me. I tell you, anything you did for one of my brothers, you did it for me.”

Let us pray with the Church:

Lord God, You teach us that the commandments of heaven are summarized in love of You and of our neighbor. By following the example of blessed Angela, the virgin, in practicing the works of charity may we be counted among the blessed in Your kingdom.

 
Blessed Angela’s life (1881-1922) is striking because of its simplicity and the felt sense of love. Some parts of her family history, though, was tough: she was the youngest child of nine brothers, often undernourished, weak and sick, she was unruly and capricious. Angela received some schooling and learned to read, but spelling was not a skill she could take pride in. Angela learned to be a pious woman and in time she was eager to read good book. By her late teenage years, she entered to the Association of Saint Zita (caring for sick people.)

 
Little by little she understood that her vocation was to suffer with Christ, and accept it resolutely, but conscious of its weakness. She spent many hours in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament and read books of spiritual depth, taking copious notes. By order of her confessor, Angela began to make notes of the mystical experiences. When one of the people she was looking after died, interpersonal difficulties with the deceased’s family surfaced for Angela. She wrote that it feels suddenly that Jesus says to her: “Daughter, why do you worry? I have not left to you.”
 
In order to follow more closely Christ crucified and poor, she joined the Secular Franciscan Order on March 15, 1912, and she professed vows on 6 August 1913. As a lay woman consecrated to Christ living under the Rule of Saint Francis for the Laity, Angela is an example to all of us that obstacles can be overcome with grace.

 
At her 1991 beatification in Kraków, Pope John Paul II said: “It is in this city that she worked, that she suffered and that her holiness came to maturity. While connected to the spirituality of St. Francis, she showed an extraordinary responsiveness to the action of the Holy Spirit” (L’Osservatore Romano, 34.4, 1991).

Aroused by the presence of Christ

Paul’s
conversion (and let me echo the words of St Augustine used speaking about his
own conversion) is simply the passage from his dedication to God to recognition
of what God has done and does in Jesus.

Augustine describes his conversion
thus: “When I read the apostle Paul [and immediately afterwards -because it is
not enough to the Scriptures–he adds:] and when Your hand healed the sadness of
my heart, then I understood the difference inter praesumptionem et confessionem
/ between dedication and recognition.” Praesumptio does not indicate a bad
thing. In the long term it decays into bad presumption, but initially it
indicates a person’s attempt to achieve the good ideal intuited. Christian
conversion is the passage from this attempt to do good (good works, said Pope
Benedict) to the simple recognition of the presence of Jesus. From praesumptio,
dedication, to confessio, recognition. The confessio, recognition, is like when
the child says, ‘Mamma.” As when the mother comes towards the child and it
says, ‘Mamma.”

Christian conversion, for Augustine and Paul, is (let me use the
image of Don Giussani’s that, in my opinion, has no equivalent) the transition
from the enthusiasm of dedication to the enthusiasm of beauty; from the
enthusiasm of one’s own dedication, which in itself is good, to the enthusiasm
aroused by a presence that attracts the heart, a presence which gratuitously
comes forward and gratuitously makes itself recognized. Paul had done nothing
to meet Him. His gratuitous coming forwards accomplishes the transition from
our dedication to the beauty of His presence that makes itself recognized
through attraction. And between recognition and dedication there is no
contradiction. Giussani says simply that “enthusiasm of dedication is
incomparable with the enthusiasm of beauty.” It is the same term St Augustine
uses when he describes the relationship between the virtue of men and the first
steps of those who put their hope in the grace and mercy of God.

We might also
say that when by grace a person happens to live the same experience that Paul
went through, his same experience, in the infinite remove from him, it is as if
all the Christian words, the word of faith, the word salvation, the word
Church, were transparent of the initiative of Jesus Christ. It is He who stirs
faith, Faith is His working. It is He who saves. Bestowing salvation is His
initiative. It is He who builds His Church. “Aedifcabo ecclesiam meam” (Mt
16:18). Aedificabo is a future tense [verb]: “I will build my Church” on the
profession of faith of Peter, on the grace of faith given to Peter (cf. Mt
16:18). It is He who builds personally, in the present, His Church on a gift of
His.

Giussani was speaking to a group of young people. At a certain point he
asked: “What puts us in relationship with Jesus Christ? What, now, puts us in
relationship with Jesus Christ?” People said: “The Church,” “The community,”
“Our friendship,” and so on. At the end of all the suggestions, Giussani
repeated the question: “What puts us in relationship with Jesus Christ?” And
then gave the answer himself: “The fact that He is risen.” Because were He not
risen, were He not alive, the Church would be a merely human institution, like
so many others. One burden more. All things merely human in the become a
burden. The Church is the visible term of the gesture of the living Jesus who
meets the heart and attracts it.

Don Giacomo Tartandini, 30 Days, no. 6/7 2009

1962 Missal of Blessed John XXIII at the College of the Holy Cross on March 19th

The liturgical landscape on certain Jesuit university campuses has changed dramatically in the last few years. It is a new world! In my time of studying with the Society of Jesus the Missal of Blessed John XXIII would never have been a possibility (until about 4 years ago). It fact, the Jesuits would have marginalized you to Pluto for suggesting it or sent you to a shrink for thinking about the venerable form of the Mass. Now it seems that Georgetown, Fordham AND now the College of the Holy Cross are willing to occasionally have the 1962 Missal Mass. I wonder how long it will take Boston College, Fairfield, Loyola Chicago, St Louis Universities to pray this Mass publicly????

Traditional Latin Mass Advertisement jpg.jpg

Omnium in Mentem (in English)

On 15 December 2009, Pope Benedict made public some “clarifications” (revisions?) he made to the 1983 Code of Canon Law in a motu proprio titled, Omnium in Mentem. To date, no English translation of the motu proprio has been made available, until now that is.

We are happy to have said document in English thanks to the work of Mr. Paul Haverstock. You can read it here: Omnium in mentem trans Haverstock.pdf.

While Mr. Haverstock’s translation is not an official translation of the Holy See, it is a gift to have it now in well written English.

Pope visit monks of Sant’Anselmo to begin Lent

B16 Notker Wolf & Elias Lorenzo.jpgMy friend Dom Elias Lorenzo, monk of St. Mary’s Abbey
(Morristown, NJ), is currently serving as the Superior and Prior of the Abbey
of Sant’Anselmo in Rome, Italy, the headquarters of international Benedictine
Confederation and home to the Pontifical Liturgical Institute.


In his capacity
as Father Prior of Sant’Anselmo, Dom Elias recently (February 17, 2010) welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to Sant’Anselmo
on the Aventine Hill. The Pope’s visit to Sant’Anselmo is an annual event to begin the Lenten season on Ash Wednesday with a procession from the Abbey Church to
the Church of Santa Sabina, the headquarters of the Order of Friars Preachers
(the Dominicans) where the Sacrifice of the Mass is celebrated.

The Holy Father was greeted by Abbot Primate Notker Wolf (also German) and
Dom Elias, who escorted him into the basilica where he prayed before the Blessed
Sacrament. There the Pope stopped for a brief prayer, before beginning Mass at
the chair. Dom Elias said, “This is a unique liturgy in that the Pope
intones a penitential litany and the monks, visiting bishops and cardinals
process from Sant’Anselmo to Santa Sabina for the rest of the Mass.” The
pope vests for Mass at Santa Sabina.

The Pope’s liturgical “style”

Mass23.jpgHave you ever thought of Pope Benedict XVI’s liturgical “style”? Or have you asked yourself, “What does Pope Benedict think about the sacred Liturgy?” Or have you asked yourself, “Do I know what the meaning of Catholic Liturgy is for the Church? Good. I want you to ask these questions because I want to encourage you to read some good things on the Liturgy and not the crap you generally find in the NCR or America Magazine. You can read longer works of Ratzinger’s like A New Song for the Lord, The Feast of Faith, The Spirit of the Liturgy, Looking Again at the Question of the Liturgy with Cardinal Ratzinger, God and the World (Ch. 17), among others.

BUT for a short piece on the subject you may be interested in reading the article by John Allen, “Liturgist: Pope aims to “propose’ practices,” where he speaks with the Pope’s Master of Ceremonies, Monsignor Guido Marini. Plus, there’s the “Q&A with Msgr. Guido Marini, papal liturgist.”

Vatican said to investigate alleged Medjugorje apparitions

Getting to the bottom of the story, or at least approaching the bottom, is welcomed news as to the validity of the alleged apparitions at Medjugorje by the Blessed Mother. Remember these apparitions have been going on since 1982! Are these apparitions or hallucinations? The answer may come if the reports that a Vatican commission has been established are true. An Italian media group is reporting that the Vatican is setting up a commission to be headed by Cardinal Camillo Ruini.

CNA speaks about some recent issues pertaining to the hallucinations, I mean, alleged apparitions. I am of the opinion that these events at Medjugorje are not true but I am willing to say that the Holy Spirit can bring good out of bad.

Saint John of God

St John of God.jpgFather, You gave John of God love and compassion for others. Grant that by doing good for others we may be counted among the saints in Your kingdom.

Saint John of God made his conversion at the age of 40 (there’s hope for those of us who are older) and is famously known for founding a group of brothers whose work is to serve the sick and the dying, especially the homeless and those on the margins of society. The order is known as the Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God. A statue of St John of God is positioned among the great founders of religious orders at Saint Peter’s Basilica, Rome.
Today, there are provinces of the brothers around the world, and in the USA, they can found here: The Hospitaller Brothers of Saint John of God.
Saint John of God is the patron saint for heart patients, hospitals, nurses, firefighters, printers and booksellers.