Communio – Page 484 – …bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Reverence that consumes our total being

An ancient phrase indicates what a true relationship with God is: Deus es consumens: he purifies from sin and makes us white as wool. He consumes our darkness with his light, with his love, with his entire self. gives luster to soul, stripes away sin and brights the souls giving the same grace which was given to the apostles.

So it can be said, “My God and my all” as Saint Francis did. Everything is drawn into the person of God. Everything changes in our life when we abandon ourselves to the Lord: absolutely everything changes when we give total reverence for the Divine.

When we come to Christ in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, or walk up to the altar to receive the Holy Eucharist, we know in the root of our being that he totally different from me and my experience. In these gestures of love we say with John the Baptist: I must decrease while he must increase.

To everything that gives life and love the Church says Yes!

You know, the church is the one who dreams, the church
is the one who constantly has the vision, the church is the one that’s
constantly saying ‘Yes!’ to everything that life and love and sexuality and
marriage and belief and freedom and human dignity–everything that that stands
for, the church is giving one big resounding ‘Yes!’ The church founded the
universities, the church was the patron of the arts, the scientists were all
committed Catholics. And that’s what we have to recapture: the kind of exhilarating,
freeing aspect. I mean, it wasn’t Ronald Reagan who brought down the Berlin
Wall. It was Karol Wojtyla. I didn’t make that up: Mikhail Gorbachev said
that…I guess one of the things that frustrates me pastorally is that there’s
this caricature of the church–of being this oppressive, patriarchal, medieval,
out-of-touch naysayer–where the opposite is true.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan, New
York Magazine

Saint Jerome

O God, for the expounding of the Holy Scriptures did raise up in Thy Church the great and holy Doctor Jerome; we beseech Thee, grant that by his intercession and merits we may, by Thy help, be enabled to practice what he taught us both by word and by work.

Don’t miss Pope Benedict XVI on Saint Jerome, part I and part II.

Communion & Liberation received a letter from John Paul II 25 years ago

On the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Founding of Communion and
Liberation

Rome, September 29, 1984

Dearest Brothers and Sisters! I wish first
of all to thank Msgr Giussani for his introductory remarks, as well as all the
others who took part in this introduction.

1. I express my great joy for this
meeting with you, who have come here to Rome to celebrate thirty years of your
movement and to reflect together with the Pope on your history as persons who
live in the Church and are called to cooperate in intense communion, to bring
it to mankind, and to spread it in the world.

Looking at your faces, so open,
so happy on this festive occasion, I experience a deep feeling of joy and the
desire to show you my affection for your decision of faith and to help you to
be ever more mature in Christ, sharing His redemptive love for man. The
photographic exhibition which I was able to admire as I entered the room, words
(testimonies, accounts, and songs) that I have just heard have allowed me to
retrace, as from within, this period of your life, which is part of the life of
the Italian Church (and not only Italian any longer) of our time. These words
have given me the possibility of seeing clearly the educational criteria of
your way of living in the Church, which imply a vivacious and intense work in the
most varied social contexts.

I am grateful to the Lord for all this, who once
again has made me admire His mystery in you, which you bear and must always be
ready to bear, with humble awareness of being pliable clay in His creative
hands.

Continue with commitment on this road so that also through you the
Church may still more be the environment of the redemptive existence of man, a
fascinating environment where every man finds the answer to the question of the
meaning of his life: Christ, center of the cosmos and of history.

2. Jesus, the
Christ, He in whom everything is made and subsists, is therefore the
interpretative principle of man and his history. To affirm humbly but equally
tenaciously that Christ is the beginning and inspirational motive for living
and working of consciousness and of action, means to adhere to Him, to make
present adequately His victory over the world.

To work so that the content of
the faith becomes understanding and pedagogy of life is the daily task of the
believer, which must be carried out in every situation and environment in which
they are called to live. And the richness of your participation in ecclesial
life lies in this: a method of education in the faith so that it may influence
the life of man and history; in the sacraments, so that they bring about an
encounter with the Lord, and in Him with the brethren; in prayer, so that it be
an invocation and praise of God in authority, so that it be a guard and
guarantor of the authenticity of the ecclesial path.

The Christian experience
so understood and lived generates a presence which places the Church in every
human situation as the place where the event of Christ, “a stumbling-block
to the Jews… foolishness for the pagans” (1 Cor l; 23-24), lives as a
horizon full of truth for man.

3. We believe in Christ, dead and risen, in
Christ present here and now, who alone can change and changes man and the
world, by transfiguring them.

Your presence, ever more numerous and significant
in the life of the Church in Italy and in various nations in which your
experience is beginning to spread, is due to this certainty which you must
deepen and communicate, because it is this certainty that moves mankind. It is
significant in this regard, and it should be noted, how the Spirit, in order to
continue with the man of today that dialogue begun by God in Christ and
continued in the course of all Christian history, has raised up many ecclesial
movements in the contemporary Church. They are a sign of the freedom of forrns
in which the one Church is expressed, and they represent a secure newness,
which still awaits being adequately understood in all its positive efficacy for
the Kingdom of God at work in the present moment of history.

My venerated
predecessor, Pope Paul VI, addressing the members of the Florentine community
of Communion and Liberation on December 28, 1977, stated: “We thank you
also for the courageous, faithful, and firm witness that you have given in this
somewhat disturbed period because of certain misunderstandings you have had to
face. Be happy, be faithful, be strong and joyful and carry with you the
witness that the Christian life is beautiful, strong, serene, and really
capable of transforming the society in which it is lived.”

4. Christ is
the presence of God with man, Christ is the mercy of God towards sinners. The
Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, and the new People of God, brings to the
world this tender benevolence of the Lord, encountering and supporting man in
every situation, in every environment, on every occasion.

In so doing, the
Church contributes to generating that culture of truth and love which is able
to reconcile the person with himself and with his own destiny. In such a way
the Church becomes the sign of salvation for man, whose every desire for
freedom she welcomes and values. The experience of this mercy renders us able
to accept those who are different from us, to create new relationships, and to
experience the Church in all the wealth and depth of its mystery as an
unlimited desire for dialogue with man wherever he is found.

“Go into all
the world” (Mt 28;19) is what Christ said to his disciples. And I repeat
to you: “Go into all the world and bring the truth, the beauty, and the
peace which are found in Christ the Redeemer”. This invitation that Christ
made to all his followers and which Peter has the duty ceaselessly to renew, is
already interwoven with your history. In these thirty years you have been open
to the most varied situations, casting the seed of the presence of your
movement. I know that you have put down roots in eighteen nations in the world:
in Europe, in Africa, in America, and I know also the insistency with which
your presence is sought in other countries. Take on the burden of this
ecclesial need: this is the charge I leave with you today.

5. I know that you
well understand the indispensable importance of a true and full communion
between the various components of the ecclesial community. I am certain,
therefore, that you will not fail to commit yourselves with renewed fervor in
the search for more appropriate ways to carry out your activities in harmony
and collaboration with the bishops, the pastors, and with all the other
ecclesial movements.

Bring into the whole world the simple and transparent sign
of the event of the Church. Authentic evangelization understands and responds
to the needs of the individual man because it helps him to find Christ in the
Christian community. The man of today has a particular need to have Christ in
front of him, with clarity and evidence, as a profound sign of his birth, life,
and death, and of his suffering and joy.

May Our Lady, Mother of God and of the
Church, guide you constantly on the pathway of life. Knowing your devotion to
the Holy Virgin, I hope that she will be for all of you the “Morning
Star,” who will enlighten and strengthen your generous commitment of
Christian witness in the contemporary world.

And now I cordially give you my
Apostolic Blessing.

Pope John Paul II

Saints Michael, Gabriel & Raphael, archangels

Bless the Lord, all you his angels, mighty in power, you obey his word and heed the sound of his voice.

God our Father, in a wonderful way you guide the work of angels and men. May those who serve you constantly in heaven keep our lives safe from harm on earth.

In her liturgy, the Church joins with the angels to adore the thrice-holy God. She invokes their assistance (in the funeral liturgy’s In Paradisum deducant te angeli… [“May the angels lead you into Paradise…”]). Moreover, in the ‘Cherubic Hymn’ of the Byzantine liturgy, she celebrates the memory of certain angels more particularly (St. Michael, St Gabriel, St. Raphael and the guardian angels)” (CCC 335).

Read All About Angels or listen to the audio file.

Wonder & Knowledge: where do they meet with science

Crossroads Cultural Center & Columbia Catholic Ministry in
collaboration with the

Center for the Study of Science and Religion at Columbia

WONDER AND KNOWLEDGE

A conference on the origin of the
universe in science and philosophy and the role of wonder in scientific
discovery

SPEAKERS:

Msgr. Lorenzo ALBACETE–Theologian, author, columnist

Dr. Marco BERSANELLI— Prof. of Astrophysics, University of
Milan and author of From Galileo to Gell-Mann: The Wonder that Inspired the
Greatest Scientists of All Time: In Their Own Words (Templeton Press)

Fr. Michael HELLER–Prof. of Philosophy, Pontifical Acad. of
Theology, Krakow (2008 Templeton Prize winner)

Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 8:00 PM

Columbia University Main Campus

Earl Hall Auditorium, 2980
Broadway at 116th Street, NYC

The conference is open to the public and free of charge.

For more information, visit www.crossroadsculturalcenter.org

To live without reservation: what Francis may be pointing to

Some have called Liliana Cavani’s Francesco (1989; DVD 1998) a gritty alternative to Franco
Zeffirelli’s Brother Sun, Sister Moon. And I agree. Zeffirelli, while a brilliant filmmaker, can ruin a
saint. And whatever may be said of Cavani’s work, Francesco is neither a saccharine nor romantic portrayal of
the 13th century’s radical saint, Francis of Assisi. His sincerity is strikingly beautiful. This movie is based on
Herman Hesse’s book Francis of Assisi. Cavani’s film won three awards and was nominated for a fourth. The
legendary actor/boxer/dog lover and practicing Catholic, Mickey Rourke, played
Saint Francis. And as a side bar, he credits his Catholic faith to saving his life.

Liliana
Cavani, born in 1933 in Capri, is the director of many television and cinematic
productions. Her religious
tendencies are basically unknown to me but I did hear that she leans or leaned
toward a communist ideology. But I can’t help wondering what really inspired
Cavani to direct a film on such a figure as Francis of Assisi. Certainly it
can’t be the wacky-ness that often surrounds the figure of Francis!

Francesco is an interpretation of the person of the 13th century Umbrian saint, Francis of Assisi. He died in 1226 and founded what is
today called the Franciscans 800 years ago. What the Franciscans looked like in
the 13th century isn’t what they are today. The movie is a series of
flashbacks with various friends telling the story of the man who led them to
Christ. Cavani brings out several central questions that all of us have to
answer viz. our Christian faith: To whom do I belong? Do I belong to these
people, or do I belong to Christ? How do I know and why?

The period in which
the real Francis lived was a chaotic time in secular as well as ecclesial
history. His world was faced with civil strife, wars, disease, extreme poverty
in many sectors, illiteracy not to mention heretical movements tearing the
fabric of faith to pieces. And, let’s also not underestimate the wounds of the
Church faced as a result of heresy: lack of true community, negligence of the
human body, despair, lack of reasonable understanding of the faith and Truth
and no reasonable response to the human reality. Hence, the notion of Francis
rebuilding the Lord’s Church took on significant importance for many people.

Why
Francesco? It has little to do
with the fact that his October 4th feast day is next Sunday. But it
has everything to do with the fact that in our School of Community (Communion
& Liberation’s weekly catechetic meeting) we are reading Father Giussani’
chapter on poverty in volume 2 of Is It Possible to Live This Way? There we are confronting the real, and
truly theological reality, of possessing without possession. Giussani is
raising the concern of restraining the possibility of grace in our lives but
how we live our lives. So many of us can’t face life in the manner in which it
is given. We create escape mechanisms to mask the real life issues: pain, love,
sorrow, faith, hurt, joy, lack of happiness, etc. Francis gave his whole life
away to another person. He confused his parents and siblings; his friends and
civil authorities were shocked. All could not understand Francis turning on end
what was conventually known as “normal.” He found something wonderful among the
poor that became a contradistinction to the bourgeois normativity of Umbrian
society. Renouncing self and possessions and following Christ crucified became
his “normal.” As Saint Clare says in the movie, God spoke to him again and His
love made Francis’ body identical to the Beloved’s.

Cavani deals with poverty
in a gritty manner–it is terrifically human. And she never moralizes poverty or
religious conviction. Even when the pope asks Francis “and what are you
criticizing me for” and Francis says “nothing” we can’t believe our ears. Two
men come back to Francis’ family and friends looking to explain what they
experienced and thinking that the men would point out the ugliness of poverty
and extreme raw life of Francis, they said, “there’s something beautiful
there.” You then realize that
Francis isn’t following “poverty”; he’s following someone; he’s closely
adhering to beauty. But it is not ordinary beauty–it is the beauty of believing that he promises of Christ are true.

Why Francis? Because he points to Christ. His faith,
courage and thinking he could live like Christ is what Giussani wants to
suggest is the reason for our life. Giussani asks, quid animo satis? (what can
satisfy the soul?) It has to be the Gospel at it’s word or all is rubbish. Francis, by the way, is the only person the Church calls an alter
Christus among the saints.

Saint Vincent de Paul

Well done, good and faithful servant; because you have been faithful over a few things, I will place you over many things, enter into the joy of the Lord.

O God, Who did endow blessed Vincent with apostolic power for preaching the Gospel to the poor and for promoting the honor of the priesthood; we beseech You, grant that we who venerate his holy life may be inspired by the example of his virtues.

Vincent was always a favorite saint of mine. His sons, the Vincentian fathers, operated the parish and grammar school (with the CSFN sisters) where I went. His life, his radical conversion to God, his work among the poor and his work in the formation of men for priesthood sets the bar for my own life. The collect that the Church sets on our lips (see above) is a good reminder of how we ought to live our own lives. May his witness continue for years to come. Read about the Vincentians here.

Sacred Heart University’s new chapel is a sanctuary for the pilgrim people of God

Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT enters into rites dedicating the Chapel of the Holy Spirit, today. Rarely do we have the opportunity to newly construct a marvelous work of art given for God’s greater glory and His worship such as Sacred Heart’s Chapel of the Holy Spirit. Having Father Rupnik‘s commission in Connecticut gives us a special link to the work of the Church in calling us to deeper union with God. Rupnik’s mosaic work had its first world dramatic epiphany in Apostolic Palace’s Mother of the Redeemer Chapel (Vatican City State) due to Pope John Paul being struck to the beauty wrought by Rupnik and his colleagues at the Centro Aletti. Today, we are struck by the same beauty drawn more deeply into the mystery, into radical holiness by another dramatic manifestation of the mosaics.

I previously mentioned Rupnik’s work in the USA.

The NY Times features the liturgical art of the chapel.

On the new chapel organ for the chapel.

The progression of building the chapel…

I have to note that Sacred Heart’s mosaics are not the first for the artist in the USA: Father Rupnik’s first work was installed in the Holy Family Chapel at the central office of the Knights of Columbus, New Haven, CT. And like today’s ceremonies of dedication, the mosaics in New Haven were blessed for liturgical use by Bishop Lori, the same who is doing consecration today.

The response to God’s word is telling

First comes the word of God that addresses me, touches
me, calls me into question, wounds and judges me, but also heals and frees me.
Both prayer and silence can only be an answer to God’s word and may not precede
it.

Thus Benedict requires that prayer should be frequent, but short. In it the
monastic is to respond to the word of God and express his or her readiness to
follow God’s demands with deeds. Thus we find in Benedict’s Rule no teaching on
mystical prayer, but very sober instruction to open one’s daily life to God
again and again in every situation.

What is crucial is not our doing, but
living before God, in God’s presence, listening to God’s word that addresses us
and shows us the way. In prayer the monastic responds that she or he has heard
God’s word and is now ready to follow it.

Benedict of Nursia His Message for
Today

Anselm Grun OSB