Saint Philomena

St Philomena.jpgAugust 11th is also Saint Philomena’s liturgical feast day but today is also a day to honor the name of Philomena and her place in our Church. Recently, a news item appeared about her.

Growing up in New Haven, CT I knew many of Italian Catholic women named for Saint Philomena. Across the street from Portsmouth Abbey (Portsmouth, RI) there’s a school that’s under the patronage of this saint. The connections are many more. One has to say that some ‘people’ think Philomena didn’t exist in the same way they think Saint Christopher didn’t exist. What historical proof does one need to prove a person’s existence? For someone who never existed in the scientific minds, Philomena has had some prominent people take an interest in her with a  sanctuary (Italy) and a shrine (USA).

A little known fact is that Saint John Vianney, Saint Peter Julian Eymard, Saint Bartolo Longo and Saint Damian de Vuester had a special love for Philomena; Vianney even attributes the conversion of Ars to her intercession.  He built a shrine to Saint Philomena and composing a litany in honor of her. 

Pray the Litany to Saint Philomena and the Novena Prayer to the saint.

Hymn to Saint Clare of Assisi

Can anyone think of Clare without Francis? Is it possible to conceive of the mendicant orders without the witness of Saint Clare? Saint Clare of Assisi is a pivotal figure in Catholic
spirituality and religious life that I think she’s been studied and followed by
very few. James Thompson, a composer of sacred music, wrote the following piece
on Clare which deserves our attention. I have posted Thompson’s texts here before
with the thought that they provide food for thought and prayer. He captures
well the spirit and life of this companion of Francis. 


O Light from Light,
all splendor’s Source,
Whose clear beams shine with heaven’s joy,
We give
You thanks for Mother Clare
And ev’ry form of praise employ.

Enticed by
Francis’ preaching sweet,

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Christ Crucified became her Spouse;
She gathered
sisters to her side
Where Poverty would grace the house.

She left behind
all earthly gain
That riches true might be her all;
In poverty, obedience,
And
chastity she heard Christ’s call.

As mother to her flock, she lived
And
modeled Christ to ev’ryone;
In loving service spent herself
In toil from dawn
to setting sun.

As she has shown us, Lord,
Your way, So give us grace like her
to be,
That we may turn from self to You
And in your Way be truly free.

Most
high, omnipotent, good God,
O Father, Son and Spirit blest,
With Mother Clare
and all your saints Bring us,
Your Church, to endless rest.

88 88 (LM) no suggested
tune
James Michael Thompson (c) 2009 World Library Publication

The reason for prayer

Prayer is an exercise of love and it would be incorrect to think that if there is no time for solitude, there is no prayer at all. For the very reason that prayer is based especially on love and springs from it, it is possible to prolong it beyond the time devoted exclusively to it.

Though it is not possible to be always thinking of God, partly because our mind gets tired, or because our many occupations demand full attention, still it is always possible for the heart to love and to desire God, and this can, and must, exist even in the performance of duties which absorb our intellect; in fact, such an orientation can be intensified by the desire to accomplish every action for the love of God, to please him, and give him glory.

“The reason for prayer” according to St. Thomas Aquinas, “is a desire moved by charity. . . And this desire with us must be continuous, either in act, or at least potentially. . . We can say that one prays continuously by reason of the continuity of his desire”.

Divine Intimacy
Father Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalen, OCD

Saint Clare of Assisi

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The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking good pearls, who, when he had found one of great price, gave all that he had and bought it.

Hear us, O God our Savior, that as we rejoice in the feast of blessed Clare, Thy Virgin, so may we also be strengthened in the love of true piety.

Saint Clare once said, “They say we are too poor. Can a heart which possesses God be really called poor!”

The Poor Clares nuns never ate meat. They walked without socks and shoes. The sisters wore a hair shirt and ate only bread and water during Lent.

Explore the Poor Clare vocation; there’s also this new monastery of Poor Clares.

Boston’s Blessed Sacrament Adoration gets more attention, but what about in Connecticut?

On August 3rd, I mentioned here in this blog that after 40 years the eucharistic of perpetual adoration is returning to the Archdiocese of Boston. Cardinal O’Malley is opening the endeavor with a Mass on August 15. Visit St Clement’s Shrine.

Read Boston Globe’s Michael Paulson’s article on the renewed interest in perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. It’s picking up steam in Boston, why not in other dioceses?

There are a few places in the Bridgeport Diocese that have regular adoration: one is 24/7 (St Marguerite Bourgeois Church) and the rest have near perpetual adoration; it seems to me that we need more 24/7 adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Seems to be nowhere in the Diocese of Norwich, CT. In the Archdiocese of Hartford I can think of the Dominican nuns in North Guilford, CT, having perpetual adoration but their chapel is not open to the public for the full 24 hours.
While I know adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is a awesome gesture of prayer, beauty, sacrifice and communion, is it wanted or needed by the people of God (& clergy)? I get the sense that it’s not based on these three dioceses but I think I’d be wrong to make this conclusion. Paulson’s article brings to light that people are truly changed after spending time with the Lord; and I dare say it’s also vice versa –that the Lord wants to spend time with us. So why can’t more dioceses restore a sensible practice of eucharistic adoration 24/7?

The Madeleine turns 100

The Madeleine.jpgUtah’s Catholics are celebrating a 100 years of the Catholic cathedral’s presence in a state long known as a haven for Mormons. The mother church of the diocese, The Cathedral of the Madeleine, is 100 years old. While history shows us that Franciscan missionaries preached and celebrated Mass as early as 1776, this celebration concretizes a presence in a house of prayer that has celebrated the sacraments unto salvation.

Catholics on the East coast of the USA or perhaps anywhere else other than Utah will wonder why I am bringing this story more attention. Isn’t the Madeleine’s anniversary a local festivity? Yes and no. Certainly the Catholics of the Diocese of Salt Lake City are remembering the graces and challenges of living their Christian faith there which obviously includes a witness to Christ. Well, it is obvious to me that every claim to witnessing to Christ is not of equal importance if we don’t point to Jesus as the origin of our happiness, the fact of being the Bread of Life and being THE way, the truth and the life. But all of us ought to be celebrating the fact that Christ has made Himself known to His people there. The theology and practice of the Catholic Church is know deeply that what affects Utah’s Catholic community affects us; being Catholic means that we are part of a Church, therefore a companionship of people announcing the the Presence of Salvation today. The Church thinks this is so with the presence of the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine for the Faith who unites all of us with the Holy Father. That is, the beauty of the Catholic faith is its true universality.

Saint Lawrence

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Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor, O Lord. And hast set him over the works of Thy hands.

Lawrence the Deacon performed a pious act by giving sight to the blind through the sign of the Cross, and bestowed upon the poor the riches of the Church. (Vigil Magnificat Antiphon)

We beseech Thee, almighty God, grant us to quench the flames of our vices, even as Thou gavest blessed Lawrence grace to overcome his fiery torments.

The saintly deacon was asked by the Roman Prefect to hand over the Church’s wealth. needing three days to do so, he gathered  thousands of lepers, blind and sick people, the poor, the widows and orphans and the elderly and presented them to the Prefect. Angry, the Prefect killed Lawrence slowly by roasting him on a gridiron. Saying to his torturers, “I am done on that side, turn me over,” died with a prayer for Rome’s conversion to Christ on his lips. The has honored Lawrence with texts for Mass and the Divine Office thinking very highly of his witness to Christ and service to the Church.

Knowing & praying God’s name is blessed in us

In the opening collect for today’s Mass, the priest asked God the Father: “Increase Your Spirit within us and bring us to our promised inheritance.” Here the promised inheritance is none other than communion with the Trinity. It is heaven! Our promised inheritance is the pledge of future glory: Christ received in the Bread of Life. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord!

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How much time in the past year have you given thought about your “promised inheritance”? When was the last time you considered your own worthiness to receive the divine gift of the promised inheritance? What criteria exists for someone to receive such a gift? With sin in the world and in our own lives, experience tells me that we want the gift but we don’t really know what it is, why we are receiving a promised inheritance from God and too often we don’t see how sin would prevent us from heaven. BUT do we have sin on our souls? If we didn’t we’d be dead or merely presumptuous.

At last I knew, my conscience, my self-awareness, my religious sense, my own experience of who I am as a person says, I am a sinner. Sin is the falling away from God; it is a radical break in my relationship with God. More precisely, “Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. it has been defined as ‘an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law'” (CCC 1849). I fall from grace by word and action, by thought and disordered affections. Don’t you? The psalmist says that man and woman speak with a divided heart, a forked-tongue. Do you confess the truth of Jesus Christ all the time?

Does a divided heart make me a hypocrite? By definition, NO. But it doesn’t if I don’t pretend –at least I don’t think I do– to be anything more than what I am: a loved sinner. A man who sins, falls away from God and yet is loved unconditionally by God, redeemed by Christ. It is Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross and his promise of salvation through Him as the Bread of Life that I am able to be justified. In a word, awareness of one’s sin indicates that you can’t fall off the floor. Were this the awareness of all Catholics who make the claim to know Jesus and receive Him in the Eucharist today!

So, why talk about sin on a Sunday in which we pray that God would bring us to our promised inheritance? For starters in our to accept this wonderful promise we have to be worthy of the gift. Stepping into heaven, being a part of God’s inner, transcendent life we have to be as pure, as holy as we can possibly be give our freedom to say “yes” to God and to cooperate with grace. Accepting the promised gift means that we have to deal truthfully with reality as it is presented to us. And we know from experience, reality has never failed us but we may have failed reality. The Bread of Life offered by Jesus in today’s gospel is not make believe, it is not what we want it to be, it is Himself: body and blood, soul and divinity. The Bread of Life is His real, authentic self. In order to have Christ present in our life and for our prayer to be as effective as possible, we have to consider the frequent prayer, may Your name be held holy.

Saint Cyprian of Carthage says so clearly:

We pray, ‘Hallowed be Thy name,’ not that we wish that
God may be made holy by our prayers but that His name may be hallowed in us…It
is because He commands us, ‘Be holy, even as I am holy,’ that we ask and
entreat that we who were sanctified in baptism may continue in that which we
have begun to be. And this we pray for daily, for we have need of daily
sanctification, that we who daily fall away may wash our sins by continual
sanctification.”

We have work to do.

Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

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God our Father, You give us joy each year in honoring the memory of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. May her prayers be a source of help for us, and may her example of courage and chastity be our inspiration.

You can read any of the following for an understanding of this pivotal, 21st century saint:
from volume IV of the collected works
Brief biographies found here (from the Vatican) and here.
–books by the saint