Thursday: a fitting day for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament

In some places it’s now catching-on that Thursday is a
fitting day for Eucharistic adoration with the intention of reparation, perhaps
replacing Fridays if one had to make a choice or either-or. I tend to think
that Thursday is a more apt for Eucharistic adoration on a stable basis in one’s
life and perhaps in parish life since as Catholics our center is Eucharistic and
the identification the Church makes with events that happened on Holy Thursdays
and Corpus Christi. Some theologians and spiritual writers today are advocating
this move for just this reason: Do this in memory of me. Whatever the case is,
adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is clearly a return to “the Cenacle, there
to relive in adoration and joy the gift and mystery of the Most Holy
Eucharist.”

adoration5.jpg

Thinking about what Pope Benedict XVI has said regarding the
Lord’s Supper, “the Church commemorates the institution of the Eucharist, the
ministerial priesthood and the new commandment of charity, left by Jesus to his
disciples.” In another place he said that there is
a “…renewed invitation to render thanks to God for the supreme gift of the
Eucharist, to be received with devotion and to be adored with lively faith.
Because of this, the Church encourages, after the celebration of Holy Mass,
watching in the presence of the Most Holy Sacrament, recalling the sad hour that
Jesus passed in solitude and prayer in Gethsemane, before being arrested and
then being condemned to death.” We therefore adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, either following Mass or at another time to live in the graces of what happened at Mass. Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament extends the graces of the Mass even after Mass has ended.

What better day than to work on this invitation to live in a
spirit of renewal with the Eucharist, the ministerial priesthood and the
theology of the Mass. The gift of sanctification (holiness) promised us by the
Lord is made real in the bond we have with the Eucharistic Lord. Our lives
depend on it because a strong Eucharistic spirituality centers our heart in the
heart of the Church.

Saint Peter Chrysologus

St Peter Chrysologus.jpgThe Lord led the just in right paths, and showed him the kingdom of God.

O God, Who did miraculously select the illustrious Doctor, Peter Chrysologus, to govern and instruct Thy Church; grant we beseech Thee, that we may deserve to have him as an intercessor in heaven, whom we had as a teacher of life on earth.
O Mystery of God’s own love,
Once hid, but now from heav’n above
Come down in Christ to save us all
Who were enslaved, in evil’s thrall:
For Peter, shepherd of Your sheep,
Your Church’s feast of joy we keep;
His faithful witness to Your Word
Made Gospel truth be always heard.
Dispenser of the mystery
Of God-made-man, he sought to be
A preacher fearless in the sight
Of all who searched for heaven’s light.
All glory, Lord, to you we bring
As in this summertime we sing
To Father and to Spirit blest;
With Peter, give us endless rest!
LM (88 88), no suggested tune
James Michael Thompson (c) 2009 WLP

Spiritual Motherhood for Priests takes off

OL Seven Sorrows.jpg

Since last year I’ve been thinking of the role spiritual
mothers, in the example of Our Lady, play in the lives of Catholic priests. I am thinking in particular of Our Lady of Sorrows for this type of spiritual maternity. In the past I mentioned this idea here and here at the beginning of 2009 (perhaps I should do it more). The
call to be a priest’s spiritual mother includes a woman’s offering herself to
God, praying in intercession and reparation for the priest, spending time in
Eucharistic Adoration and becoming a point for God’s grace to work in the life
of a priest. A woman of any age can do this work of intercession; she can be single, married, or widowed. This spiritual work is hidden and contemplative, sacrificial and
silent. It is in this special work that the reparation for the sins of priests
might happen for as the Holy Father said, “nothing makes the Church, the Body
of Christ, suffer more than the sins of her pastors.”

My interest has been sparked by two people, Franciscan
Cardinal Claudio Hummes and Benedictine Father Mark Kirby, the latter drawing
on 

Adoration & Spiritual Maternity.pdf to ask the Divine Majesty to renew priesthood
through a special devotion to the Eucharist. But there’s been other work done by
people such as Catherine Dougherty, Mother Marie des Douleurs and Maria Sieler as well as the countless laity and consecrated men and women of the Church.

In October 2008 Tulsa, OK, Bishop Edward Slattery started a
process of formation for women to dedicate their prayer for the needs of the
priesthood. I am told that there are some women in the Bridgeport Diocese that there
are women who dedicate their lives as a spiritual mother for priests but they
are so hidden no one knows them. Something has to be done in the manner in
which Bishop Slattery is doing this holy work! 

More recently Jane, living in France, has begun some work
and prayer on spiritual maternity for priests. Her blog, Spiritual Mothers of
Priests, is a good personal initiative to assist priests (and I presume
seminarians) with prayer and sacrifice during this Year of the Priest. Ladies,
visit and follow the work of Jane and join other women to this special work for
priests.

Rimini Meeting 2009 get the diplomats thumbs up


meeting Rimini 2009 logo.jpg

The Meeting for Friendship Among the Peoples is about start in Rimini, Italy. Since 1980 there has been a meeting of friends and interested peoples gathered together to understand the various points of contact in knowledge, faith, culture and human experience. There’s been an average of 700,000 people attending this week long event. The Rimini Meeting is influenced by the thought of the founder of Communion and Liberation, Msgr. Luigi Giussani. 

The cultural and interreligious dialogue at the 2009 Rimini Meeting will be happening 23-29 August 2009. The theme for this year’s meeting is “Knowledge is Always an Event.”

Watch the video clip on the diplomats’ preview of the meeting.

The Crossroad Cultural Center did a Washington, DC presentation on this year’s Meeting. See the transcript of the event.

Various pieces of info on the work of the meeting:

+ 30 years of the meeting

+ The Rimini Meeting: 30 years of dialogue

+ The exhibitions at the meeting

Synod of Bishops on the Word of God was truly ecumenical

Last week you might remember a note on the secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, addressing the American Bible Society and friends in NYC on Tuesday, 28 July.

Here are two news clips about yesterday’s event and a forthcoming meeting at University of Notre Dame.
And…the archbishop looking at historic bibles.

Saints Martha, Mary & Lazarus

Martha Mary & Lazarus.jpgWith the Church we pray:

Heavenly Father, your son was received as an honored
and welcome guest in the home of Bethany. Keep us close to the Master in our prayer and work that, blameless in his sight, he may welcome us into our eternal home, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

(Today, the Roman Missal observes the feast of Saint Martha and the Benedictine Missal supplement observes together the memorial of all three saints, Martha, Mary & Lazarus. Since it’s the preference of this blog writer to follow a diversity of Missals, I am using the collect found in the Benedictine missal supplement because the collect there gives the feast a slightly different sense in our liturgical monastic sensibility today. Of prime concern is the remembrance of monastic hospitality and these saints are known to be hosts of the Lord. Our work today, then, is look at those areas in our life where hospitality exists and where it is unfortunately restrained or non-existent.)

Faith roots the relationship with God

Never a day goes by that I don’t ask the question about my faith and my life of faith. I doubt any serious Christian would go through life without asking the same: How does my faith impact my relationship with God and vice verse? Do I live in certain intimacy with the divine nature? Do others see God in me as I relate to them? How credible a witness am I of Jesus Christ and His Good News?


Without faith it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews
11:6). Faith is the foundation of our relations with God. For the man without
faith, God has no meaning, no value, no place in his life. On the contrary, the
more lively our faith is, the more God enters into our life, until finally he
becomes our all, the one great reality for; which we live, and the One for whom
we courageously face sorrow and death. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if
we die, we die to the Lord (Romans 14:8). Those who dedicate themselves to the
spiritual life do not lack faith; but often our faith is not alive and concrete
enough to make us always see God in everything, which would give us the sense
of his fundamental, transcendent and eternal reality that infinitely surpasses
all earthly realities. In practice we do not reflect sufficiently on the truth
that to be a believer is a pure gift of God, not due to any personal merit. God
is both the object of faith and the giver of faith; it is he who infuses into
us the desire to know him and to believe in him and who makes us capable of the
act of believing.

Divine Intimacy, Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, OCD

Love for Christ reawakened thru Luigi Giussani, Benedict XVI recalls

Luigi Giussani 1965 circa Raggio.jpgMy first thought goes — it’s obvious — to your
founder Monsignor Luigi Giussani, to whom many memories tie me, since he had
become a true friend to me. Our last meeting, as Father Carrón mentioned, took
place in Milan Cathedral two years ago, when our beloved Pope John Paul II sent
me to preside at his solemn funeral. 


Through him the Holy Spirit aroused in the
Church a movement — yours — that would witness the beauty of being Christians
in an epoch in which the opinion was spreading that Christianity was something
tiresome and oppressive to live. Father Giussani, then, set himself to reawaken
in the youth the love for Christ, the way, the truth and the life, repeating
that only he is the road toward the realization of the deepest desires of man’s
heart; and that Christ saves us not despite our humanity, but through it. 

Pope
Benedict XVI, address to Communion and Liberation, March 25, 2007