Joy is the most infallible sign of the Presence of God.
Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.
1881-1955
Cyril Vasil ordained bishop
As I noted a few weeks ago, Jesuit Father Cyril Vasil, 44, was nominated by the Pope to be Secretary for the Congregation for the Eastern Churches serving the Church with Cardinal Leonardo Sandri. He was ordained a bishop today in the papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major, across the street from where he resided and taught Eastern Canon Law at the Pontifical Oriental Institute. Today, is also the Archbishop’s 22nd anniversary ordination as a priest and both ordinations were done by the same bishop.
As his coat of arms suggest, Archbishop is “Always Prepared” to serve the Lord and the Church.
May God grant Archbishop Cyril many years!
Lauda Sion
The Church has been given the gift of the enduring Presence of the Lord in the Eucharist. Last week celebrated Trinity Sunday and today Corpus Christi. This feast dates to when Pope Urban IV (1261-64) inaugurated the Feast of Corpus Christi and asked Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) to compose the the Liturgy for the Church. A striking feature of today’s Liturgy is singing of a poetic called a sequence, one of four done in the current liturgical life of the Church, though historically there were poetics for all the major feast of the Lord and others for saints. Today’s marvelous sequence Lauda Sion,is sung prior to the proclamation of the Gospel. As all sacred texts do, Lauda Sion expresses Catholic faith in the Body and Blood of Christ. The three verses of Lauda Sion are given here but you may pray the entire text by visiting here.
Words a nature’s course derange,
that in Flesh the bread may change
and the wine in Christ’s own Blood.
Does it pass thy comprehending?
Faith, the law of light transcending,
leaps to things not understood.
Hail! Bread of the Angels, broken,
for us pilgrims food, and token
of the promise by Christ spoken,
children’s meat, to dogs denied!
Shown in Isaac’s dedication,
in the Manna’s preparation,
in the Paschal immolation,
in old types pre-signified.
Jesus, Shepherd mild and meek,
shield the poor, support the weak;
help all who Thy pardon sue,
placing all their trust in You:
fill them with Your healing grace!
Source of all we have or know,
feed and lead us here below.
grant that with Your Saints above,
sitting at the feast of love
we may see You face to face.
Amen. Alleluia.
I devoutly adore the Presence of Christ
Hidden God, devoutly I adore Thee, truly present underneath
these veils: all my heart subdues itself before Thee, since it all before Thee
faints and fails.
Not to sight, or taste, or touch be credit hearing only do
we trust secure; I believe, for God the Son has said it- Word of truth that
ever shall endure.
On the cross was veiled Thy Godhead’s splendor, here Thy
manhood lies hidden too; unto both alike my faith I render, and, as sued the
contrite thief, I sue.
Though I look not on Thy wounds with Thomas, Thee, my Lord,
and Thee, my God, I call: make me more and more believe Thy promise, hope in
Thee, and love Thee over all.
O memorial of my Savior dying, Living Bread, that gives life
to man; make my soul, its life from Thee supplying, taste Thy sweetness, as on
earth it can.
Deign, O Jesus, Pelican of heaven, me, a sinner, in Thy
Blood to lave, to a single drop of which is given all the world from all its
sin to save.
Contemplating, Lord, Thy hidden presence, grant me what I thirst for and implore, in the revelation of Thy essence to behold Thy glory evermore, Amen.
Saint Anthony of Padua
May the sacred solemnity of blessed Anthony, Thy Confessor and Doctor, give joy to Thy Church, O God; that she may ever be defended by spiritual help and deserve to enjoy eternal happiness.
Saint Alice of Schaerbeek
Saint Alice of Schaerbeek, a 13th century
Cistercian-Benedictine nun, was known for her intense love of Christ. Since
1702 the Cistercians have been remembering Saint Alice liturgically.
She’s the
patron saint of those living with leprosy, the blind and paralyzed.
Humanity bears the profound mark of the Trinity
… we contemplate the Most Holy Trinity as Jesus
introduced us to it. He revealed to us that God is love “not in the
oneness of a single Person, but in the Trinity of one substance” (Preface).
He is the Creator and merciful Father; he is the Only-Begotten Son, eternal
Wisdom incarnate, who died and rose for us; he is the Holy Spirit who moves all
things, cosmos and history, toward their final, full recapitulation. Three
Persons who are one God because the Father is love, the Son is love, the Spirit
is love. God is wholly and only love, the purest, infinite and eternal love. He
does not live in splendid solitude but rather is an inexhaustible source of
life that is ceaselessly given and communicated. To a certain extent we can
perceive this by observing both the macro-universe: our earth, the planets, the
stars, the galaxies; and the micro-universe: cells, atoms, elementary
particles. The “name” of the Blessed Trinity is, in a certain sense,
imprinted upon all things because all that exists, down to the last particle,
is in relation; in this way we catch a glimpse of God as relationship and
ultimately, Creator Love. All things derive from love, aspire to love and move
impelled by love, though naturally with varying degrees of awareness and
freedom. “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the
earth!” (Ps 8: 1) the Psalmist exclaims. In speaking of the
“name”, the Bible refers to God himself, his truest identity. It is
an identity that shines upon the whole of Creation, in which all beings for the
very fact that they exist and because of the “fabric” of which they
are made point to a transcendent Principle, to eternal and infinite Life which
is given, in a word, to Love. “In him we live and move and have our
being”, St Paul said at the Areopagus of Athens (Acts 17: 28). The
strongest proof that we are made in the image of the Trinity is this: love
alone makes us happy because we live in a relationship, and we live to love and
to be loved. Borrowing an analogy from biology, we could say that imprinted
upon his “genome”, the human being bears a profound mark of the
Trinity, of God as Love.
(Pope Benedict XVI, 7 June 2009)
Connecticut Catholics might be…
… forced to keep quiet by the State if the current law on lobbying stands. States officials in the Ethics Office are applying an unjust law to the Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport; if the Catholics today, other Christian groups, Jews and Muslims tomorrow. As Bishop Lori correctly states, the Diocese of Bridgeport is not a lobbyist but a church. And as a church is the bishops and priests are called upon to teach, govern and to sanctify. The SB 1098 and other state bills that seek to change the mission of the Church violates constitutional freedoms. This is a matter, therefore, of all people’s First Amendment rights, not just about the rights of Catholics to exercise their freedom to speak and assemble publicly. Efforts now must begin to work for the current rules for lobbyists to be changed and the ruling of the Ethics Office overturned. Civil and intelligent discourse please! The Fox News report is interesting because it reports the claim that the officials in the Ethics Office are objective. Hmmm, I don’t see the evidence of that in this case. So, I can’t say that I believe for one minute that the CT State Office of Ethics is content neutral, particularly when it comes to the Roman Catholic Church in Connecticut, and more so when it comes to Bishop William Lori.
Fox news reports
Where are all the priests?
A recent article on who has competence to remove priests from ministry permanently is interesting and yet depressing. But it is a matter of reality that some men ordained to the priesthood of Jesus Christ do not remain priests. To think since the Second Vatican Council, as some researchers and commentators have claimed, 100,000 priests have left their vocation as priests. If true, this fact is overwhelming to grasp.
One of my intentions is to pray for the priests who have left as well as though who currently serve as priests and seminarians preparing to be ordained. I am a bit selfish in mentioning the last intention since I fall in that category. Please join me in prayer in the coming year for these intentions.
Prayer to Saint Paul
As the Year of Saint Paul comes to an end, let us pray this prayer for Saint Paul’s intercession before the Divine Majesty.
Glorious Saint Paul, most zealous Apostle, Martyr for the love of Christ, give us a deep faith, a steadfast hope, and a burning love for our Lord so that we can proclaim with you, “It is not I who live, but Christ lives in me.” Help us become apostles serving the Church with a pure heart witnessing to her truth and beauty in the midst of the darkness of our days. With you we praise God our Father, “To him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen!”
Some websites for the Year of Saint Paul in case you’ve missed them:
The Year of Saint Paul was inaugurated by Pope Benedict XVI at the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Paul outside the Walls (Rome) on June 28, 2008 and will conclude on June 29, 2009, the solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. Many bishops around the world have set up a jubilee Church where the faithful can make a pilgrimage receiving an indulgence of grace when going to confession, receiving Holy Communion and praying for the intentions of the Pope.
In the New England area New Haven’s St Mary’s Church (Archdiocese of Hartford), Greenwich’s St Paul’s Church (Diocese of Bridgeport), Worcester’s St Paul Cathedral (Diocese of Worcester), and NYC’s St Paul’s Church (New York Archdiocese, W. 60th Str).
The above prayer is the Church’s official jubilee prayer.