Alban Boultwood OSB, RIP


The Alban Boultwood.jpgRight Reverend Dom Alban Boultwood OSB, 97, first abbot of St. Anselm’s Abbey, Washington, DC, died on 25 March 2009.

 

Henry Boultwood was born in Stamford, CT, on August 17, 1911 and educated in England and Scotland. When he entered the monastery he took the name Alban and professed vows as a monk of Fort Augustus Abbey, Scotland, 1929. He graduated the University of Edinburgh with the MA in 1933. His abbot sent him prepare for priestly ordination at Sant’Anselmo’s in Rome and he was ordained in 1939. At the time of his death, Dom Alban was in his 80th year as a monk and 70th year as a priest.

 

He was appointed prior in 1947 and the monks of Saint Anselm’s then elected him abbot in 1961. In retirement (1975), he held the title of Titular Abbot of the Royal Abbey of Dunfermline, Scotland.

 

Abbot Alban was the author of three books: Alive to God (1964), Into His Splendid Light (1968) and Christ in Us (1982).

 

He was widely recognized as “a charming man, friendly, warm, witty, and a gifted homilist.” The monks of the abbey received his body on Friday, April 3rd and the Mass of Christian Burial on Saturday the 4th. Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine.

 

Time magazine’s article on Dom Alban

An interview with Dom Alban

Columba Marmion: the canonization process

Marmion3.jpg

Following the progression of saint-making is interesting, though it can be tedious. If you are interested, there is an article in the March 2009 issue of The American Benedictine Review (60:1) by Dom Oliver Raquez, OSB: “Memoirs of the Postulator for the Cause of Blessed Columba Marmion.” The author takes you through Marmion’s canonization process from beginning to the present including the miracles and future work that would make Blessed Columba more known.

There’s no cheap grace in following Christ & the Church

The 40 days of Lent is leading to a dramatic climax in our
liturgical imagination: the prayer, fasting, almsgiving is pointing us directly
to what we’ve been promised and hoped for–salvation. These days of Lent offered
us an entrée into the Divine Mystery and yet I fear that a great many people,
including myself–may not have heard Jesus’ prophetic rebuke of the Pharisees
and others for their errors and for their self-righteousness and have missed
the essential purpose of our Lord’s sharp words. Certainly hearing Peter deny
Christ three times indicates that same tendency in us to stand back from that
which is life-giving. In the Scriptures we heard at Mass and in the Divine
Office we hear the Lord not condemning the people for love of God’s Law but
calling them to follow him more closely and in doing so enter more deeply into
the spirit of the Law. Christ makes it clear that living in the Kingdom of God
requires us to be sacrificial: to turn away from sin and believe in the Gospel.
Here is the certainty we have: to follow Christ entails self-denial and the
acceptance of his cross as ours. No embrace of the cross, no life eternal.

Continue reading There’s no cheap grace in following Christ & the Church

A spiritual haven in Hamilton, Ontario: a Benedictine monastery in the Orthodox Church

My friend Father Michael’s monastery was recently featured in the Canadian secular press in an article titled, “Cannon Street’s spiritual haven.” In most people’s experience monasteries are unusual, never mind a monastery using the Rule of Saint Benedict and following the Orthodox Church. May God grant them many years! Have a read and don’t mind the boo boos in the article…

Of That Branch in Ancient Garden

Of that branch in ancient garden,


branch cross crown.jpgdid thy Father make thy tree,

on that tree with thee uplifted,

let us triumph, Lord, with thee.


On that tree with thee uplifted,

let us triumph, Lord, with thee.

 

By thy words on road to passion,

Words that set thy children free,

Thou the Vine and we the branches,

let us triumph, Lord, with thee.

Thou the Vine and we the branches,

let us triumph, Lord, with thee.

 

To thy Father be all glory,

Equal glory, Lord, to thee,

By Spirit’s equal glory,

let us triumph, Lord, with thee.

By Spirit’s equal glory

let us triumph, Lord, with thee.

Is the Stem Cell debate dead?

Since January 20th, we’ve seen the debate over the value of embryonic stem research get a boost from the President who reversed President Bush’s ban on embryonic stem cell research and now a prominent medical researcher has made the claim that the stem cell debate is dead. In effect, this researcher has confirmed what other lesser known researchers have already said and what the Catholic Church has also said on this subject: the only hope to cure certain diseases is in adult stem cell research. However, the politics of the use of embryonic stem cell cuts close to home for many since the hope, albeit false hope, is place in the “new cells” which would grow into new, healthy cells and stall if not reverse medical problems and give people with chronic medical problems a new life; what the media got hoodwinked by is the prominence of likeable actors as proponents of anything that would save their lives from diminishment and death. The fact is no meaningful change in the lives who suffer with neurological diseases has happened as a result of therapies involving stem cells taken from embryos.

 

No one would in their right mind would not want to find a cure for the world’s heinous diseases. Catholics affirm the beauty of life, not desire for death. To think otherwise would be barbarous. Considering the witness of Pope John Paul II who lived with Parkinson’s is astonishing example of how to live and to die with complete human dignity; he was able to live with intensity because of his humanity which never in knowing that he did not make himself. That is, the pope had a radical dependence on God as maker and sustainer of the universe. But the example of John Paul is not enough to quiet the mind and the heart in the face of disease especially when it is yourself or a loved one. Many reason that it’s a matter of life and death “to do everything reasonably possible” to save a person from the ill-effects of disease, or the one should say the quality of one’s life and death that makes the issue heart-wrenching, even to the point using cells from aborted babies. Any thinking man or woman desires to help the vulnerable. It is, however, a question of doing right science, for the right reasons which protects all human life, including the person living with ALS and the unborn baby. The problem with embryonic stems that right science tells us, is that they come from aborted babies and there is no evidence that they would do what is purported that they would do.

 

Last week America‘s oracle and Obama supprter, Oprah Winfrey, had on her daily TV program Dr. Mehmet Oz and Michael J. Fox (who lives with Parkinson’s) to discuss the matter of stem cell research. Tom Hoopes of the National Catholic Register writes about it. Read the article here.

 

You may also want to read a booklet title Understanding Stem Cell Research: Controversy and Promise by Dominican Father Nicanor Austriaco, PhD. The author takes the reader through the issues and clearly explains the science and hope that current research proposes.

 

Josh Brahm’s essay “9 Things the Media Messed Up About the Obama Stem Cell Story” is worth reading.

Keeping our eyes upon Christ in His Passion

In his Sermon on Palm Sunday Blessed Guerric of Igny (d. ca. 1157), tells us:

When Jesus entered Jerusalem like a triumphant conqueror, many were astonished at the majesty of his bearing; but when a short while afterward he entered upon his passion, his appearance was ignoble, an object of derision. If today’s procession and passion are considered together, in the one Jesus appears as sublime and glorious, in the other as lowly and suffering. The procession makes us think of the honor reserved for a king, whereas the passion shows us the punishment due a thief. 


palm sunday2.jpgIn the one Jesus is surrounded by glory and honor, in the other “he has neither dignity nor beauty.” In the one his is the joy of men and women and the glory of the people, in the other “the butt of men and the laughing stock of the people.” In the one he receives the acclamation: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes as the king of Israel”; in the other there are shouts that he is guilty of death and he is reviled for having set himself up as king of Israel.

 

In the procession the people meet Jesus with palm branches, in the passion people slap him in the face and strike his head with a rod. In the one they extol him with praises, in the other they heap insults upon him. In the one the people compete to lay their clothes in his path, in the other he is stripped of his own clothes. In the one he is welcomed to Jerusalem as a just king and savior, in the other he is thrown out of the city as criminal, condemned as an imposter. In the one he is mounted on an ass and accorded every mark of honor, in the other he hangs on the wood of the cross, torn by whips, pierced with wounds and abandoned by his own. If, then, we want to follow our leader without stumbling through prosperity and through adversity, let us keep our eyes upon him, honored in the procession, undergoing ignominy and suffering in the passion, yet unshakeably steadfast in all such changes of fortune.

 

Lord Jesus, you are the joy and salvation of the whole world; whether we see you seated on an ass or hanging on the cross, let each one of us bless and praise you, so that when we see you reigning on high we may praise you forever and ever, for to you belong praise and honor through all ages. Amen.

All glory, laud, and honor

All glory, laud, and honor
Passion Sunday.JPGto thee, Redeemer, King!
to whom the lips of children
made sweet hosannas ring.

Thou art the King of Israel,
thou David’s royal Son,
who in the Lord’s Name comest,
the King and Blessed One.

The company of angels

are praising thee on high;
and mortal men and all things
created make reply.

The people of the Hebrews
with palms before thee went;
our praise and prayer and anthems
before thee we present.

To thee before thy passion
they sang their hymns of praise;
to thee, now high exalted,
our melody we raise.

Thou didst accept their praises;
accept the prayers we bring,
who in all good delightest,
thou good and gracious King.

 

(Theodulph of Orleans (ca. 750-821), ca. 820; Trans. John Mason Neale (1818-1866), 1854)

Looking forward to the Resurrection

The Sunday of the Lord’s Passion is upon us. First Vesper’s has me thinking of what the Christian life is all about and the horizon to which all Christians are facing: Christ fulfilling the Father’s promise of life eternal. We’re not talking about a fiction here, but reality.

Resurrection.jpgLet God’s people then recognize that they are a new creation in Christ, and with all vigilance understand by Whom they have been adopted and Whom they have adopted. Let not the things, which have been made new, return to their ancient instability; and let not him who has ‘put his hand to the plough’ forsake his work, but rather attend to that which he sows than look back to that which he has left behind. Let no one fall back into that from which he has risen, but, even though from bodily weakness he still languishes under certain maladies, let him urgently desire to be healed and raised up. (Saint Leo the Great, Easter Homily)

 

 

But the Son rose again! History is for us the continuity of Christ’s resurrection. Every moment of history, by now, is for us the way in which the mystery of the resurrection is accomplished. And at the end of this moment, i.e., at the end of history, the world, everything, everything there is, will be convinced of the intelligence that God has chosen to manifest and the grace that binds us together with which He has filled our hearts.

Do not be afraid; let us not be afraid to serve the Lord, to serve Christ with all the possibility He has given us. (Monsignor Luigi Giussani, March 11, 2003)

Why does God allow temptation?

One can distinguish five reasons why God allows the devil to attack us:

 

first, so that from attack and counter-attack we may become practiced in discerning good from evil;

 

second, so that our virtue may be maintained in the heat of the struggle and so be confirmed in an impregnable position;

 

third, so that as we advance in virtue we may avoid presumption and learn humility;

 

fourth, to inspire in us an unreserved hatred for evil through the experience we thus have of it;

 

fifth, and above all, that we may attain inner freedom and remain convinced both of our own weakness and of the strength of him who has come to our aid.

 

Maximus the Confessor (580-682)

Centuries on Charity 2, 67 (Sources Chrétiennes 9, p. 114)