Famous Benedictine Oblates

The question surfaced recently about who are some famous Benedictine Oblates. Here is a brief list thus far:

Saints, blesseds and Servants of God

Saints Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Becket, Cunegundes, Ida of Boulogne, Thomas More, Oliver Plunkett, Frances of Rome, Henry II, Ranieri Scacceri, Blessed Mark Barkworth, Blessed Itala Mela, and the Servant of God Dorothy Day

Artists, Authors, Clerics and Theologians

Carolyn Attneave, Elena Cornaro Piscopia, Eric Dean, Rumer Godden, Edith Gurian, Romano Guardini, Emerson Hynes, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Dwight Longenecker, Jacques and Raissa Maritain, Kathleen Norris, Elizabeth Scalia, Walker Percy, Denys Prideaux, Norvene Vest and Pope Benedict XVI.

Is your name among those listed here???

Our Lady of Sorrows

Today we honor Our Lady under the title of Our Lady of Sorrows. This feast is so intimately connected with yesterday’s feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. You know the image of the Mother of God, the mother of a son, at the foot of the cross in great pain, sorrow, yet hope that all is not lost. Personally, I also recall the fact of Our Lady of Sorrows when I pray for a family who is grieving the loss of a loved one; and in a more extended way for me, OL of Sorrows is the prime patroness of the Congregation of Holy Cross (who educated me in high school and in university). In this latter fact, I hope and pray Mary is watching over the the CSC and Notre Dame in a keen way especially these days of spiritual combat. Nevertheless, Mary’s real, concrete experience the Life-Saving Cross is crucial to my understanding the mysteries of life and death.

The great Cistercian abbot and author of many works on the Holy Virgin, St. Bernard of Clairvaux has this to say to us:

Truly, O blessed Mother, a sword has pierced your heart. For only by passing through your heart could the sword enter the flesh of your Son. Indeed, after your Jesus—who belongs to everyone, but is especially yours—gave up his life, the cruel spear, which was not withheld from his lifeless body, tore open his side. Clearly it did not touch his soul and could not harm him, but it did pierce your heart. For surely his soul was no longer there, but yours could not be torn away. Thus the violence of sorrow has cut through your heart, and we rightly call you more than martyr, since the effect of compassion in you has gone beyond the endurance of physical suffering.

~(Sermo in dom. infra oct. Assumptionis, 14-15: Opera omnia, Edit. Cisterc. 5 [1968}, 273-274) is used in the Roman Office of Readings for the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows on September 15.
~(The image was written by Connecticut iconographer Marek Czarnecki.)

Blessing of Basil on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

I am giving emphasis these days on knowing what we believe as Catholics by looking at the liturgical sources. We first go to the sacred Liturgy to study and pray the prayers prayed by the priest for Mass, Lauds, Vespers, or those smaller rites such as the Blessing of Basil that you would find on today’s feast of the Holy Cross, also called the Roodmas. Ours is a richly endowed sacramental faith.

“The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which, the day after the dedication of the Basilica of the Resurrection raised over the tomb of Christ, is exalted and honored, in the manner of a memorial of His paschal victory and the sign which is to appear in the sky, already announcing in advance His second coming” (from the Roman Martyrology).

basil3.jpg
The Blessing of Basil

V. Our help is in the name of the Lord.
R. Who made heaven and earth.

Let us pray.

Almighty and merciful God, deign, we beseech You, to bless + Your creature, this aromatic basil leaf. Even as it delights our senses, may it recall for us the triumph of Christ, our Crucified King and the power of His Precious Blood to purify and preserve us from evil so that, planted beneath His Cross, we may flourish to Your glory and spread abroad the fragrance of His sacrifice. Who is Lord forever and ever.

R. Amen.

The bouquets of basil leaf are sprinkled with Holy Water.

Some account for the connection between the herb basil and the Cross as follows:

The herb, basil has long been associated with today’s feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The word “basil” is related to basileios, from the Greek word for king.

According to the liturgical legend, the Empress Saint Helena found the location of the True Cross by digging for it under a colony of basil. Basil plants were reputed to have sprung up at the foot of the Cross where fell the Precious Blood of Christ and the tears of the Mother of Sorrows.

A sprig of basil was said to have been found growing from the wood of the True Cross. On the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross it is customary in the East to rest the Holy Cross on a bed of basil before presenting it to the veneration of the faithful.

Also, from the practice in some areas of strewing branches of basil before church communion rails, it came to be known as Holy Communion Plant. The blessed basil leaf can be arranged in a bouquet at the foot of the crucifix; the dried leaves can also be used by the faithful as a sacramental.

St John Chrysostom

St John Chrysostom was the Patriarch of Constantinople. He was well spoken and a brilliant disciple of Jesus Christ. Today, the Latin Church recalls his memory in the sacred Liturgy. He said once,

“Do not be ashamed to enter again into the Church. Be ashamed when you sin. Do not be ashamed when you repent. Pay attention to what the devil did to you. These are two things: sin and repentance. Sin is a wound; repentance is a medicine. Just as there are for the body wounds and medicines, so for the soul are sins and repentance. However, sin has the shame and repentance possesses the courage.”

Holy Name of Mary

 

“In dangers, in doubts, in difficulties, think of Mary, call upon Mary. Let not her name depart from your lips, never suffer it to leave your heart. And that you may obtain the assistance of her prayer, neglect not to walk in her footsteps”

– St Bernard of Clairvaux.

Nativity of Mary, the Mother of God

This is the highest, all-embracing benefit
that Christ has bestowed upon us.
This is the revelation of the mystery,
this is the emptying-out of the divine nature,
the union of God and man,
and the deification of the manhood that was assumed.
This radiant and manifest coming of God to men
most certainly needed a joyful prelude
to introduce the great gift of salvation to us.
The present festival —the nativity of the Theotokos—
is that prelude,
while the final act is the foreordained union
of the Word with flesh.
Today the Virgin is born, tended and formed,
and prepared for her role as Mother of God,
that God who is the universal King of all the ages!

from a discourse of St. Andrew of Crete
from today’s Office of Readings for 8 September

St. Eleutherius the Abbot

I have a very vague recollection of today’s saint, Eleutherius, from some travels in Italy. A friend posted this sketch of a 6th century monk. Just to situate him: St Benedict died in 547. Some recent theological discussion in the Communio Study Circle about angels and demons leads me think more deeply about persons like Eleutherius.

St. Eleutherius (d. 585 A.D.) was a monk living in Spoleto, Italy. Little is known of his early life. He became the Abbot of St. Mark’s Abbey and was well-known as a man of simplicity and penance. He also demonstrated the gift of miracles and exorcism, and raised a dead man to life. After he healed a boy from demonic possession and saw that the child was afterwards left unharmed, St. Eleutherius made a remark to this effect: “Since the child is among the servants of God, the devil dares not approach him.”

Then the boy, who came to live at St. Mark’s Abbey to be educated by the monks, became possessed again. St. Eleutherius repented of his vain and presumptuous remark, and the whole monastery underwent a penitential fast before the devil would leave the boy for the final time. St. Eleutherius was a friend of Pope St. Gregory the Great, the latter having called upon the saint to pray for him in his illness. St. Eleutherius died in Rome in 585 A.D. Today is his feast day.   (DG)

Discern differences

To begin to discern differences in one’s life a person must be attentive to what lies within, to what brings and supports peace and tranquility [stability of heart] or what produces and reinforces confusing, destructive behavior. This attentiveness means concretely taking time to listen to one’s inner life.

It presumes a discipline of being in or creating a quiet environment in which a person can begin to recognize what is happening internally. It presupposes that while any discernment process might necessarily include dialogue with others, it must include, above all, a dialogue with oneself-in relationship with God.

Silence and solitude can provide this conversation. Such attentive listening can lead to less illusions and self-delusions (signs of the devil according to St. Anthony of the Desert). It can also lead to greater knowledge of one’s true self, a self more grounded in truth, more capable of living in reality.

Edward Sellner, Finding the Monk Within

The Orthodox West

There are members of the Orthodox Church that use the Latin Mass as their Order of Worship instead of the Greek Liturgy. It is very interesting to consider that members of the Orthodox Church consider the Latin Mass, the spiritual patrimony of the historic Latin Western Church as part of their patrimony, too. In some ways the proponents look at the history and horizons of Orthodoxy as not merely being Greek or “Eastern.” Most of will say that to be Orthodox is to use the Greek forms. One needs to know that in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) and the Antiochian Orthodox Church have a growing membership using the Latin Mass.

Here is a brief video, “The Orthodox West,” which documents their perspective and work.

St Teresa of Calcutta

I was looking for something on St Teresa of Calcutta for today’s 1st anniversary of canonization (tomorrow is her liturgical memorial) and I found this quote that applies:  “Each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most.” – G.K. Chesterton

Blessed feast of St Teresa!