Bee Blessing

Dominican Father Jonathan Kalisch​ blessing the bees and the hives at Our Lady of Grace Monastery, North Guilford. For us, asking for God’s blessings upon things helps to remember God’s goodness and constant care for us. As a gardener, I am keenly reminded that without the bees we would not be eating too well, plus the honey produced by the bees is part of our diet and good health since it has curative properties. As a Catholic I can’t help not remembering the references to bees in the Exultet sung at the Paschal Vigil. There we hear:

This is the night of which it is written:

The night shall be as bright as day, dazzling is the night for me, and full of gladness. The sanctifying power of this night dispels all wickedness, washes faults away, restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners, drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty. On this, your night of grace, O holy Father, accept this candle, a solemn offering, the work of bees and of your servants’ hands, an evening sacrifice of praise, this gift from your most holy Church.

But now we know the praises of this pillar, which glowing fire ignites for God’s honor, a fire into many flames divided, yet never dimmed by sharing of its light, for it is fed by melting wax, drawn out by mother bees to build a torch so precious.

BLESSING OF BEES

P: Our help is in the name of the Lord.
All: Who made heaven and earth.

P: The Lord be with you.
All: And with your spirit.

Let us pray.

Lord God almighty, who made the heavens and the earth, and all living things in the air and on land for the use of mankind; You hold all creation in the palm of your hands. With compunction, we pray to You, O all-good One: as in ancient times You granted the Israelites a land flowing with milk and honey, and as you were well-pleased to nourish Your baptizer John in the wilderness with wild honey. You ordered, through the ministers of holy Church, that candles made from the industry of bees should be lighted during the solemn mystery in which the most sacred body and blood of Jesus Christ, your Son, is confected and consumed; send your blessing + upon these bees and these beehives. Let none of these hives which You have fashioned be deprived of bees, but let them always be filled with honeycomb causing them to multiply, to produce and to be kept from harm, so that their yield of wax can be turned to your honor, to that of the Son and Holy Spirit, and to the veneration of the blessed Virgin Mary; through Christ our Lord.

All: Amen.

~ Our Lady of Grace, pray for us.
~ St. Ambrose, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and Blessed Solanus Casey, pray for us.
~ Blessed Simon Bellachi, pray for us.

The bees and the hives are sprinkled with holy water.

There are several pieces of sacred Scripture that reference honey and bees. My favorite is: “The bee is small among flying creatures, but what it produces is the best of sweet things” (Sirach 11:3). AND the 4th century author of The Apostolic Constitutions, one of the early documents of the Church writes: “Or else go to the bee, and learn how laborious she is, and her work how valuable it is, whose labors both kings and mean men make use of for their health. She is desirable and glorious, though she be weak in strength, yet by honoring wisdom she is improved, etc.”

The Church, the body of Christ, is a lot like a beehive: everyone has a God-given mission, a particular job to do for the Lord and the Kingdom.

Trinity Sunday

“The person of the Holy Spirit was of such authority and dignity, that saving baptism was not complete except by the authority of the most excellent Trinity of them all, that is, by the naming of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and by joining to the unbegotten God the Father, and to his only-begotten Son, the name also of the Holy Spirit.”      ~ Origen

I was looking for something to reflect upon with regard today’s solemnity and I went to Pope Benedict to see what he said. Here is an excerpt from his June 7, 2009 Angelus address:

Today 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!”

Finally, I would suggest that at Sunday Mass (or later in a quiet place) when contemplating the awesome gift of the Eucharist, let us be united with the Church when the priest prays: May the reception of this sacrament, O Lord our God, and also the confession of our faith in the holy everlasting Trinity and of the undivided Unity of the same, profit us for the salvation of body and soul. (Post Communion prayer, trans. JZ)

Husar was remarkable

Last week the Catholic Church lost the former head and father of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the person of Lubomyr Cardinal Husar, the emeritus patriarch of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

After years of diminishing health, the Patriarch-cardinal-monk was called home to the Father at the age of 84. Many have said Husar was the voice of the voiceless, and friend to many, and moral conscience in the reawakening of Ukraine. Of the many things written of His Beatitude recently I think George Weigel’s piece in the National Review is a very good one to sit with, and reflect upon, to offer a prayer in gratitude for Lubomyr Husar.

I recommend “The Remarkable Life of Lubomyr Husar.”

Eternal Memory, Your Beatitude. Pray for us.

Have you received the Holy Spirit?

How do you know whether you have received the Holy Spirit? Question your heart. If you love your brother and sister, the Spirit of God abides in you. Examine yourself before the eyes of God; see if there is in you a love of unity of peace, and a love for the church spread throughout the whole world.

Take care not to love only the person in front of you: we do not see many sisters and brothers, but we are united to them in the unity of Spirit. What cause is there to marvel that they are not with us? We are in one body; we have one head in heaven.

So, if you want to know if you have received the Holy Spirit, ask your heart: if fraternal charity is there, you can rest easy, for there can be no love without the Holy Spirit. As St. Paul says, the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us. (Romans 5:5)

Easter Meditations From the Vita Christi
Ludolph of Saxony
Quoted in “Your Hearts Will Rejoice”

Life by his Spirit – Pentecost

Creation, now marked by the saving sign of the Cross, has been enveloped in the redeeming love of the Holy Trinity. Now through Pentecost, and by the grace of the Holy Spirit (who becomes our divine mother in holy Baptism), nature has been transformed, and our humanity has taken-on the gifts of divine grace. Thus, we no longer know ourselves by the physical qualities of our existence in this world; but rather by the saving love of Christ who said: “I will not leave you orphans,” opening for us the gateway to Heaven, and transforming our lives through his Holy Spirit — into the newness of the Life with the Divine Trinity.

Father Steve Bonian, S.J.

Nature’s new life

 

My friend Iliana posted this picture of a robin’s nest & eggs, found while weeding the lower bed of her extensive garden. I hope mama Robin hasn’t abandoned them…

Novena to Holy Spirit

Come, Creator Spirit,
visit the minds of your children,
and fill the hearts you have made,
with heavenly grace.
 
You are called the Comforter,
the gift of God most high,
living spring, and fire, love,
and spiritual anointing.
 
You are sevenfold in your gifts,
the finger of God’s right hand;
you are the Father’s true promise,
endowing our tongues with speech.
 
Enkindle your light in our senses,
infuse your life in our hearts;
strengthen our bodies’ weakness
by your never failing might.
 
Drive far away our foe,
and grant peace without end,
that with you to lead us on,
we may escape all harm.
 
Grant us, through you,
to know the Father, also the Son;
may we ever believe in you,
the Spirit of them both.
Amen.
 
In preparation for the great Solemnity of Pentecost, my hope is we are praying the novena to the Holy Spirit. We need to beg the Holy Spirit for His grace! It can be done anytime of the day, perhaps a good time is in the evening. Here is the translation of the ancient Latin hymn.
 
(the translation was done by one of the monks of Spencer Abbey).

Benedictine spirituality is simple

Lady Abbess Benedict Duss (+2005) of Regina Laudis in a 1998 conference with the Core Oblates of the Abbey that may be of interest to those who live –or try to live– according the Rule of Benedict:

“Benedictine Spirituality is very elusive, because it is so simple. We have great aspirations, which can cause us to lose sight of the simple, and achievement is not helped, thereof.”

The Ascension of the Lord

On … “reflection on the meaning of the Ascension is found in this phrase: Jesus took his place. After having undergone the humiliation of his passion and death, Jesus took his place at the right-hand of God; he took his place with his eternal Father. But he also entered heaven as our Head. Whereupon, in the expression of Leo the Great, the glory of the Head became the hope of the body. For all eternity Christ takes is place as the firstborn among many brethren: our nature is with God in Christ. And as man, the Lord Jesus lives for ever to intercede for us with Father. At the same time, from his throne of glory, Jesus sends out to the whole Church a message of hope and a call to holiness.

“Because of Christ’s merits, because of his intercession with the Father, we are able to attain justice and holiness of life, in him. The Church may indeed experience difficulties, the Gospel may suffer setbacks, but because Jesus is at the right-hand of the Father the Church will never know defeat. Christ’s victory is ours. The power of the glorified Christ, the beloved Son of the eternal Father, is superabundant, to sustain each of us and all of us in the fidelity of our dedication to God’s Kingdom and in the generosity of our celibacy. The efficacy of Christ’s Ascension touches all us in the concrete reality of our daily lives. Because of this mystery it is the vocation of the whole Church to wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

“Dear sons, be imbued with the hope that is so much a part of the mystery of the Ascension of Jesus. Be deeply conscious of Christ’s victory and triumph over sin and death. Realize that the strength of Chist is greater than our weakness, greater than the weakness of the whole world. Try to understand and share the joy that Mary experienced in knowing that her Son had taken his place with his Father, whom he loved infinitely. And renew your faith today in the promise of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has gone to prepare a place for us, so that he can come back again and take us to himself.

St John Paul, Ascension Thursday, 1979

The Cross of Jesus defines our life

Jesus’ death on the cross was a sacrifice of expiation; it makes us understand both the gravity of sin as a rebellion against God and a rejection of his love, and the marvelous saving work of Christ which was offered humanity and which has restored us to grace and therefore to participation in God’s Trinitarian life and to the inheritance of eternal happiness.

Jesus’ passion and death on the cross give us the true and definitive meaning of life where the redemption is already realized in the perspective of eternity. Just as Christ is risen, so too we will rise in glory, if we have accepted his message and mission.

Saint Pope John Paul II
General Audience, March 1, 1989