Communio – Page 87 – …bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

St Maximillian Mary Kolbe

With the Church we pray:

O God, who filled the Priest and Martyr Saint Maximilian Kolbe with a burning love for the Immaculate Virgin Mary and with zeal for souls and love of neighbor, graciously grant, through his intercession, that, striving for your glory by eagerly serving others, we may be conformed, even until death, to your Son.

An excerpt from a letter by the saint:

Obedience is the one and the only way of wisdom and prudence for us to offer glory to God. If there were another, Christ would certainly have shown it to us by word and example. Scripture, however, summed up his entire life at Nazareth in the words: He was subject to them; Scripture set obedience as the theme of the rest of his life, repeatedly declaring that he came into the world to do his Father’s will. Let us love our loving Father with all our hearts. Let our obedience increase that love, above all when it requires us to surrender our own will. Jesus Christ crucified is our sublime guide toward growth in God’s love.

We will learn this lesson more quickly through the Immaculate Virgin, whom God has made the dispenser of his mercy. It is beyond all doubt that Mary’s will represents to us the will of God himself. By dedicating ourselves to her we become in her hands instruments of God’s mercy even as she was such an instrument in God’s hands. We should let ourselves be guided and led by Mary and rest quiet and secure in her hands. She will watch out for us, provide for us, answer our needs of body and spirit; she will dissolve all our difficulties and worries.

From a letter of Maximillian Mary Kolbe
(Scritti del P. Massimiliano M. Kolbe, Italian translation, vol. I, pt, 1 [Padua, 1971], 75-77, 166)

Saint Jane Frances de Chantal

“Should you fall even fifty times a day, never on any account should that surprise or worry you. Instead, ever so gently set your heart back in the right direction and practice the opposite virtue, all the time speaking words of love and trust to our Lord after you have committed a thousand faults, as much as if you had committed only one. Once we have humbled ourselves for the faults God allows us to become aware of in ourselves, we must forget them and go forward.”

Many of us have few personal connections with Saint Jane Frances (1572-1641) as the holy foundress –and the co-founder Saint Francis deSales– of the Order of the Visitation in 1610.. A native of Dijon, France, Jane Frances was a wife and mother and who united her sufferings with the Heart of Jesus.

There are monasteries of the Order of the Visitation around like the Georgetown Visitation, the Tyrringham Visitation, the Toledo Visitation, or the Brooklyn Visitation. In 2010, the Order celebrated 400 years of monastic witness and began a new era in their holy vocation.

The impression one gets from the Visitation Order is that while being serious contemplatives their stamina for a more traditional form of life is different and no less holy and inviting; the Visitation has a certain suppleness of life that is not easily explained –it needs to be experienced. The journey of a nun of the Visitation is accompanied with these words of the foundress: “Daughters of the Gospel, established especially to be imitators of the Sacred Heart of the Word Incarnate in His gentleness and humility. These virtues are, as it were, the foundation and basis of their Order, giving them the incomparable grace and privilege of bearing the title of Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.”

Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, pray for us!

St Philomena

I don’t have a particularly strong devotion to Saint Philomela, but I do invoke her intercession from time-to-time. And seemingly go to Saint Philomena on odd occasions. I do seem to have a natural connection with the saint coming from the greater New Haven area where there are plenty of older Italian women with the name of Philomela, though most go by “Phil.”

Over the years, however, Saint Philomela’s name surfaces, as it did today. One of the notes about the saint read thus,

“In 1802 the remains of a young woman were found in the catacomb of Saint Priscilla on the Via Salaria, Rome, Italy. It was covered by stones, the symbols on which indicated that the body was a martyr named Saint Philomena. The bones were exhumed, cataloged, and effectively forgotten since there was so little known about the person.

“In 1805 Canon Francis de Lucia of Mugnano, Italy was in the Treasury of the Rare Collection of Christian Antiquity (Treasury of Relics) in the Vatican. When he reached the relics of Saint Philomena he was suddenly struck with a spiritual joy, and requested that he be allowed to enshrine them in a chapel in Mugnano. After some disagreements, settled by the cure of Canon Francis following prayers to Philomena, he was allowed to translate the relics to Mugnano. Miracles began to be reported at the shrine including cures of cancer, healing of wounds, and the Miracle of Mugnano in which Venerable Pauline Jaricot was cured a severe heart ailment overnight. Philomena became the only person recognized as a Saint solely on the basis of miraculous intercession as nothing historical was known of her except her name and the evidence of her martyrdom.

Our Catholic devotion to Saint Philomela:

• Pope Leo XII granted permission for the erection of altars and churches in her honor
• Pope Gregory XVI authorized her public veneration, and named her patroness of the Living Rosary
• The cure of Blessed Pius IX, while archbishop of Imola, was attributed to Philomena; in 1849, Pope Pius named her patroness of the Children of Mary
• Pope Leo XIII approved the Confraternity of Saint Philomena, and raised it to an Archconfraternity
• Pope Pius X raised the Archconfraternity to a Universal Archconfraternity, and named Saint John Vianney its patron
• Saint John Vianney himself called Philomena the New Light of the Church Militant, and had a strong and well-known devotion to her

And as Providence would have it, there is a grammar school near the Benedictine Abbey of St Gregory the Great and Portsmouth Abbey School, Portsmouth, RI, named for the Saint, Saint Philomena School.

St Clare of Assisi

From a letter from Saint Clare of Assisi, virgin, to Saint Agnes of Prague:

Happy indeed is she who is granted a place at the divine banquet, for she may cling with her inmost heart to him whose beauty eternally awes the blessed hosts of heaven; to him whose love inspires love, whose contemplation refreshes, whose generosity satisfies, whose gentleness delights, whose memory shines sweetly as the dawn; to him whose fragrance revives the dead, and whose glorious vision will bless all the citizens of that heavenly Jerusalem. For his is the splendor of eternal glory, the brightness of eternal light, and the mirror without cloud.

Queen and bride of Jesus Christ, look into that mirror daily and study well your reflection, that you may adorn yourself, mind and body, with an enveloping garment of every virtue, and thus find yourself attired in flowers and gowns befitting the daughter and most chaste bride of the king on high. In this mirror blessed poverty, holy humility and ineffable love are also reflected. With the grace of God the whole mirror will be your source of contemplation.

Behold, I say, the birth of this mirror. Behold his poverty even as he was laid in the manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes. What wondrous humility, what marvelous poverty! The King of angels, the Lord of heaven and earth resting in a manger! Look more deeply into the mirror and meditate on his humility, or simply on his poverty. Behold the many labors and sufferings he endured to redeem the human race. Then, in the depths of this very mirror, ponder his unspeakable love which caused him to suffer on the wood of the cross and to endure the most shameful kind of death. The mirror himself, from his position on the cross, warned passersby to weigh carefully this act, as he said: All of you who pass by this way, behold and see if there is any sorrow like mine. Let us answer his cries and lamentations with one voice and one spirit: I will be mindful and remember, and my soul will be consumed within me. In this way, queen of the king of heaven, your love will burn with an ever brighter flame.

Consider also his indescribable delights, his unending riches and honors, and sigh for what is beyond your love and heart’s content as you cry out: Draw me on! We will run after you in the perfume of your ointment, heavenly spouse. Let me run and not faint until you lead me into your wine cellar; your left hand rests under my head, your right arm joyfully embraces me, and you kiss me with the sweet kiss of your lips. As you rest in this state of contemplation, remember your poor mother and know that I have indelibly written your happy memory into my heart, for you are dearer to me than all the others.

Father Patrick Ryan, Servant of God

Sainthood causes are always very interesting to me. For one, they show how the Gospel and the Sacraments incarnated in a particular Church or a country. Every saint has a history and a personal spiritual genealogy given particularly by the Trinity for reasons of sanctification. The USA has several saints and blesseds, lots of venerables and servants of God. A recent one, Father Patrick Ryan, is the latest Servant of God.

Bishop Richard Stika of Knoxville, TN writes:

Yesterday (8/9/2016) I signed documents that God willing will lead to the eventual canonization of a priest who served in East Tennessee, Father Patrick Ryan. This remarkable priest, born in Ireland took care of the sick during an outbreak of Yellow Fever in Chattanooga during the 1870s. He served then at what is now known as the Basilica of Sts Peter and Paul. When others abandoned the sick, he stayed around but eventually he himself died from Yellow Fever. He was known for his holiness and pastoral care. I will share more in months ahead about the case of this man whom now is being considered for his holiness as a Saint of God. The Vatican has under recognized his holiness by allowing the process to begin. And so yesterday, with their approval and my signature giving my assent as the bishop, he is now known under the title of “Servant of God”!

Bring your prayer intentions to the Servant of God Father Patrick Ryan so that he will bring them to the Lord.

St Lawrence

The martyr with a sense of humor, St Lawrence is honored today by the Church. He was roasted on a gridiron. This little piece of Chant gives voice to the saint:

“Blessed Lawrence, while burning on the grid-iron,
said to the impious tyrant:
‘This side is done, turn me over and then eat;
the riches of the Church, which you demand,
have been carried into the heavenly treasury by the hands of the poor.'”

St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (in history she is known as Edith Stein). The Church honors her with the title of Virgin and Martyr due to her vocation as a nun and one killed for belief in Christian faith.

Stein was born on October 12, 1891, in Breslau, Poland. Her family was Jewish. By 1922, after reading the saints, in particular, Saint Teresa of Avila, and on matters in the Catholic faith, she was baptized at the Cologne Cathedral. Eleven years later she entered the Carmelite Order in Cologne before being sent to the Carmel in Echt, Holland. With her sister Rose, Teresa was arrested and sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz. There she died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1942 at the age of fifty-one. Stein was beatified in 1987 and canonized on October 11, 1998.

It is said that she made a claim about Husserl that “Whoever seeks truth seeks God, whether he knows it or not.” Professor Husserl was not one to speak about his religious faith because he wanted to maintain a separation between faith and reason. Yet, we know from experience, that faith and reason go hand-in-hand. Catholics ought to take a lesson here: a person who claims Christian faith faith can not be diffident reading the same. One can say with a degree of certainty that Stein’s philosophical research was one of a constant quest for God. Saint Teresa Benedicta’s witness is that whoever seeks truth through philosophy seeks God, because God is Truth. We therefore hold that that whoever seeks truth is, in fact, seeking God. There is a primacy of faith and reason in the Catholic mind.

St Dominic

On the Novus Ordo liturgical calendar today, we honor Saint Dominic de Guzman (c.1174 – 1221), yet on he died on August 5th and on the Extraordinary Form liturgical calendar the feast is celebrated on August 4th.

Dominic was a pivotal figure in the life of the Church in the 13th century in similar ways that others were, including the Poor Man of Assisi. The inspiration of Dominic set the world ablaze with fire in ways unknown since the time of the 12 Apostles and the early Church bringing the Good News of Jesus Christ to all people, the sacraments, teaching truth and fact and living in a compassionate way among the people. One great example is that the early Dominicans taught about the goodness of creation versus the prevailing idea of the 13th century that taught the opposite causing disturbing results of uncertainty and false notions of God and the beauty of humanity.

Our common conception of Dominic’s genius and work with his band of preachers was that he responsible for the whole thing. History tells us that he was born in the small Castilian village of Caleruega, Spain, a canon and a priest in the service of Bishop Diego. Dominic accompanied Diego on mission for the good of the Pope’s mission for the universal Church. In this experience of mission Dominic saw the need. But, as Friar Simon Tugwell OP notes, “the Order was not simply his personal brainchild and he was not, and never claimed to be, its sole inspiration or even the primary embodiment of its nature and ideals.”

Hence it can be said that Dominic was raised up by Divine Providence so as to bring to birth a new movement within the Church – itinerant mendicant friars – and he accomplished this by engaging with the needs of his time and in collaboration with other people. “It was always with his brethren and with the authorities of the Church that he shaped the nascent Order of Preachers.” By his own self-reflection Dominic called himself “the humble servant of the preaching” and this is first part of the charism of the Order. The group founded by Dominic was known as the “Friars Preachers” and the Church entrusts them with the preaching mission and officially recognized by the Church on 21 January 1217, by Pope Honorius III.

800 years later, Dominic continues to move the hearts and minds of contemporary men and women in love of the Trinity: the Order of Preachers has a part of the family the friars (the first order), the cloistered nuns (the second order), the sisters (the third order), the secular priests’ group and the fraternity (the third order laity) and countless others who have picked up the charism. One old aspect of the Dominican charism that needs to be restored is the group of donati (like the famous St. Martin de Porres was).

Blessed Edmund Bojanowski

Blessed Edmund Bojanowski (1814-1871) is a rather unique person of faith: he died before entered seminary education complete and he founded 4 congregations of women religious. Blessed Edmund is a stellar example of being a holy layman building up the Kingdom of God, the Mystical Body of Christ.

Edmund Bojanowski was from a wealthy Polish family; he studied literature at a time when literature and music were well regarded at universities in Breslau (modern Wroclaw, Poland) and Berlin, Germany. His intellect work included translating works from Serbia to Polish, wrote his own poetry, and a history of Serbia.

Bojanowski was known for his love of God and Our Lady above all else. In many ways he is a great model of what Pope Francis teaches about being protagonists in the work of mercy. While another blessed of the Church has the title of “Man of the Beatitudes”, a case can be made for Blessed Edmund having the same.

His Christian formation, in part, was as a member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Poland. Another aspect of his formation is devotion to Lectio Divina (meditated daily on Sacred Scripture), went to Confession weekly, and made his annual retreats making the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. As a consequence of meeting Jesus Christ, Edmund dedicated his whole life to the service of abandoned children, the sick, the poor, and those in greatest need.He dedicated his life to the service of abandoned children, the sick, and poor, teaching and spending his fortune in the service of the needy.

He founded reading rooms and libraries to provide books and education to the poor, and started the first day-care centers in the country. He funded assistance for the sick, supported orphanages, and worked in both himself.

Founded the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate, the Sisters Handmaids of the Holy and Immaculate Virgin Mary, the Little Servant Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, and the Sisters Handmaids of the Mother of God, Virgin Immaculate Conception; together their 3,300 sisters continue the work around the world. Two years before his death Edmund entered he entered the seminary in Gniezno, but did not survive long enough to graduate or be ordained.

The last will of Edmund Bojanowski to his Sisters was the recommendation of the blessing of simplicity and communal love. John Paul II declared him Blessed in Warsaw on June 13, 1999. At this time the Pope said he

is remembered as a good man with a big heart, who for love of God and neighbor was able to bring different sectors together, effectively rallying them around a common good. In his many-faceted activity, he anticipated much of what the Second Vatican Council said about the apostolate of the laity. His was an exceptional example of generous and industrious work for man, the homeland and the church.

Transfiguration of the Lord

In 1999, Saint John Paul preached this idea: “In the event of the Transfiguration we contemplate the mysterious encounter between history, which is being built every day, and the blessed inheritance that awaits us in heaven in full union with Christ, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.”

The faith requires our openness to the surprising work of God. Today we hear the call of the Lord in the narrative of the Transfiguration; this biblical datum is given to us twice in the liturgical year. For those interested not only in the theology of the feast but also in language we should consider the origins of the word. In the Greek, the word is metamorphoo, from which our English “metamorphosis” comes, and connotes transformation. This word is used in speaking of the transfiguration in Matthew and Mark, but also appears in Paul’s letters, usually translated as “transformed” or “changed.” While secularism pushed the notion of life-changing events as important and a marketable commodity, the Lord and his Apostle have something else to offer us. Today as we tackle the meaning of the Lord’s own transfiguration and our own, we too have to climb the mountain with Jesus to witness the intimacy of his glory and to see the Father’s power at work in Jesus. This event, like that of the Baptism of the Lord, reveals Jesus’ belovedness and divine sonship. At this time in the summer we see caterpillars becoming beautiful butterflies. In Romans 12:2, Saint Paul urges us to “be transfigured by the renewing of our minds.” Turn from sin to grace.

St. Cyril of Alexandria makes an experiential connection with change in theological terms. “He who receives Communion is made holy and Divinized in soul and body in the same way that water, set over a fire, becomes boiling. … Communion works like yeast that has been mixed into dough so that it leavens the whole mass: … Just as by melting two candles together you get one piece of wax, so, I think, one who receives the Flesh and Blood of Jesus is fused together with Him by this Communion, and the soul finds that he is in Christ and Christ is in him.”

So we come to believe as John Paul II taught: “we are made for eternity and eternity begins at this very moment, since the Lord is among us and lives with and in his Church.”