St Ignatius of Loyola

Ignatius LoyolaFrom the life of Saint Ignatius from his own words by Luis Gonzalez

Ignatius was passionately fond of reading worldly books of fiction and tales of knight-errantry. When he felt he was getting better, he asked for some of these books to pass the time. But no book of that sort could be found in the house; instead they gave him a life of Christ and a collection of the lives of saints written in Spanish.

By constantly reading these books he began to be attracted to what he found narrated there. Sometimes in the midst of his reading he would reflect on what he had read. Yet at other times he would dwell on many of the things which he had been accustomed to dwell on previously. But at this point our Lord came to his assistance, insuring that these thoughts were followed by others which arose from his current reading.

While reading the life of Christ our Lord or the lives of the saints, he would reflect and reason with himself: “What if I should do what Saint Francis or Saint Dominic did?” In this way he let his mind dwell on many thoughts; they lasted a while until other things took their place. Then those vain and worldly images would come into his mind and remain a long time. This sequence of thoughts persisted with him for a long time.

But there was a difference. When Ignatius reflected on worldly thoughts, he felt intense pleasure; but when he gave them up out of weariness, he felt dry and depressed. Yet when he thought of living the rigorous sort of life he knew the saints had lived, he not only experienced pleasure when he actually thought about it, but even after he dismissed these thoughts, he still experienced great joy. Yet he did not pay attention to this, nor did he appreciate it until one day, in a moment of insight, he began to marvel at the difference. Then he understood his experience: thoughts of one kind left him sad, the others full of joy. And this was the first time he applied a process of reasoning to his religious experience. Later on, when he began to formulate his spiritual exercises, he used this experience as an illustration to explain the doctrine he taught his disciples on the discernment of spirits.

Choice: vanity of owning and being in eternity?

On the 18th Sunday Through the Church year we have been given this gospel: Luke 12:13-21. In part we come to the part of the passage where parable Jesus tells he mentions the demand for the inheritance. As a friend said in his homily, “It is interesting to observe how many times I find myself “give orders” to Jesus! Should it not be the opposite? But even for Jesus, rather than giving an order or even that of judgments or condemnation, He invites me to reflect….”

St. Ambrose offers us this reflection:

“He uselessly accumulates wealth when he does not know how he will use it. He is like him who, when his full barns were bursting from the new harvest, built storehouses for his abundant crops, not knowing for whom he gathered them. The things that are of the world remain in the world, and whatever riches we gather are left to our heirs. The things that we cannot take with us aren’t ours either. Only virtue is the companion of the dead. Compassion alone follows us.”

Electing new government

The Democratic National Convention just finished and Republicans had their jamboree the week before last. I am finding it difficult to settle on the right candidate for governance of these American States. Neither of them, in my opinion, are right for high office. While I am not going to outline right now why I think so, I am merely offering my reservation for both political candidates.

What do I have to do to able to vote with an informed conscience? Is there a primacy of conscience? At this time, a good sense of one’s moral compass, the desire for the good of all, one can say that making a decision for a political candidate (party) today is not easily made or clearly or satisfying. Political elections is not supposed to be rooted in ideology but in solid principles based on Christian ethics (here I am speaking as a Catholic but there same would be said of people faith and good will applicable to all people) and Catholic Social Teaching. Using what the US bishops said, I have “the responsibility to make choices in political life [that] rests with each individual in light of a properly formed conscience” (FCFC, 37). Herein lies the hard and necessary work. In his 1993 document, Veritatis Splendor, John Paul taught that a human being “must act in accordance with [the judgement of conscience]. If man acts against this judgment or, in a case where he lacks certainty about the rightness and goodness of a determined act, still performs that act, he stands condemned by his own conscience, the proximate norm of personal morality” (60). This idea comes from the Thomistic tradition that says if one ignores the conscience one ignores God (even if the conscience is in error).

What is conscience? Among many things that can be said about conscience the teaching of the Church is that conscience is not a mechanism for one’s rationalization of one’s subjectivity, allowing for a person to do what he or she wants at will without the guidance of objective norms of the moral life. Conscience is relational to the objectivity of truth; the notion that there is my t truth and your truth is to retreat for truth because truth is not reduced to this type of certainty. One ought to consider what the Council Fathers taught about conscience they described it as “the voice of God resounding in the human heart, revealing the truth to us and calling us to do what is good while shining what is evil.” Moreover, “conscience is a judgment of reason  whereby the human person recognizes the moral  quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed.” Hence, we say conscience is basic to the person who seeks to know and do what is good and true based on a process of discernment and moral reasoning. The primacy of conscience is rooted in a sense of the truth first and foremost. This notion of primacy led Blessed John Henry Newman to say in this regard that “Certainly, if I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts… I shall drink  –to the Pope, if you please, — still to Conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.” The Authority of the pope and primacy of conscience are not in opposition to each other because both seek to know the truth: no conscience without the truth.

A conscience can err in its “[i]gnorance of Christ and his gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the church’s authority and her teaching, [and] a lack of conversion and charity.” (FCFC 400).

But back to what is crucial: to keep in mind what promotes the dignity of the human person based on a well formed conscience as the guide for making a decision on a political candidate. The faithful, then, in the formation of conscience “ought carefully to attend to” church teaching with an openness of mind and heart regarding the reasons of thus-and-such moral point with the work of seeking and adhering to the truth; Thus, we ultimately are called upon submitting one’s reason and will with sincerity. Here we acknowledge the Church is a most reliable in the formation of conscience.

Areas of concern for the flourishing of human dignity:

  • concerns for the family as “the first and fundamental unit of society”;
  • principles for sacredness of life in the face of evils like abortion, euthanasia, IVF;
  • just war teaching in both its jus ad bellum (when nations may go to war) and jus in bello (how war must be conducted) –even with the complexities of modern warfare;
  • principles of subsidiarity and solidarity –the social security and welfare programs;
  • a moral mandate of a just wage; the rights—and obligations—of workers generally;
  • just immigration policies;
  • rights of economic freedom/initiative and private property;
  • support for good agricultural;
  • support for good environmental stewardship;
  • rights to health care and education; fighting unjust discrimination;
  • a preferential option for the poor, elderly and chronically ill;
  • and, a reasonable consideration for international debt relief of poor nations.

One help is the concept that the US bishops place on the table: “When all candidates hold a position that promotes an intrinsically evil act, the conscientious voter faces a dilemma. The voter may decide to take the extraordinary step of not voting for any candidate or, after careful deliberation, may decide to vote for the candidate deemed less likely to advance such a morally flawed position and more likely to pursue other authentic human goods” (FCFC, 36)

Some essays and resources to read:

Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship (2007; updated by the US bishops)

“Can a Catholic in good conscience vote for Trump?”

“Why I Must Oppose Donald Trump: One Priest’s Perspective”

a bibliography stitched by the UND

and consult with Joseph Ratzinger’s Conscience and Truth

Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus

Johannes Vermeer Christ_in_the_House of Martha and MaryToday, on the Novus Ordo liturgical calendar the Church recalls St Martha. For Benedictines, today we seek the help of Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus, Hosts of the Lord. All three are not only disciples of the Lord but are true friends. In the Benedictine tradition Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus are venerated as living Saint Benedict’s mandate of hospitality: “Let all guests be received as Christ, for He will one day say, I came as a guest and you welcomed me.” (RSB 53:1). For this reason, one Benedictine Lectionary proposes the story of Abraham and Sarah extending hospitality.

In a time when hospitality is not a value, the Benedictine tradition gives us this feast of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus to keep our hearts focussed on the practice hospitality. “Behold,” says the Lord, “I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me” (Rev. 3:20).

What we see in these saints we see first in the Eucharistic hospitality of God at the altar. Just as Martha, Mary and Lazarus opened the door to Jesus and made room for him, there is room for all of us at the temple of God where we are invited in to hear the Word and receive his gifts of Life.

May we learn what it means to be hospitable. Can we sit at the foot of the Master like Mary at the Eucharistic banquet and receive his mystical body and blood, or be a penitent like Lazarus or to set aside the anxieties of this world? Can we leave the anxieties of life to bring our entire humanity to the Lord through the transparency of prayer?

Priest killed by ISIS

Father HamelPrayers for the soul of Father Jacques Hamel, killed today in France by ISIS terrorists. At 84, Father gave his life to the Lord while offering the Sacrifice of the Mass in the Church of Saint Etienne. He becomes for us a martyr of the faith. Father was a priest of the Archdiocese of Rouen.

“The faith of the martyrs has been proved, and their blood is the witness to it. The martyrs have paid back what was spent for them, and they have fulfilled what Saint John says: Just as Christ laid down his life for us, so we too should lay down our lives for the brethren.”
…
“How could the martyrs ever conquer, unless that one conquered in them who said Rejoice, since I have conquered the world? The emperor of the heavens was governing their minds and tongues, and through them overcoming the devil on earth and crowning the martyrs in heaven. O, how blessed are those who drank this cup thus! They have finished with suffering and have received honor instead.”

– St. Augustine’s Sermon 329 (Sermo 329, 1-2: PL 38, 1454-1455)

The Eucharist in the now, and transcends time

The Eucharist is indelibly marked by the event of the Lord’s passion and death, of which it is not only a reminder but the sacramental re-presentation. It is the sacrifice of the Cross perpetuated down the ages.

The Church has received the Eucharist from Christ her Lord not as one gift – however precious – among so many others, but as the gift par excellence, for it is the gift of himself, of his person in his sacred humanity, as well as the gift of his saving work.

Nor does it remain confined to the past, since “all that Christ is – all that he did and suffered for all men – participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times”.

When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, the memorial of her Lord’s death and resurrection, this central event of salvation becomes really present and “the work of our redemption is carried out”

—EE 11

Romano Guardini’s sainthood cause introduced

romano guardiniSome fascinating news –at least it was fascinating to me– that the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising is preparing to open the Cause of Canonization for Father Romano Guardini, one of the most influential Catholic theologians of the 20th century. Several groups have developed praying for Guardini’s beatification.

The press is reporting that Reinhard Cardinal Marx is expected to formally open the Cause before the end of the year.

Father Guardini was born in Verona in 1885 and died in Munich on October 1, 1968.

He taught at the University of Berlin, the University of Tübingen and at the University of Munich. Guardini has been called the patron saint of education (or the educator).

Some of Guardini’s major theological contributions:

The Spirit of the Liturgy
The Lord
The End of the Modern World
The Art of Praying
The Inner Life of Jesus
Meditations Before Mass
The Rosary of Our Lady
The Living God
Eternal Life
And the Word Dwelt Among Us.

The popes, including the last two, have relied upon the thinking of Guardini. In the 1980s when Francis was shipped off to Germany by the Jesuits to get him away from Argentina he went to Germany he was to prepare a doctoral dissertation on Guardini but never finished the work. Pope Francis said, “convinced that Guardini is a thinker who has much to say to the people of our time, and not only to Christians”The emeritus pope Benedict stated that Guardini is “a great figure, a Christian interpreter of the world and of his own time”. It is said that Father Guardini was a principal source of influence in Benedict’s writings.

Father Romano Guardini, pray for us.

Prosper Guerganger’s beatification prayer

Prosper Gueranger

The re-founder of Benedictine life in France in the 19th century, Dom Prosper Guéranger (1805-1875) has a cause introduced (2005) for study for possible sainthood. While no one is perfect in this world, there is reason to believe that God has made a saint of his monastic servant. The ideas and works point in a certain direction of the quality of the person being proposed for study but these things do not completely identify the person.

I chose this date to introduce the invitation to pray for the beatification of Guéranger because it is the date on which the newly formed Benedictines professed their solemn vows at Abbey of Saint Paul outside the Walls in Rome in 1837.

Prayer for the Beatification of Dom Prosper Guéranger:

God our Father, your servant Dom Prosper Guéranger, Abbot of Solesmes, guided by the Holy Spirit, helped a multitude of your faithful people rediscover the meaning of the liturgy as the source of true Christian life. May his devotion to your Holy Church and his filial love for the Immaculate Virgin, inspired by the mystery of the Incarnate Word, be a light for Christians of our own day. Deign, O Lord, to grant the favour we ask you by his intercession, so that his sanctity may be recognized by all and that the Church may soon allow us to invoke him as the one of your blessed and one of your saints. Through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.

St Mary Magdalen

Mary Magdalene 3 aThe entire Church rejoices today on this feast of Saint Mary Magdalen, the first to witness to the Resurrection of the Savior. From Magdala, a region in northern Galilee she is the Apostle to the Apostles (a title given by Aquinas) an an evangelist announcing the joyful message of Easter to the whole world. The Magdalene’s name is mentioned in the Gospels 12 times, more than any of the 12.

Mary’s known for her intensity in adhering to the Lord. From her we learn in a real way what it means to live the attitude of gratitude before God: we can think poignantly of her being released of the seven demons driven out by Jesus. This event of meeting the Lord personally becomes her mission statement for the building up the nascent Body of Christ (the Church) at that time, and for all time.

God’s method of drawing us to Himself if using a woman reputed to have had difficulties with a wholistic and life-giving faith. Hence, one can posit that without Mary’s witness we would never have heard of Jesus Christ’s Resurrection. Theologically she is the key for the soul seeking, more, thirsting for God.

As one Cistercian priest-monk said, “We love Mary Magdalen because of the way in which the boldness of her love for Jesus made her stare death down beyond all human logic or hope.  For her there is no question that the Messiah of Israel, sent to redeem all humankind, and the Beloved of her most intimate heart are one and the same person. She perseveres in weeping at the entrance to the tomb because she perseveres in her love: the presence and actions of Jesus in her own life had taught her that love is indeed stronger than death. Against all odds and logic, in a sort of sublime madness, she clings to her Jesus dead or alive; and she does not reason about a her relative physical strength when she says ironically to the man she thought was the gardener, “Tell me where you laid him, and I will take him away.” Because she loves Jesus so much, she is prepared to carry his body away single-handed.”

On June 3, 2016, Archbishop Arthur Roche (of the Congregation for Worship) wrote: “It is right that the liturgical celebration of this woman has the same level of feast given to the celebration of the apostles in the general Roman calendar and highlights the special mission of this woman who is an example and model for every woman in the church.”

A recent prayer for the Year of Mercy of Pope Francis identifies Saint Mary Magdalen: “Your loving gaze freed Zacchaeus and Matthew from being enslaved by money; the adulteress and Magdalene from seeking happiness only in created things; made Peter weep after his betrayal, and assured paradise to the repentant thief.”

Let us attend to the Magdalen for our journey of faith.