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.

Organic Vinegar –monastic style

brother-victorOutside Poughkeepsie, NY there is a Benedictine Hermit, Brother Victor-Antione d’Avila Latourrette who lives his vocation with intensity. His residence is called Our Lady of the Resurrection Monastery.
 
You may know Brother Victor from his various books, including “Twelve Months of Monastery Soups”, “From a Monastery Kitchen: The Classic Natural Foods Cookbook” and “Sacred Feasts: From a Monastery Kitchen” among others.
He is quite the monk and son of St Benedict.
 
Here is a nice write-up in yesterday’s Poughkeepsie Journal:
 

By what intention do we judge?

These days are tense.  We are faced with important decisions by which we engage others. At a recent memorial service for the police officers killed in Dallas, Texas, the following was said by our former President.

“At times, it seems like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together. Argument turns too easily into animosity. … Too often we judge other groups by their worst examples, while judging ourselves by our best intentions.”

George Bush
former President of the USA and former governor of Texas

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

“A man was rushed to a New York City hospital unconscious and dying. The nurse saw the man was wearing a brown scapular of a Our Lady of Mount Carmel and called for the priest. As the prayers were being said for the dying, the man became conscious. ‘Father, I am not a Catholic.’ The man said. The priest asked why he was wearing the scapular. ‘I promised friends I would wear it and say one Hail Mary each day.’ The priest asked the man if he wanted to baptized. The man desired his whole life to become Catholic. He was baptized and received the Last Rites and died in peace.”

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, pray for us!

Dorothy Day and the Benedictines

I found the following file on my computer this morning by accident –I wasn’t looking for it, but I was happy to find it. I’ve been harping on the Benedictine influence upon Dorothy Day and the importance the Rule of Benedict and the influence various monks had Day. For example, we have a good example of Dom Virgil Michel working with Dorothy Day at the Catholic Worker. Another is Brother Victor-Antoine d’Avila Latourrette. Day’s sainthood cause is being studied at the moment and these things matter, in my opinion.

Virgil Michel, O.S.B., and the Benedictine Influence on the CW Movement:

Virgil Michel, Fellow Worker in Christ
by Dorothy Day

To us at the Catholic Worker, Father Virgil was a dear friend and adviser, bringing to us his tremendous strength and knowledge. He first came to visit us at our beginnings on East Fifteenth Street. He was like Peter Maurin in the friendly simple way he would come in and sit down, starting right in on the thought that was uppermost in his mind, telling us of the work he was engaged in at that particular moment and what he was planning for the future. He was at home with everyone, anywhere. He could sit down at a table in a tenement house kitchen, or under an apple tree at the farm, and talk of St. Thomas and today with whoever was at hand. He had such faith in people, faith in their intelligence and spiritual capacities, that he always gave the very best he had generously and openheartedly.

He was interested in everything we were trying to do, and made us feel, at all the Catholic Worker groups, that we were working with him. When he came in it was as though we had seen him just a few weeks before. He was at home at once, he remembered everybody, he listened to everybody.

Orate Frates, January, 1939