Communio – Page 91 – …bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Saint Maria Goretti

Today we are given a saint to follow –she shows us the beauty of following Christ Jesus in this world when danger lurks. Chaste living is a real challenge for many.

One significant and overlooked part of Saint Maria’s biography is the heroic act of virtue given by her beloved mother in her forgiving her daughter’s killer, Alessandro Serenelli, who died with the sacraments of the Church in the company of the Capuchin friars on May 6, 1970.

It is true that this type of virtue is beyond most of us, even on the best of days of grace being present in our life. What can be said? Not much except to stand in awe of such a beautiful and needed action of the Blessed Trinity. Her the Gospel meets reality and shows us that it it possible to live virtuously. As a consequence, we take what Saint Maria’s mother did and try to implement it into our own reality.

The spiritual counsel offered here is that we can at least pray for the grace to forgive, even if we don’t want to forgive or don’t think we can forgive. Ask God.

Trusting our Sainted Founders Peter and Paul

Mother Church liturgically remembers today the lives of Saints Peter and Paul. The Apostles Peter and Paul are known as the founders of our Church. As a point of fact, the Church has always considered St. Peter and St. Paul together —they are inseparable. Historically, we know them to born as Jews; each had a personal encounter with Jesus. And each had unique and unrepeatable set of gifts to offer. Both received the mission from Jesus Christ to make the Church a reality in Rome and thus for the world. Their vocation included the sacrifice of their lives in the service of the Gospel: St. Peter was crucified upside down and St. Paul, a Roman citizen, was beheaded with a sword. The point of drawing our attention to Sts. Peter and Paul is to ask if we follow the experience and teaching of these Holy Apostles who were great founders of our Church? Do we know them? Do we trust that their teaching directs our steps on the path that leads to heaven?

In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI preached the following homily to new archbishops, words appropriate for us to reflect upon for our formation of faith:

“‘In your hearts reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you.’ Christian faith is hope. It paves the way to the future. And it is a hope that possesses reasonableness, a hope whose reason we can and must explain. Faith comes from the eternal Reason that entered our world and showed us the true God. Faith surpasses the capacity of our reason, just as love sees more than mere intelligence. But faith speaks to reason and in the dialectic confrontation can be a match for reason. It does not contradict it but keeps up with it and goes beyond it to introduce us into the greater Reason of God. It is our task not to let it remain merely a tradition but to recognize it as a response to our questions. Faith demands our rational participation, which is deepened and purified in a sharing of love. It is one of our duties … to penetrate faith with thought, to be able to show the reason for our hope within the debates of our time. Yet although it is so necessary thought alone does not suffice. Just as speaking alone does not suffice. In his baptismal and Eucharistic catechesis in chapter 2 of his Letter, Peter alludes to the Psalm used by the ancient Church in the context of communion, that is, to the verse which says: ‘O taste and see that the Lord is good!’ (Ps 34[33]: 8; 1 Pt 2: 3).

Tasting alone leads to seeing. Let us think of the disciples of Emmaus: it was only in convivial communion with Jesus, only in the breaking of the bread that their eyes were opened. Only in truly experienced communion with the Lord were they able to see. This applies to us all; over and above thinking and speaking, we need the experience of faith, the vital relationship with Jesus Christ. Faith must not remain theory: it must be life. If we encounter the Lord in the Sacrament, if we speak to him in prayer, if in the decisions of daily life we adhere to Christ then ‘we see’ more and more how good he is; then we experience how good it is to be with him. Moreover the capacity to communicate faith to others in a credible way stems from this certainty lived. The Curé d’Ars was not a great thinker; but he ‘tasted’ the Lord. He lived with him even in the details of daily life, as well as in the great demands of his pastoral ministry. In this way he became ‘one who sees.’ He had tasted so he knew that the Lord is good. Let us pray the Lord that he may grant us this ability to taste, and that we may thus become credible witnesses of the hope that is in us.”

(written/edited for the OLOP bulletin, 6/26/2016)

Our Lady of Perpetual Help

The image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help measures around 50 centimeters (25 inches) high. It is in the Byzantine style, painted on wood with a gold leaf background. The Virgin is there with Her divine Child; each of them has a golden halo. Two Angels, one on the right and the other on the left, present the instruments of the Passion to the Child Jesus who is frightened, whereas the Blessed Virgin looks at the pathetic scene with calm, resigned sorrow.

The image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help had long been venerated on the Isle of Crete. The inhabitants of that island, fleeing a Turkish invasion, took it with them to Rome. By the invocation of Mary under the title of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the ship transporting Her holy image was saved from a terrible storm.

On March 27, 1499, the portrait of the Virgin of Perpetual Help was carried in triumph through the streets of Rome. Preceded by the clergy and followed by the people, it was placed over the main altar of St. Matthew’s church, near St. Mary Major. Thanks to the care of the Augustinian friars, the holy image became the object of a very popular devotion which God rewarded for several centuries with many miracles.

During the disturbances of the French Revolution (1789-1793), the French troops occupying Rome destroyed St. Matthew’s church. One of the friars serving in that sanctuary had the time to secretly remove the miraculous Madonna. He hid it so well that for sixty years, no one knew what had become of the famous painting.

God permitted a concourse of providential circumstances which led to rediscovery of the venerated image. In 1865, in order to return the holy picture to the same spot it had been prayed to before, Pius IX gave orders to have it taken to the Esquiline Hill, in St. Alphonsus Liguori’s church, built on the site of old St. Matthew’s. On April 26, 1866, the Redemptorists solemnly enthroned Our Lady of Perpetual Help in their chapel.

From that time on, thanks to the zeal of the sons of Saint Alphonsus and the countless miracles obtained in their pious sanctuary, devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help has had an extraordinary development. To acknowledge and perpetuate the remembrances of these precious favors, the Vatican Chapter crowned the holy image in great pomp on June 23, 1867.

In 1876, Pope Pius IX erected an Archconfraternity in St. Alphonsus’ church under the title of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Today the Blessed Virgin is invoked by this name throughout the Western Church.

(Abbé L. Jaud, Vie des Saints pour tous les jours de l’année, Mame: Tours, 1950, pp. 463-464 – Brothers of Christian Schools, 1932 ed., p. 483.)

Is anger sinful?

St. John Chrysostom

“Only the person who becomes irate without reason, sins. Whoever becomes irate for a just reason is not guilty. Because, if ire were lacking, the science of God would not progress, judgments would not be sound, and crimes would not be repressed.

Further, the person who does not become irate when he has cause to be, sins. For an unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices: it fosters negligence, and stimulates not only the wicked, but above all the good, to do wrong.” (St. John Chrysostom, Homily XI super Matheum, 1c, nt.7)

St. Thomas Aquinas

“Ire may be understood in two ways.

In one way, as a simple movement of the will that inflicts punishment not through passion, but by virtue of a judgment of the reason: and in this case, without a doubt, lack of ire is a sin. This is how Chrysostom understands ire when he says: ‘Ire, when it has a cause, is not ire but judgment. For properly speaking, ire is a movement of passion. And when a man is irate with just cause, his ire does not derive from passion. Rather, it is an act of judgment, not of ire.”

In another way, ire can be understood as a movement of the sensitive appetite agitated by passion with bodily excitation. This movement is a necessary sequel in man to the previous movement of his will, since the lower appetite naturally follows the movement of the higher appetite unless some obstacle prevents it. Hence the movement of ire in the sensitive appetite cannot be lacking altogether, unless the movement of the will is altogether lacking or weak. Consequently, the lack of the passion of ire is also a vice, as it is the lack of movement in the will to punish according to the judgment of reason.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II, II, q. 158, art. 8)

Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

Hic Præcursor Domini natus est!

Indeed, we honor the nativity of John the Baptist today. Only two others are honored with a feast day for their Nativity: Our Lord and Savior and His beloved and Great Mother, Mary.

The Church prays to God who lifted up for us the Baptist as the precursor for the Incarnate Word of God, that he make ready a nation for the Lord’s coming and direct the hearts of all the faithful into the way of salvation and peace.

It is revealed to us that the blessed forerunner of the Lord, John, was a martyr. His martyrdom was for his stance, that is, his teaching, on adultery: “It is not lawful for thee to have your brother’s wife.” At the heart of it all was that John spoke the truth; he challenged civil authority to live as they should and he called his contemporaries to be faithful to the faith of their Fathers. Yet, the crafty concubine of Herod silenced John before he could convert the King Herod and his court to repentance and belief in the Messiah.

John the Baptist was not alone in the witness of his life and death as many revered saints spoke similar truths and ended their lives by spilling their blood: among them, Saints John Chrysostom, Thomas Becket, and Stanislaus. Who will do similar today? Is our faith strong enough to face death?

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga

This poignant waiting titled, “The Vocation of St. Aloysius Gonzaga,” by Guercino, hangs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC). The Gonzaga family castle looms in the background and the crown of the marquisate on the ground behind him, which he has relinquished. The lily is a sign of his chastity.

Aloysius’ father was not persuaded that his son had a vocation to be part of the new group called the Society of Jesus, much less a priest. Therefore, he sent his son to the Superior General of the Society of Jesus with a letter stating, “I merely say to Your Reverence that I am sending you the most precious thing I possess.” The young Aloysius distinguished himself as a model Jesuit. As the plague came to Rome in 1591, Aloysius threw himself into caring for plague victims. But he was told by his superiors not to touch them, lest he contract the disease. One day, he carried a man from his bed, was infected with the plague and then died, at age 23 in the octave of Corpus Christi.

The opening Collect of his Mass today speaks of asking for the same grace Aloysius had: to join innocence with penitence. As J. Michael Thompson writes in a hymn for our saint, we trust as Aloysius did, in the “Trinity of endless mercy.”

The Church named Saint Aloysius a patron of youth, and of those living with HIV/AIDS.

Blessed Joseph-Marie Cassant

A rather unknown Cistercian monk and Blessed of the Church is Joseph-Marie Cassant (March 6, 1878 – June 17, 1903). He eventually found his vocation with the Cistercian monks of St. Mary of the Desert (France) on December 5, 1894. Solemn vows were professed on May 24, 1900, the feast of the Ascension. Brother Joseph-Marie’s personal charism, developed with the help of his novice master, seems to be based on the contemplation of Jesus in His passion and in the cross which leads to his teaching the love of Christ: this is the way of Jesus’ heart.

In preparing for the priesthood, Brother Joseph-Marie understood his ministry as totally eucharistic. The young brother was ordained priest on October 12, 1902. Almost immediately he was diagnosed with TB of which his sufferings were kept silent. His abbot, feeling the gravity of the situation, sent Joseph-Marie to be with his family for seven weeks despite his growing weakness. The monastery’s infirmarian was incompetent and likely advanced the effects of TB.

Saint John Paul beatified Father Joseph-Marie on October 3, 2004.

Why is Blessed Joseph-Marie important for us today? I think the summary statements found in a biography give us a deeper move into the heart of the Blessed:

The sheer ordinariness of his life has been noted by some: 16 quiet years at Casseneuil and 9 years of monastic enclosure spent in doing the simplest of things: prayer, studies, work. They are indeed simple things, but lived in an extraordinary way. They were the slightest of deeds, but performed with limitless generosity. Christ imbued his mind, clear as the water that leaps from a spring, with the conviction that God alone is our true and highest happiness and that his kingdom is like a hidden treasure or a pearl of great price.

The message of Fr. Joseph-Marie has great meaning for us today. In a world filled with distrust and often with despair but thirsting for love and kindness, his life can provide an answer, and in a special way to today’s young who seek meaning in their lives. Joseph-Marie was a youth without any standing or worth in the eyes of men. He owed the success of his life to a meeting with Jesus that redefined his very existence. He showed himself a follower of the Lord in the midst of a community of brothers, with the guidance of a spiritual father, who was to him a witness of Christ as well as one who knew to receive and to understand him.

Mother Marie-Adele Garnier canonization prayer

On the Communio blog I love to portray the witnesses of holiness, those canonized and beatified already, and those in process. One such person in process for study is the Benedictine nun Mother Marie-Adèle Garnier (1838-1924), the foundress of the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In the monastery Garnier was known as Mother Mary of St. Peter. The aim of this Benedictine Congregation is to glorify the Most Blessed Trinity. Today is the anniversary of her transitus.

Mother Marie-Adèle’s cause has been introduced for study about a possible canonization. Blessed Columba Marmion wrote to one of her spiritual daughters, saying, “The special characteristic of your Mother is heroic confidence in the midst of impossibilities.” With this in mind, let us together pray for this favor.

Father, all powerful and ever living God, we give you glory, praise and thanks for the life and virtue of your beloved daughter, Marie-Adèle Garnier.

Filled with the riches of your grace and preferring mother to the love of the Heart of Jesus Christ, she devoted her whole life to the adoration, praise and glory of your Name; she sacrificed herself by prayer and penance for the unity and holiness of your Church; she loved her neighbor with a charity full of humility and compassion.

Above all, she found the Sun of her life in the Holy Mass, and so was consumed with zeal for liturgical worship and Eucharistic adoration, and abandoned herself with all her heart to your most Holy Will in all things.

In your mercy Lord, hearken to our prayer: “Glorify Your Servant, Mother Marie-Adèle Garnier, that Your Servant may glorify you.”

We ask this through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, One God, world without end. Amen.

Sheen’s Body to move to Illinois?

The saga of who gets the body is rather sad. Who would think that the process of getting a person declared a saint in the Catholic Church could get acrimonious? But, in the case of the Venerable Servant of God Fulton J. Sheen it is. Today it was announced that the niece of Sheen, Joan Sheen Cunningham, has petitioned the New York Supreme Court to move the mortal remains of her uncle from the crypt in St Patrick’s Cathedral (NYC) to the Peoria, Illinois. Sheen died on December 9, 1979.

“All this focus on the body, the body,” Mrs. Cunningham said in an interview last week. “It’s forgetting what the purpose of the whole thing is. To keep someone from coming beatified over this, I think, is wrong.” Perhaps Cardinal Dolan could speed up the Sheen cause for canonization by ending the court petition now and send the body back to Peoria as requested. He’ll get a relic out of the deal anyways. Delaying is a tantamount to ecclesiastical game-playing.

The Diocese of Peoria has published this press release.

More to the story here.

Benedictine sainthood cause advances

Today, 14 June, Pope Francis received in a private audience Angelo Cardinal Amato, S.D.B., Prefect of the Congregation of the Causes of Saints. In the course of the audience with the Holy Father, he authorized the Congregation to promulgate the decrees regarding…

…the heroic virtue of the Servant of God Bernard of the Annunciation (in history: Bernardo de Vasconcelos) a professed monk of the Order of Saint Benedict; born 7 July 1902 and died 4 July 1932.

He was a monk of Singeverga monastery. He died from spinal tuberculosis.

Brother Bernard will now carry the title of Venerable Servant of God

Bernardo de Vasconcelos.

Let us pray that our new Venerable will be raised the to the altar.