Stephen Saw Jesus ALIVE

Today the Church celebrates the martyrdom of Saint Stephen. Saint Augustine received relics of Saint Stephen in the year 424 for his church in Hippo. This homily by Saint Augustine is dated somewhere between 400 to 420.

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Yesterday we celebrated the birth of our Lord; today we are celebrating the birthday of His servant. We celebrated Christmas as the day on which the Lord was pleased to be born; the birthday we are celebrating of His servant is the one on which he was crowned. We celebrate the birth of the Lord where He received the robe of flesh; we celebrate His servant’s birthday as the day in which he threw aside the garment of his flesh. What we celebrated on the Lord’s birthday was His becoming like us; what we are celebrating on His servant’s birthday is his becoming as close as possible to Christ. Just as Christ, by being born was joined to Stephen, so Stephen by dying was joined to Christ.

The reason the Church marks the days of the birth and the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ with equal devotion, is that each of them is a salutary medicine for us, because He was born in order that we might be born again, and He died that we live forever. The martyrs, however, carrying original sin in birth, came to the fight against evil, and with death they passed over to the most incontestable of goods, putting an end to all sin. If the reward of the bliss didn't comfort them as they faced persecution, when would they ever have endured those various torments of martyrdom? If blessed Stephen, facing that shower of stones, had not thought about the rewards to come, how could he have borne that terrible hailstorm? But he was bearing in mind the instruction of the One Whose presence he could observe in heaven; and reaching out to Him with the most ardent love, he longed to leave his flesh behind as soon as possible, and fly off to Him. He was not afraid to die because he could see that Christ was alive, though he knew He had been slain for his sake; thus he was in a hurry to die for Him, in order to live with Him.

As to what the most blessed martyr saw as he engaged in that final agonizing contest, he could see Jesus standing. The reason He was standing, and not sitting, is that standing up above, and watching from above His soldier battling below, He was supplying him with invincible strength, so that he shouldn’t fall. Blessed indeed the man to whom the heavens lay open! But who opened the heavens? The One about Whom it says in the Apocalypse: “Who opens and nobody shuts; shuts, and nobody opens” (Revelation 3:7). When Adam was thrown out of Paradise, after that first and abominable sin, heaven was shut against the human race; after the Passion of Christ, the thief was the first to enter. Then later on Stephen saw heaven opened. Why should we be surprised? What he saw in faith, he indicated in faith, and took violently by storm.

Saints Simon and Jude

Today on this Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, the Carthusians at Matins listened to an excerpt from the ‘Commonitory’ of Saint Vincent of Lérins. It is believed to have been written somewhere around the year 434. While the author identifies himself as ‘Peregrinus’, it was Gennadius of Marseilles who credits it to Vincent of Lérins. This Treatise is sometimes referred to as a ‘Remembrancer’, because Vincent’s goal was to provide himself with a principle to identify what is Catholic truth and what is error. Thus, he wrote this Treatise as a handy reference in which he could keep the truth ever fresh on his mind. Scripture, for example has many interpretations. Vincent of Lérins supports the idea that the proper interpretation(s) of Sacred Scripture must be supported by the ancient traditions and the universality of the Church – the deposit of faith, ‘the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth’ (1 Timothy 3:15), handed down to us by the apostles, like Simon and Jude, the pillars of faith. All other interpretations contrary, according to this Treatise, are to be rejected. Here is that excerpt.

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It is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation. In the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense Catholic, which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity and consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we do not depart from those interpretations which were held by our holy ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if we embrace the definitions and doctrines of almost all the bishops and doctors.

The true and genuine Catholic is one who loves the truth of God, who loves the Church, who loves the Body of Christ. He esteems divine religion and the Catholic Faith above every thing, above the authority of man, above his regard, above his genius, above his eloquence, above his philosophy. Disregarding all these things, he continues steadfast and established in the faith, resolves that he will believe only that which the Church has always and universally believed. Whatsoever new and unheard of doctrine he shall find to have been furtively introduced by someone or another, contrary to that of all the saints, this, he will understand, does not pertain to religion, but is permitted as a trial, being instructed especially by the words of the blessed Apostle Paul, who writes thus in his First Epistle to the Corinthians: ‘There must also be divisions, that they who are approved may be made manifest among you’ (1 Corinthians 11:19). This is the reason why God doesn’t immediately eradicate errors, that it may be apparent of each individual, how tenacious and faithful and steadfast he is in his love of the Catholic faith.

But some one will say, shall there, then, be no progress in Christ's Church? Certainly -- all possible progress. For what being is there, so envious of men, so full of hatred to God, who would seek to forbid it? Yet on the condition that it be real progress, not an alteration of the faith. For progress requires that the subject be enlarged in itself; by alteration, that it be transformed into something else. The intelligence, then, the knowledge, the wisdom, as well of individuals as of all, as well of one man as of the whole Church, ought, in the course of ages and centuries, increase and make much and vigorous progress; but yet only in its own kind; that is to say, in the same doctrine, in the same sense, and in the same interpretation. The growth of religion in the soul must be analogous to the growth of the body, which, though in process of years it is developed and attains its full size, yet remains still the same.

There is a wide difference between the flower of youth and the maturity of age; yet they who were once young are still the same now that they have become old, insomuch that though the stature and outward form of the individual are changed, yet his nature is one and the same, his person is one and the same. An infant's limbs are small, a young man's large, yet the infant and the young man are the same. Men when full grown have the same number of joints that they had when children; and if something new appears, these were already present in the embryo, so that nothing new is produced in them when old which was not already latent in them when children. This, then, is undoubtedly the true and legitimate rule of progress; this is the established and most beautiful order of growth, that the mature age ever develops in the man those parts and forms which the wisdom of the Creator had already framed beforehand in the infant. Whereas, if the human form were changed into some shape belonging to another kind, or if the number of its limbs were increased or diminished, the result would be that the whole body would perish or become monstrous, or at least weakened. It behooves Christian doctrine to follow the same laws of progress. It needs to be consolidated by years, develop over time, and refine by age.

Our Fathers in the past planted in the Church the good seed of faith. It would be most unfair and unseemly if we, their descendants, instead of the authentic truth of grain, should reap the counterfeit error of weeds. On the contrary, from doctrine which was sown as wheat, we should reap, in the increase, the wheat of dogma, so that when in the process of time any of the original seed is developed, and now flourishes under cultivation, this is cause for joy. There may be changes in shape, form, variation in outward appearance, but the nature of each kind must remain the same. God forbid that those rose-beds of Catholic interpretation should be converted into thorns and thistles.

Therefore, whatever has been sown by the fidelity of the Fathers in this husbandry of God's Church, the same ought to be cultivated and taken care of by the industry of their children, the same ought to flourish and ripen, the same ought to advance and go forward to perfection. For it is right that those ancient doctrines of heavenly philosophy should, as time goes on, be cared for, smoothed, polished; but not that they should be changed, not that they should be maimed, not that they should be mutilated. They may receive proof, illustration, definiteness; but they must retain withal their completeness, their integrity, their characteristic properties. For if once this license of impious fraud be admitted, I dread to say in how great danger religion will be of being utterly destroyed and annihilated. For if any one part of Catholic truth be given up, another, and another, and another will thenceforward be given up as a matter of course, and the several individual portions having been rejected, what will follow in the end but the rejection of the whole?

If what is new begins to be mingled with what is old, the profane with the sacred, this disorder will spread universally, till at last the Church will have nothing remaining intact, nothing unchanged, nothing sound, nothing unblemished. Where formerly there was a sanctuary of chaste and undefiled truth, thenceforward there will be a brothel of impious and shameful errors. May God's mercy avert this wickedness from the minds of His servants; be it rather the frenzy of the ungodly. The Church of Christ, the careful and watchful guardian of the doctrines deposited in her charge, never changes anything in them, never diminishes, never adds, does not cut off what is necessary, does not add what is superfluous, does not lose her own, and does not appropriate what is another's.

Finally, what other object have Councils ever aimed at in their decrees, than to provide that what was before believed in simplicity should in future be believed intelligently, that what was before preached coldly should in future be preached earnestly, that what was before practiced negligently should thenceforward be practised with double solicitude? This, I say, is what the Catholic Church, roused by the novelties of divisions, has accomplished by the decrees of her Councils -- this, and nothing else -- she has thenceforward consigned to posterity in writing what she had received from those ancient days only by tradition, comprising a great amount of matter in a few words, and often, for the better understanding, designating an old article of the faith by the characteristic of a new name.

Saints Cornelius and Cyprian

Today on the liturgical calendar is the Memorial of Saint Cornelius, pope and martyr, and Saint Cyprian, bishop and martyr.  

In his work on Mortality, Saint Cyprian writes about the faithful who "cannot be moved by worldly enticements" and are able to connect with the power of God within them to "shatter the turbulent onsets of the world and the raging waves of time."

On the flip side, Saint Cyprian, in that same writing, mentions those who "resist with less temptation and will not implement the divine power" and the invincibility of their heart.  

By means of our baptism we belong to Christ; but with that comes responsibility as explained by Saint Cyprian: "He who has begun to be already a man of God and of Christ, must be found worthy of God and of Christ." He expounds on that by teaching that in this earthly life we must already hope for divine things "so that we may have no trembling at the rising of storms and tempests of the world." 

In every age of human history the people of God have faced stress, disasters, tragedies, etc. As we often hear or even say ourselves: "Why? - How could a loving God allow such things?" Saint Cyprian reminds us: "Remember that the Lord had foretold these events would come and exhorted us with His foreseeing words. He prophesied about wars, famines and plagues, with the intention of strengthening the people of His Church for endurance of things to come; and lest an unexpected and new dread should shake us, He previously warned us that adversity would increase more and more in the end times. Behold, the very things occur which were spoken; and since those occur which were foretold before, whatever things were promised will also follow; as the Lord Himself promises, saying, 'But when you see all these things come to pass, know that the Kingdom of God is at hand’" (Luke 21:31).

Most comforting, as we see and read daily the world's struggles, are the words of our Savior: "I am the Resurrection and the Life: he that believes in Me, though he die, yet shall live; and whosoever lives and believes in Me shall not die eternally" (John 11:25-26).

Saint Cyprian tells us not to forget that "we are passing through death to immortality; eternal life cannot follow, unless we depart from this life. That is not an end, but a transition, a journey through time, a passage to eternity." 

What we perhaps often forget is that we are "living here as guests and strangers." Saint Cyprian, in the midst of much grief caused by the headlining news of our modern day, finishes with a very joyous thought: "Our home is heaven. Our fathers are the patriarchs: why do we not hasten and run, that we may behold our country, that we may greet our true family? There are a great number of our dear ones awaiting us, and a dense crowd of parents, brothers, children, are longing for us, already assured of their own safety, and still solicitous for our salvation. What a great joy to attain to their presence and their embrace!"

Nativity of Mary

Today is the feast of the Nativity of Mary. At Matins the Carthusians listened to great words of wisdom from the Apostolic Exhortation titled: ‘Marialis Cultus’ by His Holiness Pope Paul VI. Here’s what the monks reflected on.

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We wish to examine more closely a particular aspect of the relationship between Mary and the liturgy, namely, Mary as a model of the spiritual attitude with which the Church celebrates and lives the divine mysteries. That the Blessed Virgin is an exemplar in this field derives from the fact that she is recognized as a most excellent exemplar of the Church in the order of faith, charity and perfect union with Christ; that is, of that interior disposition with which the Church, the beloved Spouse, closely associated with her Lord, invokes Christ and through Him worships the eternal Father. Mary is the attentive Virgin, who receives the Word of God with faith, that faith which in her case was the gateway and path to divine Motherhood, for, as Saint Augustine realised, Blessed Mary by believing conceived Him [Jesus] Whom believing she brought forth. In fact, when she received from the angel the answer to her doubt (cf. Saint Luke 1:34-37), full of faith, and conceiving Christ in her mind before conceiving Him in her womb, she said, ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord, let what you have said be done to me’ (Saint Luke 1:38). It was faith that was for her the cause of blessedness and certainty in the fulfilment of the promise: ‘Blessed is she who believed that the promise made to her by the Lord would be fulfilled’ (Saint Luke 1:45). Similarly, it was faith with which she, who played a part in the Incarnation and was a unique witness to it, thinking back on the events of the infancy of Christ, meditated upon these events in her heart (cf. Saint Luke 2:19,51). The Church also acts in this way, especially in the liturgy, when with faith she listens, accepts, proclaims and venerates the Word of God, distributes it to the faithful as the Bread of Life and in the light of that Word examines the signs of the times and interprets and lives the events of history.

Mary is also the Virgin in prayer. She appears as such in the visit to the mother of the precursor, when she pours out her soul in expressions glorifying God, and expressions of humility, faith and hope. This prayer is the Magnificat (cf. Saint Luke 1:46-55), Mary's prayer par excellence, the song of the messianic times in which there mingles the joy of the ancient and the new Israel. As Saint Irenaeus seems to suggest, it is in Mary's canticle that there was heard once more the rejoicing of Abraham who foresaw the Messiah (cf. Saint John 8:56) and there rang out in prophetic anticipation the voice of the Church: ‘In her exultation Mary prophetically declared in the name of the Church: My soul proclaims the glory of the Lord’. And in fact Mary's hymn has spread far and wide and has become the prayer of the whole Church in all ages. At Cana, Mary appears once more as the Virgin in prayer: when she tactfully told her Son of a temporal need she also obtained an effect of grace, namely, that Jesus, in working the first of His ‘signs’, confirmed His disciples’ faith in Him (cf. Saint John 2:1-12).

Likewise, the last description of Mary's life presents her as praying. The apostles joined in continuous prayer, together with several women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers’ (Acts 1:14). We have here the prayerful presence of Mary in the early Church and in the Church throughout all ages, for, having been assumed into heaven, she has not abandoned her mission of intercession and salvation. The title Virgin in prayer also fits the Church, which day by day presents to the Father the needs of her children, praises the Lord unceasingly and intercedes for the salvation of the world. Mary is also the Virgin Mother, she who believing and obeying brought forth on earth the Father's Son. This she did, not knowing man but overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. This was a miraculous Motherhood, set up by God as the type and exemplar of the fruitfulness of the Virgin Church, which becomes herself a Mother. For by her preaching and by baptism she brings forth to a new and immortal life, children who are conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of God.

The ancient Fathers rightly taught that the Church prolongs in the Sacrament of Baptism the Virginal Motherhood of Mary. Among such references we like to recall that of our illustrious predecessor, Saint Leo the Great, who in a Christmas homily says: ‘The origin which Christ took in the womb of the Virgin He has given to the baptismal font: He has given to water what He had given to His Mother, the power of the Most High and the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit (cf. Saint Luke 1:35), which was responsible for Mary's bringing forth the Saviour, has the same effect, so that water may regenerate the believer’. If we wished to go to liturgical sources, we could quote the beautiful Illatio of the Mozarabic liturgy: ‘The former [Mary] carried Life in her womb; the latter [the Church] bears Life in the waters of baptism. In Mary's members Christ was formed; in the waters of the Church Christ is put on’. Mary is, finally, the Virgin presenting offerings. In the episode of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (cf. Saint Luke 2:22-35), the Church, guided by the Spirit, has detected, over and above the fulfilment of the laws regarding the offering of the firstborn (cf. Exodus 13:11-16) and the purification of the mother (cf. Leviticus 12:6-8), a mystery of salvation related to the history of salvation.

She has noted the continuity of the fundamental offering that the Incarnate Word made to the Father when He entered the world (cf. Hebrews 15:5-7). The Church has seen the universal nature of salvation proclaimed, for Simeon, greeting in the Child the light to enlighten the peoples and the glory of the people Israel (cf. Saint Luke 2:32), recognized in Him the Messiah, the Saviour of all. The Church has understood the prophetic reference to the Passion of Christ: the fact that Simeon's words, which linked in one prophecy the Son as ‘the sign of contradiction’ (Saint Luke 2:34) and the Mother, whose soul would be pierced by a sword (cf. Saint Luke 2:35), came true on Calvary. A mystery of salvation, therefore, that in its various aspects orients the episode of the Presentation in the Temple to the salvific event of the Cross. But the Church herself, in particular from the Middle Ages onwards, has detected in the heart of the Virgin taking her Son to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord (cf. Saint Luke 2:22) a desire to make an offering, a desire that exceeds the ordinary meaning of the rite. A witness to this intuition is found in the loving prayer of Saint Bernard: ‘Offer your Son, holy Virgin, and present to the Lord the blessed fruit of your womb. Offer for the reconciliation of us all the holy Victim which is pleasing to God’.

This union of the Mother and the Son in the work of redemption reaches its climax on Calvary, where Christ ‘offered himself as the perfect Sacrifice to God’ (Hebrews 9:14) and where Mary stood by the Cross (cf. Saint John 19:25), suffering grievously with her only-begotten Son. There she united herself with a Maternal heart to His Sacrifice, and lovingly consented to the immolation of this Victim which she herself had brought forth and also was offering to the eternal Father. To perpetuate down the centuries the Sacrifice of the Cross, the divine Saviour instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the memorial of His death and Resurrection, and entrusted it to His Spouse the Church, which, especially on Sundays, calls the faithful together to celebrate the Passover of the Lord until He comes again. This the Church does in union with the saints in heaven and in particular with the Blessed Virgin, whose burning charity and unshakable faith she imitates.

Mary is not only an example for the whole Church in the exercise of divine worship but is also, clearly, a teacher of the spiritual life for individual Christians. The faithful at a very early date began to look to Mary and to imitate her in making their lives an act of worship of God and making their worship a commitment of their lives. As early as the fourth century, Saint Ambrose, speaking to the people, expressed the hope that each of them would have the spirit of Mary in order to glory God. May the heart of Mary be in each Christian to proclaim the greatness of the Lord; may her spirit be in everyone to exult in God. But Mary is above all the example of that worship that consists in making one's life an offering to God. This is an ancient and ever new doctrine that each individual can hear again by heeding the Church's teaching, but also by heeding the very voice of the Virgin as she, anticipating in herself the wonderful petition of the Lord's Prayer, ‘Your will be done’ (Saint Matthew 6:10), replied to God's messenger: ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let what you have said be done to me’ (Saint Luke 1:38). And Mary's ‘yes’ is for all Christians a lesson and example of obedience to the will of the Father, which is the, way and means of one's own sanctification.

It is also important to note how the Church expresses in various effective attitudes of devotion the many relationships that bind her to Mary: in profound veneration, when she reflects on the singular dignity of the Virgin who, through the action of the Holy Spirit has become Mother of the Incarnate Word; in burning love, when she considers the spiritual Motherhood of Mary towards all members of the Mystical Body; in trusting invocation; when she experiences the intercession of her advocate and helper; in loving service, when she sees in the humble handmaid of the Lord the Queen of Mercy and the Mother of grace; in zealots imitation, when she contemplates the holiness and virtues of her who is ‘full of grace’ (Saint Luke 1:28); in profound wonder, when she sees in her, as in a faultless model, that which she herself wholly desires and hopes to be; in attentive study, when she recognizes in the associate of the Redeemer, who already shares fully in the fruits of the Paschal Mystery, the prophetic fulfilment of her own future, until the day on which, when she has been purified of every spot and wrinkle (cf. Ephesians 5:27), she will become like a bride arrayed for the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ (cf. Revelation 21:2).

Cantate Domino Canticum Novum

“Sing to the Lord a new canticle; let His praise be in the Church of the Saints,” says Saint Augustine. He also preached these words: “Canticum res est hilaritatis, et, si diligentius consideremus, res est amoris” – “A song is a thing of cheerfulness, and, if carefully examined, it is a thing of love.”

Thus if we’re joyful and in love, we should be singing. Oh how the Church takes care of her children! The liturgy invites us in the Mass and the Divine Office to express our joy, express our love in song. In the liturgy our voices soar towards our Lord, like burning incense.

The Apostle Saint John writes: “Nos diligimus, quoniam ipse prior dilexit nos” – “We love, because He loved us first” (1 John 4:19).

Saint Augustine continues his homily by reiterating what Saint Paul wrote: “Quia caritas Dei diffusa est in cordibus nostris per Spiritum Sanctum, qui datus est nobis” – “Because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, Who is given to us” (Romans 5:5). And so, it is God’s gift of love which has been given to us that enables us to love God in return.

And since His love has been poured into our hearts, it is not only our voices that we raise to God, but also as the liturgy commands us and hopefully we are compelled to do, “Sorsum corda” – “Lift up your hearts.” What greater expression of love is there than our Lord’s own Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity which He gives to us. If we are truly in love with Him, then receiving Him unworthily should never be considered.

Saint Augustine continues by saying that our Lord calls out: “Amate me, et habebitis me, quia nec potestis amare me, nisi habueritis me” – “Love Me, and you will have Me, because you would be unable to love Me, unless you possess Me.” We possess Him by living lives which embrace the call to holiness, remaining in a state of grace, receiving His Most Precious Body and Blood, and by daily conversation with Him.

Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI has been a great teacher on liturgy, and the importance of beauty in the liturgy. The tradition of the Church, as we are reminded by our Holy Father, is that angels of God chant rather than speak. This is heightened conversation as everything in worship should be heightened.

In his [Cardinal Ratzinger] book, “The Spirit of the Liturgy” he writes: “When man comes into contact with God, mere speech is not enough. Areas of his existence are awakened that spontaneously turn into song. The singing of the Church comes ultimately out of love. It is the utter depth of love that produces the singing. The Holy Spirit is love, and it is He Who produces the singing. He is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit Who draws us into love for Christ and so leads to the Father. In liturgical music, based as it is on biblical faith, there is, therefore, a clear dominance of the Word; this music is a higher form of proclamation. Ultimately, it rises up out of the love that responds to God's love made flesh in Christ, the love that for us went unto death. After the Resurrection, the Cross is by no means a thing of the past, and so this love is always marked by pain at the hiddenness of God, by the cry that rises up from the depths of anguish, Kyrie eleison, by hope and by supplication. But it also has the privilege, by anticipation, of experiencing the reality of the Resurrection, and so it brings with it the joy of being loved, that gladness of heart that Haydn said came upon him when he set liturgical texts to music. In the West, in the form of Gregorian chant, the inherited tradition of psalm-singing was developed to a new sublimity and purity, which set a permanent standard for sacred music, music for the liturgy of the Church. Polyphony developed in the late Middle Ages, and then instruments came back into divine worship -- quite rightly, too, because, as we have seen, the Church not only continues the synagogue, but also takes up, in the light of Christ's Pasch, the reality represented by the Temple.”

In the liturgy, then, whether it’s the Mass or the Divine Office, bring your voice, bring your heart, and bring your whole self, body and soul, and lift it up to God in worship and angelic conversation.

Christ, the Power and Wisdom of God

For today’s feast of the Apostle Saint Bartholomew, the Carthusians at the hour of Matins listened to some words of wisdom by the Cistercian, Baldwin of Forde. He was the archdeacon of Exeter, and in the year 1169 entered the abbey of Forde and six years later became the abbot. After serving as abbot for six years, he became the bishop of Worcester, and then in 1184 he became the Archbishop of Canterbury. Here’s an excerpt from Matins.

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The Word of God is living and effectual and more piercing than any two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). Behold, how great the power and wisdom contained in the Word of God! The text is highly significant for those seeking Christ, Who is precisely the Word, the Power and Wisdom of God. This Word, from the beginning, is co-eternal with the Father, and in His time was revealed to the Apostles and through them was announced and accepted with humble faith by the people. Wonderful condescension, Christ, God's Word, God in the Heart of the Father, descends to the heart of man, to be formed and to train, according to a New Way. The Apostle to the Galatians explains this when he says: My little children, of whom I am in laborr again, until Christ be formed in you! (Galatians 4:19). When Christ is preached, that is, listening to the Word of God, we are able to believe because faith comes from hearing. Then we can love. Everything is connected: there is no love without faith, and no faith if the Word is not heard. For he who loves believes, and he who believes hears the Word, as the Spirit reveals it interiorly.

This Word of God is living, and the Father has given the power to have life in it, nothing more or less, as the Father has life in Himself. So the Word is not only alive, but it is also life, as He Himself says: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life (Saint John 14:6). Since the Word of God is life, it is alive and can give life. For as the Father raises up the dead and gives life, so the Son also gives life to whom He wills. (Saint John 5:21). The word of God gives life when He calls the dead from the grave and says, Lazarus, come out! (Saint John 11:43). When this Word is preached, Christ gives to the preacher's voice, perceived externally, the power to operate within; for the dead become alive again and relive the joy of the children of Abraham. This Word, then, is living in the Heart of the Father, living on the mouth of the preacher, alive in the hearts of those who believe and those who love. And precisely because this Word is so alive, there is no doubt that it is also effective.

The Word of God is effective in its operations, and is effective when it is preached. Indeed it does not return empty, but produces fruit everywhere it is proclaimed; and effective and sharper than any two-edged sword when it is believed and loved. When the Word is spoken, its pierces the heart like sharp arrows, enters as a nail struck with force, reaching and penetrating the secret intimacy of the soul. In fact, this Word is more penetrating than a double-edged sword, because its power of engraving surpasses that of the most tempered blade and its acuteness that of any intelligence. No wisdom human, not any product of intelligence is as fine and thin as it, nor more acute than any sharpness of human wisdom and as ingenious as its reasoning.

 

With power received from on High the ministers of the Church wield the sword of God's Word as it is written: The two-edged swords in their hands (Psalm 149:6). And also: A sword is in their lips (Psalm 59:8). Will the Word not reach all the ears of those seeking salvation? If the tongue of the wicked, as the prophet says, is a sharp sword (Psalm 57:5), how much more will be the tongue of Peter, because he has the capacity for the unequivocal Word of truth. The Word of God penetrates not only the intelligence, subtlety and insight of man, but it is also able to separate truth from falsehood, good from evil, the honest from the corrupt. The Word of God works in all, taking advantage of grace to carry to completion in the faithful fear, love and every other virtuous seed that God has placed in us. Even more amazing is the fact that it arouses the secrets of hearts, shakes our deepest sensibility with expert force, penetrating even to the division of soul and spirit.

Instaurare Omnia in Christo

The title of this post are words chosen by Saint Pius X for the motto of his pontificate. They are taken from the Latin Vulgate in Ephesians 1:10, “Restore All Things in Christ.”

Saint John Chrysostom said: “The Church is your hope, the Church is your salvation, the Church is your refuge.” In the Encyclical, E Supremi, Pope Pius X wrote: “The way to reach Christ is not hard to find; it is the Church. It was for this that Christ founded it, gaining it at the price of His Blood, and made it the depositary of His doctrine and His laws, bestowing upon it at the same time an inexhaustible treasury of graces for the sanctification and salvation of men.” This particular Encyclical was addressed to the hierarchy of the Church. Why was it necessary, then, to point this out? The Holy Father felt that society had become “estranged from the wisdom of Christ.” He charged the cardinals, bishops and himself to “use every means and exert all our energy to bring about the utter disappearance of the enormous and detestable wickedness, so characteristic of our time -- the substitution of man for God.” It would seem that the Church of then under Pope Pius X faced similar problems as the Church of now under Pope Francis. Pope Benedict XVI warned us of the evils of moral relativism, in which man becomes his own god.

Seminary training was also a shared concern of both Pius X and Benedict XVI. Pope Pius X wrote in that same Encyclical: “Venerable Brethren, of what nature and magnitude is the care that must be taken by you in forming the clergy to holiness! All other tasks must yield to this one. Wherefore the chief part of your diligence will be directed to governing and ordering your seminaries aright so that they may flourish equally in the soundness of their teaching and in the spotlessness of their morals.” During a Wednesday General Audience from Castel Gandolfo, Pope Benedict XVI said that the new evangelization will be just a slogan if priests are not well-formed. He said: “Today we see a need for each priest to be a witness of the infinite mercy of God with a life completely conquered by Christ and for them to learn this from the very first years of their preparation in the seminary.”

The concerns of teaching by Pope Pius X also extended to the lay faithful. In the Encyclical, Acerbo Nimis, he referred to his day as a “very troublesome and difficult time.” Surely we can relate! The Holy Father wrote that “the chief cause of the present indifference and, as it were, infirmity of soul, and the serious evils that result from it, is to be found above all in ignorance of things divine.” Today’s secular cultural influences have emptied souls of things divine and filled them with things temporal and the rewards of here and now. Saint Pius X turned the attention of the Church towards Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The Holy Father’s efforts in this area were so great that Saint Pius X is often referred to as “the Pope of the Eucharist.” In a five year span he issued Decrees on Holy Communion. He desired all Catholics to receive Holy Communion frequently, and daily, if possible. He dispensed the sick from the discipline of Eucharistic fasting and promoted giving Holy Communion to children once they had reached an age of discretion. This was a change from the previous requirement.

Many popes, saints, holy men and women turn our attention towards our Blessed Lord in the Sacrament of His Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. But if our focus has not been there for some time, then we must first turn towards the Sacrament of our Lord’s mercy. Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is not only Food for the soul that receives Him worthily, but in Adoration, Jesus is also our Companion, Brother, Friend, Love, Savior and God. He waits for us!

After the death of Pope Pius X in 1914, pilgrimages were made to his tomb; and there were many accounts of favors granted through his intercession. May he intercede for the Church now and turn our hearts, minds and souls to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

Sancte Pio X, ora pro nobis!

Bernardus, Doctor Mellifluus

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux is a Doctor of the Church. He was a twelfth century Cistercian Abbot of the monastery of Clairvaux, and an edifying example of holiness to the monks under his care.

“Amor” or “Amo” (Love) seemed to be a popular word in his vocabulary. “Amor per se sufficit; is per se placet” (Love is self-sufficient; it is pleasing to itself). “Amo quia amo; amo ut amem” (I love because I love; I love in order to love). “Magna res amor, si tamen ad suum recurrat principium, si suæ origini redditus, si refusus suo fonti” (Love is a great thing, only if it returns to its beginning, if it returns to its origin, if it flows back to its fount). And Saint Bernard went on to say that love must always draw from that endless stream.

The greatness of love is true because it is caused by the greatness of God – Who is Love. God is the Beginning, the Origin, the Fount and Endless Stream of love. Saint Bernard said that love is the only adequate means by which the creature may respond to its Creator, although the weakness of the creature will always make that response inadequate.

This holy man of God asks: “Why should Love not be loved?” Saint Bernard talks about emptying ourselves, “renouncing all other affections” submitting all our “being to Love alone,” responding “to Love by giving love in return.”

This is a broken world we live in and we are a fallen nature. We will never be able to give back to God what He has given to us. And so, Saint Bernard asks the frightening question: “Can it be that all will perish… simply because it is futile to race against a Giant, or to contend with Honey in sweetness, with the Lamb in gentleness, with the Lily in whiteness, with the Sun in splendor, with Love in love?”

If justice always prevailed over mercy, then these examples from this Doctor of the Church would be a blood pressure raising thing to ponder for anyone with a conscience. But this saint and heavenly intercessor won’t let us go there. He offers the answer: “Even though the creature loves less than the Creator… nevertheless if he loves with all his being, he lacks nothing.”

There’s great hope in that statement but great conviction is required of the creature. God must be loved above all things; He must be the Center of our lives. Do we love with all our being? Does our love return to its Origin, to its Source, to Love Himself.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the Eucharist is the Source and Summit of the Christian life (cf. CCC 1324). The document from the Synod of Bishops XI Ordinary General Assembly reads: “Receiving Communion means to enter into communion with the Lord and the saints of the Church, both in heaven and on earth. Thus, Communion and contemplation follow each other. We cannot receive sacramental Communion, without making it personal… it is the sacrament of infinite value.” The document also teaches that Communion and Adoration are inseparable. “Adoration of the Eucharist begins in Communion and leads to acts of Eucharistic piety, adoring God the Father, in Spirit and in Truth, in the risen and living Christ, truly present among us.”

If Communion and Adoration are inseparable, then our reception of the Eucharist at Mass does not end there. We are called to Eucharistic piety by also adoring our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament; in adoring the One we love with all our being, the One Who loved us first. During Eucharistic Adoration, consider keeping close to your heart these words of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: “Lord Jesus, what has made You so small? Love!” Jesus continues to suffer in the Blessed Sacrament, continues to make Himself vulnerable by permitting Himself to be contained in a Monstrance or in the Tabernacle. How deeply we must love, how small we must become when meditating on the words of Sacred Scripture and Saint John the Baptist: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). We will never be able to compete with our Lord’s deliberate “smallness,” but if we love Him with all our being, we lack nothing.

Sancte Bernarde, ora pro nobis!

Saint Clare of Assisi

Today, the Church celebrates the Feast of Saint Clare of Assisi. It was Saint Francis of Assisi who saw in Clare something special, extraordinary – a soul who would be a great witness to the Gospel way of life. She is the co-foundress of the Order of Poor Clares. 

Pope Gregory IX came to Assisi in 1228 for the purpose of canonizing Francis, but also made a stop at San Damiano to try and convince Clare to ease up on the strictness of her life of poverty. Even if it was a vow that led to such rigidity, Pope Gregory IX was willing to absolve her from it. But Clare resisted and said to the pope: “Holy Father, I crave for absolution of my sins, but I do not wish to be absolved from the obligation of following Jesus Christ.” This impressed the Holy Father and in September of 1228 he granted her the Papal Bull, Privilegium Paupertatis (Privilege of Poverty). Here is that text: 

“Gregory Bishop Servant of the Servants of God. 
To our beloved daughters in Christ Clare and the other handmaids of Christ dwelling together at the Church of San Damiano in the Diocese of Assisi. Health and Apostolic benediction. It is evident that the desire of consecrating yourselves to God alone has led you to abandon every wish for temporal things. Wherefore, after having sold all your goods and having distributed them among the poor, you propose to have absolutely no possessions, in order to follow in all things the example of Him Who became poor and Who is the way, the truth, and the life. Neither does the want of necessary things deter you from such a proposal, for the left arm of your Celestial Spouse is beneath your head to sustain the infirmity of your body, which, according to the order of charity, you have subjected to the law of the spirit. Finally, He who feeds the birds of the air and Who gives the lilies of the field their raiment and their nourishment, will not leave you in want of clothing or of food until He shall come Himself to minister to you in eternity when, namely, the right Hand of His consolations shall embrace you in the plenitude of the Beatific Vision. Since, therefore, you have asked for it, we confirm by Apostolic favor your resolution of the loftiest poverty and by the authority of these present letters grant that you may not be constrained by anyone to receive possessions. To no one, therefore, be it allowed to infringe upon this page of our concession or to oppose it with rash temerity. But if anyone shall presume to attempt this, be it known to him that he shall incur the wrath of Almighty God and his Blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul. 
Given at Perugia on the fifteenth of the Kalends of October in the second year of our Pontificate.” 

Since the establishment of Holy Mother Church by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, there has never been a so-called “golden age” of the Church. She has always had her problems and challenges. Perhaps the battle that has always existed is, “the way of Christ versus the way of the world.” Secularization is a huge challenge for today’s Christian. The weaknesses of our nature is prone to surrendering to that which is constantly before us; and in our modern day culture, that is secularism. Saint Clare teaches us by her own example that through the grace of Almighty God, we can live for Christ alone and overcome the enemy of our times. 

Clare had a great love for the Blessed Sacrament. In her letter to Blessed Agnes of Prague, Clare writes about how happy it is “to cleave with one’s heart to Him Whose beauty all the heavenly hosts behold forever, Whose love inflames our love.” Clare adds that contemplating Jesus “makes us glow with happiness.” He is “the Mirror without spot.” Then she instructs Agnes and us by urging us to “look into that Mirror daily.” If we are to conquer our weaknesses and live for God, daily prayer, and most especially spending time with the Blessed Sacrament are a must. 

In sacred art, Saint Clare is often depicted with a ciborium. This not only exhibits Clare’s love for the Eucharist but also proclaims the story in which soldiers scaled the walls of San Damiano during the night. Clare rose from her bed, went to the chapel and grabbed the ciborium, taking our Eucharistic Lord to an open window. The soldiers had already placed a ladder beneath that window to climb and enter through it. Clare raised the Blessed Sacrament which caused the soldiers on the ladder to fall while the rest ran away. This is the power of that “Mirror” which Clare exhorts us to look into daily. 

Sancta Clara, ora pro nobis!

The Most Precious Blood

Today is the Solemnity of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Really, the entire month of July is dedicated to the Precious Blood.  Here's a homily by Saint John Chrysostom.

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In Egypt, at midnight, God threatened the Egyptians with the tenth plague, by which their first-born should perish, because they kept in captivity His first-born people. But, lest the beloved Jews should share their danger, because they were all in the same place, He found, in His wisdom, a remedy. Behold then a wonderful figure, that you may learn His power in truth. The anger of the divine indignation was expected, and the Angel of Death circled over every home. What, therefore, did Moses do? Kill, he said, a yearling lamb, and sprinkle the doors with its blood. What did you say, Moses? Is the blood of a sheep likely to deliver a reasoning man? In truth, he says, not by what that blood is in itself, but because by it, there is displayed a figure of the Blood of the Lord.

For as the statues of monarchs, mindless and speechless images though they are, have sometimes been a helpful refuge to men endowed with soul and reason, not because they are made of bronze, but because the likeness they bear is a King's. And just so did this unconscious blood deliver the lives of men, not because it was blood, but because it foreshadowed the shedding of the Blood of Jesus. On that night in Egypt, when the destroying Angel saw the blood upon the lintel and on the two side-posts, he passed over the door, and dared not to enter into the house. Even so now much more will the destroyer of souls flee away when he sees, not the lintel and the two side-posts sprinkled with the blood of a lamb, but the mouth of the faithful Christian, the living dwelling of the Holy Spirit, shining with the Blood of the True Messiah. For if the Angel stopped before the type, how much more shall the enemy tremble if he should perceive the reality itself? Would you like to hear more of the power of that Blood? I am willing. Consider from what source it wells up, from what fountain it springs forth. Its fountain is the Cross itself, its source is the Side of the Lord. The soldier opened His Side, and laid open the wall of that holy Temple; and I have found that most noble treasure, and I rejoice to discover the glittering riches.

And so was it done concerning that Lamb; the Jews killed a sheep, and I have learned the value of the sacrament. From the Side flowed forth Blood and Water. I would not, my hearer, that you should pass by the depths of such a mystery as this without pausing; for I have yet a mystical and mysterious discourse to deliver. I have said that the Water and Blood showed symbolically baptism and the sacraments. For from these, the holy Church was founded by the laver of regeneration, and the renovation of the Holy Spirit. Through baptism, I say, and through the sacraments, which seem to have issued from His Side. It was therefore out of the Side of Christ that the Church was created, just as it was out of the side of Adam that Eve was raised up to be his bride. This is the reason why Paul says, no doubt in allusion to his Side: We are members of His Body, and of His Bones. For even as God made the woman Eve out of the rib which He had taken out of the side of Adam, so has Christ made the Church out of the Blood and Water which He made to flow for us out of His own Side.