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.

Mother Catherine Aurelia Caouette

Reflecting on her years as a youth, Mother Catherine Aurelia Caouette said: “I could sense the Divine from an early age.” Most unusual about her childhood was her desire to spend long hours in a church for adoration. And this desire was actually manifested in her early years as she would spend hours in church on her knees gazing at the Tabernacle. Her parents noticed in her something special and when they confided to their parish priest about their daughter, he said to them: “You have a child of predilection. Watch carefully over your treasure.” She was permitted to receive her First Communion at age nine which was about three years sooner than the norm for that time.

As a student, she played the role of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, in the play written by Reverend Joseph Sabin Raymond titled: “The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine.” In that play young Aurelia proclaimed with great passion a line which touched the audience, and a line which she would later say that her extraordinary devotion to the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ was brought to light at that moment. The line in the play was: “I feel in my soul all the energy of the Divine Blood; it is a generous Blood which desires only to be shed.”

Father Joseph Sabin Raymond became her spiritual director. Because of Aurelia’s incredible  sanctity and Father Raymond’s expertise in spiritual matters, he told her to keep a diary to which she was obedient. Because of her obedience to making entries in the diary, the world knows a great deal about her interior life. In October of 1849, she wrote: “Lord, You know what my heart desires most ardently: to be united to You in Your Sacrament of Love. It is so consoling for a miserable creature to possess You. You inflame me with such a burning love, You inspire me with so many beautiful sentiments, that it seems heaven is in my heart. If, however, O my Divine Savior, I am not worthy to possess You now in Your heavenly home, I wish, at least, to go often to adore You in Your Tabernacle, where I have already passed so many happy moments, where You have spoken mysteriously to my soul and where You have so many times given Yourself to me.”

In November of 1849 was this entry: “O my God, I conjure You, increase my desire to love You, to belong to You alone. O my Jesus, I shall love You all my life. You alone shall possess my heart. It is towards You, it is towards heaven that I wish, above all, to elevate my thoughts, my affections. Dispose of my entire being as it shall please You, but grant me, O well beloved Jesus, Your holy love, because without it, life would be too long, too sad. May all my actions be a continual prayer and may my heart be always turned towards You, O Infinite Beauty!”

Keep in mind that these are the writings of a sixteen year old. Feeling an intimate closeness to the Blessed Mother as well, in December of 1849 she wrote: “O Mary, permit me today to bless you in seeing you so pure! I love you, I venerate you, all beautiful Dove, the favorite of God and of His Elect. Amiable Mother, do not fail to cast a tender look upon the wounds of my soul. Draw my heart towards you and have pity on me. O my Mother, I long for you, I burn with the desire of seeing you in heaven.”

In 1850, after finishing her studies, she returned to her family, but remained under the direction of Father Raymond, whereby she wanted to occupy her soul with God alone. The now seventeen year old submitted to Monsignor Raymond a plan for her spiritual life which included meditation, Mass, work, adoration, silence, and spiritual reading.

She very much saw God in His creation. She wrote: “How glorious and sublime it is to enjoy the sight of an exquisite night! This clear sky which is obscured by no cloud, these brilliant stars which ornament the azure firmament, the moon, that queen of night which diffuses its soft light, this calm, this peace which reigns in all places, inspire one with thoughts of heaven. Omnipotent God, how this silence touches my soul! How it fills it with religious sentiments!” Her mysticism is now becoming more apparent.

This was her experience of watching the Tabernacle on Holy Thursday night, as recorded in her diary: “The consideration of the Agony of Jesus has continually occupied my mind. I have mingled the tears of my repentance with the Blood of my Well Beloved. I have suffered with Him. At one o’clock I was left alone for a few moments. I do not know what secret sentiment inspired me, I dared in spite of my fears, to mount to the altar – I kissed it, I bathed it with my tears – I pressed my lips to the door of the Tabernacle which encloses our love. It felt so good to be so near! I blessed, I loved, I thanked, I wept over my numerous sins. As I saw the Divine Blood flow in large drops, I presented to Him our souls. He blessed them in His Sacred Heart. Jesus asked the sacrifice of my entire self, docility and submission. I have the firm conviction that He will make me share some of His sufferings. I can suffer; it is my consolation! I wish only for suffering.”

In her spiritual hunger she wrote: “Father, the remembrance of Communion returns to me unceasingly. I am dying of hunger!”

In 1851 a dire illness kept her in bed for ten months. She said that she was cured miraculously at the end of a novena to Saint Catherine of Siena. She wrote: “It seemed to me that I saw my amiable protectress. Her whiteness equaled that of the lily. She was dazzling with grace and beauty and seemed to be blessing me with her hand in the Name of Jesus Christ, and in a whisper, she told me to hope and love.” This started what would blossom into a great devotion to Saint Catherine of Siena.

In 1853 she made a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Succor in Montreal. She told Father Raymond of her mystical experience there in which she saw the Blessed Virgin clothed in dazzling white, praying to her Son. Our Lady told her to make frequent Communions to console Jesus because of the many souls that forget Him.

Providence led to her to be the Founder of the Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood, the first contemplative Order of nuns whose beginnings were in St. Hyacinth, Quebec. It was her deep contemplation of Christ’s love through His Passion which led to her great devotion of the Precious Blood.

The cause for her canonization officially began in November of 1984.

A Lenten Spirituality

Today we recall that it was ten years ago when the world had to let go of a great Holy Father, John Paul II. In May of 2001 he had written a Message to the Minims Tertiary. Here are some of his words: 

“Today the penitential proposal of your Rule is very fitting: founded on a ‘Lenten’ spirituality, it is the real novelty of the charism of the family of the Minims in which you share. The invitation to do penance, made by Jesus at the beginning of His preaching (cf. Mark 1:15), puts baptized persons into the condition of being in the world without being of the world. Thus your Rule calls you, with the words of the Apostle John, to affective detachment from the world: ‘Do not love the world or the things in the world’ (1 John 2:15); and with Saint James it reminds you that: ‘Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God’ (4:4). The explicit exhortation to flee usury, unlawful contracts and every form of avarice stresses how the founder then clearly perceived the changes taking place in society; changes that were to create, by ignoring the evangelical dimension, the social and economic imbalances that we still deplore today. How useful the wise suggestions of the penitent hermit Francis of Paola appear even today: ‘the glory of this world is false and its riches are fleeting. Happy is he who thinks of a good rather than a long life; happy is he who worries more about a pure conscience than a full coffer.’ The need for spiritual action is born. It is achieved in prayer, in contemplation of the Face of Christ and in interior discipline. Your founder led you on the path of inner discipline, demanding of you this spiritual commitment as a necessary condition for belonging to his Order: ‘Whoever wishes to serve God in this kind of life must dominate his flesh.’ He then recalled, in support of the Rule's prescriptions, the words of the Apostle Paul: ‘Put to death ... what is earthly in you’ (Colossians 3:5), because ‘if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live’ (Romans 8:13). The commitment required by your Rule does not enclose you in a totally interior spirituality but, appealing to your special penitential mission, urges you to share what is yours with your needier brothers. The Church's call to love God and neighbor must impel every baptized person. Saint Francis of Paola, follower and imitator of the ancient Fathers, in the Rule that he left you, very wisely combined under one heading, fasting, abstinence and works of mercy, thereby giving you, in the unity of the charism you share with the friars and nuns, the preference for the commitment to an active charity. Then in your code of life there is the exhortation to care for the purity of conscience with the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The words used in this regard retain all their charm, although they are associated with a spirituality that is far from our way of feeling: ‘Jesus the Nazarene’ - he writes – ‘full of flowers, Whose joy it is to stay with the children of man, delights in the flowers of the virtues.’ Lastly you have the invitation to participate in the Eucharist in which you find the source of your fidelity. The founder's words deserve to be remembered for their power of expression: ‘May daily attendance at Mass be for you a wholesome piece of advice, so that fortified with the arms of the Passion of Christ, which are recalled in the Mass, you may be strong and faithful in your observance of the commandments of God. In attending Mass you will also pray that Christ's death may be your life, His pain the mitigation of your pain, His toil your eternal rest.’ By lengthy meditation on your Rule, you will find a new incentive to give even more value to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and to Sunday Mass. May you be accompanied by the Holy Virgin, Mother of the Church and pillar of our hope. For my part, I assure you that I will keep you in my prayers and, while I invoke on your intentions and on your commitment the protection of the founder Saint Francis of Paola and of the holy Patrons, Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Joan of Valois, also Minims Tertiary, I sincerely bless you.”

Being Taught An Adoring Silence

Saint Konrad of Parzham, a Capuchin Franciscan, was born at Parzham, Bavaria, Germany. He wrote down a plan for his life which came under eleven different headings. Two of those headings were:

~ I will observe silence exactly and perpetually as far as is possible. I will be very sparse in speech, and this in order to avoid many faults and that I may be able to converse with God so much the better.

~ I will always strive to have a truly intense devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and will truly strive to imitate her virtues.

One might hypothesize that the first resolution would be impossible without the second. Saint Konrad also offered to God very profound words while making a Spiritual Communion:

"I have come to spend a few moments with You, O Jesus, and in spirit I prostrate myself in the dust before Your Holy Tabernacle to adore You, my Lord and God, in deepest humility. Once more a day has come to its close, dear Jesus, another day which brings me nearer to the grave and my beloved heavenly home. Once more, O Jesus, my heart longs for You, the true Bread of Life, which contains all sweetness and relish. O my Jesus, mercifully grant me pardon for the faults and ingratitutde of this day, and come to me to refresh my poor heart which longs for You. As the heart pants for the waters, as the parched earth longs for the dew of heaven, even so does my poor heart long for You, Fount of Life. I love You, O Jesus, I hope in You, I love You, and out of love for You I regret sincerely all my sins. May Your peace and Your benediction be mine now and always and for all eternity. Amen."

Spiritual Communions, adoration of the Divine Indwelling, many saints made them every hour on the hour. In the Apostolic Letter,Orientale Lumen, Saint John Paul II wrote that "the more man grows in the knowledge of God, the more he perceives him as an inaccessible Mystery, Whose essence cannot be grasped." He continued by expressing that "one draws close to this Presence. . . by letting oneself be taught an adoring silence." And we can learn this adoring silence "through the prayerful assimilation of Scripture and the liturgy." And of this adoring silence the Holy Father wrote: "We must confess that we all have need of this silence, filled with the Presence of Him Who is adored. . . that we may never forget that seeing God means coming down the mountain with a face so radiant that we are obliged to cover it with a veil (cf. Exodus 34:33). All. . . need to learn a silence that allows the Other to speak when and how He wishes, and allows us to understand His words."

Saint Elizabeth of Trinity taught that a soul’s degree of glory in heaven would depend on the degree of Union with the Divine Indwelling, at the time of death. Is there anyone who ever walked on planet earth that had more intimacy with the Indwelling of the Most Holy Trinity than our Blessed Mother? There’s a story of a series of messages from our Blessed Lady to Sister Mildred Mary Ephrem Neuzil of the Sisters of the Precious Blood in Dayton, Ohio. In one of the messages, the Mother of God spoke saying: "I am Our Lady of the Divine Indwelling, handmaid of Him Who dwells within." These messages and apparitions have not reached full official canonical approval as yet and are awaiting the final stage which is a formal written statement from the bishop of the diocese of Toledo, Ohio.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in agreement with Saint John Paul’s assessment that we can learn silence from the liturgy, and which may also explain His Holiness’ call to restore a sense of the sacred in liturgy, wrote in his book, The Spirit of the Liturgy: "We are realizing more and more clearly that silence is part of the liturgy. We respond, by singing and praying, to the God Who addresses us, but the greater mystery, surpassing all words, summons us to silence. It must, of course, be a silence with content, not just the absence of speech and action. We should expect the liturgy to give us a positive stillness that will restore us. Such stillness will not be just a pause, in which a thousand thoughts and desires assault us, but a time of recollection, giving us an inward peace, allowing us to draw breath and rediscover the one thing necessary, which we have forgotten. That is why silence cannot be simply made, organized as if it were one activity among many. It is no accident that on all sides people are seeking techniques of meditation, a spirituality for emptying the mind. One of man’s deepest needs is making its presence felt, a need that is manifestly not being met in our present form of the liturgy. For silence to be fruitful, as we have already said, it must not be just a pause in the action of the liturgy. No, it must be an integral part of the liturgical event."

May we all discover that adoring silence in this season of Lent and forevermore!

Living Solely on Love

On March 13, 1902 at Châteauneuf-de-Galaure in southeastern France, a baby girl was born named Marthe Louise Robin. She would become a beautiful soul for Christ in a most severe way. She offered her sufferings to our dear Lord and was most desirous to share in His Passion and death. In October of 1930 she received the Wounds of our Lord’s Passion, the stigmata. From that point on, every Friday, she experienced the agonizing pains of Christ’s sufferings on the Cross. This was preceded at the very young age of twenty-six by paralysis.

Author Jim Gallagher wrote: “For the next 53 years Marthe's only food was the Holy Eucharist. Once a week her spiritual father brought her the Sacred Host. On more than one occasion both he and other visiting priests, saw the Host apparently leap from their hands and fly directly to her mouth. Even a bishop testified that he saw it apparently dissolve once it passed her lips. Her Holy Communion was weekly. Once she had received Jesus she went immediately into ecstasy and then began her weekly re-living of Christ's Passion and crucifixion. The stigmata and the scourging, the crowning with thorns appeared on her body. The whole crucifixion seemed to be re-enacted on this little countrywoman and from the moment of Christ's death on the Cross she too appeared dead. Thus she would remain until 'called back' to life under obedience by her spiritual father on the Sunday.”

Author and priest Henri Nouwen told Marthe’s story this way: “Marthe Robin is one of the most impressive examples of God’s hidden Presence in our world. She was born in 1902. At sixteen she fell ill, and her illness, for which the doctors could find no explanation, grew worse and worse. Slowly but surely she became aware that God was calling her to a life in which she would be linked in a special way to the suffering of Jesus. When she was 23, she wrote an ‘act of abandonment’. In it she gave to the God of love all that she had: ‘I belong to You without any reservation, forever. O Beloved of my soul! It is You only Whom I want, and for Your love I renounce all.’ When she was 26 her legs became totally paralyzed, and soon afterwards her arms. From then on she did not eat, drink, or sleep. From 1928 to her death in 1981 she took no food other than weekly Holy Communion. When I first heard about this it sounded to me like a pious fairy tale, but now that I’ve talked to a lot of people who knew Marthe Robin personally, I realize that God can achieve a great deal more in a human being than we who are of little faith are prepared to believe possible. The total ‘abstinence’ of Marthe is one of the ways in which Jesus showed His love to her. In September 1930 Jesus appeared to Marthe and asked her, ‘Do you wish to become as I am?’ She replied , ‘Yes’ and soon afterwards she received the Wounds of Jesus in her hands, feet and side. She also received the crown of thorns. From that time on, week by week Marthe began suffering fully into the Passion of Jesus. Her suffering with Jesus was so intense that tears of blood flowed from her eyes and the marks of invisible thorns appeared across her head. Every Friday she entered so fully into the death of Jesus that only on Saturday did she come to herself again; and until Sunday and Monday she remained in a state of total exhaustion. As the years passed her suffering grew deeper. In the beginning she suffered with Jesus, but little by little she became the suffering Jesus.”

Marthe Robin had a great love for our Blessed Mother and was particularly fond of the Rosary. It was the words of Saint Louis de Montfort which nurtured her love for the Virgin Mother of God: “When the Holy Spirit, her Spouse, finds Mary in a soul, He flies into that soul, and enters it fully, and communicates to it most abundantly.”

During a great deal of her life in which she was bedridden she met thousands upon thousands of people who visited her in her small room. She ended each visit, which averaged about ten minutes, with a prayer. In addition to the personal visits she received a steady stream of letters even though she was completely blind by the age of thirty-eight. She died on February 6, 1981 at the age of 78. She left us her writings and her insights which were written down by her spiritual director, Père Georges Finet. Her funeral was attended by thousands including six bishops and more than two-hundred priests.

The Presentation of the Lord

Today is the feast of the Presentation of the Lord. Jesus certainly desired to grasp firmly His Humanity by taking our humanity upon Himself and willfully accepting all the joys and sorrows associated with being human with the exception of committing sin, but nevertheless would take our sins upon Himself. His most holy Mother, attuned to the will of God in an extraordinary way, in a sense makes this decision for Jesus, since He is but an Infant. Speaking in terms of His Divine Person and Nature, circumcision is completely unnecessary for Him.

The exegete, Nicholas of Lyra, suggests that circumcision is how Jesus manifests the reality of His Humanity. He also explains that as God, Jesus instituted circumcision, and therefore undergoing this process Himself, demonstrates His approval of it; and for our Lady and Saint Joseph, this was necessary according to the law which they knew so well. There is a mysterious level of humility here as well: as an Infant, He is incapable of making decisions, but as God He accepts upon Himself a procedure that is unnecessary – in other words, He makes Himself subject to His own law.

Our Blessed Lady also accepts upon herself the ritual of Purification, which for her is unnecessary. Saint Lawrence Justinian in a homily on the Purification points out that Mary was raised above the law by extraordinary grace, but her humility subjected her to it.

The poverty of the Holy Family is intimated in the Gospel account of the Presentation because turtledoves and pigeons was the offering of the economically poorer classes.

Simeon, thought to be a Jewish priest, witnesses first hand the embodiment of the consolation of Israel, the long-awaited Messiah. Simeon holds Jesus, given to him by His holy Mother. At Mass, a priest holds Him at the altar, given to him by the power of ordination and the words of Consecration through holy Mother Church.

In Simeon’s Nunc Dimittis, which the Church prays during her Night Prayer, there is an air of “it doesn’t get any better than this” in that prayer, considering that Simeon was now prepared to die. But it did get better than that. Simeon was able to hold Jesus and see Him; but through the Eucharist we get to receive Him into our souls. Still, there is much we can learn from Simeon’s disposition: if he was prepared to die at the sight of Jesus, how much joy should we have in receiving Him? If Simeon had the opportunity to stand in line waiting to receive Holy Communion, the wait would probably have made him antsy with anticipation. Are we? Jesus offers us Himself, our salvation, the Light and the glory of the Church. Isn’t this our highlight of the day or week?

It is fitting on this day to read at least some of the words of Saint Sophronius of Jerusalem. He was a seventh-century Patriarch of Jerusalem, but before his hierarchal appointment, he was a monk of great simplicity and he was also a theologian. He was born in Damascus and thus was of Arabian descent, but was often referred to as a Sophist because of his skills with the Greek language. Here is a piece of his homily which perhaps starts out by suggesting an interior dispostion in that we “run to Christ.”

We all run to Christ, we who sincerely and profoundly adore His mystery; we set out towards Him full of joy, carrying lighted candles, as a symbol of His divine splendor.

Thanks to Him all creation is radiant; in truth it is inundated by an eternal light which dissipates the shadows of evil and makes the whole universe radiant with the brilliance of His eternal light. But let these lighted candles be especially the symbol of the eternal splendor with which we wish to prepare ourselves for our meeting with Christ. Indeed, just as His Mother, the most pure Virgin, carried Him in her arms, Who is the true light, and showed Him to all who find themselves in darkness, so may we also, who hold in our hands this light that is visible to all, and who are illuminated by its shining, hasten to go to meet Him, Who is the true light.

The Dayspring from on High has visited us and given light to those who lived in darkness. This, then, is our feast, and we join in procession with lighted candles to reveal the light that has shone upon us and the glory that is yet to come to us through Him. The light that enlightens every man who comes into the world, has come. All together we come to Christ, to let ourselves be clothed with His splendor and, together with the old man Simeon, welcome Him, the eternal living light. With him we exult with joy and sing a hymn of thanksgiving to God, Father of light, Who sent us the true light to lead us out of darkness and make us luminous.

Through Simeon’s eyes we too have seen the salvation of God which He prepared for all the nations and revealed as the glory of the new Israel, which is ourselves. As Simeon was released from the bonds of this life when he had seen Christ, so we too were at once freed from our old state of sinfulness.

By faith we too embraced Christ, the salvation of God the Father, as He came to us from Bethlehem. Gentiles before, we have now become the people of God. Our eyes have seen God Incarnate, and because we have seen Him present among us and have mentally received Him into our arms, we are called the new Israel. Never shall we forget this presence; every year we keep a feast in His honor.

Paradise, Our True Country

And having received an answer in sleep that they should not return to Herod, they went back another way into their country (Matthew 2:12).

We should seek the wisdom of the Church Fathers as part of a regular spiritual reading agenda. They have a way of explaining Scripture so that it is useful for all generations and times. They get to the heart of Scripture passages so that it is not just a bible story, but something that is very real right where we are in the here and now. For the above Scripture verse, for example, Saint Gregory has passed this along through the centuries: "In returning to their own land by another way, the Magi intimate something to us of great importance. Our true country is Paradise, to which, having now come to the knowledge of Jesus, we are forbidden to return by the path we left it. For we left our land by the path of pride, of disobedience, by following after wealth, by eating forbidden food. And so we must return another way: by the way of tears, by the way of obedience, by contempt of the world, by restraining the desires of the flesh" (Homily X in Evang.).

We live in a culture today that has flooded our homes with immorality through the television, the computer and magazines to name only a few. Parents today even have to screen the cartoons their kids watch. It's commonplace to turn on the televsion and see a show with scenes of two unmarried people sharing a bed, or scenes of violence, adultery - you name it, it's there. But these examples have lost their shock value and reached an alarming degree of acceptance. Our culture now has a high level of desensitization to such things. The human will has been severely weakened.

As Catholic Christians, a way to get off this ill-advised path and to strenghten the will comes through conformity to the will of God, id est, self-abandonment. Don't feel like praying? Pray anyway! Feel like skipping Mass this Sunday? Don't! Well, it's raining, maybe I'll pass on going to Confession. No! Go! These are only a few examples of the temptations we face and how we can conform to God's will doing what we know He would want us to do. And such acts are acts of love, how we show our love for Him.

Every time we pray, every time we make a holy hour, every time we read Scripture, every time we go to Confession, every time we receive Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament should be occurrences that change us. If we are determined to do God's will, then these are also weapons needed to fight the battle, and the armor to resist the enemy's attacks.

We know that Jesus is Lord, thus, as Saint Gregory tells us, we are forbidden to journey on the unsafe roads. Our Lord tells us that the road to Life is narrow and the wide road leads to destruction (cf. Matthew 7:13-14). The road to Paradise is narrow but straight; and turning off on to the side streets is either a Dead End or like a wintry road, Slippery.

Saint Gregory tells us that these side streets contain pride and disobedience. We see such examples in the Church today by not believing or accepting all Church teachings and by not going to Confession. Oddly enough, not going to Confession leads to another of Saint Gregory's examples: forbidden food. The Eucharist is forbidden Food if one has avoided Confession and has mortal sin on the soul. Saint Jean-Marie Vianney certainly didn't mince words when he wrote: "How many have the temerity to approach the holy table with sins hidden and disguised in confession. How many have not that sorrow which the good God wants from them, and preserve a secret willingness to fall back into sin, and do not put forth all their exertions to amend. How many do not avoid the occasions of sin when they can, or preserve enmity in their hearts even at the holy table. If you have ever been in these dispositions in approaching Holy Communion, you have committed a sacrilege. It attacks the Person of Jesus Christ Himself instead of scorning only His Commandments, like other mortal sins." And anyone with a conscience would not be pleased to hear from this great saint that by receiving Communion unworthily he "crucifies Jesus Christ in his heart."

This is a tough spiritual battle that is being fought and conforming to God's will is the way to stay close to Him so that eventually those destructive side streets will have road blocks.

The Kiss of Communion

Our Lord Jesus Christ said to Saint Marguerite-Marie Alacoque: “Look at this Heart which has loved people so much.”

It is this Heart that we gaze upon in Eucharistic Adoration which is enflamed with an unfathomable love for us. This Most Sacred Heart which has loved so much unfortunately is also an Organ which does not receive what It gives as Jesus also to Saint Marguerite-Marie: “And yet they do not want to love Me in return.”

The Heart of Jesus was rejected for us, suffered for us and died for us. And this Heart even today suffers from rejection and loneliness as chapels and churches are empty as He waits for us in the Tabernacle.

Saint Jean-Marie Vianney was not silent about the sufferings Jesus continues to endure in the Blessed Sacrament: “The death of Jesus Christ on Calvary was violent and painful, but at least all nature seemed to bear witness to His pain. The least sensible of creatures appeared to be affected by it, and thus wishful to share the Savior’s sufferings. Here there is nothing of this: Jesus is insulted, outraged by a vile nothingness, and all keeps silence; everything appears insensible to His humiliations. May not this God of goodness justly complain, as on the tree of the Cross, that He is forsaken?”

Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, stood in place of Saint John Paul II at the Colosseum for the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday 2005, due to John Paul's failing health. At the Ninth Station, here is some of the reflection shared by Cardinal Ratzinger: “Should we not also think of how much Christ suffers in His own Church? How often is the holy Sacrament of His Presence abused, how often must He enter empty and evil hearts! How often do we celebrate only ourselves, without even realizing that He is there! How often is His Word twisted and misused! What little faith is present behind so many theories, so many empty words! How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to Him! How much pride, how much self-complacency! What little respect we pay to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where He waits for us, ready to raise us up whenever we fall! All this is present in His Passion. His betrayal by His disciples, their unworthy reception of His Body and Blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces His Heart. We can only call to Him from the depths of our hearts: 'Kyrie eleison - Lord, save us!'”

Of course, we can’t really cry out "Kyrie eleison" until we can understand on a deep personal level our own guilt.

Canonized five years ago was a young lady from Nobol, Ecuador named Narcisa de Jesús Martillo Morán. She may have found great difficulty in discerning her own guilt for neglecting the Heart of Jesus, even though she was remarkably humble. This was a very devout young lady whose constant prayers often became songs. One of her favorites contained the words, “reaching the Heart of Him Who well deserved it.” Her father converted a small room in their house into a chapel as he recognized the extraordinary sanctity of his daughter.

She would often go into ecstasy. One of her experiences of being rapt in the love of Christ came one day following Holy Communion. She saw Jesus standing before her; He removed His Most Sacred Heart from His Bosom and placed It before the lips of Narcisa who in turn kissed It. Saint Ambrose said: “We kiss Christ with the kiss of Communion.” Although never entering religious life, it was revealed after Narcisa’s death that she had made private vows of poverty, perpetual virginity, obedience, enclosure, the eremitical life, fasting on bread and water, daily Communion, Confession, mortification and prayer.

On this Optional Memorial of Saint Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, the saint of the Sacred Heart, may we return to truly loving our Savior’s Sacré-Coeur and passionately kissing Him in Holy Communion!

The Gazes of Our Lady

In the Apostolic Letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariæ, Saint John Paul II writes: “A discovery of the importance of silence is one of the secrets of practicing contemplation and meditation.”

In that same letter the Holy Father shares some thoughts on our Lady as a model contemplative: “The contemplation of Christ has an incomparable model in Mary. In a unique way the Face of the Son belongs to Mary. It was in her womb that Christ was formed, receiving from her a human resemblance which points to an even greater spiritual closeness. No one has ever devoted himself to the contemplation of the Face of Christ as faithfully as Mary. The eyes of her heart already turned to Him at the Annunciation, when she conceived Him by the power of the Holy Spirit. In the months that followed she began to sense His presence and to picture His features. When at last she gave birth to Him in Bethlehem, her eyes were able to gaze tenderly on the Face of her Son, as she 'wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger' (Luke 2:7). Thereafter Mary's gaze, ever filled with adoration and wonder, would never leave Him. At times it would be a questioning look, as in the episode of the finding in the Temple: 'Son, why have You treated us so?' (Luke 2:48); it would always be a penetrating gaze, one capable of deeply understanding Jesus, even to the point of perceiving His hidden feelings and anticipating His decisions, as at Cana (cf. John 2:5). At other times it would be a look of sorrow, especially beneath the Cross, where her vision would still be that of a Mother giving birth, for Mary not only shared the Passion and death of her Son, she also received the new son given to her in the beloved disciple (cf. John 19:26-27). On the morning of Easter hers would be a gaze radiant with the joy of the Resurrection, and finally, on the day of Pentecost, a gaze afire with the outpouring of the Spirit” (cf. Acts 1:14).

Does our Lady desire that her gazes of tenderness, of adoration and wonder, even of sorrow, of questions, of penetration and being able to understand her Son, perceive His feelings, anticipate what He will do – does our Blessed Mother desire that these gifts be possessed by her alone? Mary longs to draw us to a closer union with her Son, our God, and thus achieve that closeness with our Brother, our Father, the Paraclete, that we too may possess all these wonderful gifts given from silence and contemplation.

That gaze of our Lady surely speaks louder and more clearly than the most gifted orators among us. At the Annunciation the angel Gabriel begins with, “Ave, gratia plena; Dominus tecum; benedicta tu in mulieribus” (Luke 1:28). What follows is Mary’s troubled, fearful gaze but no spoken words. Scripture says she thought within herself trying to determine what was going on (cf. Luke 1:29). She was using her inner gift. Most of us would likely scream out of fear or frantically call for help; or the bold among us would directly ask: “Who are you and what do you want?” But that gaze of Mary spoke eloquently enough to the angel Gabriel, questioning the reason for his visit, that without any verbal response from Mary, he was able to continue to explain his mission.

Contemplatives are listeners, waiting to hear the gentle whisper that speaks not to the ears but to the heart. After Gabriel had said everything he was sent by God to say, one surely wonders how long was the pause before Mary gave to God, to Gabriel, to the souls imprisoned by death, and to the world her fiat. Many things must have been going through her mind; and at the top of that list was surely the possibility of being stoned for being with Child. It is then that her gaze turned inward and she could see the hidden God and then fearlessly and with love say yes to what God had called her to do.

In the Magnificat, Mary verbally extols the beauty of her interior life. She has a soul that proclaims the greatness of her Lord and a spirit that rejoices in God her Savior (cf. Luke 1:46-47). Perhaps by the Holy Spirit she verbally declares this not for Elizabeth's sake, but for the sake of her centuries of children who are unable to see her gaze of two-thousand years ago. And perhaps it was that same gaze of two-thousand years ago, unseen by us, which prompted her to tell us: “Do whatever He tells you” (John 2:5).

Our Lady is silent at the most agonizing time of her life. One can only imagine the interior battle that is waged between deep human sorrow and an unshakeable trust in God. This is her Son and her God she watches on the Cross. She experiences deep sorrow as a Mother for her Son and yet remains silent in order to hear every word spoken from her God as He hangs on that Cross. Such a tremendous gift of silence and contemplation!

On the day of Pentecost, after that very dramatic scene of heavy wind, tongues of fire, speaking in diverse tongues and the bewilderment of the various nationalities who witnessed it, and then finally some of the onlookers who accuse the apostles of having too much wine to drink, our Lady, who was present, never speaks. Perhaps that gaze of hers this time was aimed at Peter. Peter could easily have said to Mary: “Blessed Mother, you have much more experience with the Holy Spirit than I, He is your Spouse; perhaps you should speak to the people.” Of course, there is no such conversation recorded in the Acts of the Apostles and perhaps it was Mary’s gaze at Peter which spoke to him saying: "Peter, my Son appointed you His Vicar. This is the birth of His Church. Your flock is waiting to hear from you.” And as Scripture records, it was Peter who stood up and addressed the people (cf. Acts, chapter 1).

O the power of her gaze, the depths of her silence and contemplation! How can we not go to the school of Mary! Is there anyone among us who wouldn’t have wanted to witness our Blessed Mother’s first Eucharist, or even any which followed? To see one of the apostles’ standing before our Lady, holding up the Eucharistic Host before her eyes and saying: “The Body of Christ.” What was that gaze like? What was happening to her interiorly after receiving Holy Communion?

Saint John Chrysostom says that, “Silence is a fiery chariot which takes us up to heaven. O silence, . . . the ladder of Paradise, the way to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, destroying all that can disturb us: how sweet is your yoke, and how delectable.”

Saint Bernard adds: “Silence is the mother of the virtues, and their faithful guardian. It is . . . the strength of the soul . . . the mark of the wise, the practice of the angels and the daily exercise of the contemplative.”

“Words dissipate the mind,” says Saint John of the Cross, “silence fosters a spirit of recollection and gives the soul strength to go to God. Our Lord teaches that he who loves to hold converse with men has but little time for God.”

Finally, Dom Rouvier, the Carthusian, states: “You see what the saints have thought of silence. Be quite certain that silence is the father of devotion, the teacher of the interior life, the joy of the heart, the source of all prayer, the perfection of solitude, and the gate of Paradise" (Le Mois de Marie).

Our Blessed Lady knew of all these attributes of silence, and then some. Most likely, Mary spent her remaining years in silence and contemplation, communing with her Son and her God.

Sanctified by a Holy Desire

“Let your duty be in desire.” These wonderful words come to us from Saint Augustine whose Memorial the Church celebrates today. We cannot see what has been promised by our Lord therefore, “Tota vita Christiani boni sanctum desiderium est” – “The whole life of a good Christian is a holy desire.” Saint Augustine continues by telling us that the desire or longing for the promise to come to fruition makes us capable, so that when the promise is fulfilled and we are able to see it, then shall we be satisfied.

Recall the words of Saint Paul: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard; neither has it entered into the heart of man what things God has prepared for them that love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). Thus, as Saint Augustine tells us, our lives as Christians must be driven by a desire to receive our Savior’s promises.

When adoring the Blessed Sacrament, faith tells us that what looks like a piece of bread is not a thing at all, but a Person – the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Coupled with that faith, though, is a desire to be like Him and see Him as He is (cf. 1 John 2). This desire, as Saint John’s First Epistle continues, sanctifies us (ibid. verse 3).

Saint Augustine then teaches that by God’s delay in fulfilling our desire, the soul is expanded and its capacity increased. Of course, this would mean that there must be a complete commitment to serving our Lord; for how dangerous it would be to increase the soul’s capacity if our desire was to fill it with the things of this world. As Saint Augustine puts it: “Tantum autem nos exercet sanctum desiderium, quantum desideria nostra amputaverimus ab amore sæculi” – “But only are we exercised by holy desire, in as much as we cut off our longings for the love of the world.”

And so, the soul’s capacity is expanded by God when we cast out temporal desires and replace them with holy, eternal desires. For example, if we look at the vocation of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, it’s hard to imagine that her very difficult living conditions were driven by a longing for this world’s goods. Of course not! It would be ridiculous to even entertain such thoughts. No, it was as she said: “Jesus is my God, Jesus is my Spouse, Jesus is my Life, Jesus is my only Love, Jesus is my All in all; Jesus is my Everything.”

Saint Augustine teaches us: “Extendamus nos in eum, ut, cum venerit, impleat” – “Let us stretch ourselves towards Him, that when He comes, He may fill us.”

When we pray, we stretch out ourselves towards our Lord in love. Saint Augustine said that a song is a thing of love. For those who pray the Liturgy of the Hours, do you ever sing it? Do you ever consider singing it? Even if one is completely unfamiliar with the various psalm tones, one can still sing it recto tono, that is, everything is sung on one or the same note. It is the Church's simplest form of chanting or singing.

Since our Lord's 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".  
Pope Emeritus 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 him, is that angels of God chant rather than speak. This is heightened conversation as everything in worship should be heightened. He wrote in his book, The Spirit of the Liturgy : "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."

Saint Augustine reiterated the words of Scripture: "Sing to the Lord a new song; let His praise be in the Church of the Saints." Consider singing the Liturgy of the Hours, even privately; but 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.

Sancte Augustine, ora pro nobis!

Doctor Mellifluus

Today the Church celebrates the Memorial of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a French Abbot, Doctor of the Church, and a reformer of the Cistercian Order. Pope Pius XII wrote an encyclical on Saint Bernard titled, Doctor Mellifluus, which means "the Honey-flowing Doctor" - signifying that Saint Bernard's praise of Jesus flowed like sweet honey.   

His praise of Love Himself is found often 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.

Saint Bernard also wrote 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, for example, the proclamation of 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.

Today in the liturgy the Church asks for that same spirit of Saint Bernard, which burned with zeal for the house of God, and enlightened others in the Church.   

Sancte Bernarde, ora pro nobis!