Calvary at San Giovanni Rotondo

Today on the liturgical calendar is the Memorial of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina. He is perhaps more affectionately known as Padre Pio, who was extraordinary to say the least. Well documented are his numerous Rosaries prayed daily, his countless hours in the Confessional, his ability to read hearts in the Confessional, his gift of bi-location, his daily minuscule caloric intake which doctors have said could not sustain a human being, the very little sleep he needed every night, about three to four hours, and of course the visible stigmata, the Wounds of Jesus which Padre Pio bore for some fifty years. 

The extraordinary details of Padre Pio’s life go on and on but perhaps none had more comments or more witnesses than his daily Mass. At Padre Pio’s Mass, Calvary came to San Giovanni Rotondo. His Mass began at five o’clock in the morning. But he did not rise from sleep and go straight to the church to begin the Mass. There was much prayerful preparation before Mass as he would rise from his bed sometimes as early as 12:30 but seldom later than 3:30; and he would spend that time in his cell running his fingers through his Rosary beads, which it would be rare to see him not do throughout his long, edifying day.

Introibo ad altare Dei – I will go unto the altar of God (Psalm 42 [43]:4). These words are part of the preparatory prayers of what we now call the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. Padre Pio climbing the steps to approach the altar was indeed in Persona Christi climbing the hill of Calvary. The great mystery of the Mass would unfold which would last up to three hours.

Tears would run from his eyes sometimes through the entirety of the Mass. At times those tears would be best described as sobbing.

Maria Winowska, author of Le Vrae Visage du Padre Pio, and a witness to Padre Pio’s Mass wrote in her book that the "Capuchin’s face which a few moments before had seemed to me jovial and affable was literally transfigured" and "after the Sanctus great drops of sweat poured from his forehead, bathing his face which was distorted with sobs. Here was truly the man of sorrow at grips with the agony."

During the Consecration the Wounds of the stigmata would bleed and remarkably Padre Pio would, during the elevation, hold our Eucharistic Lord for as long as ten minutes – and at times longer than that. Speaking about the Mass, Padre Alberto D'Apolito, who knew Padre Pio, said: "It produced such an impression that time and space between the altar and Calvary disappeared. The Mass of Padre Pio visibly reproduced the Passion of Christ, not only in a mystical form, but also physically, in his body. Waves of emotion made Padre Pio tremble at the altar as if the struggle with invisible persons filled him, time after time, with fear, joy, sadness, anguish, and pain. From the expression on his face, one could follow the mysterious dialogue. Whoever doubted the Real Presence had only to assist at Saint Pio’s Mass."

After the Consecration, this great saint would sometimes need to lean on the altar, appearing extremely exhausted. But during these periods of rest on the altar he appeared to be engaged in a mysterious conversation.

He had very penetrating eyes which could easily be detected during the Consecration; but throughout the entire Mass he seemed to be looking at a world that no one else present could see. By Padre Pio’s own exhortation he said that the Blessed Mother and the entire celestial court are present at Mass which consumed him with the fire of divine love causing his face to feel like it was burning.

Fittingly, Padre Pio the mystic was canonized by another mystic: Saint John Paul II. Here is part of the Holy Father’s homily:

Throughout his life, he always sought greater conformity with the Crucified, since he was very conscious of having been called to collaborate in a special way in the work of redemption. His holiness cannot be understood without this constant reference to the Cross.

Padre Pio was a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making himself available to all by welcoming them, by spiritual direction and, especially, by the administration of the Sacrament of Penance. I also had the privilege, during my young years, of benefiting from his availability for penitents. The ministry of the Confessional, which is one of the distinctive traits of his apostolate, attracted great crowds of the faithful to the monastery of San Giovanni Rotondo. Even when that unusual Confessor treated pilgrims with apparent severity, the latter, becoming conscious of the gravity of sins and sincerely repentant, almost always came back for the peaceful embrace of sacramental forgiveness. May his example encourage priests to carry out with joy and zeal this ministry which is so important today.

Teach us, we ask you, humility of heart so we may be counted among the little ones of the Gospel, to whom the Father promised to reveal the mysteries of His Kingdom.

Help us to pray without ceasing, certain that God knows what we need even before we ask Him. Obtain for us the eyes of faith that will be able to recognize right away in the poor and suffering the Face of Jesus.

Sustain us in the hour of the combat and of the trial and, if we fall, make us experience the joy of the sacrament of forgiveness. Grant us your tender devotion to Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our Mother. Accompany us on our earthly pilgrimage toward the blessed homeland, where we hope to arrive in order to contemplate forever the glory of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Concerning the Mass, Padre Pio said: "It would be easier for the world to exist without the sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass."

And Padre Pio the spiritual director advises us in this way: "The field of battle between God and Satan is the human soul. This is where it takes place every moment of our lives. The soul must give free access to our Lord and be completely fortified by Him with every kind of weapon. His light must illuminate it to fight the darkness of error. We must put on Jesus Christ, His truth and justice, the shield of faith, the word of God to overcome such powerful enemies. To put on Jesus Christ we must die to ourselves. Let us humble ourselves and confess that if God were not our armor and shield, we would be pierced by all kinds of sins. That is why we must live in God by persevering in our practices, and learn to serve Him at our own expense."

Un bain d’amour

The Church prays the Nunc Dimittis daily in her Night Prayer or Compline. They are the words of Simeon as he held the Christ Child in his arms at the Presentation in the Temple, the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Holy Rosary:

“Now Thou dost dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word in peace;
Because my eyes have seen Thy salvation,
Which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples;
A light to the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory Thy people Israel.”

Saint Ephraem, in his “Homily on Our Lord,” tells us that Simeon is a priest. Our Blessed Mother, perhaps quite prophetically, passes our Lord from her hands into the hands of a priest. And certainly one can sense the overwhelming immensity of Simeon’s emotions as he holds the Saviour of the world in his hands. This is far too mysterious for the human intellect to fully grasp. To paraphrase Simeon, what he’s saying is: “Okay Lord, take me now, for what I am doing at this moment, nothing else in this life will surpass it.”

At each and every Holy Mass the priest has the incomprehensible privilege of holding the Savior of the world in his hands on the altar. Please God, may your priests never take for granted the enormity of what they do on the altar!

Today is the Feast of Saint Jean Marie Vianney; he certainly was never nonchalant about the power given to him as a priest. The Curé d’Ars shed many tears of joy during Mass especially when he was holding our Eucharistic Lord in his hands during his thanksgivings and often long adorations. He would say: “To celebrate Mass one ought to be a seraph! I hold our Lord in my hands. I move Him to the right, and He stays there, to the left, and He stays there! To know what the Mass is would be to die. Only in heaven shall we understand the happiness of saying Mass! Alas, my God, how much a priest is to be pitied when he does this as an ordinary thing!”

It was on a Christmas night at Mass as he held the Sacred Host in his hands above the Chalice, and tears were flowing from his eyes when the Holy Curé prayed in his heart: “My God, if I knew that I was to be damned, now that I hold Thee, I would not let Thee go again.”

And how about those of us in the laity? What should our disposition be as the priest holds our Lord in his hands? We will never appreciate our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament as “un bain d’amour” (a bath of love), to quote Saint Jean Marie Vianney, until we establish a daily prayer life. The Holy Curé d’Ars referred to prayer as man’s noble task. As servants of God, prayer is not an option, but an absolute necessity. “With God all things are possible” (Saint Matthew 19:26). Saint Jean Marie gives us something to think about: “Saint Catherine of Genoa so hungered for this heavenly Bread that she could not see it in the priest’s hands without feeling as though she were dying of love, so great was her desire to possess it, and she would cry: 'Ah, Lord come into me! My God, come to me, I can bear it no longer! Ah, my God, come, if it please Thee, into my inmost heart; no, my God, I can bear it no longer. Thou art my whole joy, my whole happiness, and the only Food of my soul.’ Happy the Christian who comprehends this. If we understood it even a little, we could only desire life so far as it meant the happiness of making Jesus Christ our daily Bread.”

Do you think anyone would ever consider skipping Mass if they possessed the same love for the Blessed Sacrament as that of Saints Jean Marie Vianney and Catherine of Genoa?

A Principal Heavenly Patron

Today is the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist.  The beautiful artwork for this post is attributed to Jan Provoost, a mid-to-late fifteenth and early sixteenth century Flemish painter. In this piece our Blessed Mother is enthroned beneath a canopy. The Child Jesus is holding a book in His right Hand, perhaps the Sacred Scriptures, while in His left Hand He is holding a Rosary. In the background on the right is a figure enclosed in a garden, symbolizing our Lady’s virginity and chastity. A Carthusian monk is kneeling, apparently to be the recipient of the Rosary. The life of a Carthusian, that of silence and solitude, of both communal and eremitical life, is reflected in the iconography of this painting. The Carthusian is accompanied by Saint John the Baptist, a hermit of the desert. Behind him is the Lamb of God. Also accompanying the Carthusian is Saint Jerome, which symbolizes asceticism. 

In the Statutes of the Carthusian Order we read: “One should note that all our hermitages are dedicated in the first place to the Blessed Mary ever Virgin and Saint John the Baptist, our principal heavenly patrons.” 

An example of Carthusian Profession goes like this: “I, Brother ______, promise stability, obedience, and conversion of my life, before God, His saints, and the relics belonging to this hermitage, which was built in honor of God, the Blessed Mary ever Virgin, and Saint John the Baptist, in the presence of Dom ______, Prior.” 

For the Carthusian, Saint John the Baptist is a hermit in the desert, a solitary, and one who is focused on God alone. 

Also in the Statutes of the Order are these words: “John the Baptist, greater than whom, the Savior tells us, has not risen among those born of women, is another striking example of the safety and value of solitude. Trusting not in the fact that divine prophecy had foretold that he would be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb, and that he would go before Christ the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah; nor in the fact that his birth had been miraculous, and that his parents were saints, he fled the society of men as something dangerous and chose the security of desert solitude: and, in actual fact, as long as he dwelt alone in the desert, he knew neither danger nor death. Moreover the virtue and merit he attained there are amply attested by his unique call to baptize Christ, and by his acceptance of death for the sake of justice. For, schooled in sanctity in solitude, he, alone of all men, became worthy to wash Christ — Christ Who washes all things clean — and worthy, too, to undergo prison bonds and death itself in the cause of truth.” 

And then the Statutes give us something to think about: “And now, dear reader, ponder and reflect on the great spiritual benefits derived from solitude by the holy and venerable Fathers, Paul, Anthony, Hilarion, Benedict, and others beyond number, and you will readily agree that for tasting the spiritual savor of psalmody; for penetrating the message of the written page; for kindling the fire of fervent prayer; for engaging in profound meditation; for losing oneself in mystic contemplation; for obtaining the heavenly dew of purifying tears — nothing is more helpful than solitude.” 

Sancte Ioannes Baptista, ora pro nobis!

Our Lady's Doctor Ecstaticus

One of the most prolific writers of the Carthusian Order was Denys van Leeuwen, but perhaps better known simply as Denys the Carthusian or his Latinized name, Dionysius. Denys was Belgian and a model Carthusian to say the least. After being educated in theology, philosophy and Sacred Scripture from the University of Köln, he entered the Carthusian way of life in 1423. The many hours involved daily in praying the Divine Office, celebrating Mass, praying Our Lady’s Office, as well as other devotional practices - all staples of the Carthusian charism – Denys also nearly on a daily basis spent many hours reciting the Psalter in its entirety. In addition to this, he was no stranger to spiritual reading. A couple of years before his death the list of what he read began to surface. He read nearly every ecclesiastical writer leading up to his time in life. Another monk revealed that Denys also read nearly every summa and most commentaries on Scripture; he was also fond of reading the works of Greek and Arabic philosophers. His favorite writer was Dionysius the Areopagite. As incredible as all this seems, perhaps more mysterious and even miraculous is how he found the time to write so much himself. Like all Carthusians, he was very fond of our Lady. Here are some of his thoughts concerning our Blessed Mother:

From his work, De Prœconio, one should be convinced that as long as Mary is present in the life of a sinful soul, that soul need not despair:

"You are the consolation and the hope of the most guilty of men. He who has recourse to you can never complain of your severity and harshness. To your sons, even to the most ungrateful, you are kindness and tenderness itself; for all, you have the heart of a compassionate and indulgent Mother. Despite your high estate and the exalted privileges which you enjoy in heaven, if the most wretched, the most impure, the most despised of sinners appeals to you for help with a truly contrite and humbled heart, far from disdaining him you welcome him with a Mother’s love. You take him into your arms and, holding him close to your heart, you communicate to him a new warmth and then make his peace with the Judge he fears. How many are the afflicted, the sinners, the utterly abandoned, who rejoice that they have found in you, O Mary most merciful, salvation and life!"

In Volume VII of his Opera Omnia, Denys explains why we pray, "Blessed are you among women," for Mary is indeed "full of grace":

"Many women have gathered together great spiritual treasures, but you, O Virgin most admirable, have surpassed them all. For if, according to Saint Jerome, no one is good when compared to God, in like manner no virgin is perfect in comparison with you."

Also from his Opera Omnia in Volume XXXII, Denys tells the story of a Cistercian’s encounter with our Blessed Mother:

"A Cistercian religious had such a great devotion to our Blessed Lady that he would never sit down to table until he had recited on his knees five decades of the Rosary. Now one day, when his relatives had come to see him, and he was about to share their meal in the company of a few friends, he suddenly remembered that he had not fulfilled his customary tribute to his heavenly Mother. Immediately he arose and withdrew from the company. And as he prayed, whom did he see but our Lady herself, clothed with a magnificent cloak studded with Ave Marias, in letters of gold. He was filled with confusion when, with a sweet smile, the lovely apparition said to him: 'See all the Aves you have said to me.' Then, with a gesture she threw open her cloak and, showing him the inside, added: 'When your Aves have covered this side also, I shall come for you, and take you to my Son’s Kingdom.'"

What a marvellous assurance that as we pray the Rosary, our Lady is indeed listening! With all of Denys literary achievements, none of it took precedence over his commitment to prayer. Perhaps there’s a lesson there, in that, if we are committed to prayer, all those other things in our life that we deem as necessary, our Lord, if He also deems it necessary, will see to it that it is accomplished. Finally, it should be noted that Denys the Carthusian was quite privileged in receiving ecstasies, many of which involved levitation. Because of this, he has been given the title of Doctor Ecstaticus.

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.

Love's Greatest Gift

“By blood, I am Albanian, by citizenship, an Indian, by faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus.” Many would read or hear those words and be able to deduce that they came from Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Most important is the last part of that statement: “I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus.”

The Foundress of the Missionaries of Charity, even in the arduous, grueling work of her Order, plus the obligatory, time consuming prayers of the Church which she dutifully and faithfully did, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta still found time daily to be with the Heart of Jesus in Eucharistic Adoration. This was the secret of Mother Teresa, although it is not a secret, and certainly nothing she was trying to hide. She was quite bold in her profession of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus. She said: “I know I would not be able to work one week if it were not for that continual force coming from Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.” The world would be a very different place if we all were adorned with that same conviction.

The secular psyche, after a long, tiring day is trained to sit back in a comfortable chair or couch, maybe have a cold drink, and perhaps drift into a power nap. But Jesus said: “Come to Me all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you” (Matthew 11:28). Mother Teresa took to heart what Jesus said and knew that He meant it; and she taught the same to her Sisters. She said: “When the Sisters are exhausted, up to their eyes in work; when all seems to go awry, they spend an hour in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. This practice has never failed to bear fruit -- they experience peace and strength.”

This time spent in Adoration with Jesus is also important for the work of the Missionaries of Charity, as Mother explained: “All of us know that unless we believe and can see Jesus in the appearance of bread on the altar, we will not be able to see Him in the distressing disguise of the poor. Therefore these two loves are but one in Jesus.”

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta’s concerns, however, were not limited to her personal refreshment or to those of her Order; and they were not even limited to the poor, the hungry, the homeless and forgotten who were and continue to be the main work of the Missionaries of Charity -- to be Jesus for those that Mother Teresa called, “the unwanted, the unloved, the uncared for.” Mother Teresa's concerns also extended to teaching all of us. And what did she teach us? This was her plea: “Jesus has made Himself the Bread of Life to give us life. Night and day, He is there. If you really want to grow in love, come back to the Eucharist, come back to that Adoration. Our hours of Adoration will be special hours of reparation for sins, and intercession for the needs of the whole world, exposing the sin-sick and suffering humanity to the healing, sustaining and transforming rays of Jesus, radiating from the Eucharist. Spend as much time as possible in front of the Blessed Sacrament and He will fill you with His strength and His power.”

We see an image of the Crucifix hanging above the altars of our churches. From the Cross Jesus said, “I thirst” (John 19:28). Blessed Teresa instructs us: “From the Blessed Sacrament Jesus continues to say to each of us: ‘I thirst.’ He thirsts for our personal love, our intimacy, our union with Him in the Blessed Sacrament. His longing for us to be with Him in the Blessed Sacrament is infinitely greater than our longing to be with Him.” And so, Mother added: “When you look at the Crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you. When you look at the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now.”

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta never forgot, as hopefully we never will, that there is one, when it comes to the Adoration of Jesus, who knows how to do it perfectly. Read on as one Mother promotes another: “Through Mary the cause of our joy you discover that no where on earth are you more welcomed, no where on earth are you more loved, than by Jesus, living and truly present in the Most Blessed Sacrament. To be alone with Jesus in Adoration and intimate union with Him is the greatest gift of love -- the tender love of our Father in Heaven.”

Our Lady Entered into Christ's Whole Mission

Many of us Catholics are rather loyal about our devotional practices to our Blessed Lady. The Rosary perhaps has the highest percentage of usage of all Marian devotions in this day and age. Having a devotion to a Mother so tender and gentle, so loving, we might define as a joy and a privilege. Blessed Columba Marmion, OSB, however, in his work, “Christ the Life of the Soul,” has defined it as “important” and “necessary.”

Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of Mary; thus, if we are to be like Him, as Blessed Columba Marmion explains, “we must bear within us that twofold quality.” We are sons and daughters of God by means of adoption, and we are sons and daughters of the Blessed Virgin Mary by means of what occurred at the Cross.

The Blessed Virgin is the “Mother of the Incarnate Word” and dismissing her from “our loving devotion is to divide Christ.” When the Virgin Mother is dismissed from the spiritual life, what will follow is that we will no longer comprehend the Son. Jesus is our Savior and our Brother. He is God and Man. He has a Divine Nature and a Human Nature. How can we respond to the call to be the sons and daughters of Mary, as Jesus is in His Human Nature, “without having a special devotion to her . . . from whom He takes this Human Nature?”

Blessed Columba Marmion advises us to stick with whatever Marian devotional practices we already have in our spiritual life and not weigh ourselves down with more. “Stay faithful to what has been chosen.” The Lord delights in the daily homage given to His Mother.

By God’s design, Mary and Jesus are inseparable. “Mary in fact belongs to the very essence of the mystery of Christ.” She is the Mother of Him Who is our all in all. Life and Divine grace come to us only through Jesus Christ. There is, however, only one means by which Jesus was given to the world, and that is Mary. Jesus, the Source of grace, is the Incarnate Word. He is the Christ and the Mediator which “remains inseparable from His Human Nature,” which He received from the Blessed Virgin.

Saint Thomas Aquinas explains: “The closer something is to its source, the more it experiences the effects produced by this source. The closer you get to the fire on the hearth, the more you feel the heat that radiates from it. Christ is the Source of grace, seeing that He is the Author of it as God, and the Instrument of it as Man; and as the Virgin has been the creature closest to the Humanity of Christ, the Virgin has received from Christ a higher grace than that of any other creature. As Man, Christ was predestined and chosen in order that, being the Son of God, He might have the power to sanctify all men. Consequently, He was to possess – He alone possessed – a fullness such as could overflow on to every soul. The fullness of grace the Blessed Virgin received had as its purpose to make her the creature closest to the Author of grace; so close, indeed, that the Virgin contained within her womb Him Who is full of grace, and in giving Him to the world by childbirth she, so to speak, gave the world grace itself, because she gave to the world the Source of grace.”

Blessed Columba Marmion continues by saying that if we desire “to draw in large measure from the wellspring of Divine Life, go to Mary. No one can bring us nearer to Jesus than her because she is the closest to Jesus. She is indeed the Mother of Divine Grace."
 

Jesus “has associated His Mother with all His mysteries” from His Presentation in the Temple to His Crucifixion. But why? Christ is “the Exemplar of our supernatural life,” our sanctification was made possible because of the price He paid, creating for Him brothers and sisters who would resemble Him and be with Him for all eternity. Mary is the Mother of all the living. Jesus lived His mysteries in Mary because He wished to establish His brothers and sisters. Mary responded to this with her Fiat, fully submitting to the will of God. Her “yes” to God’s Incarnation was a unique “yes” to His plan of Redemption because she not only agreed to be the Mother of God but also enter into Christ’s whole mission. To each one of Christ’s mysteries she renewed her “so be it” with complete love and trust all the way till she would echo with Jesus, “It is completed!”

His Tears were His Bread

Today the Church celebrates the Memorial of Saint Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order -or - Order of Preachers (Ordo Prædicatorum).

In Dubrovnik, Croatia there’s a Dominican church which dates back to the fourteenth century. Most impressive there, above the altar, is a painted Gothic Crucifix by Paolo Veneziano, which was given to the Dominican church of Dubrovnik as a votive offering in the year 1384. It is one of the largest painted Crucifixes in Europe - about 16 feet or 500 centimeters. Unfortunately, in the year 1970 a radical re-design brought about the removal and destruction of the High Altar and Sanctuary.   

The Dominican Order is perhaps the most renowned promoters of the Holy Rosary. The fifteen Rosary promises are thought to have been given to Saint Dominic and Blessed Alan de la Roche by our Blessed Mother.

In Dubrovnik, which is a very beautiful, scenic city, there are many wonderful pieces of Christian art. Among them is the painting titled: “The Miracle of Saint Dominic” by Vlaho Bukovac. It is a painting from the nineteenth century. It hangs over the altar to the right in the Dominican church at Dubrovnik. The painting depicts a child being brought back to life through the intercession of Saint Dominic.

It is not only a reminder of the great man of God that Saint Dominic was, but also turns one's thoughts to what Jesus said in Saint John’s Gospel: “Amen, amen I say to you, he that believes in Me, the works that I do, he also shall do; and greater than these shall he do” (John 14:12).

In the Dominican supplement for the Liturgy of the Hours in which today's celebration is a Solemnity, Blessed Jordan of Saxony writes that Saint Dominic "during the daytime nobody was more sociable and happy with his brethren and companions, but at night nobody was more thoroughly dedicated to keeping vigil and to prayer. Tears waited for him at night, but joy in the morning. He used to weep plenteously and frequently, and his tears were his bread by day and night, by day especially when he celebrated his daily Mass, and by night especially when he kept watch in his uniquely unwearying vigils. It was his very frequent habit to spend the whole night in church, so that he hardly ever seemed to have any fixed bed of his own to sleep in." 

Our world today is in need of holy examples like Saint Dominic. 

Sancte Dominice, ora pro nobis!