Secret Harbour - Portus Secretioris

Stand Firm in the Lord's Calling

2011-10-19T11:30:00.002-04:00

The following is excerpted from the spiritual classic, “The Ladder of Perfection” by the fourteenth century English mystic Walter Hilton. After studying at the University of Cambridge, Walter Hilton later became a hermit and eventually joined the Augustinians at Thurgarton Priory and there lived out the rest of his years. This particular work of his is addressed to a Carthusian recluse and teaches the soul how to advance in perfection by the removal of sin and earthly thoughts and occupations. It also defines the differences in the lives of ascetics, mystics, contemplatives and actives. It is considered one of the great treatises on contemplation. Walter Hilton was in close touch with the Carthusians and has been mistaken as a Carthusian, though he was not.

I pray that in the calling to which our Lord has called you for His service, that you are contented, stand firm in it, travailing busily with all the powers of your soul; and by the grace of Jesus Christ, to fulfill in true righteousness the state which you have taken in exterior likeness and appearance; and as you have forsaken the world like a dead man, and turned to our Lord bodily in the sight of men, so let your heart be as if dead to all earthly loves and fears, and turned wholly to our Lord Jesus Christ. For you must know that a turning of the body to God, not followed by the heart, is but a figure and likeness of virtues, and not the truth in itself.

I do not say that on the first day you can be turned to Him in your soul through the full mastery of virtue as easily as you can be enclosed with your body in your cell, but you should know that the cause of your bodily enclosure is that you may the better come to spiritual enclosure; and as your body is enclosed from bodily association with men, just so should your heart be enclosed from the fleshly loves and fears of all earthly things.

The contemplative life consists in perfect love and charity, felt inwardly through spiritual virtues, and in a true knowledge and sight of God in spiritual things. This life belongs especially to them who for the love of God forsake all worldly riches, honors, worships and outward businesses, and give themselves entirely, body and soul, to the service of God through spiritual occupation, according to their strength and ability.

It is your duty to be busy night and day in labor of body and spirit, to attain as near as you can to that life by such means as you think best for you. In your prayer you must not aim your heart at a material thing, but your effort must be to draw your thoughts inward from any attention to such things, so that your desire might be as it were bare and naked from all that is earthly, always rising upward into God. You cannot see Him in the body, or imagine Him in a bodily likeness, but you can feel His goodness and His grace when your desire is eased and helped, and as it were strengthened and set free from all carnal thoughts and affections; when it is greatly lifted up by a spiritual power into spiritual savor and delight in God, held still in this for much of your prayer time, so that you have no great thought of any earthly thing, or else the thought harms you only a little. If you pray like this, then you know how to pray well.

For prayer is nothing but a desire of the heart rising into God by its withdrawal of all earthly thoughts; and so it is compared to a fire, which of its own nature leaves the lowness of the earth and always goes up into the air. Just so, when desire in prayer has been touched and set alight by the spiritual fire which is God, it keeps rising naturally to Him from Whom it came.

A Deeper Fruition of what We Seem to have Lost

2011-10-14T10:14:00.002-04:00

Today is the feast of Saint Teresa of Avila. From the Divine Office, at Matins, the Carthusians listened to this great Saint in her own words. Here’s what the monks heard.

In the beginning, when I attained to some degree of supernatural prayer -- I speak of the prayer of quiet -- I laboured to remove from myself every thought of bodily objects; but I did not dare to lift up my soul, for that I saw would be presumption in me, who was always so wicked. I thought, however, that I had a sense of the presence of God: this was true, and I contrived to be in a state of recollection before Him. This method of prayer is full of sweetness, if God helps us in it, and the joy of it is great. And so, because I was conscious of the profit and delight which this way furnished me, no one could have brought me back to the contemplation of the Humanity of Christ; for that seemed to me to be a real hindrance to prayer. O Lord of my soul, and my Good! Jesus Christ crucified! I never think of this opinion, which I then held, without pain; I believe it was an act of high treason, though done in ignorance.

The first consideration is this: there is a little absence of humility -- so secret and so hidden, that we do not observe it. Who is there so proud and wretched as I, that, even after labouring all his life in penances and prayers and persecutions, can possibly imagine himself not to be exceedingly rich, most abundantly rewarded, when our Lord permits him to stand with Saint John at the foot of the Cross? I know not into whose head it could have entered to be not satisfied with this, unless it be mine, which has gone wrong in every way where it should have gone right onwards. Then, if our constitution -- or perhaps sickness -- will not permit us always to think of His Passion, because it is so painful, who is to hinder us from thinking of Him risen from the grave, seeing that we have Him so near us in the Blessed Sacrament, where He is glorified?

No trial befalls me that is not easy to bear, when I think of You standing before those who judged You. With so good a Friend and Captain ever present, Himself the first to suffer, everything can be borne. He helps, He strengthens, He never fails, He is the true Friend. I see clearly, and since then have always seen, that if we are to please God, and if He is to give us His great graces, everything must pass through the Hands of His most Sacred Humanity, in Whom His Majesty said that He is well pleased. I know this by repeated experience: our Lord has told it me. I have seen clearly that this is the door by which we are to enter, if we would have His supreme Majesty reveal to us His great secrets. So, then, I would have you seek no other way, even if you have arrived at the highest contemplation. This way is safe.

Our Lord is He by Whom all good things come to us; He will teach you. Consider His life; that is the best example. What more could we want than so good a Friend at our side, Who will not forsake us when we are in trouble and distress, as they do who belong to this world! Blessed is he who truly loves Him, and who always has Him near him! Let us consider the glorious Saint Paul, who seems as if Jesus was never absent from his lips, as if he had Him deep down in his heart. After I had heard this of some great Saints given to contemplation, I considered the matter carefully; and I see that they walked in no other way. Saint Francis with the stigmata proves it, Saint Antony of Padua with the Infant Jesus; Saint Bernard rejoiced in the Humanity of Christ; so did Saint Catherine of Siena, and many others, who knew better than I do. This withdrawing from bodily objects must no doubt be good, seeing that it is recommended by persons who are so spiritual; but, in my opinion, it ought to be done only when the soul has made very great progress; for until then it is clear that the Creator must be sought for through His creatures.

When God suspends all the powers of the soul – by some means of prayer -- it is clear that, whether we wish it or not, this presence of the most Sacred Humanity of Christ is withdrawn. Be it so, then, the loss is a blessed one, because it takes place in order that we may have a deeper fruition of what we seem to have lost; for at that moment the whole soul is occupied in loving Him Whom the understanding has toiled to know; and it loves what it has not comprehended, and rejoices in what it could not have rejoiced in so well, if it had not lost itself, in order, as I am saying, to gain itself the more. But that we should carefully and laboriously accustom ourselves not to strive with all our might to have always -- and please God it be always -- the most Sacred Humanity before our eyes -- this, I say, is what seems to me not to be right: it is making the soul, as they say, to walk in the air; for it has nothing to rest on, however full of God it may think itself to be. It is a great matter for us to have our Lord before us as Man while we are living and in the flesh.

We are not angels, for we have a body; to seek to make ourselves angels while we are on the earth, and so much on the earth as I was, is an act of folly. In general, our thoughts must have something to rest on, though the soul may go forth out of itself now and then, or it may be very often so full of God as to be in need of no created thing by the help of which it may recollect itself. But this is not so common a case; for when we have many things to do, when we are persecuted and in trouble, when we cannot have much rest, and when we have our seasons of dryness, Christ is our best Friend; for we regard Him as Man, and behold Him faint and in trouble, and He is our Companion; and when we shall have accustomed ourselves in this way, it is very easy to find Him near us, although there will be occasions from time to time when we can do neither the one nor the other. We must not show ourselves as labouring after spiritual consolations; come what may, to embrace the Cross is the great thing.

The Lord of all consolation was Himself forsaken: they left Him alone in His sorrows. Do not let us forsake Him; for His Hand will help us to rise more than any efforts we can make; and He will withdraw Himself when He sees it to be expedient for us, and when He pleases will also draw the soul forth out of itself. God is greatly pleased when He beholds a soul in its humility making His Son a Mediator between itself and Him, and yet loving Him so much as to confess its own unworthiness, even when He would raise it up to the highest contemplation, and saying with Saint Peter: ‘Go away from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man’ (Saint Luke 5:8). I know this by experience: it was thus that God directed my soul. Others may walk by another and a shorter road. What I have understood of the matter is this: that the whole foundation of prayer must be laid in humility, and that the more a soul humbles itself in prayer, the more God lifts it up.

I come, then, to this conclusion: whenever we think of Christ, we should remind ourselves of the love that made Him bestow so many graces upon us, and also how great that love is which our Lord God has shown us, in giving us such a pledge of the love He bears us; for love draws forth love. And though we are only at the very beginning, and exceedingly wicked, yet let us always labour to keep this in view, and stir ourselves up to love; for if once our Lord grants us this grace, of having this love imprinted in our hearts, everything will be easy, and we shall do great things in a very short time, and with very little labour. May His Majesty give us that love -- He knows the great need we have of it -- for the sake of that love which He bore us, and of His glorious Son, to Whom it cost so much to make it known to us! Amen.

Their Faces are Uncovered and Radiant

2011-10-13T09:11:00.002-04:00

Today, the Carthusians honour all those of their Order who are now heavenly intercessors, residents of Paradise – the Saints and the Blessed. At Matins, the monks had proclaimed to them a very familiar teaching of our Lord from the Gospel of Saint Matthew. This was followed by an excerpt from what is considered a spiritual masterpiece in Syrian spirituality titled: ‘Le Livre de la Perfection’ by the seventh-century writer and martyr, Sahdona. Here are both the Gospel from Saint Matthew and the excerpt from Sahdona’s masterpiece.

From the Gospel of Matthew, 6:5-6, 16-21
Since the disciples had gathered around Jesus on the mountain, He told them: ‘When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites who love to pray standing in synagogues and at the street corners to be seen by men. Verily I say unto you, they have received their reward. But when you shall pray, enter into your chamber, and having shut the door, pray to your Father in secret, and your Father Who sees in secret will repay you. And when you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad. For they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. But you, when you fast anoint your head, and wash your face; that you appear not to men to fast, but to your Father Who is in secret: and your Father Who sees in secret, will repay you. Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth: where the rust and moth consume, and where thieves break through, and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven: where neither the rust nor moth consumes, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where your treasure is, there is your heart also’.

(My translation)
From ‘Le Livre de la Perfection’ by Sahdona
To all those who care about their salvation, Christ our hope and our God, has taught us in the Gospel to distance ourselves from the world, waiting for God alone, devoting ourselves to prayer and spiritual contemplation. By His words and His example He has shown that no place is more suitable for both prayer and being fixed on God than a place of solitude, away from traffic and favorable to recollection.

There, in fact, the body quiets itself, because the excitements of the external senses are extinguished while at the same time the soul is no longer agitated by internal impulses. As the worldly tumult subsides, it brightens the spirit; the mind becomes liberated from dark earthly concerns: in short, man emerges purified and freed from all physical and spiritual pollution. The discerning eye of his inner light shines and it is good to know himself, to improve and guide his behavior on the clear path of justice. Under these conditions, the man is rushed into the spiritual heights, he stands before the Lord and perceives something glorious, and feels extremely blessed by the Lord Who created him.

He dwells in God alone due to holy purity of life, and God constantly abides in him, waiting to envelop him with the great remembrance of His own manifestation, to burst from the body and impulses man’s thoughts, until the last day, entering into the clouds of heaven, where his covered face will be uncovered and radiant.

Blessed devotion! Your wonders have manifested themselves since the beginning with Adam, our ancestor, and have grown through all generations and achieved miracles for us. These marvelous effects shine in those wonderful beings who are men of truth, who have been able to contemplate its significance. They have taken flight far away from the world and its distractions in order to quiet themselves, body and soul, withdrawing to the desert; by these means they strive for total peace which is rendered to them, the incredible recollection, infused by the Lord supernaturally.

Our Lord, mighty, victorious and holy, source of all holiness, courage and victory, and Who has not disregarded the toil of fasting! Who among us carnal beings can ignore or dismiss You, weak and sinful as we are, continually stuck in the mud of passions?

No one would dare to say that the adverse passions of the flesh have ever been able to touch the Lord's Body, the Receptacle of perfection, the magnificent Temple of the Divine. Yet, although He did not have the slightest need, the Lord Jesus did not renounce the laborious practice of fasting; in order to better teach the great virtue and holiness that He confers on those who observe it.

Just as He was baptized to teach us in our turn to receive baptism and follow His example, thus He fasted to teach us to fast in His likeness. Every baptized person should feel compelled to fight against evil, as did our Lord, and so to be attached to the weapons of fasting even though we have received the fullness of the Spirit.

We fast according to the will of God, sincerely and wholeheartedly, without altering our fasting obligations to the criteria of Satan. This would occur if fasting hypocritically, being seen by others, in order to please men and receive the reward of vain praise from the people; we would thus be excluded from the divine reward, just as our Lord warned about the Pharisees, blinded, discouraging imitation: When you fast -- He said -- do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. Verily I say unto you, they have received their reward.

Behold, rendered wholly perfect by fasting from all evil, hungry and thirsty for the spirit of felicity that comes from God, we will be able to escape the threat of misery and famine in the last days reserved for those who shall be satisfied on earth. We will merit instead the blessing of contentment that Christ Jesus has promised to the hungry in these terms: Blessed are those who hunger, they shall be satisfied.

Vespers

2011-10-12T09:35:00.002-04:00

Dear readers of Secret Harbour,

If you would like to watch the video of the Holy Father celebrating Vespers with the Carthusian community of Serra San Bruno, go to: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2011/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20111009_vespri-serra-san-bruno_it.html and then click on the word "Video".

Captus ab Uno

2011-10-11T11:43:00.004-04:00

As many of you already know, this past Sunday Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Vespers with the Carthusian community of Serra San Bruno. Here is the Holy Father's homily:

Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate, Dear Carthusian Brothers, Brothers and Sisters,I thank the Lord who has brought me to this place of faith and prayer, the Charterhouse of Serra San Bruno. In renewing my grateful greeting to Archbishop Vincenzo Bertolone of Catanzaro-Squillace, I address this Carthusian Community, each one of its members, with deep affection, starting with the Prior, Fr Jacques Dupont, whom I warmly thank for his words, while I ask him to communicate my grateful thoughts and my blessing to the Minister General and to the Nuns of the Order.I am first of all eager to stress that this Visit comes in continuity with certain signs of strong communion between the Apostolic See and the Carthusian Order, which became apparent in the past century. In 1924, Pope Pius XI issued an Apostolic Constitution with which he approved the Statutes of the Order, revised in the light of the Code of Canon Law. In May 1984, Blessed John Paul ii addressed a special letter to the Minister General, on the occasion of the ninth centenary of the foundation by St Bruno of the first community at the Chartreuse [Charterhouse] near Grenoble. On 5 October that same year my beloved Predecessor came here and the memory of his passing between these walls is still vivid.Today I come to you in the wake of these events, past but ever timely, and I would like our meeting to highlight the deep bond that exists between Peter and Bruno, between pastoral service to the Church’s unity and the contemplative vocation in the Church. Ecclesial communion, in fact, demands an inner force, that force which Father Prior has just recalled, citing the expression “captus ab Uno”, ascribed to St Bruno: “grasped by the One”, by God, “Unus potens per omnia”, as we sang in the Vespers hymn. From the contemplative community the ministry of pastors draws a vital sap that comes from God.“Fugitiva relinquere et aeterna captare”: to abandon transient realities and seek to grasp the eternal. These words from the letter your Founder addressed to Rudolph, Provost of Rheims, contain the core of your spirituality (cf. Letter to Rudolph “the Green”, n. 13): the strong desire to enter in union of life with God, abandoning everything else, everything that stands in the way of this communion, and letting oneself be grasped by the immense love of God to live this love alone.Dear brothers you have found the hidden treasure, the pearl of great value (cf. Mt 13:44-46); you have responded radically to Jesus’ invitation: “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Mt 19:21). Every monastery — male or female — is an oasis in which the deep well, from which to draw “living water” to quench our deepest thirst, is constantly being dug with prayer and meditation. However, the charterhouse is a special oasis in which silence and solitude are preserved with special care, in accordance with the form of life founded by St Bruno and which has remained unchanged down the centuries. “I live in a rather faraway hermitage... with some religious brothers”, is the concise sentence that your Founder wrote (Letter to Rudolph “the Green”, n. 4). The Successor of Peter’s Visit to this historical Charterhouse is not only intended to strengthen those of you who live here but the entire Order in its mission which is more than ever timely and meaningful in today’s world.Technical progress, markedly in the area of transport and communications, has made human life more comfortable but also more keyed up, at times even frantic. Cities are almost always noisy, silence is rarely to be found in them because there is always a lingering background noise, in some areas even at night. In the recent decades, moreover, the development of the media has spread and extended a phenomenon that had already been outlined in the 1960s: virtuality that risks getting the upper hand over reality. Unbeknown to them, people are increasingly becoming immersed in a virtual dimension because of the audiovisual messages that accompany their life from morning to night.The youngest, who were already born into this condition, seem to want to fill every empty moment with music and images, as for fear of feeling this very emptiness. This is a trend that has always existed, especially among the young and in the more developed urban contexts but today it has reached a level such as to give rise to talk about anthropological mutation. Some people are no longer capable of remaining for long periods in silence and solitude.I chose to mention this socio-cultural condition because it highlights the specific charism of the Charterhouse as a precious gift for the Church and for the world, a gift that contains a deep message for our life and for the whole of humanity. I shall sum it up like this: by withdrawing into silence and solitude, human beings, so to speak, “expose” themselves to reality in their nakedness, to that apparent “void”, which I mentioned at the outset, in order to experience instead Fullness, the presence of God, of the most royal Reality that exists and that lies beyond the tangible dimension. He is a perceptible presence in every created thing: in the air that we breathe, in the light that we see and that warms us, in the grass, in stones.... God, Creator omnium, [the Creator of all], passes through all things but is beyond them and for this very reason is the foundation of them all.The monk, in leaving all, “takes a risk”, as it were: he exposes himself to solitude and silence in order to live on nothing but the essential, and precisely in living the essential he also finds a deep communion with his brethren, with every human being.Some might think that it would suffice to come here to take this “leap”. But it is not like this. This vocation, like every vocation, finds an answer in an ongoing process, in the searching of a whole life. Indeed it is not enough to withdraw to a place such as this in order to learn to be in God’s presence. Just as in marriage it is not enough to celebrate the Sacrament to become effectively one but it is necessary to let God’s grace act and to walk together through the daily routine of conjugal life, so becoming monks requires time, practice and patience, “in a divine and persevering vigilance”, as St Bruno said, they “await the return of their Lord so that they might be able to open the door for him as soon as he knocks” (Letter to Rudolph “the Green”, n. 4); and the beauty of every vocation in the Church consists precisely in this: giving God time to act with his Spirit and to one’s own humanity to form itself, to grow in that special state of life according to the measure of the maturity of Christ.In Christ there is everything, fullness; we need time to make one of the dimensions of his mystery our own. We could say that this is a journey of transformation in which the mystery of Christi’s resurrection is brought about and made manifest in us, a mystery to which the word of God in the biblical Reading from the Letter to the Romans has recalled us this evening: the Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead and will give life even to our mortal bodies (cf. Rom 8:11) is the One who also brings about our configuration to Christ in accordance with each one’s vocation, a journey that unwinds from the baptismal font to death, a passing on to the Father’s house. In the world’s eyes it sometimes seems impossible to spend one’s whole life in a monastery but in fact a whole life barely suffices to enter into this union with God, into this essential and profound Reality which is Jesus Christ.I have come here for this reason, dear Brothers who make up the Carthusian Community of Serra San Bruno! To tell you that the Church needs you and that you need the Church. Your place is not on the fringes: no vocation in the People of God is on the fringes. We are one body, in which every member is important and has the same dignity, and is inseparable from the whole. You too, who live in voluntary isolation, are in the heart of the Church and make the pure blood of contemplation and of the love of God course through your veins.Stat Crux dum volvitur orbis [the cross is steady while the world is turning], your motto says. The Cross of Christ is the firm point in the midst of the world’s changes and upheavals. Life in a Charterhouse shares in the stability of the Cross which is that of God, of God’s faithful love. By remaining firmly united to Christ, like the branches to the Vine, may you too, dear Carthusian Brothers, be associated to his mystery of salvation, like the Virgin Mary who stabat (stood) beneath the Cross, united with her Son in the same sacrifice of love.Thus, like Mary and with her, you too are deeply inserted in the mystery of the Church, a sacrament of union of men with God and with each other. In this you are unusually close to my ministry. May the Most Holy Mother of the Church therefore watch over us and the holy Father Bruno always bless your community from Heaven. Amen.

http://www.news.va/en/news/finding-the-essential-in-silence

Oh Oui - Ave Maria - Toujours, Toujours

2011-10-07T10:45:00.004-04:00

‘They will carry the Crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, and the holy names of Jesus and Mary on their heart’ ~ Saint Louis Marie de Montfort.

Human logic suggests that a Man put to death by crucifixion and a string of beads are improbable, and yes, impossible sources to keep humanity from eternal death.

It also seems unlikely by human reasoning, that the Battle of Lepanto on 7 October 1571 would be a victory for Christianity because the Christians sought the help of our Blessed Mother by praying on those beads.

Our Blessed Lady herself was told at the Annunciation that ‘no word shall be impossible with God’ (Saint Luke 1:37). The battle of Logic versus Faith that wages within each of us must always find Faith as the victor. Not that there’s anything wrong with logic, it is a gift from God given to His human creatures. But interiorly, logic can only walk to the mountain; but faith can climb the mountain.

The Virgin Mother of God didn’t need to comprehend everything that was told to her by the archangel Gabriel; after all, logic would say, how could a virgin be with child? But faith doesn’t simply walk to the mountain and see a dead end; faith climbs, albeit with much difficulty at times, but climbs nevertheless, in order to reach celestial heights, seeking God in order to say what Mary said: ‘Fiat’!

‘And seeing the multitudes, He went up into a mountain, and when He sat down, His disciples came to Him. And opening His Mouth He taught them’ (Saint Matthew 5:1-2). ‘And going up into a mountain, He called to Him those He desired Himself; and they came to Him’ (Saint Mark 3:13). God teaches from the mountain, God calls from the mountain.

‘And it came to pass in those days that He went out into a mountain to pray; and He passed the whole night in the prayer of God’ (Saint Luke 6:12). Jesus climbs a mountain to pray.

These verses teach us something about the life of prayer: it is a dialogue – God calls, go up the mountain where He offers the words of everlasting life to the human soul; afterwards, the soul can pray, whether that be through words or just resting in the warmth of His marvelous Light.

Our Lady is the quickest and surest path to our Saviour. She climbs the mountain with us. She knows where He is. In moments of weakness she takes our hand on that mountain and pulls us up past the more frightening crags. Saint John Berchmans said: ‘If I love Mary, I am certain of my salvation’. Saint Aloysius along those same lines said: ‘Servus Mariæ nunquam peribit’ – ‘The servant of Mary will never be lost’.

These prophetic words from Sacred Scripture the Church places on the lips of Mary: ‘I am the Mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope. In me is all grace of the Way and of the Truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue. Come over to me, all you that desire me, and be filled with my fruits. For my spirit is sweet above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the honeycomb. My memory is unto everlasting generations. He that hearkens to me shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting’ (Ecclesiasticus 24:24-28, 30-31).

Very powerful and faith building words!

On the Feast of Our Lady of Mercy, 5 August 1935, our Blessed Mother told Saint Faustina: ‘Be courageous. Do not fear apparent obstacles, but fix your gaze upon the Passion of my Son, and in this way you will be victorious’ (Diary 449). This statement takes us back to the opening statement of this post from Saint Louis Marie de Montfort. In our left hand is the instrument in which we seek the help of our Mother and in our right hand is the means to help us keep our gaze fixed on the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The beads, the beads, the beads! They are a great means to make our hearts rejoice because as our fingers travel on them, fifty-three times we begin our prayer with the words: ‘Ave Maria’!

In the Carthusian tradition is the story of a lay-brother named Bruno Lhuillier. He had a great love for the Blessed Mother. ‘Ave Maria’ constantly flowed from his lips. Many of his brother Carthusians, whenever they heard Brother Bruno Lhuillier proclaim those two words in praise of our Lady, they would respond using the same words. One day, one of his brothers, sort of beat him to the punch and was the first to say ‘Ave Maria’. Brother Lhuillier found great joy in that and responded: ‘Oh yes – Ave Maria – always, always’ (Abbé Berseaux: Le Chartreuse de Bosserville).

SANCTE PATER BRVNO

2011-10-06T15:48:00.008-04:00

From the Museo della Certosa is the Italian publication titled, ‘I Colori del Silenzio’. And in that publication is a loving tribute to Holy Father Bruno. It is shared here at Secret Harbour, on this day where around the world the Carthusian Order celebrates the Solemnity of Saint Bruno.

There are lives, my God, which may be approached only with respect, holy grounds where your mystery shines. No one can contemplate them without being enlightened by you, no one can find them without being inflamed by Your Spirit.

6 October 1101, Sunday, at the Hermitage of Santa Maria della Torre in Calabria, Italy there were some monks, and in the midst of them a man laid down. Tears were in their eyes and choking cries in their voices. The guide of their souls, their father . . . had reached the time of his birth into eternity. This man is you, Bruno. In this instant, your whole life, more than seventy years, is in your heart, the final offering to the Father.

Behold your first years in Cologne, where you were born, your departure for Rheims in France, that great and celebrated school of theology, your scholarly enlightened intuitions, and your appointment as canon of that church. The face of Archbishop Gervais, his decision of promoting you, at the early age of twenty-eight, to master of the most celebrated school of this time; students from all over Europe flocked together to listen to you, as your fame continually increased; then came the archbishop’s death in July 1067.

Behold the newly elected Manasse, his greed, his rages, the first discords, the increasing disorder, the scandals, while the Church reforms herself thanks to the Holy Father, Gregory VII; your sufferings, and the firm decision to voice your displeasure of the papal Legate. In the final months of 1076 came the retaliations of Manasse, depriving you of all your charges and goods – leading to the way of exile, a long and painful fight which lasted four years. At last the decision of the Pope: to depose, to dismiss the bishop from his See, while all eyes looked upon you to be the successor. But . . . in the silence of your heart, suddenly, another Heart! Your exile was the first stage of a long interior pilgrimage.

Behold the call of Christ: to leave everything so as to follow Him, to resume the way of the first fathers of the desert; the astonishment of all, the admiration for you, the light of Rheims, who was already fifty-five years old; then Sèche-Fontaine, the first attempt at solitary life with two other monks, but soon they defected and you searched for a second hermitage.

Behold your new companions: Landuin, two men named Stephen, and Hugh; these four were clerics, and with them were Andrew and Guérin, the first lay brothers. Their faces are still now in your heart, your brothers so beloved. And all seven were united as the flames of the archangels before the Almighty. You asked Hugh, the holy Bishop of Grenoble, for a place to live, hidden in God. Hugh of Grenoble was a friend of your heart. He helped you immediately without reservation; he had a dream about seven stars that guided him into the desert of Chartreuse to glorify God.

On June 1084, nearing the feast of Saint John the Baptist, you arrived at the place foreseen in the dream, to begin a great adventure still unknown. Behold your monastery, lost in the mountains, the first years, the ascetic struggle, the peace of the Spirit. Such fire in your souls, such love in your hearts! You, Bruno, already possessed pure praise and cries of amazement: ‘O Bonitas! O Bonitas!’ (O the Goodness! O the Goodness!).

Six years of toils, six years of joy; God, God, God always, only God, together with your brothers! Then, unexpectedly, the trial . . . In the first months of 1090 a courier of the Pope arrived with this message: Urban II, a former student of yours, calls you to his service at his side. The sun sets, it is night. Leaving everything, abandoning all, again, undoubtedly forever, your solitude in God, that blessed solitude, your companions of life, your friends. But in your heart, the ‘yes’, which is your love for God and for the Church. But the tempest overwhelms your brothers, the bewilderment takes them, and they disperse. To be without you, the master, the star of the journey: How could they? This way is so difficult. Everything collapses. Everything! Your heart is on the cross. It is the hour of your passion. Has the beautiful adventure reached its end? ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by! Yet, not my will, but Yours be done’. The sky opens, a new day is born. Your brothers again gather in the desert guided by Landuin. Your soul is suffering less, Bruno, at the hour of departure.

Behold Rome, the holy city, the heart of Christianity! But Rome is threatened. Shortly after your arrival, the Emperor Enrico IV and his protected, the antipope Clement III, launched their troops towards it. Urban II and his court fled to the south, near the land of the Norman allies. And still another trial: the Holy Father offers you the archbishopric of Reggio Calabria. What were you to do, Bruno? This is such a difficult time for the Church, as a brilliant future opens up for you – a counsellor for the Pope, a trustworthy man, admired by all. But in your soul still resounds the call, continuous, powerful, captivating, even stronger in the splendour of this court: Only God! Only God! To be His, completely His, only His, together with other brothers! Only God! Your heart, a cry of love for Him! Father, will You forget Your son? It is You Who has sown the cry in him . . . Bruno, the Lord responds, Urban II blesses your vocation: yes, you may resume your solitary life. ‘O Bonitas! O Bonitas! My life and my all, my beloved forever’. (Autumn of 1090).

Your heart would like to return to Chartreuse, to find your brothers. But the Pope asks you to stay in these lands and you accept his words as those of Christ. But where to dwell? A friend of the Holy Father, and soon to be your friend, Count Ruggero, offers you a vast desert territory. Behold your hermitage, Santa Maria della Torre, in the woods of the Serre, and the arrival of new companions, and later others, and yet more, up to thirty-three new sons. Nearby the hermitage stands the monastery of Saint Stephen where the lay brothers lead more a life in community; Landuin guides them, your faithful friend.

Eleven more years, eleven years of hard work and asceticism, eleven years of light and joy in praise, here, in this rich land of monks and hermits, whose history is blessed with their presence. And so, that your joy may be complete, Bruno, one day found the happiness of a visit: Landuin, who brings with him the love of your first sons, and their fidelity. ‘O Bonitas! O Bonitas’! -- so as to accept this friend of yours in this land that fills your heart, with an embrace and a gaze.

The autumn of life nears the end and your eyes rise towards eternity. Two years have passed since Urban II left this world; a year later, on his return journey, Landuin dies professing the faith in the prisons of the antipope; three months before that, in June, Ruggero died. Bruno, heaven calls you. Now . . .

The breath becomes briefer, perspiration bathes you, with your last brothers, you proclaim your faith, a hymn to the Trinity. The instant is near, time opens. Bruno, look at this grand light, so immense: ‘My Lord and my God’.

‘It is Me My friend, come! Enter into My Heart. Come! Come’.

‘O Bonitas! O Bonitas’!
Bruno, stay with us!

‘I will remain in your hearts’.

Everything stood still. Silence freezes us in its density. Fire has consumed the last twigs, the flame has vanished. Bruno . . . your face is so beautiful, illuminated by peace; and your eyes, open towards heaven, are overflowing with an infinite tenderness. A hand closes them in the ultimate sleep. Your life is hidden in Him, for all eternity. Fullness of joy! Ocean of love!

But your light still shines in our hearts and in your two letters, for your friend Raoul and your brothers of Chartreuse, who will bear witness forever to your mystery. You are so present in them, your profound humanity, finesse, your sweetness and goodness, your harmony throughout, your wisdom, all tenderness and humility, spiritual joy, simplicity -- Bruno, all-burning with your love of God, and the God-Love in you.

Yes, you are alive forever. And, like a planted seed, from you will rise a tree where different birds will make their nests. Are you not seeing it in the Eyes of God?

A life-flame of prayer still consumes itself roundabout you, Bruno; it burns in this place from where now you fly towards heaven, so as to make descend from there a great light of melody and love. Together with the first, behold all your sons and daughters, throughout the centuries, until this day and even further, all of us who, invisibly are around you on this 6 October, in this instant of your great birth, Bruno . . .

What fire! What sweetness!

2011-10-01T13:33:00.004-04:00

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux wrote and spoke words which were nothing short of spectacular expressions of love. If we visually learned how to suffer by watching the life and papacy of John Paul II, then certainly those lessons on how to suffer can also be read in the words of the Little Flower. She was a Victim Soul of Divine Love. Her intimacy with Christ was mystical, as evidenced in her words, and the love she received as well as the love she returned was beyond human capacity. She had no personal desires – that is to say, she only wanted what God wanted. She completely gave herself to Him. Read her words below and see if you don’t find within yourself a mixture of amazement, wonder, and holy perplexity.

It is so sweet to call God, 'Our Father’! . . . I cannot well see what more I shall have in Heaven than I have now; I shall see God, it is true, but, as to being with Him, I am that already even on earth.

A few days after the oblation of myself to God's Merciful Love, I was in the choir, beginning the Way of the Cross, when I felt myself suddenly wounded by a dart of fire so ardent that I thought I should die. I do not know how to explain this transport; there is no comparison to describe the intensity of that flame. It seemed as though an invisible force plunged me wholly into fire. . . . But oh! What fire! What sweetness!

I have had several transports of love, and one in particular during my Novitiate, when I remained for a whole week far removed from this world. It seemed as though a veil were thrown over all earthly things. But, I was not then consumed by a real fire. I was able to bear those transports of love without expecting to see the ties that bound me to earth give way; whilst, on the day of which I now speak, one minute -- one second -- more and my soul must have been set free. Alas! I found myself again on earth, and dryness at once returned to my heart.

In this world there is no fruitfulness without suffering -- either physical pain, secret sorrow, or trials known sometimes only to God. When good thoughts and generous resolutions have sprung up in our souls through reading the lives of the Saints, we ought not to content ourselves, as in the case of profane books, with paying a certain tribute of admiration to the genius of their authors -- we should rather consider the price which, doubtless, they have paid for that supernatural good they have produced.

During my postulancy it cost me a great deal to perform certain exterior penances, customary in our convents, but I never yielded to these repugnances; it seemed to me that the image of my Crucified Lord looked at me with beseeching Eyes, and begged these sacrifices.

Our Lord's Will fills my heart to the brim, and hence, if aught else is added, it cannot penetrate to any depth, but, like oil on the surface of limpid waters, glides easily across. If my heart were not already brimming over, and must be filled by the feelings of joy and sadness that alternate so rapidly, then indeed would it be flooded by a wave of bitter pain; but these quick-succeeding changes scarcely ruffle the surface of my soul, and in its depths there reigns a peace that nothing can disturb.

Were it not for this trial, which is impossible to understand, I think I should die of joy at the prospect of soon leaving this earth.

I desire neither death nor life. Were Our Lord to offer me my choice, I would not choose. I only will what He wills; it is what He does that I love. I do not fear the last struggle, nor any pains -- however great -- my illness may bring. God has always been my help. He has led me by the hand from my earliest childhood, and on Him I rely. My agony may reach the furthest limits, but I am convinced He will never forsake me.

I am besieged by the devil. I do not see him, but I feel him; he torments me and holds me with a grip of iron, that I may not find one crumb of comfort; he augments my woes, that I may be driven to despair . . . And I cannot pray. I can only look at Our Blessed Lady and say: 'Jesus’! How needful is that prayer we use at Compline: 'Procul recedant somnia et noctium phantasmata'! ('Free us from the phantoms of the night'). Something mysterious is happening within me. I am not suffering for myself, but for some other soul, and Satan is angry.

Oh, how I love Our Blessed Lady! Had I been a Priest, how I would have sung her praises! She is spoken of as unapproachable, whereas she should be represented as easy of imitation… She is more Mother than Queen. I have heard it said that her splendour eclipses that of all the Saints as the rising sun makes all the stars disappear. It sounds so strange. That a Mother should take away the glory of her children! I think quite the reverse. I believe that she will greatly increase the splendour of the elect . . . Our Mother Mary! Oh! How simple her life must have been!

I know that just at this moment Our Lord has such a longing for a tiny bunch of grapes -- which no one will give Him -- that He will perforce have to come and steal it . . . I do not ask anything; this would be to stray from my path of self-surrender. I only beseech Our Lady to remind her Jesus of the title of Thief, which He takes to Himself in the Gospels, so that He may not forget to come and carry me away.

It is my dearest wish ever to bend beneath the weight of God's gifts, acknowledging that all comes from Him.

I shall die soon. I do not say that it will be in a few months, but in two or three years at most; I know it because of what is taking place in my soul.

This is my secret: I never reprimand you without first invoking Our Blessed Lady, and asking her to inspire me as to what will be most for your good, and I am often astonished myself at the things I teach you. At such times I feel that I make no mistake, and that it is Jesus Who speaks by my lips.

Some notes from a concert far away have just reached my ears, and have made me think that soon I shall be listening to the wondrous melodies of Paradise. The thought, however, gave me but a moment's joy -- one hope alone makes my heart beat fast: the Love that I shall receive and the Love I shall be able to give!

I feel that my mission is soon to begin -- my mission to make others love God as I love Him . . . to each soul my little way . . . I will spend my heaven in doing good upon earth. From the very heart of the Beatific Vision, the Angels keep watch over us. No, there can be no rest for me until the end of the world. But when the Angel shall have said: 'Time is no more'! Then I shall rest, then I shall be able to rejoice, because the number of the elect will be complete.

What draws me to my Heavenly Home is the summons of my Lord, together with the hope that at length I shall love Him as my heart desires, and shall be able to make Him loved by a multitude of souls who will bless Him throughout eternity.

I trust fully that I shall not remain idle in Heaven; my desire is to continue my work for the Church and for souls. I ask this of God, and I am convinced He will hear my prayer. You see that if I quit the battlefield so soon, it is not from a selfish desire of repose. For a long time now, suffering has been my Heaven here upon earth, and I can hardly conceive how I shall become acclimatized to a land where joy is unmixed with sorrow. Jesus will certainly have to work a complete change in my soul -- else I could never support the ecstasies of Paradise.

When I suffer much, when something painful or disagreeable happens to me, instead of a melancholy look, I answer by a smile. At first I did not always succeed, but now it has become a habit which I am glad to have acquired.

O my God! How good Thou art to the little Victim of Thy Merciful Love! Now, even when Thou joinest these bodily pains to those of my soul, I cannot bring myself to say: 'The anguish of death hath encompassed me'. I rather cry out in my gratitude: 'I have gone down into the valley of the shadow of death, but I fear no evil, because Thou, O Lord, art with me'.

And Thérèse’s last words on earth as she gazed at her Crucifix were:Oh! . . . I love Him! . . . My God, I . . . love . . . Thee!

Learn the Psalter Word for Word

2011-09-30T09:25:00.003-04:00

Today’s post on this Feast of Saint Jerome focuses on a portion of an epistle which Jerome wrote to Saint Rusticus of Narbonne. The letter’s theme is very monastic, although in some parts, monasticism in a primitive sense mentioning occupations like weaving baskets. But Saint Jerome takes this to a very spiritual direction as well, recommending that the Psalter be memorized word for word. While that seems like quite an undertaking in this day and age, considering that the Psalter in the Liturgy of the Hours is now spread out over a four week period, it was nevertheless quite common among those spiritual giants we now call the early desert Fathers. The epistle’s overall message waves the same banner that monasticism waves today – ora et labora. Here are Saint Jerome’s thoughts.

Others may think what they like and follow each his own inclination. But to me a city is a prison and a desert paradise. Why do we long for the bustle of cities, we who bear the name of Solitary? To fit him for the leadership of the Jewish people, Moses was trained for forty years in the wilderness; and it was not until after these that the shepherd of sheep became a shepherd of men. The apostles were fishers on Lake Gennesaret before they became fishers of men. But at the Lord's call they had forsaken all that they had: father, net, and ship, and bore their cross daily without so much as a rod in their hands.

I say these things that, in case you desire to enter the ranks of the clergy, you may learn what you must afterwards teach, that you may offer a reasonable sacrifice to Christ, that you may not think yourself a finished soldier while still a raw recruit, or suppose yourself a master while you are as yet only a learner. It does not become one of my humble abilities to pass judgment upon the clergy or to speak to the discredit of those who are ministers in the churches. They have their own rank and station and must keep it.

The first point to be considered is whether you ought to live by yourself or in a monastery with others. For my part, I would like you to live in a community so as not to be thrown altogether on your resources. For if you set out upon a road that is new to you without a guide, you are sure to turn aside immediately either to the right or to the left, to lay yourself open to the assaults of error, to go too far or else not far enough, to weary yourself with running too fast or to loiter by the way and fall asleep. In loneliness pride quickly creeps upon a man; if he has fasted for a little while and has seen no one, he fancies himself a person of some note; forgetting who he is, from where he comes, and where he goes, he lets his thoughts riot within and outwardly indulges in rash speech. Contrary to the apostle's wish he judges another man's servants, puts forth his hand to grasp whatever his appetite desires, sleeps as long he pleases, fears no one, does what he likes, fancies everyone inferior to himself, spends more of his time in cities than in his cell, and, while with the brothers he affects to be retiring, rubs shoulders with the crowd in the streets. Do I condemn a solitary life? By no means; in fact I have often commended it. But I wish to see the monastic schools turn out soldiers who have no fear of the rough training of the desert, who have exhibited the spectacle of a holy life for a considerable time, who have made themselves last that they might be first, who have not been overcome by hunger or satiety, whose joy is in poverty, who teach virtue by their appearance.

If you embrace a life consecrated to God, I prefer that you do not live with your mother. You will avoid making her sad by your refusal of her choice foods, or throwing oil on the fire by accepting them. Always keep in your hands and beneath your eyes the Bible, learning the Psalter word for word, praying unceasingly, keeping your mind in an alert state, and not open to vain thoughts. Keep both body and spirit oriented towards the Lord. Control anger with patience; love the knowledge of Scripture and you will no longer love the sins of the flesh. If your mind does not abandon various passions, they will install themselves in your heart and get a hold of you and lead you to more grave faults. Attend to manual labor so that the devil always finds you occupied. If the apostles who had the right to live the Gospel labored with their own hands that they might be accountable to no man, and bestowed relief upon others whose carnal things they had a claim to reap as having sown unto them spiritual things, why do you not provide a supply to meet your needs?

Make creels of reeds or weave baskets out of pliant osiers. Hoe your land; mark out your garden into even plots; and when you have sown your legumes or set your plants bring in the water for irrigation, that you may see with your own eyes the lovely vision of the poet:

Art draws fresh water from the hilltop near
Till the stream plashing down among the rocks
Cools the parched meadows and allays their thirst.

Graft unfruitful stocks with buds and shoots that you may shortly be rewarded for your toil by plucking sweet apples from them. Construct also hives for bees, for to these the proverbs of Solomon send you, and you may learn from these tiny insects how to order a monastery and to discipline a kingdom. Weave nets for catching fish, and transcribe books, that your hands may earn your food and your mind may be satisfied with reading. Always remember that when idle you are at the mercy of your passions. In Egypt the monasteries make it a rule to receive no one who is not willing to work; for they regard labor as necessary not only for the support of the body but also for the salvation of the soul. Do not let your mind stray into harmful thoughts.

Feast of the Archangels

2011-09-29T11:32:00.004-04:00

At Matins the Carthusians, on this feast of the Archangels, reflected on the most edifying words of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. Here’s an excerpt from that discourse:

We celebrate today, dear brethren, the feast of the holy angels. Poor little worm I am, how can I speak about angelic spirits? I believe by faith that they enjoy the intangible presence and vision of God and are flooded with endless happiness in contemplating those things that eye has not seen, nor ear has heard, nor has entered the heart of man (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:9). But can a mere mortal speak of this topic to other mortals? In the first place, I haven’t the faintest idea about these realities; moreover, you are not in a position to hear them.

The words ascend from me, yes, overflowing from the heart, but I had better remain silent, because I lack the adequate concepts for dealing with angels. The heavenly spirits are conspicuous by their admirable dignity and loving regard. It’s obvious that their glory exceeds our poor understanding. We tie ourselves, then, closer to their mercy.

In the Book of Daniel we read a description of the angels before the Throne of God: ‘Thousands of thousands ministered to Him, and myriads upon myriads attended Him’ (Daniel 7:10). Do you think it is an unworthy thing for the angels to serve? Consider, then, the Creator, the King of angels, Who came not to be served but to serve and gave His life as a ransom for many (cf. Saint Matthew 20:28). None of the angels are scorned as servants when He Whom they serve with inexpressible ardour and felicity preceded them in this same ministry. The psalmist, speaking to God of His Son, said: ‘You have made Him a little less than the angels’ (Psalm 8:6). It was fitting, therefore, that One Who exceeds the angels in dignity, surpassed them in humility. The Son has lowered Himself below the angels, because He wanted to lend an inferior service to theirs, but His is far superior to the angels because He has by inheritance a Name more excellent than theirs.

The angels love us because Christ loved us. As you know brethren, that proverb which says: ‘Whoever loves me, loves my dog’. Are we not, O blessed angels, the little dogs that the Lord surrounds with much affection? Little dogs, desiring to eat the crumbs that fall from the table of their angelic hosts. I used this image, brethren, to increase your confidence in the angels. We must call upon them in our every need with love, every day trying to conciliate their favour, be captivated by their benevolence, asking them to mercifully reveal themselves to us.

Allow me, dear brethren, to offer reasons why the angels are reminders of our poverty. We know that the human soul, endowed with reason and capable of blessedness, is linked by a bond of kinship with the angelic nature. Holy angels, could you ever disdain visiting us, against the precept of charity, even though we are precipitated by an extreme baseness? Are we not all a part of the same family? If you love -- as in fact you do love – the beauty of God’s house, then manifest your zeal to these living stones, and rationalize that we are the only ones that could contribute to the construction of the heavenly Jerusalem.

There are three reasons, brethren, why we are, like ropes that pull at us, from the sky, the pre-eminent love of angels. They come to console us, to visit us, to help us because of God’s love for us. Because of God, the angels visit us, to imitate the infinite mercy of God. Because of us, the angels come to console us, because they have compassion for those who have a certain similarity with them. Because of themselves, finally, the angels rush to our aid, because they hope to recruit among us, men needed to fill the gaps in their ranks. Indeed, the praise that is given to Almighty God, at the end of time, is given both to angels and men. As of now, the angels are celebrating the first fruits of that praise which fills them with the highest delight. But we, men, we are still like infants sucking the milk, even if one day we will make complete and perfect the praise of glory. The angels, therefore, attend to us with eagerness, driven by a desire for the ultimate day.

Consider the angels, dear brethren, and think that there must be at heart, worthiness for their friendship. Do you realize that we must live life in their presence, and not offend the sanctity of their pure gazes? Woe to us if our sin and neglect render us unworthy in the eyes of the angels to receive their visitation and enjoy their company. In that case, all we do is cry and complain like the prophet: ‘My friends and my neighbours have drawn near, and stood against me. And they that were near me stood afar off’ (Psalm 37:12). It would be a shame if those who should protect us with their presence instead left us, when they can defend from the enemy and repel the attacks.

We are in dire need of assistance from the angels my dear friends, thus, beware of offending. What, then, are the virtues that they appreciate and are pleased to see in us? Sobriety, chastity, voluntary poverty, the constant longing for heaven, the prayers of extreme repentance and of vigilant affection. But in priority, these messengers of peace have come to expect from us peace and harmony. What could there be more to rejoice about? When they find peace and harmony between us, which is a prelude and sketch of the heavenly city, they seem to be admiring a New Jerusalem. All parts of the holy city are perfectly welded together. The same compactness must reign in our thoughts and in our conversations; there are divisions among us, but we remain united in one body in Christ Jesus.

Converting Gathered Flowers into the Sweetness of Honey

2011-09-28T10:34:00.004-04:00

This brief reflection is from a fifteenth-century Carthusian monk named, Dom Nicholas Kempf. This piece is from his work titled, ‘De Ostensione Regni Dei’. In this reflection he writes about the anagogical or mystical translation of Sacred Scripture. Nicholas Kempf also makes use of the Latin word, ‘mens’ which literally means mind or intellect. Today ‘mens’ is sometimes translated as ‘spirit’ although that is not completely true. Interestingly, though, medieval writers used ‘mens’ to indicate the most exalted or highest part of the human soul. Blessed John Henry Newman felt that the mystical interpretation was the most important interpretation and today perhaps that interpretation is the least discussed or reflected on. One might say today that it was prophetic when Blessed Newman wrote: ‘It may almost be laid down as an historical fact that the mystical interpretation and orthodoxy will stand or fall together’. Here is the reflection of Dom Nicholas Kempf:

The eye of the mens is illuminated with light to understand the anagogical meaning in Sacred Scripture when the mens reaches upward toward God through an affected, sighing, and longing love. This anagogical meaning lies hidden everywhere in the Scriptures, and it cannot be effectively revealed except to a mens that is cleansed and pure.

This true anagogical meaning converts the gathered flowers into the sweetness of honey, just as the bees are accustomed to do. The blossoms of the Scriptures are gathered by the other meanings of Scripture, but it is through the anagogical meaning that the sweetness of honey is tasted through the affectedness of love.

So too the bees gather flowers and from them are well able to draw out and concentrate nourishment. So too should all Scripture be read in order that the honey of love might be gathered into the wax of Christ’s divinity and humanity – but not only Scripture, for indeed one should look at each creature in order to obtain not merely knowledge of God but also love of God. For every creature is like a picture or letter or trace that point to the Creator.

Thus the apostle says, ‘the invisible things of God are understood through the things that are made; His eternal power and divinity are clearly seen’ (Romans 1:20).

Saint Matthew

2011-09-21T09:10:00.002-04:00

Today on this feast of Saint Matthew, the Carthusians at Matins listened to four Lessons concerning this day’s honoured saint written by the fourteenth-century Dominican mystic and theologian, Johannes Tauler. In addition to that, the monks also reflected on four Lessons about Saint Matthew written by Saint Peter Chrysologus. Both sets of Lessons are featured here today at Secret Harbour. First is Tauler followed by Saint Peter Chrysologus:

‘When Jesus departed from Capernaum, He saw a man sitting in the custom house named Matthew; and He said to him: Follow Me. And he arose and followed Him’ (Saint Matthew 9:9).

The Apostle and Evangelist, so holy, which we celebrate today, has become an example for all men. As the Scripture tells us, he became one of the most distinguished friends of God, having been first a great sinner. As soon as the Lord speaks to the heart of Matthew, he immediately abandons everything to follow the Lord. What is condensed here we must do if we want to follow Christ: implement genuine and radical abandonment of everything that is not of God, which has taken possession of man’s heart. For God is a lover of hearts, and does not commune with anything that is external.

The path of the friends of God is totally dark and unknown. Appropriate are the words which speak of Job: ‘A man whose way is hidden, and God has surrounded him with darkness’ (Job 3:23). Man must bear all the reproaches heaped upon him on this rough road, in a self-denying way. Our Lord says everywhere: Follow Me, go through all things. I am He; do not go further; follow Me. If a man were to say: Lord, who are You, that I must follow You through such deep, gloomy, miserable paths? The Lord would reply, I am God and Man, and far more God.

If man is to be thus clothed with this Being, all the forms must of necessity be done away with, those that were ever received by him in all his powers of perception, knowledge, will, work, subjection, sensibility and self-seeking. When Saint Paul saw nothing, he saw God. When Elijah wrapped his face in his mantle, God came. All strong rocks are broken here; all on which the mind can rest disappear. Then, when all forms have ceased to exist, in the twinkling of an eye, the man is transformed. The Lord teaches us through Jeremiah: ‘You shall call Me Father and shall not cease to walk after Me’ (Jeremiah 3:19). This means, entering ever further in, ever nearer, so as to sink deeper in an unknown and unnamed abyss; and, above all ways, images and forms, and above all powers, to lose yourself, deny yourself and even un-form yourself.

In this lost condition, nothing is to be seen but a ground which rests upon itself, every one being, one life. It is thus, man may say, that he becomes, unknowing, unloving and senseless. This is not the result of natural qualities, but of the transformation, wrought by the Spirit of God in the created spirit, in the fathomless lost condition of the created spirit, and in his unconditional surrendering. We may say of this, that God knows, loves and gives Himself thus; for man is nothing but a life, a being and action. Those who see in this way, with undue liberty and with false light, are in the most perilous state possible in this life. The way by which we must arrive at the goal, is through the precious life and sufferings of our dear Lord; for He is the Way by which we must go, and He is the Truth which lightens all in this way.

* * * * * * * * * *

From Saint Peter Chrysologus:

Leaving Capernaum Jesus saw a man (Saint Matthew 9:9). He saw with divine Eyes more than with human ones. He saw the man in order not to see the man’s sins. He saw His own work in order to disregard the works of sin. God saw him so that he might see God; Christ saw him so that he might see no longer the places where money was hiding. Christ saw him sitting because weighed down by the burden of greed he was unable to stand up. This unfortunate publican, sitting at the tax booth, was in worse condition than the paralytic lying in bed, suffering from a paralysis of the flesh, but the tax collector from a paralysis of the mind. The paralytic was lying overcome in the flesh; the tax collector was sitting a captive of body and spirit. Jesus encourages the paralytic, saying: ‘Have confidence, your sins are forgiven you’ (Saint Matthew 9:2). He had made up for his sins by his sufferings. To the publican, however, Jesus said: ‘Come, follow Me’ (Saint Matthew 9:9). That is, that by following Him he may repair what he has destroyed by the pursuit of money.

While Jesus was at table in the house of Matthew, the Pharisees challenge the disciples: ‘Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners’? (Saint Matthew 9:11). God is being blamed for turning to humanity, reclining with a sinner, hungering for a penitent, thirsting for sinners to return, receiving dishes of mercy, and taking up the cup of devotion. Brethren, Christ came to the meal; Life came to the feast, that He might make those destined for death, live with Him. The Resurrection lay down so that those who were lying down might rise from the tombs. Forgiveness reclined, that He might lift sinners up to pardon. Divinity came to humanity in order that humanity might come to divinity. The Judge sat at the table of the guilty, so that the guilty might escape conviction. The Doctor came to the sick, to heal them by eating with them. The Good Shepherd lowered His Shoulders to carry back to the fold of salvation the sheep who were lost.

‘Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners’? (Saint Matthew 9:11). Who is a sinner except the one who denies he is a sinner? He himself, in fact, is the greater sinner who does not even understand that he is a sinner. Who is unrighteous except the one who judges himself righteous? And yet, Pharisee, you have read the words of the psalm: ‘No one is righteous in Your sight’ (Psalm 142:2). As long as we are in a mortal body, and frailty dominates us, even if we overcome sinful actions, we are unable to overcome and escape thoughts that are sinful and unrighteous. Yes, we can overcome the faults and materials to overcome evil in our consciousness, but how can we destroy the sins of ignorance and negligence? Pharisee, confess your sin and you will sit at the table of the Lord. You might have Christ as your Bread, and He the Bread might be broken in forgiveness of your sins. Christ might become your Cup to be poured out in remission of your offences.

Pharisee, eat with sinners in order that you can eat with Christ. Enter with sinners into the feast of your Lord, so that you can be a sinner no more. Enter the house of mercy with the forgiveness of Christ, so that your own righteousness will not be excluded from this house. Recognize Christ, listen to Christ. Listen to your Lord, hear the heavenly Doctor. ‘It is not the healthy who need the Physician, but the sick’ (Saint Matthew 9:12). If you want to be healed, acknowledge your illness. ‘I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners’ (Saint Matthew 9:13). Christ does not refuse the righteous, but without Him no one on earth is immune from sin. The Lord does not overlook the righteous, but rather He has revealed that all are sinners. Listen to Scripture: ‘The Lord from heaven looks down upon men to see if any are wise or seeking God. All have turned away; all are corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one’ (Psalm 13:2-3). Brethren, let us be sinners by our own admission, so that with Christ’s forgiveness we might be sinners no more.

Death: the Passage to Eternity

2011-09-16T08:25:00.004-04:00

Today is the feast of Saint Cornelius, pope and martyr, and Saint Cyprian, bishop and martyr. For the Carthusian Order, eight of the twelve Lessons proclaimed at Matins were from the work of Saint Cyprian of Carthage on ‘Mortality’. Here is what the monks reflected on.

Beloved brethren, very many of you have adamant feelings, a firm faith, and a fervent spirit that cannot be moved by worldly enticements; and, like a strong and stable rock, you are able to shatter the turbulent onsets of the world and the raging waves of time, these temptations fail to win your heart and you are not overcome; but I observe some of you who resist with less courage and will not implement the divine power and the invincibility of your heart. Is such behaviour due to weakness of mind or lack of faith? Is love for the world or fragility of life caused by the softness of gender, or even worse, through error from the truth? The matter may not be disguised nor kept in silence. I could not give up in my own inadequacy, and with my full strength, and with a discourse steeped in Scripture, the slothfulness of a luxurious disposition must be restrained, and he who has begun to be already a man of God and of Christ, must be found worthy of God and of Christ.

Beloved, he who wars for God ought to acknowledge himself as one who, placed in the heavenly camp, already hopes for divine things, so that we may have no trembling at the rising of storms and tempests of the world. 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’ (Saint Luke 21:31).

Beloved, the Kingdom of God is beginning to be at hand; the reward of life, and the rejoicing of eternal salvation, and the perpetual gladness and possession lately lost of paradise, are now coming, with the passing away of the world. Already heavenly things are taking the place of earthly, and great things of small, and eternal things of things that fade away. What room is there here for anxiety and solicitude? Who, in the midst of these things, is trembling and sad, except he who is without hope and faith? For it is for him to fear death who is not willing to go to Christ. It is for him to be unwilling to go to Christ who does not believe that he is about to reign with Him.

We live in hope, and believe in God, certain that Christ suffered for us and rose again. We abide in Christ, and through Him and in Him rising again; so why are we ourselves unwilling to depart from this life? Why do we grieve for our friends when they depart as if they were lost? Christ Himself, our Lord, encourages us and says, ‘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’ (Saint John 11:25-26). If we believe in Christ, let us have faith in His words and promises; and since we shall not die eternally, let us come with a glad security to Christ, with Whom we are both to conquer and to reign forever.

If we should succumb to death, do not 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. Who would not hasten to better things? Who would not crave to be changed and renewed into the likeness of Christ, and to arrive more quickly to the dignity of heavenly glory? The apostle Paul teaches us, ‘For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Lord Jesus Christ, Who shall change the body of our humiliation, and conform it to the body of His glory’ (Philippians 3:20-21). Christ the Lord promises that we shall be such, that we may be with Him, and that we may live with Him in eternal mansions, and may rejoice in the heavenly Kingdom, ‘Father, I will that they also whom You have given to Me be with Me where I am, and may see the glory which You have given to Me before the world was made’(Saint John 17:24).

He who is intended to enter the dwelling-place of Christ, the glory of the heavenly Kingdom, ought not to grieve or mourn; but rather, in accordance with the Lord's promise, in accordance with his faith in the truth, to rejoice in his departure and transfer into the afterlife. We know that Enoch was taken up, because he pleased God. The Scripture says in the Book of Genesis, ‘Enoch pleased God; and afterwards he was not found, because God translated him’ (Genesis 5:24). To have been pleasing in the sight of God means to have merited to be translated from the influences of the world. For through Solomon the Holy Spirit teaches that they who please God are more early taken, and are more quickly set free, lest while they are delaying longer in this world they should be polluted with the corruptions of the world. It is written in the Book of Wisdom, ‘He was taken away lest wickedness should change his understanding. For his soul was pleasing to God; wherefore He hastened to take him away from the midst of wickedness’ (Wisdom 4:11, 14).

It is for him to wish to remain long in the world whom the world invites by the enticements of earthly pleasure. Since the world hates the Christian, why do you love that which hates you? Why do you not rather follow Christ, who both redeemed you and loves you? In his first letter, John urges us not to love the world nor follow the desires of the flesh. He writes: ‘Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but of the lust of the world. And the world shall pass away, and the lust thereof; but he who does the will of God abides for ever, even as God abides for ever’ (1 Saint John 2:15-17). My beloved brethren, with a sound mind, with a firm faith, with a robust virtue, let us be prepared for the whole will of God: laying aside the fear of death, let us think on the immortality which follows.

Brethren, we must not lose sight that we have renounced the world, and are now living here as guests and strangers. We welcome the day which assigns each of us to his own home, which snatches us from here, and sets us free from the snares of the world, and restores us to Paradise and the Kingdom. What traveller would not hasten to return home? What sailor hastening to return to his friends not eagerly desire a favourable wind, that he might the sooner embrace his loved ones? 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! What a pleasure is there in the heavenly kingdom, without fear of death!

Our Lady of Sorrows

2011-09-15T09:05:00.002-04:00

The Church places on the lips of our Blessed Lady these beautiful words from Sacred Scripture: ‘The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways’ (Proverbs 8:22). Almighty God chose Mary from the beginning to be His masterpiece before all other creatures. A Carthusian, Dom Louis Rouvier wrote: ‘When coming out, as it were, from His eternal repose, God the adorable Trinity determined on the creation of the universe, His first thought was of the God-man Who would be the crowning point of creation, and then, of her – blessed among women – who would give birth to Him. The rest of creation, angels and man, creatures animate and inanimate, all were ordained solely for Christ and His Mother'.

The amount of sorrow our Blessed Mother has accepted on behalf of sinful mankind is astronomical. Saint Bonaventure cries out: ‘It is by your protection, O Blessed Virgin, that the world is preserved; this world that God made from the beginning in concert with you’ (De Laudibus Virginis).

Recall what our Lady said to the children of La Salette: ‘If my people will not submit, I will be obliged to let fall the Arm of my Son. It weighs so heavily upon me that I can no longer bear it. How long have I suffered for you, O my people! If my Son is not to abandon you, I must pray to Him unceasingly’.

At the Cross Jesus said to His Mother, ‘Woman, behold your Son’. And to His beloved disciple He said: ‘Behold your Mother’. Mary’s spiritual Maternity to us all has been declared. It is from her sorrows, from her heart, pierced by a sword, that we were born her spiritual children, delivered into her maternal care, into a life of grace. The sorrowful Passion of her Son, and Mary’s consent due to her perfect conformity to the divine will, is how we were born into this life of grace.

From the Rosary, especially in the Sorrowful Mysteries, we can ask our Lady to reveal her sorrowful and Immaculate Heart to us. And since she prays to her Son unceasingly, count on her being present in Eucharistic Adoration. She adores Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament with perfection and she is our teacher on how to adore. Upon your next visit before the Monstrance or Tabernacle, listen very intently in the silence of your heart, and wait for those beautiful words of Jesus, assuring you of Mary’s presence as well, as He says to her: ‘Woman, behold your son/daughter’ – and to you – ‘Son/daughter, behold your Mother’.

These glorious words are found among the writings of the Carthusian Order: ‘When we come to die, our sovereign Judge will ask this question of the angel whose care it has been to bring us to the Judgment Seat, To whom does this soul belong; whose livery does it wear? If the answer is, Mary’s, Jesus will at once say, Then give to My Mother what belongs to her. To give us to Mary is to open heaven to us’.

Per Signum Crucis de Inimicis Nostris Libera Nos

2011-09-14T08:22:00.003-04:00

Today at Matins for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the Carthusians listened to Saint Leo the Great's De Passione Domini and Sulla Pasqua from Saint Melito of Sardis. Beginning with Saint Leo, here are excerpts from both:

Before being betrayed, the Lord had told them, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to Myself” (John 12:32). I assume fully the cause of mankind and nature and I will reinstate perfectly what was lost. Through Me all languor will be destroyed and all wounds will be cured.

When Jesus suffered His terrible Passion in our nature, the upheaval of the universe revealed that the Lord, once lifted up, really draws all things to Himself. While the Creator hung from the gallows, the whole creation groaned, experiencing with Him the piercing of the nails to the Cross. Nothing was estranged from this torture: the heavens and earth were united to the sufferings of the Savior, breaking stones, opening graves, freeing prisoners from the underworld, hiding the sun beneath the horror of darkness. The world had to give this witness to its Creator, as if the death of its Author, would end up being the same fate of the universe.

O wondrous power of the Cross! O ineffable glory of the Passion that embodies the tribunal of the Lord, the judgment of the world and the power of the Crucified. You have indeed drawn everything Yourself, Lord, and while You stretched out Your Hands all day towards the people who did not believe and scoffed at You, You desired the whole world to witness and proclaim Your Majesty.

You attracted everything to Yourself, Lord, when in execration for the crime committed by the Jews, all the elements of creation uttered a single sentence: Darkened, the lights in the sky, the day became night, the earth was shaken by an unusual earthquake.

You attracted everything to Yourself, Lord, because the veil of the temple was torn by removing the Holy of holies from the eyes of the unworthy high priests. Thus the symbol that signified the presence of God was replaced by the Truth of that presence, the prophecy gave way to the real event and the law has found fulfillment in the Gospel.

You have drawn everything to Yourself, Lord. Your Cross is the source of every blessing, the cause of all grace. Through You is given to the faithful strength in suffering, glory in humiliation, life in death. You are the True Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world. (cf. John 1:29).

Sulla Pasqua by Saint Melito of Sardis:
The law is old, but new is the Gospel; temporary is the figure, eternal the grace. Corruptible the sheep, incorruptible the Lord, Who was slain as a Lamb, but Who was resurrected as God. For although He was led to Sacrifice as a Sheep, yet He was not a sheep; and although He was as a Lamb without Voice, yet indeed He was not a lamb. The one was the model; the Other was found to be the finished product. For God replaced the lamb, and a Man the sheep; but in the Man was Christ, Who contains all things. And so, the sacrifice of the sheep, and the immolation of the lamb, and the writing of the law -- each led to and issued in Christ, for Whose sake everything happened in the ancient law, and even more so in the new Gospel. For indeed the law issued in the Gospel -- the old in the new, both coming forth together from Zion and Jerusalem; and the commandment issued in grace, and the type in the finished product, and the lamb in the Son, and the sheep in a Man, and the Man in God. For the One Who was born as Son, and led to slaughter as a Lamb, and sacrificed as a Sheep, and buried as a Man, rose up from the dead as God, since He is by nature both God and Man.
He is everything:
when He judges He is law;
when He teaches He is Word;
when He saves He is grace;
as the Giver of life He is Father;
as the begotten He is Son;
when He suffers He is sheep;
when He is buried He is man;
when He rises again He is God.
This is Jesus Christ!

The salvation of the Lord and the truth were prefigured in the people of Israel, and the claims of the Gospel were foretold in the Law of Moses. The people, therefore, became the image of the Church, and the law a symbolic writing. The Gospel became the explanation of the law and its fulfillment, while the Church became the storehouse of truth. Therefore, the figure had value prior to its realization, and the writing was wonderful prior to its interpretation. This is to say that the people had value before the Church came on the scene, and the law was wonderful before the Gospel was brought to light. But when He founded the Church and preached the Gospel, the type lost its value by surrendering its significance to the truth, and the law was fulfilled by surrendering its significance to the Gospel. Just as the figure lost its significance by surrendering its image to that which is true by nature, and as the symbolic writing lost its significance by being illumined through the interpretation, so indeed also the law was fulfilled when the Gospel was brought to light, and the people lost their significance when the Church was founded, and the figure was destroyed when the Lord appeared. For at one time the immolation of the lamb was valuable, but is now without merit because the True Good has appeared in the saving Sacrifice of the Lord.

The Lord, although God, became man and had suffered for the sake of the suffering, was a prisoner for the imprisoned, condemned for the sake of the guilty, and buried for the sake of the buried, rose up from the dead, and cried aloud with this voice: Who is he who contends with Me? Let him stand in opposition to Me. I am the Christ. I am the One Who destroyed death, and triumphed over the enemy, and trampled hell under foot, and bound the strong one, and carried off man to the heights of heaven; I, He says, am the Christ. Come, all families of men, you who have been oppressed by sin, and receive forgiveness. I am your forgiveness, I am the Passover of your salvation, I am the Lamb which was sacrificed for you, I am your ransom, I am your Light, I am your Saviour, I am your resurrection, I am your King, I am leading you up to the heights of heaven, I will show you the eternal Father, I will raise you up by My Right Hand.

The Lord is the One Who made heaven and earth, and Who in the beginning created man in His Image, Who was proclaimed through the law and prophets, Who became Incarnate in the Virgin, Who was hanged upon a tree, Who was buried in the earth, Who was resurrected from the dead, and Who ascended to the heights of heaven, Who sits at the Right Hand of the Father, Who has authority to judge and to save everything, through Whom the Father created everything from the beginning of the world to the end of the age. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the beginning and the end -- an indescribable beginning and an incomprehensible end. He is the Christ. He is the King. He is Jesus. He is the Head. He is the Lord. He is the One Who rose up from the dead. He is the One Who sits at the Right Hand of the Father. He bears the Father and is borne by the Father, to Whom be the glory and the power forever. Amen.

Lanspergius the Carthusian - Short Meditations V

2011-09-13T09:18:00.002-04:00

Be stout and circumspect, to vanquish and purge your soul of any imperfection, although it be never so little, for the least sin that offends Me ought not to seem small in your eyes, if you perfectly love Me. Call to mind the love that you carry towards Me, which made you to contemn and forsake, for the love of Me, your parents, your brethren, your sisters, your riches, your honour, and whatsoever else that seems delightful in this present world; and to conclude even yourself, that is, your flourishing youth, and most pleasant years; how does it come, then, now to pass that you are vanquished with a most light temptation, and a vile notion of concupiscence?

You know best yourself how weak and negligent you are for the most part, and how hardly you are drawn to overcome vice, to beware of those snares which may endanger your soul, to fly the occasions and provocations of sin, to renounce your own will, and to mend the imperfections of your heart. Renew, therefore, your constant determination, resolving to persecute all vice in yourself, and to have nothing remain within you that is contrary to My will, for any worldly gain whatsoever. Do not neglect to do all those things which please Me, and follow that course of life which I require at your hands, with all care and diligence.

The Glorious Day that was to Usher in the Redeemer

2011-09-08T07:54:00.002-04:00

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.

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).

Si oblitus fuero tui, Ierusalem

2011-09-07T09:04:00.005-04:00

A Commentary on the Psalms by Saint Bruno:

"How lovely is Your dwelling place. My soul longs to enter the courts of the Lord," the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of God.

The psalmist tells us why he longs to enter the courts of the Lord: "Blessed are those who dwell in Your house," the heavenly Jerusalem, O Lord, God of all heavenly powers, my King and my God. It is as if he said: "Who would not wish to enter Your courts, since You are God, the Creator, Lord of powers, King, and since all who dwell in Your house are blessed?" Court and house are the same thing to him. When he says "blessed" he means that they are possessed of as great a blessedness as it is possible to conceive. So it follows that they are blessed because "they will praise You with loving devotion, world without end," that is "for eternity." They would not praise Him for eternity, if they were not blessed for eternity.

No man can attain this blessedness of himself, even though he has hope, faith and charity. But "that man is blessed" whom You help to climb the ladder to blessedness which he has set up in his heart. That is to say: the only man that can be said to be likely to attain blessedness is he who, once he has set his heart on climbing to blessedness by the many steps of virtue and good works, receives help from Your grace. No man can, of himself, ascend to such heights; as the Lord says, "No one has ascended into heaven except the Son of man Who is in heaven."

I say that "he has set up the ladder" because he is living now in this vale of tears of tribulation, compared with that other life which may be called a mountain and full of joy in comparison with this present one.

Since the Lord said, "Blessed are they whose strength is in You," one might ask, "Will God's help be forthcoming?" To which we reply: "Help from God is there for the blessed." For the Lawgiver, Christ Himself Who gave us the law, gives and will go on giving His blessings, the innumerable gifts of grace, by which He blesses His own. This means He will raise them up to blessedness. As they make the ascent, they will, by His blessings, mount from strenght to strength. In time to come, in the heavenly Sion, Christ Himself, the God of gods, will deify those who are His own. To put it another way: the God of gods, the divine Trinity, will be seen in a spiritual way among those who dwell in Sion; or, yet again, by the light of the intellect they will see among themselves God, Whom here they cannot see; for God will be All in all.

Lanspergius the Carthusian - Short Meditations IV

2011-09-06T09:01:00.002-04:00

Think ill of no man, and although he seems to you to be wicked, yet believe that he has been suffered to fall by some secret and hidden Providence of Mine, for the attaining of greater humility in himself, and procuring of greater profit to his soul. And you ought neither to judge nor yet despise him, but lament rather your own ingratitude towards Me, because only My grace upholds you, as it were, violently against your will; and think that without it you should fall into greater and more heinous sins than any other. Therefore say to yourself: If this man had received so much grace as I have done, he would have served God a great deal more devoutly, and have been more thankful to Him, than I have been. Believe also that as soon as I look upon him with My mercy, he will presently repent and amend; or else, that he is already reformed and made more holy than those who despise him. Therefore, ascribe your ill-conceit of him to your own fault and rash judgment, and reprehend yourself sharply because you have thought amiss of your neighbour, and done him wrong.

Contemplating the Substance of Eternity

2011-09-03T11:01:00.002-04:00

On this feast of Saint Gregory the Great, at Matins the Carthusians listened to a lengthy reading from ‘Moralia in Iob’ written by this day’s honoured saint. Here is a piece of what was proclaimed in the hallowed Charterhouses.

The human soul, because of the sin of the first of mankind was banished from the joys of paradise, lost the light of the invisible, and poured itself out entirely in the love of the visible, and was darkened to interior contemplation, in proportion as it was dissipated without, to the deformity of itself. From there it comes to pass that it knows nothing, saving the things that it acquaints itself with by the palpable touch, so to say, of the bodily eyes. For man, who, had he been willing to have kept the commandments, would even in his flesh have been a spiritual being, but by sinning was rendered even in carnal soul, so as to imagine such things only as he derives to the soul through the images of bodily substances. For the body is the property of heaven, earth, water, animals, and all the visible things, which he unceasingly beholds; and while the delighted mind wholly precipitates itself into these, it loses the fineness of the inward sense; and whereas it is now no longer able to erect itself to things on High, it willingly lies prostrate in its weakness in things below.

But when with marvellous efforts it strives to rise up from material things, it is great indeed, if the soul, thrusting aside the bodily form, be brought to the knowledge of itself, so as to think of itself without a bodily figure, and by thus thinking of itself to prepare itself a pathway to contemplate the substance of Eternity. Now in this way it shows itself to its own eyes as a kind of ladder, whereby in ascending from outward things to pass into itself, it strives to penetrate God. For when the mind abandons bodily images, entering into itself, it mounts up to no mean height; for though the soul is incorporeal, yet because she is incorporated with the body, she is known by that property of hers, which is confined within the local bounds of the flesh. And whereas she forgets things known, acquaints herself with such that are unknown, remembers what has been consigned to oblivion, passes from sadness to joy, finding serenity, she herself shows by her own diversity in herself, how widely she is removed from the Substance of the eternal Essence of God. All these fluctuations indicate that the nature of the soul is very different from the substance of God, always equal to itself, present everywhere, invisible and incomprehensible, and is by the longing mind discerned without seeing, heard without uncertainty, taken in without motion, touched without bodily substance, held without locality.

And so because the mind is carried away into unaccustomed ground, when it pries into the Essence of the divine, it is rightly said: There stood one whose countenance I knew not ~ Job 4:16. And it is well said, it stood still; for every created thing, in that it is made out of nothing, and of itself tends to nothing, has not the property to stand, but to run to an end. But a creature endowed with reason, by this very circumstance, that it is created after the image of its Creator, is fixed that it should not pass into nothing. No irrational creature is ever fixed, but only, so long as, by the service of its appearing, is completing the form and fashion of the universe, it is delayed in passing away. For though heaven and earth abide now and forever, still they are at this present time of themselves hastening on to nothing, yet for the use of those, whom they serve, until they are renewed and recreated in a better state.

To ‘stand’ then is the attribute of the Creator alone, through Whom all things pass away, but Himself never passing away, and in Whom some things are held fast, that they should not pass away. Thus our Saviour, because of the fixed state of His Divine Nature could not be comprehended by the human mind, He showed this to us as it were in passing, by coming to us, by being created, born, died, buried, by rising again, and returning to the heavenly realms. This is well-expressed in the Gospel by the enlightening of the blind man. The Lord heard him screaming as He was passing, but he recovered when He stopped. Jesus passes as a man, but stops according to His Divine Nature which is everywhere. The Gospel states that Jesus, in passing, heard the cries of our blindness, because as a man He has compassion on our misery. But when He stops, He gives sight to the blind, because through His unchanging divinity, He illuminates the darkness of our infirmities. It is well then that, after it has been said: Then a spirit passed before my face but I could not discern the form thereof ~ Job 4:15-16.

If You Love Truth Be a Lover of Silence

2011-09-02T08:12:00.003-04:00

Many are avidly seeking but they alone find who remains in continual silence. Every man who delights in a multitude of words, even though he says admirable things, is empty within.

If you love truth be a lover of silence. Silence like the sunlight will illuminate you in God and deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you with God Himself. More than all things love silence, it brings you a fruit that tongue cannot describe.

In the beginning we have to force ourselves to be silent and then there is born something which draws us to silence. May God give you an experience of this something which is born of silence.

If only you will practice this, untold light will dawn upon you as a consequence. After a while a certain sweetness is born in the heart of this exercise and the body is drawn almost by force to remain in silence.

~Saint Isaac of Syria~

Lanspergius the Carthusian - Short Meditations III

2011-08-31T08:53:00.003-04:00

Solitariness, silence, purity, and simplicity of heart, do prepare a place for Me to dwell in. Keep yourself, therefore, withdrawn from all creatures, in silence and quietness of heart. Neither vouchsafing to content, nor yet to hearken to the unlawful appetites of your will, the wandering cogitations of your mind, or the vain desires of your heart. For your nature is ever inclined to delight in consolation, and is always occupied, sometimes with outward labour in your body, and sometimes with inward care in your mind, seeking consolation in My creatures, whereby you come to be many and sundry ways distracted. Remember, therefore, to strive with all your force against all your sensual and carnal inclinations, and keep yourself alone, being withdrawn from all creatures, and remaining ever, both in outward solitariness of your body and inward contemplation of your mind, as far as discretion, which must be your guide, and charity to your neighbours will permit you.

In Honour of the Baptizer

2011-08-29T09:22:00.002-04:00

O house of Zachary greeted with a voice
The barren one’s infant leaps in her womb
Reproach removed, thy child doth rejoice
‘Tis the Ark, carrying the Victor over the tomb

Elizabeth, thy husband at the altar of incense
Met with great fear the angel hailed as Gabriel
Zachary, thy prayer has been heard, hence
Your wife bears a son, thinkest thou surreal

Armed with the spirit and power of Elias
His voice in the wilderness will cry for penance
More than a prophet, your son, and pious
Thy disbelief has reduced thee to silence

O priestly voice cut off from the outside world
Hear the inner Voice of God speaking to thee
His plan of salvation is about to be unfurled
Thy son preparing the way for this mystery

At thy house is the blessed who has believed
For three months she will stay with thy wife
She too, although a Virgin, has conceived
And she shall bring forth the Bread of Life

O house of Zachary thy kindred greets thy son
Circumcised before witnesses more than a few
Isaias foretold of this child of God’s creation
The dividing line of Testaments Old and New

What shall he be called, a kinfolk’s name no less
Zachary, the name given to his father the priest
Nay, the pronouncement of angelic lips: Ioannes
His name be, on locusts and honey shall he feast

Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel, Zachary speaks
For salvation from our enemies is made present
Ninety-nine may be safe, but one lost He seeks
Whether that be man or woman, rich or peasant

You, my son, prophet of the Appeaser of wrath
Prepare ye the way for heaven to meet earth
From the desert shall you make straight His path
This Child of Spirit presented by Virgin birth

The repentant shall come to thee to be baptized
The Jordan shall hear many confessions of guilt
And now comes to thee prophecies now realized
The Cornerstone on which the house of God is built

I should be baptized by Thee, the precursor pleads
For within Thee there is found not spot or stain
Suffer it be so now, fulfilling all justice’s needs
That which I do My heavenly Father ordain

Thou brood of vipers O Pharisee and Sadducee
Think ye not Abraham an enemy of the Lamb
Faith’s Father longed to hear: “Ecce Agnus Dei”
And see Him Who’ll be sacrificed for thy scam

The Tetrarch’s fear renders the baptizer incarcerated
The femme fatale of Herodias, a promise discussed
Dance for me and I give thee till thy heart is sated
The man of God beheaded because of Herod’s lust

The netherworld where waits Patriarch and Prophet
Ye men of God, let us continue with prayer and fasting
For He Whom thou have preached of, thus have I met
He will soon join us here and take us to life everlasting

The Carthusian Order and Saint John the Baptist

2011-08-29T09:12:00.002-04:00

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!

Lanspergius the Carthusian - Short Meditations II

2011-08-26T09:41:00.004-04:00

Abstain from all words that are in any way hurtful, backbiting, grudging, unclean, or contentious, as from a mortal sin. Having a special regard to keep yourself from all jesting, lightness, immoderate laughter, and idle words, and be so careful in this behalf, as neither you use them yourself, nor yet hear them of any other, as far as it lies in your power to avoid it. And to the end you may be free from that great vice of backbiting, resolve in your own heart never to speak anything of those who are absent, but such things as you are sure do tend to the edifying of men's souls. Ever have some means at hand to break off that talk by bringing aptly in a discourse of some other matter, before there be any word uttered either in backbiting or dispraising of them.

Lanspergius the Carthusian - Short Meditations I

2011-08-25T10:08:00.004-04:00

Have as watchful a care as you can over your tongue, and restrain it from all liberty; let it utter nothing but that which is necessary and well thought of before, and in as few words as is possible for you to comprehend the shame, with all modesty and meekness, and without any great noise or loud speaking, flying and cutting off, by all the means you are able, anything that may either occasion or procure you to speak.

The Word of God is Living and Effectual

2011-08-24T09:57:00.003-04:00

For today’s feast of the Apostle Saint Bartholomew, here are 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.

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 labour 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.

Regina Mundi Dignissima

2011-08-22T07:59:00.003-04:00

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux said: “God wills that all His gifts should come to us through Mary.” What, then, should our response be to our Lady? The Carthusian, Dom Louis Rouvier, offers this answer: “Our response to the advances of our gentle Mother should be one of boundless gratitude, even though, in her humility, she seeks our thanks only that she may unite them with the ceaseless Magnificat she sings to the divine Majesty.”

And there’s that word: “Majesty!” Today the Church celebrates Mary: first, we commemorate liturgically her Queenship and on the traditional calendar her Immaculate Heart is honoured. Although not completely fallen out of use in our modern day, words like “king” or “queen” or “majesty” are not a part of the daily vocabulary for many of us.

The book of Genesis (2:18) tells us that by God’s design, “it is not good for man to be alone.” When God became Man, He desired to experience every facet of man, that is, He made Himself subject to His own laws. Thus, our Lord Jesus Christ saw to it that He would not be alone, but would associate Himself with a suitable helper, one that would be His Mother, and one that He would address in Sacred Scripture with the same title that Adam used to name his helper: “Woman.” Who else could be a “suitable” helper for the God-Man, other than she who is Immaculate?

Saint Bernardine of Siena explains: “Indeed, from the moment Mary consented to the divine maternity, she merited to receive dominion over all creatures, and the scepter of the world was placed in her hands. As many creatures as there are to obey God, so are there to obey Mary. Angels and men, all that is in heaven and on earth, being subject to God, are, by that very fact, subject to His most holy Mother.”

Saint Anselm adds: “Just as God is the Lord of the Universe, because He has by His word created every being in its own nature, so is Mary the Mistress of the world, restoring all things in their primal dignity by the graces she has merited.”

Jesus is the King of kings and His holy Mother is the Queen. But shouldn’t a queen be the wife of the king? The Old Testament symbolizes the reality or actuality of the New. In the New Testament we read: “And a great sign appeared in heaven, a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Revelation 12:1). The Scriptures continue by revealing that this Woman wearing a crown was with Child, and He was to rule all nations (cf. Revelation 12:2, 5). In the Old Testament the psalmist writes: “At Your right stands the queen, clothed with splendour in robes embroidered with pearls set in gold” (Psalm 44 [45]:10).

Most important about what the Old Testament teaches us is that it was the mother of the king, not the wife, who was the queen. In the First Book of Kings, chapter 3, Asa takes over as king of Judah when his father Abijam had died. Asa removed Abijam’s mother from her position as queen mother. In the thirteenth chapter of Jeremiah are these words: “Say to the king and to the queen mother, ‘Humble yourselves, sit down.’” Also, “We are going down to visit the princes and the family of the queen mother” (2 Kings 10:13). One more, “This was after King Jeconiah and the queen mother…” (Jeremiah 29:2). There are other examples in the Old Testament which delineate that the mother of the king was the queen.

Perhaps the most important verses in the “symbolism” of the Old Testament and the Davidic kingdom, may “actually” reveal something about the relationship between the King of kings and the Queen Mother in the heavenly Kingdom. These verses are found in the First Book of Kings (cf. 2:12-20). Solomon is the king, and Adonijah asks Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, to intercede for him. Adonijah needs a favour from the king and he asks Bathsheba to approach the king because as Adonijah explains: “he cannot deny you anything.” When Bathsheba approaches Solomon, the Scriptures tell us that “the king arose to meet her and bowed to her.” Next, the king “sat down upon his throne, and a throne was set for the king’s mother, and she sat on his right hand.” The conversation went like this as Bathsheba spoke: “I desire one small petition of you, do not refuse me.” Then the king said: “Ask it, my mother, for I will not refuse you.” God made Mary irresistible; He cannot refuse her.

In the Litany of Loreto, our Blessed Mother is invoked as “Queen” thirteen times:

Regina Angelorum – Queen of Angels
Regina Patriacharum – Queen of Patriarchs
Regina Prophetarum – Queen of Prophets
Regina Apostolorum – Queen of Apostles
Regina Martyrum – Queen of Martyrs
Regina Confessorum – Queen of Confessors
Regina Virginum – Queen of Virgins
Regina Sanctorum omnium – Queen of all Saints
Regina sine labe originali concepta – Queen conceived without original sin
Regina in cælum assumpta – Queen assumed into heaven
Regina Sanctissimi Rosarii – Queen of the Most Holy Rosary
Regina familiæ – Queen of the family
Regina Pacis – Queen of Peace

Ora pro nobis – Pray for us!

A Watchful and Vital Slumber

2011-08-20T09:15:00.002-04:00

Here’s an excerpt from a sermon by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux on the Song of Songs. He describes the snatching away of life’s snares that occurs for a soul in ecstasy. It is ‘the death that does not take away life but makes it better’.

What do you think the beloved will receive in heaven, when now she is favoured with an intimacy so great as to feel herself embraced by the Arms of God, cherished on the Breast of God, guarded by the care and zeal of God lest she be roused from her sleep by anyone till she wakes of her own accord.

Well then, let me explain if I can what this sleep is which the Bridegroom wishes His beloved to enjoy, from which He will not allow her to be awakened under any circumstances, except at her good pleasure. This sleep of the bride, however, is not the tranquil repose of the body that for a time sweetly lulls the fleshly senses, nor that dreaded sleep whose custom is to take life away completely. Farther still is it removed from that deathly sleep by which a man perseveres irrevocably in sin and so dies. It is a slumber which is vital and watchful, which enlightens the heart, drives the heart, drives away death, and communicates eternal life that does not stupefy the mind but transports it. And, I say it with out hesitation, it is a death, for the apostle Paul in praising people still living in the flesh spoke thus: ‘For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God’.

It is not absurd for me to call the bride's ecstasy a death, then, but one that snatches away not life but life's snares, so that one can say ‘We have escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowlers’. In this life we move about surrounded by traps, but these cause no fear when the soul is drawn out of itself by a thought that is both powerful and holy, provided that it so separates itself and flies away from the mind that it transcends the normal manner and habit of thinking; for a net is spread in vain before the eyes of winged creatures. Why dread wantonness where there is no awareness of life? For since the ecstatic soul is cut off from awareness of life though not from life itself, it must of necessity be cut off from the temptations of life. How good the death that does not take away life but makes it better; good in that the body does not perish but the soul is exalted.

Men alone experience this. But, if I may say so let me die the death of angels that, transcending the memory of things present, I may cast off not only the desire for what are corporeal and inferior but even their images, that I may enjoy pure conversation with those who bear the likeness of purity.

This kind of ecstasy, in my opinion, is alone or principally called contemplation. Not to be gripped during life by material desires is a mark of human virtue; but to gaze without the use of bodily likenesses is the sign of angelic purity. Each, however, is a divine gift, each is a going out of oneself, each a transcending of self, but in one, one goes much farther than in the other.

Consider therefore that the Bride has retired to this solitude, there, overcome by the loveliness of the place, she sweetly sleeps within the Arms of her Bridegroom, in ecstasy of spirit. Hence the maidens are forbidden to waken her until she herself pleases.

I am content, Lord

2011-08-18T08:15:00.003-04:00

Beatified in 1994 by Blessed John Paul II and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008, Saint Alberto Hurtado, is affectionately known in Chile as Padre Hurtado. While studying in the Jesuit College in Santiago, he joined the Sodality of Our Lady. Here he took a great interest in the poor as he would spend his Sunday afternoons with the poorest of the poor in the most impoverished neighborhoods.

The year 1917 was a busy time for Saint Alberto. He studied law at the Catholic University, financially supported his mother and younger brother by working afternoons and evenings, while continuing to care for the poor on Sundays. All this delayed his entrance into the Jesuits. He didn’t receive his degree until 1923 because his studies were put on hold due to an obligatory military service.

As a Jesuit priest and teacher he catechized the poor and gave retreats using the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. He offered spiritual direction to young men and some of them he accompanied through their formation to becoming priests. He radiated the beauty of the priestly vocation and made it very attractive.

He was an author and in 1941 published, “¿Es Chile un país católico?” (Is Chile a Catholic Country?). This book was considered a scandal among conservative Chilean Catholics. They even went so far as to accuse Padre Hurtado of being a Communist. The book revealed the truths and realities of Chile’s social movement.

He sacrificed himself continually with his involvement with a nationwide Catholic Youth Movement.

His pleas for help were well-received when he proclaimed his love for the poor, especially for the homeless children in Santiago. This led to “El Hogar de Cristo” (Christ’s Home), which provided shelter for children in need of housing and food. The housing for children next led to housing for women. Alberto Hurtado himself at the age of four lost his own father to death.

In 1945 Padre Alberto Hurtado went to the United States to take a look at “Boys Town” and learn how he could make something like this work in his own nation.

The “Asociación Sindical Chilena” (Chilean Trade Union Association) was founded in 1947 by Padre Hurtado. It was a movement which taught and supported Catholic social teachings among the labor unions of his country. To support this movement he wrote “Humanismo Social” (Social Humanism), “El Orden Social Cristiano” (The Christian Social Order), and “Sindicalismo” (Trade Unions) between the years of 1947-1950.

Next for this very busy priest was the founding of the Jesuit periodical, “Mensaje” (Message) in 1951. This periodical taught and explained the doctrine of the Church.

Padre Alberto Hurtado went home to the Lord in August of 1952. His life was cut short by cancer. During his battle with this disease, in his great physical pain he was often heard saying: “I am content, Lord.” His life was, however, very full, and stressed his concern for the poor, the hungry, the homeless and the abandoned. He also labored intensely for his social apostolate whose goal was for his government to recognize the dignity of every human person, and therefore, be treated fairly.

With such love for the poor, one can only imagine the heavenly embrace and the powerful intercession of Saint Alberto Hurtado and Blessed Teresa of Calcutta as they are perpetually before the Throne of God, pleading for those in this life who have little to nothing.

Sancte Alberte, ora pro nobis!

Alleluia, alleluia – Assumpta est Maria in cœlum

2011-08-15T07:59:00.003-04:00

First Reading, Revelation 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab
In the Old Testament the covenant that was kept in the ark was a symbol of God’s presence among His people. The Blessed Virgin Mary carried in her womb not a symbol of God’s presence, but God Himself. Because of this, Mary was the human Ark -- the reality and fulfilment of what the ark of the Old Covenant symbolized. In this, the Book of Revelation, we read about a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. There are two ways to interpret this. First, the woman is the Church which shines with the light of faith under the guidance and protection of the Sun of Justice. The moon represents the changeable things of this world of which the affections of the faithful will rise above; hence, those changeable things will be under our feet. And so, the Church is clothed with Christ, with the changeable things of this world under her feet and is governed by Christ through the twelve stars who are the Apostles. The second way to interpret this is to say that the woman is our Blessed Lady who is clothed with Christ and her crown of twelve stars signifies that she is the Queen of heaven, Queen of the Church, Queen of the Twelve Apostles and Queen of the twelve tribes of Israel. Through this interpretation the Church proclaims that our Blessed Mother was taken to heaven, body and soul to reign as our Queen and Mother. The woman is in pain as she labours to bring forth spiritual children along with Christ in the midst of persecutions and afflictions. The dragon is often identified as the devil or Satan. The seven heads and ten horns represent those who serve the dragon by persecuting the servants of Almighty God. This is alluded to in the Book of Psalms: ‘The kings of the earth rise up and the princes conspire together against the Lord and against His anointed’ (Psalm 2:2). Also, in the Book of Genesis we read as God rebukes the serpent: ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. And to the woman He said, I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing; in pain shall you bring forth children’ (Genesis 3:15-16). In the heart of Mary and the Church is produced the Word that is persecuted by the enemies and the unbelievers of this world. Saint John the Evangelist, the author of the Book of Revelation, must have reasoned that this woman was our Lady. How could he have not thought this? On the Cross, Christ gave her to him to be his Mother (cf. Saint John 19:27). Additionally, tradition teaches us that after Christ’s Ascension, Saint John and Mary were often in each other’s company. While we can say the woman can be identified as either the Church or Mary, it was Saint Ambrose who taught that Mary is a type of the Church in the order of faith, charity and perfect union with Christ. This was reiterated by the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium. The dragon’s tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. More than likely this is alluding to Lucifer being driven out of heaven bringing with him all the fallen angels who sided with him in rebellion against God. The dragon stood before the woman who was able to flee into the desert to a place prepared for her by God. In the early days of the Church many saints fled to the desert to escape persecution. Saint Jerome points out that it was these types of occurrences that gave rise to the eremitical state of life. In the final verse heaven rejoices in the Church which through her trials and persecutions remained faithful to her Lord and thus was victorious over her enemies.

Second Reading, 1 Corinthians 15:20-27
Saint Paul often makes the comparison between Adam and our Lord. Adam was created into an earthly paradise but his sin corrupted that paradise. Christ came and restored to humanity a Paradise which is not of this world. Paul refers to our Saviour as the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. If Jesus is the firstfruits, then it supposes that others will rise after Him. At the general resurrection Christ will present us to His heavenly Father as the fruits of His glorious triumph over sin and death. Since Paul makes the comparison between Adam and Christ, rightfully the comparison can be made between Eve and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Because of the sin of our first parents, Eve became the mother of the dead. Because of Christ’s victory over sin and death, Mary became the Mother of all the living. Saint Paul writes that all shall be brought to life in proper order; following Christ will be those who belong to Him. In our Blessed Mother is the proof of what Christ has promised. She has been lifted up to her Son, body and soul. Around 380 A.D. Timothy of Jerusalem wrote: ‘The Virgin is immortal because He Who dwelt in her took her to the regions of the Ascension’. Additionally, Gregory of Tours in 580 wrote: ‘Mary, the glorious Mother of Christ, who, we believe, was a Virgin before and after childbirth, was carried to Paradise preceded by the Lord amidst the singing of angelic choirs’. John Henry Cardinal Newman in his work, Meditations and Devotions wrote: ‘Was she [Mary] not nearer to Him than the greatest of the saints before her? Therefore we confidently say that our Lord, having preserved her from sin and the consequences of sin by His Passion, lost no time in pouring out the full merits of that Passion upon her body as well as her soul’. If you think about it, the Church really doesn’t teach anything all that differently about Mary than what the Church teaches about us. Mary was conceived immaculately without the stain of original sin. In Baptism, we are born to a new life in Christ; and in that new birth original sin is washed away. Mary is in heaven, body and soul. Christ promises the same for us. Mary has been granted this grace ahead of time as proof that our Saviour is faithful to what He promises.

Gospel, Luke 1:39-56
In the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, this Gospel is a reminder of one important fact when trying to grow in the spiritual life: where there is Mary, there is Jesus. Look for her and you’ll find Him. Come to her and she’ll lead you to Him. In this Gospel are the makings of the first ever Eucharistic procession. Mary, however, the human Tabernacle, does not need to be carried through the hill country leading to Judah; she is able to carry herself, bringing with her our Lord, her Lord and her Son. The house of Zechariah and Elizabeth suddenly becomes a chapel for adoration. Certainly Elizabeth recognizes Mary as the Tabernacle carrying her Lord when she says: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me that the Mother of my Lord should come to me’? John the Baptist recognizes his Lord as he leaps for joy in the womb of his mother Elizabeth. In Mary’s Magnificat are the eternal words: ‘From this day all generations will call me blessed.’ It is under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that the angel Gabriel called her blessed at the Annunciation, that Elizabeth calls her blessed at the Visitation, that Mary proclaims her own blessedness for all generations in the Magnificat. The Venerable Bede asserts that in her eternal blessed state we hold her up to the veneration of both men and angels. Saint Jerome adds that Elizabeth too is blessed, yet the excellency of the Mother of God far surpasses that of Elizabeth and every other woman, as the great luminary outshines the smaller stars. Mary brought our Lord into the world. She gave Him to us. She presented Him to Simeon at the temple; she presents Him to us as our Saviour. She was present for many of the events of His human life; and after His Ascension He called her to Himself to be with Him in heaven. He also calls us to heaven to spend eternity with Him; and if we so choose, Mary can be our tour guide in this life’s journey, to direct us along the path that leads to her Son. In the Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus, are the words: ‘She [Mary], by an entirely unique privilege, completely overcame sin by her Immaculate Conception, and as a result she was not subject to the law of remaining in the corruption of the grave, and she did not have to wait until the end of time for the redemption of her body’. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church we read: ‘The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians’ (CCC 966).

Fear not, for Our Blessed Mother is with us

2011-08-14T17:37:00.002-04:00

Sacred Scripture asks: “Who is she that comes forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array?” (Song of Songs 6:9).

Sacred Scripture answers: “I am the Mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope. In me is all grace of the way, and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue” (Sirach 24:24-25).

And this Mother’s plea: “Come over to me all you that desire me, and be filled with my fruits. For my spirit is sweet above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the honeycomb. My memory is unto everlasting generations” (Sirach 24:26-28).

Sacred Scripture also gives us this very familiar passage: “A great sign appeared in heaven – a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Revelation 12:1).

“Arise, O Lord, into Your resting place, You and the Ark, which You have sanctified” (Psalm 131:8). Understanding Mary as the Ark of the New and Everlasting Covenant, Saint Robert Bellarmine said: “And who, I ask, could believe that the Ark of holiness, the dwelling place of the Word of God, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, could be reduced to ruin? My soul is filled with horror at the thought that this virginal flesh which had begotten God, had brought Him into the world, had nourished and carried Him, could have been turned into ashes or given over to be food for worms.”

Our Blessed Mother’s Assumption into heaven, body and soul, is a longstanding belief of the Church. It was made “official” by the Church with these words: “By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory” (Munificentissimus Deus ~ Pope Pius XII).

This is the Virgin who will never listen to the serpent and turn away her hearing of the truth (cf. Genesis 3:1-6 & 2 Timothy 4:4). Instead, she clings to every word which comes forth from the Mouth of God (cf. Matthew 4:4). Because she has been reunited with her Son in eternal glory, and her “abode is in the full assembly of saints” (Sirach 24:16), our own interior life begs us to keep Mary with her Son. As the Most Holy Trinity dwells within the devout human soul, so should the Mystical Rose be permitted to take root and fully blossom in the garden of the soul, whose flowers are the fruit of honor and riches (cf. Sirach 24:23), spreading her sweet fragrance like cinnamon and aromatic balm, and the sweetness of odor like the choicest myrrh (cf. Sirach 24:20).

There’s a beautiful story in the Carthusian tradition which goes like this: The venerable Mother Antonia de Planques, Prioress of Gosnay, had the joy of seeing in her cell one day the Mother of God, carrying in her arms her Divine Son. Our Blessed Lady addressed Mother Antonia with these words from the prophet Isaiah: “Fear not, for I am with you” (Isaiah 43:5). This vision caused Mother Antonia such ecstatic joy that she was rapt above her senses for several days. The rest of her earthly existence was lived out more closely to the life of heaven than that of earth. Let those who desire to gain the graces of the Holy Spirit, seek the flower upon its stem – in other words, let them seek Jesus in Mary.

Regina in cælum assumpta, ora pro nobis!

Offering Our Lady the Homage of Our Love

2011-08-13T09:40:00.002-04:00

A Carthusian monk describes how we should be servants of our Blessed Lady, and the mistakes we make by our indifference. To make his point, the writer shares a couple of stories, first about Martin, the brother of Saint Peter Damian; and then about the Carthusian Prior, Dom Louis Rouvier.

With what docility . . . should the irrational world hasten to serve Mary, in doing the will of the Master Who created it for her, and restored it through her? The earth and the heavens, exclaims the royal Prophet, fire and snow, hail and the stormy winds, mountains and hills, the beasts of the field and the birds of the air: all hymn the glory of the Almighty God (cf. Psalm 148).

What is man’s part in this universal hymn? What note do we add to it? Surrounded by creatures that should serve as instruments for Mary’s glory, do we not frequently use them indifferently, without giving a thought to our heavenly Queen, at the risk of provoking their lamentations (cf. Romans 8:22) by turning them away from their true end, which is to give glory to the Incarnate Word and His Blessed Mother?

And this is not all. Not only do we remain deaf to the voice of creation urging us to gratitude and love, as it did to the ecstatic saint of Assisi, who unlike us heard and understood its language; but how often do we not fling insults in the face of our Queen by rebelling against her claims on us? To obey Mary is to obey God, and to offend her is to be unfaithful to her Son.

One can understand what led the brother of Saint Peter Damian to act as he did. Martin, for such was his name, had had the misfortune to commit a grave fault. Quickly entering into himself, he prostrated himself before our Lady’s altar, and there, grieving for his sin, he uttered the prayer: ‘O my Patroness, mirror of chastity, I have sinned against God and against you. Wretched sinner that I am, I have no longer any hope save by becoming your servant; receive me as such’. Then, loosening his girdle, he placed it around his neck, as the humble badge of his service. At the same time, he laid upon the altar a sum of money which he vowed to pay every year to his heavenly Mistress.

Mary, it is true, does not ask any such ransom of us, or necessarily any external marks of our love. Instead, let us offer her our self, our whole way of life, in a generous and unfailing service. This, at least, we can and should do.

It is related that when Dom Louis Rouvier was installed as Prior of the Charterhouse of Bosserville, his constant desire was to show in some way that he regarded himself in his office simply as our Lady’s vicar, and that he intended to exercise his authority solely in dependence upon her. In the church and refectory, above the prior’s seat, he placed a small statue of our Lady bearing the inscription: Reign over us, O Blessed Virgin, together with your Son. At his instance, also, a picture of our Lady Immaculate was hung on all the cell doors; and at various parts of the monastery he placed prints representing Carthusians at Mary’s feet, offering her the homage of their love.

We, too, should never forget the tremendous honour God has paid us in allowing us to have His Mother as our Queen, and to be reckoned among her servants.

Look into that Mirror Daily

2011-08-11T08:10:00.002-04:00

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!

Desiring to be a holocaust for Jesus

2011-08-10T08:02:00.005-04:00

Deacons, today we pray especially for you on this, the Feast of Saint Laurence, deacon and martyr.

The word “deacon” is derived from the Greek word, “diakonia” which means “care” or “service.”

Saint Ambrose describes a deacon as having three characteristics:

First, a deacon having been sacramentally constituted in the service of self-giving, lives his diaconal ministry giving witness to Christ in martyrdom, the service of charity by acceptance of that greater love which is martyrdom.

Second, in virtue of the link which binds him to the bishop, the deacon lives ecclesial communion by specific service to the bishop, beginning with the Eucharist and in reference to the Eucharist.

Third, in virtue of the Sacrament, the deacon devotes himself fully to the service of a constituent charity and not merely to a human or social fellowship, and thus manifests the most characteristic element of the diakonia.

In De Officiis, Saint Ambrose describes a very heartfelt but intense moment between Laurence and Sixtus II, the pope who was being led to execution. Here is the exchange according to the Ambrosian text:

Saint Laurence wept when he saw his bishop, Sixtus, led out to his martyrdom. He wept not because he was being let out to die but because he would survive Sixtus. He cried out to him in a loud voice: “Where are you going Father, without your son? Where do you hasten to, holy bishop, without your deacon? You cannot offer sacrifice without a minister. Father, are you displeased with something in me? Do you think me unworthy? Show us a sign that you have found a worthy minister. Do you not wish that he to whom you gave the Lord's Blood and with whom you have shared the sacred mysteries should spill his own blood with you? Beware that in your praise your own judgment should not falter. Despise the pupil and shame the Master. Do not forget that great and famous men are victorious more in the deeds of their disciples than in their own. Abraham made sacrifice of his own son, Peter instead sent Stephen. Father, show us your own strength in your sons; sacrifice him whom you have raised, to attain eternal reward in that glorious company, secure in your judgment.”

Sixtus replied: “I will not leave you, I will not abandon you my son. More difficult trials are kept for you. A shorter race is set for us who are older. For you who are young a more glorious triumph over tyranny is reserved. Soon, you will see, cry no more, after three days you will follow me. It is fitting that such an interval should be set between bishop and Levite. It would not have been fitting for you to die under the guidance of a martyr, as though you needed help from him. Why do you want to share in my martyrdom? I leave its entire inheritance to you. Why do you need me present? The weak pupil precedes the master, the strong, who have no further need of instruction, follow and conquer without him. Thus Elijah left Elisha. I entrust the success of my strength to you.”

Saint Ambrose continues his text by telling us that Laurence’s longing for martyrdom was due to his desire to be a holocaust for Jesus Christ.

It has been said that Lawrence was roasted to death on a grid-iron three days after the death of Sixtus.

Sancte Laurenti, ora pro nobis!

Dwelling in the Shelter of the Rays

2011-08-09T08:27:00.002-04:00

“One evening as I entered my cell, I saw the Lord Jesus exposed in the Monstrance under the open sky, as it seemed. At the Feet of Jesus I saw my Confessor, and behind him a great number of the highest ranking ecclesiastics, clothed in vestments the like of which I had never seen except in this vision; and behind them, groups of religious from various Orders; and further still I saw enormous crowds of people, which extended far beyond my vision. I saw the two rays coming out from the Host, as in the image, closely united but not intermingled; and they passed through the hands of my Confessor, and then through the hands of the clergy and from their hands to the people, and then they returned to the Host.”

These words are from the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska. It would seem to be a marvelous vision of Christ’s Church in Eucharistic Adoration.

Later she wrote: “When I was in church waiting for Confession, I saw the same rays issuing from the Monstrance and spreading throughout the church. This lasted all through the service.” This “service” which she mentions was Eucharistic Adoration followed by Benediction. Saint Faustina continued: “After the Benediction, the rays shone out to both sides and returned again to the Monstrance. Their appearance was bright and transparent like crystal.”

These “rays” were explained by our Lord to Saint Faustina: “The two rays denote Blood and Water. The pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous.” This of course is the Sacrament of Baptism. Our Lord continued: “The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls.” This is the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

Most fascinating about these rays is Saint Faustina’s description of them appearing “like crystal.” Saint John the Evangelist’s vision would seem to concur: “And he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the Throne of God, and of the Lamb” (Revelation 22:1). This would appear to be synonymous with the pale ray of Water. Saint John the Evangelist also wrote: “He showed me the holy city of Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, and the light thereof was like to a precious stone, as to the jasper stone even as crystal” (Revelation 21:10-11). The color of jasper is red, which is harmonious with the Blood of Christ or the Eucharist.

The mercy of Jesus, therefore, flows from His Eucharistic Heart, but also His mercy is to be received by means of the holy city of Jerusalem, signifying the Church, the New Jerusalem. And once again referring to our Savior’s Eucharistic Heart, Saint Faustina also saw these rays during Vespers with a Eucharistic procession for the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Jesus spoke to Saint Faustina about three o’clock being the hour of mercy. One of the options that our Lord suggests at this “hour of grace for the whole world” is to be in the chapel adoring the Blessed Sacrament.

The rays of mercy flow from the Heart of Jesus in Eucharistic Adoration. Shouldn’t we adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament as often as possible? Jesus said to Saint Faustina: “These rays shield souls from the wrath of My Father. Happy is the one who will dwell in their shelter.”

Wholly Dedicated to Contemplation

2011-08-06T10:48:00.004-04:00

Dear readers of Secret Harbour - Portus Secretioris, in remembrance of today’s Feast please offer a prayer for the monks of the Carthusian Charterhouse of the Transfiguration in Vermont. Thank you! Here’s a brief meditation on the Transfiguration provided by the Carthusians:

"Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John, and brought them up to a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His garments became radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth can whiten them" (Mark, 9:2-3).

The Transfiguration of the Lord contains all the constitutive elements of Christian contemplation.

Jesus climbs up a mountain to pray, and He takes Peter, James and John with Him.

Suddenly, as He is praying, He is transfigured. (Matthew 17:2; Luke 9:29; Mark 9:2). Before Jesus looked like a man, now He is manifested as God-Man. His Face is still human, but now it now reflects His divinity. His clothes shed intense pure light. Peter, James and John do not see this with their ordinary vision: only their illumined eyes can see the resplendent Glory of the Father (Luke 9:32).

They are awe-struck. Then a cloud comes over and a Voice declares: "This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him." With these words, the Transfiguration ends and they go down the mountain again.

The Transfiguration of the Lord allows us to contemplate, not only the Mystery of Jesus, but also our own mystery. Prayer and contemplation, lived in pure faith during this life, are the beginning of our own Transfiguration.

The Carthusian monk is wholly dedicated to contemplation: sustained by the scriptures, and by the grace of the Holy Spirit led into the depths of his heart, the monk experiences in some sort the incomparable Beauty of the Light of God radiating from Christ.

"Beloved, we now are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is" (1 John 3:2).

Purifying Our Spiritual Eyes of Worldly Thoughts

2011-08-06T10:32:00.003-04:00

God manifests Himself upon the Mount, on the one hand coming down from His heights, and on the other, raising us up from the depths of abasement, since the Transcendent One takes on mortal nature. Certainly, such a manifest appearance by far transcends the utmost limits of the mind’s grasp, as effectualized by the power of the Divine Spirit.

Thus, the Light of the Transfiguration of the Lord is not something that comes to be and then vanishes, nor is it subject to the sensory faculties, although it was contemplated by corporeal eyes for a short while upon an inconsequential mountaintop. But the initiates of the Mystery, the disciples of the Lord at this time passed beyond mere flesh into spirit through a transformation of their senses, effectualized within them by the Spirit, and in such a way that they beheld what, and to what extent, the Divine Spirit had wrought blessedness in them to behold the Ineffable Light.

Those not grasping this point have conjectured that the chosen from among the Apostles beheld the Light of the Transfiguration of the Lord by a sensual and creaturely faculty, and through this they attempt to reduce to a creaturely level not only this Light, the Kingdom and the Glory of God, but also the Power of the Divine Spirit, through Whom it is meet for Divine Mysteries to be revealed. In all likelihood, such persons have not heeded the words of the Apostle Paul: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love Him. But to us God has revealed them through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10).

So, with the onset of the eighth day, the Lord, taking Peter, James and John, went up on the Mount to pray. He always prayed alone, withdrawing from everyone, even from the Apostles themselves. In our instance right here and now, having taken only these three, the Lord led them up onto a high mountain by themselves and was transfigured before them, that is to say, before their very eyes.

“What does it mean to say: He was transfigured?” asks the Golden-Mouthed Theologian (Saint John Chrysostom). He answers this by saying: “It revealed something of His Divinity to them, as much and insofar as they were able to apprehend it, and it showed the indwelling of God within Him.” The Evangelist Luke says: “And as He prayed, His countenance was altered” (Saint Luke 9:29); and from the Evangelist Matthew we read: “And His Face shone as the sun” (Saint Matthew 17:2). But the Evangelist said this, not in the context that this Light be thought of as subsistent for the senses. Rather, it is to show that Christ-God, for those living and contemplating by the Spirit, is the same as the sun is for those living in the flesh and contemplating by the senses. Therefore, some other Light for the knowing the Divinity is not necessary for those who are enriched by Divine gifts.

That same Inscrutable Light shone and was mysteriously manifest to the Apostles and the foremost of the Prophets at that moment, when the Lord was praying. This shows that what brought forth this blessed sight was prayer, and that the radiance occured and was manifest by uniting the mind with God, and that it is granted to all who, with constant exercise in efforts of virtue and prayer, strive with their mind towards God. True beauty, essentially, can be contemplated only with a purified mind. To gaze upon its luminance assumes a sort of participation in it, as though some bright ray etches itself upon the face.

We believe that at the Transfiguration He manifested not some other sort of light, but only that which was concealed beneath His fleshly exterior. This Light was the Light of the Divine Nature, and as such, it was Uncreated and Divine. It was to show His disciples that which He already was, opening their eyes and bringing them from blindness to sight. For do you not see that eyes that can perceive natural things would be blind to this Light?

Thus, this Light is not a light of the senses, and those contemplating it do not simply see with sensual eyes, but rather they are changed by the power of the Divine Spirit. They were transformed, and only in this way did they see the transformation taking place amidst the very assumption of our perishability, with the deification through union with the Word of God in place of this.

Let us, considering the Mystery of the Transfiguration of the Lord, strive to be illumined by this Light ourselves and encourage in ourselves love and striving towards the Unfading Glory and Beauty, purifying our spiritual eyes of worldly thoughts and refraining from perishable and quickly passing delights and beauty which darken the garb of the soul.

- Saint Gregory Palamas -

Quia viderunt oculi mei salutare Tuum

2011-08-04T07:45:00.007-04:00

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 Saviour 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?

Performing on Earth the Office of the Citizens of Heaven

2011-08-01T10:05:00.004-04:00

Here is a reflection on the Divine Office by Saint Alphonsus Liguori, whose feast the Church celebrates today:

By the Divine Office God is honored, the fury of the enemy is repelled, and the divine mercies are obtained for sinners. But to attain these ends it is necessary to recite the Office in a proper manner: it is necessary to say it carefully and devoutly.

Carefully, by pronouncing the words distinctly; devoutly, that is, with attention, as Cassian teaches: “Let that be considered in the heart which is uttered by the lips.”

“How,” asks Saint Cyprian, “can you expect that God will hear you when you do not hear yourself?” Prayer made with attention is the odoriferous incense that is most agreeable to God, and obtains treasures of grace; but prayer made with voluntary distraction is a fetid smoke that provokes the divine wrath, and merits chastisement. Hence, while we recite the Office, the devil labors strenuously to make us say it with distractions and defects. We should, then, take all possible care to recite it in a proper manner.

It is necessary to enliven our faith, and to consider that in reciting the Divine Office we unite with the angels in praising God. “We begin here upon earth the Office of the inhabitants of heaven,” says Tertullian. We then perform on earth the Office of the citizens of heaven, who unceasingly praise God, and shall praise Him for an eternity. “Hence,” as Saint John Chrysostom remarks, “before we enter the church or take up the breviary we must leave at the door and dismiss all thoughts of the world.”

In reciting the Divine Office we must take care that our affections accompany the sentiments contained in what we read. It is necessary, says Saint Augustine “we must pray when the Psalmist prays, sigh when he sighs, hope when he hopes.” It is useful to renew our attention from time to time; for example, at the beginning of every psalm. We must be careful not to give occasion to mental distractions. How can he who recites the Office in a public place, or in the midst of persons who are jesting and amusing themselves, how, I ask, can he say it with piety and devotion?

Oh! what treasures do they lay up who daily recite the Divine Office with devout attention! Saint John Chrysostom says that they are filled with the Holy Spirit. But, on the other hand, they who say it negligently lose great merits, and have to render a great account to God.

The Correrie Museum

2011-07-30T08:28:00.003-04:00

A museum? The word is inappropriate. For there is no orderly display of works of art here, nor historical souvenirs regarding the Order of the Carthusians, but rather an evocation of Carthusian life. And this, on the very site on which, in 1084, André and Guérin set up their Brothers' cells, their oratory, their workshops, and their modest sheepfold. The buildings have undergone many transformations since then, but "the walls", so to speak, are authentic: tourists can walk around today in the place where Carthusian monks, especially the Brothers, lived, prayed and worked. All around stands the wonderful circle of mountains, forests and fields, the motionless and inviolable witnesses of nine long centuries of history. How vast it is, this museum!

An interesting point in the story of the Correrie is that in becoming a museum in July 1957, it was restored to its original purpose of 1084, which was to welcome tourists and pilgrims, and to protect the silence and solitude of the monks from outside noise. Today too it limits the access of coaches and cars, just as it did in times past, for the carriages of visitors and priors coming to the General Chapter.

The first thing we see if we look inside the Museum is the church: on the walls are Le Sueur's paintings of the life of Saint Bruno (1645), or, more precisely, copies of them, which the famous painter himself worked on. There are also some outstanding 15th century stalls, carved for the Charterhouse of Currière. We go from there along the cloister, still intact in its Carthusian simplicity. The other rooms present information on the history of the Order, a map of the Grande Chartreuse, and various aspects of the life of a monk. The opportunity for the visitor to go through the different rooms of a monk's cell, with the furniture and objects arranged as in any Carthusian cell, is no doubt the moment which leaves the deepest impression. In the words of the author of a brochure on the Correrie: "The Correrie has remained a monastery where the tourist, in his own way, can share in the life of the solitaries."

- Saint Bruno and the Carthusians -

The Way to Find God

2011-07-29T08:44:00.003-04:00

You should in no way be disturbed by the ups and downs in your spiritual life. We could never love seriously and solidly if our love depended on these inevitable fluctuations in our feelings. You should pay no more attention to them than our Lord does; He does not take offence, keep that firmly in mind.

Do not be afraid, believe simply and firmly that God is perfection in His handling of the souls who have put their trust in Him — that is to say, in His dealings with you. Abandon yourself in loving confidence to God Who loves you. Be brave enough to hold on firmly to the fact that God's care for you is a masterpiece of His loving choice — rest always in this unalterable conviction.

Say to yourself, God loves me beyond all I can imagine or put into words. Let this be at the heart of your being and become the whole of your devotion and never let go of it. You will soon find that this is the way to find God.

- Abbé Henri de Tourville -

A Pilgrimage to the Original Chartreuse

2011-07-28T09:52:00.004-04:00

What benefit, what divine delight, solitude and the silence of the hermitage bring to those who love them, only those who have experienced them can tell. Here is experienced that eye by whose serene gaze the Spouse is wounded with love; that eye pure and clean, by which God is seen. . (Saint Bruno, Letter to Raoul le Verd)

Anyone who wants to experience something of the Carthusian vocation in its original purity and force, must go past the actual Grande Chartreuse, a good mile further up in the valley, to the edge of the Desert: there he will have reached the place where the first hermitage stood. Let him wander around there freely, let him "sit alone and keep silence." There in the midst of these piles of fallen rock and the wild luxuriance of vegetation, he too will experience a detachment from "the fleeting shadows of this world," and a sense of "the things of eternity," flowing into his soul. All the values of his life will fall into place. His eyes and his heart will be purified, and he will be able to see God, and human beings, and objects, in the light of truth.

In this desert place, he will discover four memorials, which will help him to visualize the first Chartreuse: Saint Bruno's Chapel, the Chapel of Our Lady of Casalibus, Saint Bruno's Spring, the Cross of the first cemetery.

- Saint Bruno and the Carthusians -

Sancta Anna, ora pro nobis

2011-07-26T10:37:00.008-04:00

The figure of Saint Anne reminds us of the paternal home of Mary, the Mother of Christ. Mary was born there, bearing in her that extraordinary mystery of the Immaculate Conception. There she was surrounded by the love and solicitude of her parents: Joachim and Anne. There she learned from her mother, from Saint Anne, how to be a Mother. And although, from the human point of view, she had renounced motherhood, the Heavenly Father, accepting her total donation, gratified her with the most perfect and holy Motherhood. Christ, from the Cross, transferred in a certain sense His Mother's maternity to His favourite disciple, and likewise He extended it to the whole Church, to all men. When, therefore, as "children of (divine) promise" (cf. Gal 4:28, 31), we find ourselves in the range of this Motherhood, and when we feel its holy depth and fullness, let us think then that it was Saint Anne herself who was the first to teach Mary, her daughter, how to be a Mother.

"Anne" in Hebrew means "God has given grace". Reflecting on this meaning of Saint Anne's name, Saint John of Damascus exclaimed: "Since it was to happen that the Virgin Mother of God should be born from Anne, nature did not dare to precede the seed of grace; but it remained without its fruit in order that grace might produce its own. In fact, there was to be born that first-born who would give birth to the first-born of every creature" (Serm. VI, De nativ. B.V.M., 2; PG 96, 663).

- Blessed John Paul II -

Feast of the Apostle James the Greater

2011-07-25T10:09:00.007-04:00

Are you able to drink of the cup that I drink of? (Saint Matthew 20:22).

But let no man be troubled at the apostles being in such an imperfect state. For the Cross was not yet accomplished, nor the grace of the Spirit yet given. But if you would learn their virtue, notice them after these things, and you will see them superior to every passion. For with this object He reveals their deficiencies, that after these things you might know what manner of men they became by grace.

That then they were asking, in fact, for nothing spiritual, neither had a thought of the Kingdom above been manifested. But let us see also, how they come to Him, and what they say. We desire that whatsoever we shall desire of You, You would do it for us (Saint Mark 10:35).

And Christ says to them, What would you want Me to do for you? (Saint Mark 10:36), not being ignorant, but that He may compel them to answer, and lay open the wound, and so apply the medicine.

- Saint John Chrysostom -

Dominica Septimadecima Per Annum

2011-07-23T09:36:00.003-04:00

First Reading, 1 Kings 3:5, 7-12
Solomon’s unselfish and humble prayer is unique because it is not the norm of other ancient kings. Solomon was about twenty years of age at this time and his prayer shows a level of maturity far beyond what he calls “a mere youth”. In the Hebrew text, an “understanding heart” really means a willingness to hear God and obey God. God promises Solomon a heart that is wise and understanding; so much so, that there has never been anyone like him nor will there ever be anyone like him. Solomon’s governance indeed far excelled any of the kings of Israel. Moses and the apostles of Jesus, however, did have a more extensive understanding of the mysteries of God. As far as any future leader never being as wise as Solomon, prompts the question: What about Jesus? Certainly Christ is wiser than Solomon but we have to exclude Him because Jesus is God in Whom all the gifts of wisdom are contained and He is the Word Who made these promises to Solomon. Many of us at some point in our lives will be in positions of authority: pastor, committee chairperson, CEO, supervisor, teacher, principal, student body president, mom or dad, etc. Solomon’s prayer for an understanding heart is surely appropriate for any one serving our Lord in authoritative professions or vocations.

Second Reading, Romans 8:28-30
For all the trials that are faced in this life, how important it is to keep the opening verse of this Reading etched in our hearts. The Latin Vulgate translates a bit differently and perhaps gives a slightly better understanding of the fruits of loving God: “We know that all things work for good for those who love God,” -- “iis qui secundum propositum vocati sunt sancti -- to such as according to [His] purpose are called to be saints.” Sainthood or taking up permanent residency in heaven is our hope. We are predestined to conform to Christ by following His example, His teachings, and by our patient endurance in suffering. Saint Augustine explains God’s foreknowledge: “This foreknowledge of God is not merely a foreseeing of what men will do by the assistances and graces of God’s ordinary Providence, much less a foreseeing of what they will do by their own natural strength; but it is a foreknowledge including an act of the divine will and of His love towards His elect servants; God therefore has foreseen that these elect, by the help of His special graces and by the cooperation of their free will, should be conformable to the Image of His Son, that so His Son, even as Man, might be the first-born, the Chief, and the Head of all that shall be saved.”

Gospel, Matthew 13:44-52
Unlike the past couple of weekends, Saint Matthew, in this weekend’s Gospel, does not record the meaning of these parables. The meaning, however, is clear. They teach that the Kingdom of heaven is far more valuable than worldly possessions and is worth the sacrifice of all material riches. The morality of the characters in these parables is irrelevant to the point of these parables and thus need not be reflected upon. The teachings and example of Jesus Christ is the buried treasure. Our own free will determines exactly how valuable that treasure is to each of us. Studying the Gospels, responding to the call of evangelization, daily prayer, and regular Mass attendance speaks volumes of how important that treasure is to us. Evangelization is a hot topic in today’s Church and the reason is simple: As God’s created humanity, we have eternal value. Our souls will not perish with the gifts of this world. And if the Gospel of Christ is our hidden treasure, then that has to mean that you getting into heaven is as important as me getting into heaven. In other words, I must be as concerned for your soul as I am for my own soul. And how clearly was this truth acted out by our Lord when He became the sacrificial Lamb! To close, let us reflect on these words from Saint Teresa of Avila: “Hope, O my soul, hope. You know neither the day nor the hour. Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly, even though your impatience makes doubtful what is certain, and turns a very short time into a long one. Dream that the more you struggle, the more you prove the love that you bear your God, and the more you will rejoice one day with your Beloved, in a happiness and rapture that can never end.”

The Carthusian Mass

2011-07-21T10:11:00.003-04:00

The Chartreuse has always had its own rite, different from the Roman rite, and most of its songs have been borrowed from the 11th century Church of Grenoble. Following Vatican II, the Carthusian Order, whilst modifying some of its ceremonies in order to return to a greater simplicity, has retained some of the particularities of its ancient rite: for example, the formula and gesture of offering the bread and wine at the offertory, the celebrant extending his arms in the form of a cross during the Eucharistic prayer, and the absence of a blessing at the end of Mass.

Mass can only be concelebrated on days which are marked by a communal character: Sundays, important feasts, special events in the life of the monastery. On other days, according to ancient custom, in conformity with the eremitical life, one priest celebrates the conventual Mass in which the community participates by singing and interior prayer; the other priests celebrate the Eucharist in their solitary chapels.

-Saint Bruno and the Carthusians-

The Carthusian Liturgy

2011-07-19T09:22:00.004-04:00

The exercises of piety of the Carthusian are varied: all forms of prayer, meditation, contemplation, mental or vocal prayers, and spiritual reading are available to everyone, according to grace and temperament. But most important in his life is the singing or psalmody of the Canonical Office "which expresses the prayer of the universal Church." He accomplishes this duty either in church or in his cell. As well as the Canonical Office, the Carthusians recite the Office of Our Lady each day in their cells: they have inherited from Bruno and Guigo a great devotion to the Mother of God; each of the hours of this Office is recited in parallel with the corresponding canonical hour. Once a week they also recite the Office for the Dead.

At the Charterhouse, Matins and Lauds are always sung in full, and not just chanted. During these nocturnal vigils of prayer in the church (when at certain moments all the lights are extinguished), the contemplative soul can peacefully dwell on the riches of the liturgical text. All Carthusians have a great love for this long Office (two or three hours) in the middle of the night.

The Carthusian liturgical Offices are characterised by the simplicity of their plain-chant and the sobriety of the singing. Descant and musical arrangements have never been accepted in the Charterhouse, and the melodies of the repertoire have been preserved practically unchanged, right up to our day. All musical instruments are forbidden by the Rule.

It is certain that, in the first centuries of the Order, the musical executions were very basic. This is not surprising, considering the small number of religious, the austerity of their life, and the climatic conditions of some of the Houses. The Carthusian is more concerned with sincerity, than with the beauty of the singing: "Simplicity and measure should so regulate the chant that its hallmark will be a gravity which will encourage the spirit of devotion. For we should sing and praise the Lord with mind and voice." Far from being put off by it, people from outside have always appreciated this unadorned style of singing, which perfectly expresses contemplative prayer.

-Saint Bruno and the Carthusians-

Holy Scripture

2011-07-16T10:39:00.003-04:00

Sacred studies, and particularly reading the Bible, have always been in honour in the Carthusian Order. This ardour and attraction comes from Bruno himself who for many years had been one of the most famous Masters of scriptural interpretation. There are unending praises of him on this account in the Funeral Notices. Titles such as 'Light of clerics', 'doctor of doctors', 'remarkable commentator of the Psalter', etc. are bestowed on him by those who had heard his teaching.

The truth is that, rather than a science, the study of Scripture was for Bruno a delectable initiation into the mystery of God. In his letter to the Brothers of the Chartreuse, some of whom did not even know how to read, he writes: "We rejoice that the mighty God Himself -- since you are ignorant of letters -- is writing directly on your hearts, not only love but also knowledge of His holy law. Indeed, what you love, what you know, is shown by what you do." And in his hermitage of Calabria, Bruno had taken care to have around him "religious brothers, some of whom are full of knowledge."

The spirit that inspired Bruno is manifest. It is in order to nourish charity and contemplation, and to stimulate these, that the monk must apply himself to sacred studies. If he studies, let it not be "from an itching desire for learning, nor from a wish to publish books," but to give solid nourishment to his heart. So he is to keep to simplicity in his studies, and to thirst for limpid, living waters. Then, far from distracting the religious, his studies will immerse him in prayer, and will keep him in humility and recollection.

Denys the Carthusian, who was and remains one of the greatest Carthusian authors, wrote thus in the last years of his life: "I am not aware of having studied through vanity, on the contrary: it was so that working daily on the Holy Scriptures, I may live in accordance with their teachings."

It was all very well to want to read and study the Scriptures -- but with what books, at a time when printing did not exist and manuscripts were very costly? The Fathers worked therefore at copying sacred texts. When Guigo, in the Customs, listed the items to be contained in each cell, he wrote: "A writing-case, pens, chalk, two pumice stones, two inkpots, a pen-knife, two cutters for work on parchments, an engraving tool, an awl, a plumb-line, a ruler, a piece of wood for fixing the page, tablets and a style." Unfortunately, most of these precious manuscripts have been destroyed in successive fires and other calamities.

-Saint Bruno and the Carthusians-

The Cell

2011-07-13T10:23:00.004-04:00

Apart from unessential modifications imposed by climate, circumstances or requests made by benefactors, all the Charterhouses which were created in the course of nine centuries of history, were built according to the same fundamental principles: a group of individual cells for the Fathers, as far removed as possible from noise, and separated even from the cells of the Brothers, whose rhythm of life differs, however slightly, from that of the Fathers. The Fathers' cells open on to a cloister, which leads to the places where they meet as a community: the church, the chapter-room, the refectory. Although the Church with the Eucharistic Presence is the Holy of Holies of the monastery, and of the heart of each monk, the cell in fact is really for each of them their personal 'hermitage', where most of their life unfolds. "This is holy ground, a place where, as a man with his Friend, the Lord and His servant often speak together." In his cell, the monk prays, celebrates the hours of the Divine Office which are not celebrated in the church, and reads and meditates; there, too, he takes his meals, works, and sleeps.

We must therefore describe the Father's cell in more detail. Exteriorly, it looks like a little cottage, with a small garden adjoining. Inside, the main room is the cubiculum; this is large enough to include a place reserved for prayer and the recitation of the hours of Office, with a stall like those in the church, and a prie-dieu and Crucifix. For when the monk recites the Office in his cell, he follows the same movements as when he is in the choir stalls in the church: he begins when the bell rings, he stands, kneels, bows, and covers his head with his hood. The monastery is then transformed into a huge church, where praise and prayer rise, as it were, with one unique voice. Near the oratory is a bed in the form of a chest: a canvas covered a straw mattress, with bolster, sheets, and a woollen blanket. There is a table in the window-recess, on which the religious takes his meals, brought to him from the kitchen, and passed through a hatch beside his front door. And finally the cubiculum contains a little workspace, having for all furniture a table, a desk and a few books. A small stove provides heat in winter.

To the fore of the cubiculum is a smaller room, called the Ave Maria, because it contains a statue of Our Lady; here the monk recites an Ave Maria before entering the cubiculum. Alongside each cell is a covered walkway, and a small garden and workshop, for relaxation or manual work.

The Statutes of the Order state: "The cell is as necessary for the salvation and life of the monk as water for fish and the sheepfold for sheep." The monk only leaves it at times fixed by the Rule or with the prior's permission, or through necessity. It is in his cell again that, every year, for eight days, the monk makes a more strict retreat.

-Saint Bruno and the Carthusians-

Benedict, a man of God

2011-07-11T10:31:00.004-04:00

Today on this feast of Saint Benedict, at Matins the Carthusians reflected on the following from The Life of Saint Benedict:

Benedict, desiring rather the miseries of the world than the praises of men: rather to be wearied with labor for God's sake, than to be exalted with transitory commendation: fled privately from his family, and went into a desert place called Subiaco, distant almost forty miles from Rome: in which there was a fountain springing forth cool and clear water; the abundance whereof does first in a broad place make a lake, and afterward running forward, comes to be a river. As he was travelling to this place, a certain monk called Romanus met him, and demanded to know what he wanted, and understanding his purpose, he both kept it close, furnished him what he could, vested him with the habit of holy conversation, and as he could, ministered and served him. The man of God, Benedict, coming to this foresaid place, lived there in a narrow cave, where he continued three years unknown to all men, except to Romanus. He lived not far off, under the rule of Abbot Theodacus, and very virtuously studied certain hours, and likewise sometimes a loaf was given for his own provision, which he carried to Benedict. And because from Romanus' cell to that cave there was not any way, by reason of a high rock which hung over it, Romanus, from the top thereof, on a long rope, let down the loaf.

Not far from the place where he remained there was a monastery, the Abbot whereof was dead: whereupon the whole Convent came to the venerable man Benedict, entreating him very earnestly that he would vouchsafe to take on him the charge and government of their Abbey: a long time he denied them, saying that their manners were different from his, and therefore that they should never agree together: yet at length, overcome with their entreaty, he gave his consent. Having now taken on him the charge of the Abbey, he took order that regular life should be observed, so that none of them could, as before they used, through unlawful acts decline from the path of holy conversation, either on the one side or on the other: which the monks perceiving, they fell into a great rage, accusing themselves that ever they desired him to be their Abbot, seeing their crooked conditions could not endure his virtuous kind of government. Therefore, when they saw that under him they could not live in unlawful sort, and were loath to leave their former conversation, and found it hard to be enforced with old minds to meditate and think on new things: and because the life of virtuous men is always grievous to those that be of wicked conditions, some of them began to devise, how they might rid themselves of Benedict.

Taking counsel together, they agreed to poison his wine: which being done, and the glass wherein that wine was, according to the custom, offered to the Abbot to bless, he, putting forth his hand, made the sign of the cross, and straightway the glass, that was held far off, broke in pieces, as though the sign of the cross had been a stone thrown against it: on which accident the man of God by and by perceived that the glass had in it the drink of death, which could not endure the sign of life. Rising up, with a mild countenance and quiet mind, he called the monks together, and spoke thus to them: "Almighty God have mercy on you, and forgive you: why have you used me in this manner? Did not I tell you before hand, that our manner of living could never agree together? Go your ways, and seek out some other father suitable to your own conditions, for I intend not now to stay any longer among you." When he had thus discharged himself, he returned to the wilderness which so much he loved, and dwelt alone with himself, in the sight of his Creator, Who beholds the hearts of all men.

As God's servant daily increased in virtue and became continually more famous for miracles, many were led by him to the service of almighty God in the same place. By Christ's assistance he built there twelve Abbeys; over which he appointed governors, and in each of them placed twelve monks. A few he kept with himself; namely, those he thought would gain more profit and be better instructed by his own presence. At that time also many noble and religious men of Rome came to him, and committed their children to be brought up under him for the service of God. Evitius delivered Maurus to him, and Tertullius, the Senator, brought Placidus. These were their sons of great hope and promise: of the two, Maurus, growing to great virtue, began to be his master's helper; but Placidus, as yet, was but a boy of tender years.

In one of the monasteries which he had built in those parts, there was a monk who could not continue at prayers; for when the other monks knelt down to serve God, his manner was to go forth, and there with wandering mind to busy himself about some earthly and transitory things. One day, Benedict came to the monastery, and when the singing of psalms was ended, and the hour come in which the monks took themselves to prayer, the holy man perceived that the monk, who used at that time to go forth, was drawn out by the skirt of his garment by a little boy. On seeing this, he spoke secretly to Pompeianus, father of the Abbey, and also to Maurus saying, "Do you not see who it is, that draws this monk from his prayers?" and they answered him, that they did not. "Then let us pray to God," he said, "that you also may behold whom this monk follows." After two days Maurus saw him, but Pompeianus could not. On another day, when the man of God had ended his devotions, he went out of the oratory, where he found the foresaid monk standing idle. For the blindness of his heart he struck with a little rod, and from that day forward he was so freed from all allurement of the little boy, that he remained quietly at his prayers, as the other monks did.

The town, which is called Cassino, stands on the side of a high mountain, which contains, as it were in the lap thereof, the foresaid town, and afterward so rises in height the space of three miles, that the top thereof seems to touch the very heavens. In this place there was an ancient chapel in which the foolish and simple country people, according to the custom of the old gentiles, worshipped the god Apollo. Round about it likewise on all sides, there were woods for the service of the devils, in which even to that very time, the mad multitude of infidels offered most wicked sacrifice. The man of God coming there, beat the idol into pieces, overthrew the altar, set fire to the woods, and in the temple of Apollo, he built the oratory of Saint Martin, and where the altar of the same Apollo was, he made an oratory of Saint John. By his continual preaching, he brought the people dwelling in those parts to embrace the faith of Christ.

Once upon a time, while the venerable Father was at supper, one of his monks, who was the son of a great man, held the candle. As he was standing there, and the other ate his meal, he began to entertain a proud thought in his mind. He spoke to himself: "Who is he, that I wait on him at supper and hold him the candle? And who am I, that I should do him any such service?" Immediately the holy man turned and with severe rebuke spoke to him: "Sign your heart, brother, for what is it that you say? Sign your heart." Forthwith he called another of the monks, and bid him to take the candle out of his hands. He commanded him to cease his waiting, and to retire. Benedict, being demanded of the monks what it was that he had thought, told them, how inwardly that monk had swelled with pride, and what he spoke against the man of God, secretly in his heart. Then they all realized very well that nothing could be hidden from venerable Benedict, seeing that the very sound of men's inward thoughts came to his ears.

The man of God, Benedict, being diligent in watching, rose early before the time of Matins, his monks being yet at rest, and came to the window of his chamber where he offered up his prayers to almighty God. Standing there, all of a sudden in the dead of the night, as he looked forth, he saw a light that banished away the darkness of the night and glittered with such brightness that the light which shone in the midst of darkness was far more clear than the light of the day. During this vision a marvelously strange thing followed, for, as he himself afterward reported, the whole world, gathered together, as it were, under one beam of the sun, was presented before his eyes. While the venerable father stood attentively beholding the brightness of that glittering light, he saw the soul of Germanus, Bishop of Capua, in a fiery globe, carried up by Angels into heaven. All creatures are, as it were, nothing to that soul that beholds the Creator. For though it sees but a glimpse of that light which is in the Creator, yet all things that are created seem very small. By means of that supernatural light, the capacity of the inward soul is enlarged, and is so extended in God, that it is far above the world. The soul of one who sees in this manner, is also above itself; for being rapt up in the light of God, it is inwardly in itself enlarged above itself. When it is so exalted and looks downward, it comprehends how little all creation is. The soul, in its former baseness, could not so comprehend. The man of God, therefore, who saw the fiery globe, and the Angels returning to heaven, could, no doubt, not see those things but in the light of God.

A Russian Carthusian goes home to God at the hands of Our Lady

2011-07-09T09:45:00.003-04:00

Towards the end of the last [nineteenth] century, there lived at La Grande Chartreuse a former general of the Russian army, Dom Jean-Louis de Nicolai, who as a Carthusian had a notable escape from death through the protection of the Immaculate Mother of God. One day early in December of the year 1880 – it was the evening of the 6th – he was returning to La Grande Chartreuse when he fell into the ravine which descends precipitously from the banks of the road leading to the monastery. Unable to move, and utterly helpless, he recommended himself with especial fervour to the Immaculate Virgin, whose feast it was on the 8th. The following morning, having passed two days in the snow, the looked-for help arrived, under the Providence of God, through the instrumentality of a shepherd boy, whom the poor sufferer regarded as an angel sent by God to save his life, which was, indeed, the case. By practising the virtue of obedience throughout the whole of religious life, this faithful servant of Mary proved worthy of the great grace that even his death should be an act of obedience also.

It was the feast of Our Lady’s Purification. Seeing that his agony was being prolonged indefinitely – it had lasted eight days already – his confessor, Dom Vincent, the vicar of the House, said to him: ‘This is a beautiful day on which to die, dear Father. They will be ringing for Compline shortly; go to wish your Mother a happy feast in a better world’. Immediately, a perceptible change came over the features of the dying monk, and a few moments later he died. Thus did God receive his soul at the hands of Mary, on the very day when He had received Jesus from her in the Temple at Jerusalem.Our death is but the echo of our life. If our whole life is passed in absolute submission to the good pleasure of God, and under the direction of our superiors, we shall die in the fullness of this act of abandonment to our heavenly Father – an act which has all the merit of martyrdom.

Dominica Quartadecima Per Annum

2011-07-02T17:23:00.003-04:00

First Reading, Zechariah 9:9-10
A sign of contradiction is prophesied here since the prophet Zechariah speaks of a king who “shall proclaim peace to the nations”. No longer are prophecies coming forth which deal specifically with the nation of Israel. It was thought that the Messiah would be a mighty warrior and is now prophesied here as “meek”. Riding on a donkey is a reminder of Palm Sunday when Jesus rode into Jerusalem (cf. Matthew 21:2-9). Indeed there are prophetic verses in Scripture which describe the Saviour as mighty and powerful but no one other than Jesus has fulfilled the prophecy of a Messiah with the combination of mightiness and lowliness. Matthew 21:2 mentions two animals, an ass and a colt as does this Reading. The Septuagint defines the two as a yoked animal and a young foal. The king’s dominion will be “to the ends of the earth”. This alludes to the extensive limits of the Promised Land but is really understood to mean Christ’s Kingdom.

Second Reading, Romans 8:9, 11-13
It helps to clear up any misconceptions about what Saint Paul means by “flesh”. He is not referring to the natural needs of the human body. Our bodies have needs which cannot be ignored. Our bodies thirst and hunger and thus are in need of food, drink, and sometimes medical attention. Our bodies, like our souls are a creation of the all-good God. So what is flesh? Basically it is an abuse of God’s gifts and a perversion of the natural law. Sexual intimacy between a husband and wife is a gift from God; but when that intimacy ventures off into areas such as lustful thoughts, adultery, pre-marital sex, reading pornographic material or watching explicit movies, then these would be considered desires of the flesh. Work is a gift from God. Earning a living and climbing the corporate ladder falls well within the parameters of God’s holy plan; but if that climb should turn into a lust for power and material wealth, then that is a desire of the flesh. These are only some examples. Some thoughts or desires of the flesh may very well be unavoidable because they are the result of our own concupiscence. But stopping those thoughts from ever entering our minds is not what’s important since that is nearly impossible; but what’s important is a quick remedy. Today, some of these excesses described here are so commonplace in our culture that much of the population has almost become desensitized. The remedy is the Spirit of Christ dwelling within us. He is our Source for living in the spirit and being all that God made us to be. The Eucharist, a daily prayer life and spiritual reading are all great weapons for thwarting off any unhealthy passions. Recall the words of Jesus: “Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. The spirit is indeed willing but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41).

Gospel, Matthew 11:25-30
The “wise and the learned” as mentioned here are likely those who set their hearts on the rewards of this life. It has nothing to do with anyone’s level of intelligence or education. The “little ones” are those who cultivate a humble heart, understanding the need for dependence on the Lord. Jesus defines His yoke as easy and His burden light. Actually for us, because of our weak nature, the yoke is quite heavy and burdensome; but our Lord makes it easy and less burdensome because He helps us to bear it as described by the prophet Hosea: “I will draw them with the cords of Adam, with the bands of love; and I will be to them as one that takes off the yoke on their jaws” (Hosea 11:4). Saint Bernard of Clairvaux explains it this way: “Our Saviour sweetens by the spiritual unction of His grace, all the crosses, penances, and mortifications of religious souls.” Saint Augustine of Canterbury testifies that before he knew the power of grace, he could never comprehend what chastity was, nor believe that anyone was capable of practicing it; but the grace of God renders all things easy. In addition to these thoughts from these great saints, it can certainly be said that trust in God which is nurtured through prayer leads to inner peace and makes all burdens, crosses and inconveniences light.

The Heart Molded by God

2011-07-02T10:06:00.004-04:00

Mary is the great mold of God. Through her God fashioned by the Holy Spirit the human nature of Jesus Christ, Who is true God by the hypostatic union. Now, through her He also fashions through grace, men who are images of His Son. No godly feature is missing from this mystical mold. Everyone who casts himself into it and allows himself to be molded will acquire every feature of Jesus Christ with little pain or effort: as befits his weak human condition. He will take on a faithful likeness to Jesus with no possibility of distortion, for the devil has never had, and never will have, any access to Mary, in whom there is not the least stain of sin.

Dear friend, what a difference there is between a soul brought up in the ordinary way to resemble Jesus Christ by people who, like sculptors, rely on their own skill and industry, and a soul thoroughly tractable, entirely detached, most ready to be molded in her by the working of the Holy Spirit. What blemishes and defects, what shadows and distortions, what natural and human imperfections are found in the first soul, and what a faithful and divine likeness to Jesus is found in the second!

Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort

De Fontibus Salvatoris

2011-07-01T13:18:00.003-04:00

Two Carthusians are featured on today's post for the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: first, Dom Antonio de Molina, a Spaniard who was Prior at Miraflores; and Dom Heinrich Eger von Kalkar, Prior at both Cologne and Strasburg.

He loved them unto the end. ~ Saint John 13:1

It should be noticed that the Evangelist does not say that the soldier struck, tore or wounded the Side of Jesus, but that he opened it. He uses this expression to make us understand why Our Lord chose to receive this thrust. By opening to us His Breast, Jesus wished to reveal to us the very great love with which He burns for us, and to show us all that He has suffered, He has suffered because His Heart was wounded with love of souls; and to prove this, He has had His Heart opened and left always open, so that, through this wide door, we may reach the centre of His Heart, and find a place of refuge in temptations and dangers. It was thus that all those who escaped the deluge found safety by entering through the opening Noah had made in one of the sides of the ark.

The rock in the desert, wounded, so to speak, by the rod of Moses, poured out such a copious stream of water that it was sufficient to quench the thirst and supply all the needs of the Hebrew people. In like manner, the true Rock, which is Christ, was struck and wounded by the soldier's lance; and from the Side, and from the open Heart, sprang a divine stream, whence flow the Sacraments, like seven fountains always full of graces and salvation for souls.

Consider also that the Blood and Water which flowed from the Side of Jesus, could come out only by a miracle. The blood stops and congeals immediately after death, and a corpse bleeds no more, whatever wound is made in it; much less does there come out real and natural water like that which fell from the Side of Jesus Christ. This is then a great mystery, and here is the interpretation of it. The Divinity nevertheless remained united to it and imparted to it another life, a divine existence of which it made use to shed the little Blood which remained within it, in order to show us that His love made Him give even this last drop, hidden at the bottom of His Heart, where neither scourges, nor thorns, nor nails, had been able to penetrate.

When a man empties his purse, he shakes the bottom of it to be sure that nothing remains there. Jesus has done this with His Heart.

Dom Antonio de Molina

O most merciful Jesus, I offer myself to Your Majesty and Your Goodness, and humbly commend myself to You. By all the Wounds of Your Body, by each drop of Your Precious Blood, by the infinite tenderness of Your Heart, I beseech You to receive me into Your favour and to deliver and preserve me from all sin. May my soul be united to You, O my God, by the most perfect, most fervent, most faithful and unceasing love, so that, with all my heart and from the depth of my soul, I may love You, seek You, desire You, praise and bless You, in all things and above all things. O sweet Jesus, my God, may I think but of You, desire but You, know and enjoy but You; may I be attached inseparably to You only; may I spend my whole life and all the powers of my body and soul in praising, honouring and serving You!

Dom Heinrich Eger von Kalkar

Congratulations Holy Father!

2011-06-29T10:57:00.003-04:00

60 Years of Priesthood!

Ad Multos Annos!

The Twin Light of the Eyes of the Body

2011-06-29T09:03:00.003-04:00

On this Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, here is an appropriate homily by Saint Leo the Great.

When the twelve Apostles, after receiving through the Holy Spirit the power of speaking with all tongues, had distributed the world into parts among themselves, and undertaken to instruct it in the Gospel, the most blessed Peter, chief of the Apostolic band, was appointed to the citadel of the Roman empire, that the light of Truth which was being displayed for the salvation of all the nations, might spread itself more effectively throughout the body of the world from the head itself. What nation had not representatives then living in this city; or what peoples did not know what Rome had learned? Here it was that the tenets of philosophy must be crushed, here that the follies of earthly wisdom must be dispelled, here that the cult of demons must be refuted, here that the blasphemy of all idolatries must be rooted out, here where the most persistent superstition had gathered together all the various errors which had anywhere been devised.

To this city then, most blessed Apostle Peter, you do not fear to come, and when the Apostle Paul, the partner of your glory, was still busied with regulating other churches, entered this forest of roaring beasts, this deep, stormy ocean with greater boldness than when you walked upon the sea. And you who had been frightened by the high priest's maid in the house of Caiaphas, had no fear of Rome the mistress of the world. It was the force of love that conquered the reasons for fear: and you did not think those to be feared whom you had undertaken to love. But this feeling of fearless affection you had even then surely conceived when the profession of your love for the Lord was confirmed by the mystery of the thrice-repeated question. And nothing else was demanded of this your earnest purpose than that you should bestow the food wherewith you had yourself been enriched, on feeding His sheep whom you loved.

Your confidence also was increased by many miraculous signs, by many gifts of grace, by many proofs of power. You had already taught the people, who from the number of the circumcised had believed: you had already founded the Church at Antioch, where first the dignity of the Christian name arose: you had already instructed Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, in the laws of the Gospel message: and, without doubt as to the success of the work, with full knowledge of the short span of your life carried the trophy of Christ's cross into the citadel of Rome.

Then came also your blessed brother-Apostle Paul, the vessel of election, and the special teacher of the Gentiles, and was associated with you at a time when all innocence, all modesty, all freedom was in jeopardy under Nero's rule. Whose fury, inflamed by excess of all vices, hurled him headlong into such a fiery furnace of madness that he was the first to assail the Christian name with a general persecution, as if God's Grace could be quenched by the death of saints, whose greatest gain it was to win eternal happiness by contempt of this fleeting life. Precious, therefore, in the eyes of the Lord is the death of His saints: nor can any degree of cruelty destroy the religion which is founded on the mystery of Christ's Cross. Persecution does not diminish but increase the Church, and the Lord's field is clothed with an ever richer crop.

And over this band, dearly-beloved, whom God has set forth for our example in patience and for our confirmation in the faith, there must be rejoicing everywhere in the commemoration of all the saints, but of these two Fathers of excellence we must rightly make our boast in louder joy, for God's grace has raised them to so high a place among the members of the Church, that He has set them like the twin light of the eyes in the body, whose Head is Christ. About their merits and virtues, which pass all power of speech, we must not make distinctions, because they were equal in their election , alike in their toils, undivided in their death. But as we have proved for ourselves, and our forefathers maintained, we believe, and are sure that, amid all the toils of this life, we must always be assisted in obtaining God's mercy by the prayers of special interceders, that we may be raised by the Apostles' merits in proportion as we are weighed down by our own sins.

Blessed John of Spain

2011-06-25T09:59:00.002-04:00

Today on the Carthusian calendar is the feast of Blessed John of Spain. Here’s what a Carthusian monk tells us about Blessed John:

Blessed John was born in 1123 in the kingdom of Leon in Spain. At the age of thirteen he left his country for France, both to escape the Moslems and for the purpose of studies. He settled in the town of Arles, in Southern France. At sixteen he felt drawn to the monastic life and entered a monastery in the vicinity. After some years, he heard about the recently founded Order of the Carthusians and their monastery of Montrieux not far away, founded in 1118, five years before he himself was born. Drawn to their austere and entirely contemplative life, he joined the Carthusians there. Once a Carthusian, he was ordained a priest, was named sacristan and eventually — still a man in his twenties — elected Prior. We may assume he was precocious on the natural level, but even more so by the early maturity of his virtues.

The nuns of the monastery of Prébayon in the vicinity, following the Rules of Saint Caesarius of Arles and of Saint Benedict, were so impressed with the fervor of Montrieux under John’s leadership that they asked to be admitted to our Order, which till then had consisted only of monks. The Prior of our Mother house, la Grande Chartreuse, and Superior General of the Order, Saint Anthelm, authorized this. He asked John to adapt the Customs of Guigo, which were our Rule at that time, to the nuns. He did so and this was the beginning of the female branch of our Order.

Various difficulties at Montrieux lead to his retirement from the priorship and he moved to la Grande Chartreuse in 1150. Just then, a noble lord in neighbouring Savoy asked for a monastery of Carthusians on his lands. Saint Anthelm saw in Blessed John the man of Providence. He sent him to make the foundation in Savoy, which was eventually given the name of le Reposoir. There he governed wisely as Prior for some years.

On June 25, 1160 John died, not yet forty years old. Through unusual circumstances he was interred not inside the enclosure, as the custom is, but outside. In fact, during his priorate, two servants of the monastery, having died in the mountains, under an avalanche of snow, had been interred in an inappropriate place, outside the enclosure, for which John had been reproved. To make amends he had made his monks swear that after his death, they would bury him at the same place as the two servants. This, however, permitted John’s tomb — with his renown for sanctity — to become the object of popular pilgrimages. The faithful prayed at his tomb and many miracles occurred in the course of the centuries, particularly cures of malignant fever. In 1864 Blessed Pius IX approved the cult of Blessed John of Spain, venerated since time immemorial.

O Pretiosum et Admirandum Convivium

2011-06-23T09:43:00.003-04:00

Today’s reflection comes from Saint Thomas Aquinas. It is taken from the Second Nocturn at the hour of Matins in the 1961 Roman Breviary for today’s feast of Corpus Christi.

The immense blessings of divine favour, which have been showered upon the people of God, confer on them an inestimable dignity. What great nation is there, or ever was, that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us! For the only-begotten Son of God, willing that we should share in His Divinity, assumed our nature. He was made man that He might make man divine. And what is more, He gave back to us for our salvation, all that He had assumed belonging to us. For He offered to God the Father, for our reconciliation, His own Body as a Victim on the altar of the Cross. He shed His Blood, at one and the same time, a ransom and a purification, that being redeemed from wretched slavery we might be washed clean of all sins. But that the remembrance of so great a favour might remain with us, He left to be taken by the faithful, under the appearance of bread and wine, His Body for Food and His Blood for Drink.

O precious and wonderful banquet, health-giving and full of all delight! For what can be more precious than this banquet, in which not the flesh of calves and goats, as in the Old Law, but Christ, true God, is set before us to eat? What is more wonderful than this sacrament? For in it the substance of the bread and wine is changed into the Body and Blood of Christ, and therefore Christ, perfect God and Man, is contained under the appearance of a small amount of bread and wine. He is therefore eaten by the faithful, but in no way is He mangled. Indeed when the Sacrament is divided, He remains whole under each particle. The accidents, however, remain here without any subject. And this, that faith may be exercised when what is visible is invisibly received, hidden under another appearance; furthermore, that the senses, which judge of the accidents according to appearances, may be preserved from error.

No sacrament is more health-giving than this one, in which sins are cleansed, virtues increased, and the mind enriched with abundance of all spiritual gifts. It is offered in the Church for the living and the dead, so that what was instituted for the salvation of all, may profit all. Finally, no one can adequately express the sweetness of this sacrament, in which spiritual sweetness is tasted in its source, and the memory is recalled of that most excellent love that Christ showed in His Passion. Therefore, to impress the immensity of this love more deeply on the hearts of the faithful, at the Last Supper, after celebrating the Passover with His disciples, and about to leave this world and go to the Father, He instituted this sacrament as a lasting memorial of His Passion. It fulfilled the foreshadowing of ancient rites, and was the greatest of the miracles He worked, which He left as a unique comfort to His disciples saddened by His absence.

An Obligation to Honour the Heart of Jesus

2011-06-21T08:47:00.006-04:00

Pope Saint Pius X referred to him as the ‘father, doctor, and apostle of the liturgical cult of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary’. He is Saint John Eudes. Here are some of his thoughts on the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus:

The first cause of those most painful Wounds in the Sacred Heart of Our Redeemer is our sins. We read in the life of Saint Catherine of Genoa that one day God let her see the horror of one tiny venial sin. She assures us that, although this vision lasted but a moment, she saw nevertheless an object so frightening that the blood froze in her veins and she swooned away in an agony that would have killed her if God had not preserved her to relate to others what she had seen. Wherefore she declared that if she were in the very depths of a sea of flaming fire and it were in her power to be set free, on condition that she should once more behold such a spectacle, she would choose to remain rather than to escape. If the sight of the smallest venial sin brought this saint to such a pass, what must we think of the state to which Our Saviour was reduced by seeing all the sins of the universe? He had them continually before His Eyes, and His vision being infinitely more powerful than that of Saint Catherine, He could behold infinitely more horror.

He saw the immeasurable insult and dishonour it caused His Father; He saw the damnation of a countless number of souls resulting from those sins. As He had infinite love for His Father and His creatures, the sight of all those sins rent His Heart with countless Wounds, such that if we were able to count all the sins of men, which are more numerous than the drops of water in the sea, we would then be able to count the Wounds of the loving Heart of Jesus.

The second cause of His Wounds is the infinite love of His Sacred Heart for all of His children, and His constant vision of all the afflictions and sufferings that are to happen to them, especially all the torments that His holy martyrs are to suffer. When a mother watches her beloved child suffering, she feels the pain more keenly than the child. Our Saviour’s love for us is so tremendous that if the love of all parents were centred in a single heart, it would not represent even a spark of the love for us that burns in His Heart. Our pains and sorrows, ever present to His vision and seen most clearly and distinctly, were so many Wounds bleeding in His paternal Heart. These Wounds were so painful and deep that they would have caused His death a thousand times over, even immediately after His birth, if He had not miraculously preserved Himself, because during His whole earthly life His Sacred Heart was continually pierced by many mortal Wounds of love.

Therefore we have the greatest obligation to honour the gracious Heart that sustained so many Wounds of love for us. With what affection should we embrace, and endure all our afflictions, out of love for Jesus, our Saviour, since He first bore them for love of us! Should they not be most sweet to us, since they have already passed through His most gentle and loving Heart? What a horror we should have of our sins that have caused so many Wounds and such intense grief to the divine Heart of our Redeemer!

Let us learn from the foregoing example that it is not our Redeemer's fault if we are lost. There are hearts so hard that, even if Jesus Himself were to come down from heaven to preach to them and they were to see Him covered with Wounds and bathed in His Blood, they would still not be converted. O my God, let us not be one of them, but give us the grace to open our ears to the voice of all the sacred Wounds of Your Body and Your Heart, which are so many mouths through which You call us unceasingly: ‘Redite, prævaricatores, ad cor -- Return, transgressors, to the heart’, which means to My Heart that is all yours, since I have given it entirely to you. Return to that most loving Heart of your Father, which is full of love and mercy for you, which will receive you home, heaping upon you blessings.

Of all the divine perfections mirrored in the Sacred Heart of our Saviour, we should have a very special devotion to divine mercy and we should endeavour to engrave its image on our heart. To this end three things must be done. The first is to pardon with all our heart and promptly forget the offenses done to us by our neighbour. The second is to have compassion on his bodily sufferings, and to relieve and help him. The third is to be compassionate toward the spiritual misfortunes of our brethren, which are much more deserving of our commiseration than corporal ills. For this reason we ought to have great pity on the numbers of wretched souls who have no pity on themselves, using our prayers, our example, and our teaching to safeguard them from the eternal torments of hell.

Sanctissimæ Trinitatis

2011-06-18T11:04:00.002-04:00

First Reading, Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9
Saint Thomas Aquinas concluded [from the original Latin]: “Quod impossibile est per rationem naturalem ad cognitionem Trinitatis divinarum Personarum pervenire” -- “It is impossible by natural reason to attain to the knowledge of the divine Persons of the Trinity” (Summa Theologicæ). Interesting, though, is that Saint Thomas believed that the existence of God can be reasoned. Arguably the greatest theologian the Church has ever had, Saint Thomas had a most peculiar but incredibly fair way of presenting his arguments: He would state his case, answer all oppositional objections and even produce objections no one ever thought of and answer those too. As far as the Trinity being “three Persons” Saint Thomas said that this doesn’t mean three separate individuals in the subject of God. In other words, the Trinity is not as sometimes portrayed in artwork with the Father as the older, white-haired Man with the patriarchal beard, while the Son is the younger, brown-haired Man, and the Holy Spirit is the Dove. Saint Thomas thinks of the Trinity as relationships within one God. These relationships within God depict His knowledge of Himself and His Love. This means that the Paternity of God is God. God’s superior knowledge of Himself is the Filialness or Son of God and the relationship of Love between God and His Self-knowledge is the Holy Spirit. The Angelic Doctor explains it this way: “Quicumque enim intelligit, ex hoc ipso quod intelligit, procedit aliquid intra ipsum, quod est conceptio rei intellectæ, ex vi intellectiva proveniens, et ex eius notitia procedens. Quam quidem conceptionem vox significat; et dicitur verbum cordis significatum verbo vocis” – “Whenever we understand, by the very fact of understanding, there proceeds something within us, which is a conception of the object understood, issuing from our intellectual power, and proceeding from our knowledge. This conception is signified by the spoken word; and it is called the word of the heart signified by the word of the voice” (ibid.). Granted, that explanation from the gifted mind of Saint Thomas Aquinas is not an easy read but the truth is that no one possesses the intellectual capacity to fully comprehend and hence define the Trinity. The Most Holy Trinity is a great, sacred mystery. There are some interesting comparisons in this First Reading with events in the New Testament. Moses, early in the morning, ventures off to meet his Lord and receive His commands which were to be engraved on stone tablets. In Saint Mark’s Gospel, Jesus, early in the morning, went off to a lonely place to pray (cf. Mark 1:35) just before He was to preach God’s commands which were to be engraved on the tablets of the human heart. As Moses is confronted with the Presence of His Lord he bows down to the ground in worship. Likewise, on a mountain, Jesus is Transfigured and the disciples fall on their faces (cf. Matthew 17:1-7). Moses begs for God’s pardon and asks Him to receive His people as His own. Jesus Christ makes the ultimate Sacrifice, securing our pardon and conferring upon us the joy of being received as God’s own sons and daughters. No longer will we find scrolls and tablets in our Tabernacle. Our Tabernacle now contains not only the New and Everlasting Covenant but the Covenant Maker Himself. John the Baptist proclaimed that God could raise children of Abraham from the stones (cf. Matthew 3:9). And from the stone tablets of the covenant is raised a Child of Abraham and a fulfillment of the covenant Who is the Son of God. In the desert the devil tempts Jesus and tells Him to turn the stones into loaves (cf. Matthew 4:3). Not even Satan could have foreseen that the Almighty’s Law and Identity written on stone tablets would eventually stay with God’s people in a more intimate way as the Bread of Life.

Second Reading, 2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Saint Paul writes, “Rejoice.” In the ancient style of writing, the Greeks customarily ended their writings this way. Paul, a Jew, apparently understood this when writing this letter to Corinth, a Greek city-state; and this is the end of his second letter to the Corinthians. Greeting “one another with a holy kiss” was customary for Jews and soon spread into Gentile Christian communities; and since it was a part of their ordinary living, the custom soon made its way into ecclesiastical assemblies. Interestingly, in the ancient world it was quite common for people to embrace each other before they shared a meal. And that custom moved into the sharing of a much greater Meal -- the Eucharist. In the Latin Vulgate this letter closes with the word, “Amen.” This is not found in the original Greek and actually was added by the Church of Corinth. The Holy Spirit did remarkable things at Corinth. This was a city that lived under the ideals of paganism and vulgar excesses. It took only four short years for the Gospel to make a life altering change in this community. With Saint Paul as the Paraclete’s instrument, the Corinthians began to receive lessons on morality which converted their hearts.

Gospel, John 3:16-18
You’re familiar with the old adage, “It is better to give than to receive.” True, but who could argue about the beauty of receiving when considering the riches we have received because God “gave His only Son”? The teaching of the Fathers of the Church is that Christ was not God’s Son only by reason of the Incarnation. He was the only begotten Son before God sent Him into the world as He is the Word from all eternity. Christ is and always has been True God and by the Incarnation also is True Man. Condemnation is not a popular subject but it cannot be completely ignored. Saint Augustine of Canterbury teaches: “Why is Christ called the Savior of the world, unless from the obligation He took upon Himself at His birth? He has come like a good physician, effectually to save mankind. The man, therefore, destroys himself who refuses to follow the prescriptions of the Physician.” As sinners, we all occasionally step off the path that Christ has put us on but our Lord remedies that through the sacraments. Condemnation is inflicted upon oneself and not brought upon by God. It is an obstinate refusal of God’s love, grace and mercy. And even if one chooses such obstinacy as their life’s path, who would dare underestimate or even attempt to comprehend the superabundance of love, grace and mercy that may arrive at the hour of death?

The Heart of Jesus Performs All Things with Harmony

2011-06-17T12:20:00.003-04:00

This reflection on the Sacred Heart is passed on to us from a seventeenth-century Carthusian monk named Dom Polycarpe de la Rivière. His religious life began as a novitiate with the Jesuits at Lyons, when not long after he asked to be admitted into the Carthusian Order. He made his profession on 1 May 1609. He was the author of many works. His writing career as a religious was more unusual than most. He wrote everything in French much to the dislike of his superiors who wanted him to write in Latin because he would then remain more faithful to the Carthusian ‘hidden life’, since Latin works at that time were inaccessible to the general public. He was Prior of the Charterhouse at Bordeaux and then later at Bonpas near Avignon.

‘Now then I will run him [King Saul] through with my spear . . .’ ~ 1 Samuel 26:8

A soldier pierced the Side of Jesus with his spear. Ah! Now can you clearly behold the divinity of Jesus through the torn veil of His humanity! Now that the beautiful Face of my Jesus is bent towards you in token of mercy, know that by the death you have given to His life, He will give life to your death. As for me, I can live no longer since my life is dead, and I can see no more my living Jesus, Who was the light of my eyes and the life of my heart.

It is not, however, enough for your cruelty to see Him in this sad condition. What! Fierce madman, will you also rob Him of His Heart, the centre of His love, by this wanton thrust of the spear into His Side? O lance, spare at least my soul and cause not all my blood to flow away through the wound you make there! Do you not know that my life and soul are hidden in this Heart? Do you not understand that it is there I live and breathe? Pitiless lance, you wound, you bruise me; thinking to strike only One, you pierce me with Him. O unrelenting lance! Is your thirst then so acute? You have my breast, my body, it is enough; spare, I pray you, this Heart, and let my veins be emptied and all my blood poured out to save this Heart of Jesus, the love of my soul.

But what are you doing, my soul, in offering your heart for that of your God? Would you live without a heart, and shut yourself out of heaven? To enjoy the latter, it is necessary to open the former. I know you will say that it is from this divine Heart, and not from heaven, that you have taken your essence and your first form, and that you cannot do without its love, for you are like the moon, which of itself is not visible, and sends forth no light which it does not borrow from the sun. But reflect also that this Heart of Jesus performs all things with harmony and consideration, and that, being the first of the living and the dead, the Chief of the elect, and the Prototype of all perfection, it must be opened thus in order to become the Door of Paradise.

Do you now reproach the iron, which is the blessed key of your felicity? Oh no! Away with indignant thoughts and revengeful designs! I love you, glorious iron. I honor and venerate you as a cause of my salvation, the door-keeper of my everlasting glory. O Jesus! Who will make You all things to me and in me? Who will make me to possess You without fear of losing You? Or rather, who will transform me into iron, and the iron into a lance, that I may be plunged forever into Your Heart, which is the delight of mine and the destruction of my enemies?

Ah! Once only, only once, and that forever, so that I may never come out of it again! Let the good things of this world vanish away. They are only mire, scum and corruption, perpetual figures of death, and not to be compared to the greatness of my love which only longs for and clings to this Heart of my soul, to this Soul of my heart.

O God! When can I reach it? When shall I be cast into it? Do You not fear the vehemence of my desires, the strength of my affection? Ah! I am no longer an arrow, but the spear which can once more open Your Side and pierce Your Heart as sharply as that of Longinus. And who shall keep me back? Who shall drive me away, since it is so much greater a benefit to do this than to refrain from it? Yes indeed, and whilst I say it, O Holy Lamb, I marvel at the sweetness of Your loving kindness, which gives back life to him who slays You and pierces Your Heart.

How do priests proceed at a divine pace toward perfection?

2011-06-16T09:43:00.004-04:00

Below is a letter written by Sister Nazarena. She has been featured here at Secret Harbour previously. She was named Julia Crotta in her lay life, a gifted musician, living in the state of Connecticut in the United States. She felt called, however, to the desert and was led to the Church’s most rare vocation, that of a recluse, which she lived out in Italy. In her ascetical life of solitude she wrote letters and offered advice to priests and religious, including the late Paul Augustin Cardinal Mayer, O.S.B., who went home to the Lord recently on April 2010 at the age of ninety-nine. In a letter to him, Sister Nazarena wrote:

God wants you to focus upon yourself in order to liberate yourself from yourself and deliver yourself with perfect docility into the hands of the heavenly Teachers, the Holy Spirit and the Immaculate Virgin. It was they who formed the perfect Ideal of the Priest, Jesus Christ, and this is how all followers of the great High Priest are formed. The principal agents in the transformation of a priestly soul are the heavenly Teachers. The Sanctifier of souls, the Holy Spirit, does not operate independently of the Virgin, in whose Immaculate womb was formed the Christ. Priests who abandon themselves blindly to their guidance and protection, who let them have free course to act in their own way, shall proceed not by giant steps, nor on eagles’ wings, but at a divine pace toward perfection.

If a priest is generous, docile, humble; if he withdraws and remains in silence so as to let himself be worked over, without wishing to know, understand, or see the work they are doing in his soul; if he holds himself in quiet and silence, trusting them like a little child; if he strives to silence the noise of the world, of creatures, and of the ego, and if he strives to learn the divine art of listening to God’s Voice, the heavenly Teachers will not cease to work in his soul, and quite soon, as a result, in him will be formed the adorable Image of Christ.

Becoming like unto the Heart of Jesus

2011-06-14T08:56:00.004-04:00

They shall be inebriated with the plenty of Your house (Psalm 35:9).

All that is in You, all that can be ascribed to You, O Lord, should be ascribed to You in the full extent of its perfection, excellence, and infinite pre-eminence.

As then You possess all wealth and bounty, we know that Your riches are inexhaustible, and that Your desire to impart them in Your generosity is without limit and immeasurable. If You reward, it is a liberality beyond our imagination; if You give, it is with unlimited bounty. Your rewards are always far greater than our merits. For a passing virtue You bestow a happiness which will never pass away. For a very slight service rendered You, You give so great a recompense that Your servants will be perfectly satisfied, and all their desires will be fully realised. You give so amply that the greatness and depth of Your rewards will be equal to their duration. Hence the hearts of Your elect -- those human hearts which out of You cannot find their rest -- will become, in Heaven, like unto Your Heart. There they will enjoy an unchangeable and endless security. They will repose in You.

O Lord Almighty, You are truly the infinitely loving and amiable guest of the virtuous soul, which, after having served You faithfully and generously during the long exile, the painful journey, the hard bondage of this life, returns to You, the Father, the King and the Judge of the living and the dead. Oh how lovingly and kindly, with what readiness and fatherly goodness You receive the souls who, notwithstanding temptations, trials and persecutions, have always served You faithfully and have persevered to the end in Your service! Then You pour into their bosom the measure of which the Gospel speaks, ‘good measure and pressed down and shaken together and running over’ (Saint Luke 6:38). They have esteemed and loved You above all things; and in return You give Yourself to them, You reveal Yourself clearly, You shot them Your great beauty and all the riches of Your glory; You bring them to Your Heart, and cast them into the centre thereof, into the Bosom of Your love, into the unfathomable depth of Your mercy. There, in Your Heart, You make known clearly how tenderly You have loved them from all eternity, and how great has been Your mercy in choosing them to enjoy unspeakable blessedness, in having predestined them to see, to praise, and to love You forever.

~ Denys the Carthusian ~

Quem terra: the Hymn for Matins of Our Lady

2011-06-13T20:46:00.000-04:00

Feria II Infra Octavam Pentecostes

2011-06-13T10:47:00.003-04:00

What He [Jesus] says, is of this kind: Marvel not that I am to be lifted up that you may be saved, for this seems good to the Father, and He has so loved you as to give His Son for slaves, and ungrateful slaves. Yet a man would not do this even for a friend, nor readily even for a righteous man; as Paul has declared when he said: Scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Now he spoke at greater length, as speaking to believers, but here Christ speaks concisely, because His discourse was directed to Nicodemus, but still in a more significant manner, for each word had much significance. For by the expression, so loved, and that other, God the world, He shows the great strength of His love. Large and infinite was the interval between the two. He, the Immortal, who is without beginning, the Infinite Majesty, they but dust and ashes, full of ten thousand sins, who, ungrateful, have at all times offended Him; and these He loved. Again, the words which He added after these are alike significant, when He says, that He gave His Only-begotten Son, not a servant, not an Angel, not an Archangel. And yet no one would show such anxiety for his own child, as God did for His ungrateful servants. Again, the words which He added after these are alike significant, when He says, that He gave His Only-begotten Son, not a servant, not an Angel, not an Archangel. And yet no one would show such anxiety for his own child, as God did for His ungrateful servants.

Let us now be abashed at His love, let us be ashamed at the excess of His loving kindness, since He for our sakes spared not His Only-begotten Son, yet we spare our wealth to our own injury; He for us gave His Own Son, but we for Him do not so much as despise money, nor even for ourselves. And how can these things deserve pardon? If we see a man submitting to sufferings and death for us, we set him before all others, count him among our chief friends, place in his hands all that is ours, and deem it rather his than ours, and even so do not think that we give him the return that he deserves. But towards Christ we do not preserve even this degree of right feeling. He laid down His life for us, and poured forth His precious Blood for our sakes, who were neither well-disposed nor good, while we do not pour out even our money for our own sakes, and neglect Him Who died for us.

~ Saint John Chrysostom ~

Vigil of Pentecost

2011-06-11T09:05:00.003-04:00

When Jesus says: I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, He intimates that He Himself is also a Paraclete. For Paraclete is in Latin called advocatus; and it is said of Christ: We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. But He said that the world could not receive the Holy Spirit, in much the same sense as it is also said: The minding of the flesh is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God; neither indeed can be; just as if we were to say: Unrighteousness cannot be righteous. For in speaking in this passage of the world, He refers to those who love the world; and such a love is not of the Father. And thus the love of this world, which gives us enough to do to weaken and destroy its power within us, is in direct opposition to the love of God, which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit Who is given unto us.

The world, therefore, cannot receive Him, cause it sees Him not, neither knows Him. For worldly love possesses not those invisible eyes, whereby, save in an invisible way, the Holy Spirit cannot be seen. But you, He adds, shall know Him; for He shall dwell with you, and be in you. He will be in them, that He may dwell with them; He will not dwell with them to the end that He may be in them: for the being anywhere is prior to the dwelling there. But to prevent us from imagining that His words, He shall dwell with you, were spoken in the same sense as that in which a guest usually dwells with a man in a visible way, He explained what He shall dwell with you meant, when He added the words, He shall be in you. He is seen, therefore, in an invisible way: nor can we have any knowledge of Him unless He be in us. For it is in a similar way that we come to see our conscience within us: for we see the face of another.

But we cannot see and know Him in the only way in which He may be seen and known, unless He be in us. After the promise of the Holy Spirit, lest any should suppose that the Lord was to give Him, as it were, in place of Himself, in any such way as that He Himself would not likewise be with them, He added the words: I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. Accordingly, although it was not the Son of God that adopted sons to His Father, or willed that we should have by grace that same Father, Who is His Father by nature, yet in a sense it is paternal feelings toward us that He Himself displays, when He declares: I will not leave you orphans.

~ Saint Augustine ~

Charity

2011-06-10T10:13:00.002-04:00

Everything we do, our every objective, must be undertaken for the sake of purity of heart. This is why we take on loneliness, fasting, vigils, work, nakedness. For this we must practice the reading of the Scriptures, together with all the other virtuous activities, and we do so to hold our hearts free of the harm of every dangerous passion to keep it pure and in order to rise step by step to the high point of love.

It may be that some good and necessary task prevents us from achieving fully all that we set out to do. Let us not on this account give way to sadness or anger or indignation, since it was precisely to repel these, to destroy them in our hearts, that we would have done what in fact we were compelled to omit.

What we gain from fasting does not compensate for what we lose through anger. Our profit from Scriptural reading in no way equals the damage we cause ourselves by showing contempt for a brother. We must always relate our fasting, vigils, withdrawal, and the meditation of Scripture and all these similar things, which are merely effects and consequences of our piety, to the principal end to which we must tend, that is, to this purity of heart which is nothing other than charity.

~ Saint John Cassian ~

What the Heart of Jesus Contains

2011-06-07T08:48:00.002-04:00

The writer of this reflection on the Sacred Heart of Jesus is unknown. It was translated in the year 1552 from old German into Latin by Lawrence Surius, a Carthusian monk in Cologne. The original manuscript is dated from the first years of the fifteenth century. Its theme conforms very well to the many writings on the Sacred Heart that have been penned by Carthusian monks.

‘I have loved you with an everlasting love’ (Jeremiah 31:3).

In order that your soul may be inflamed with the fire of divine love, I will give you three burning coals which will kindle in you this very desirable flame. They are three meditations that you should make:

The first is on what Jesus Christ is to you as God and Man, namely, supremely worthy of your love. The second is on what Jesus Christ is to you if you consider what He has done for your sake; for in all His acts we find proofs of an incomprehensible love. The third is on what the Heart of Jesus feels for you; and that is a love which is transcendent and infinite.

We have not in any way deserved the love that Jesus our most affectionate friend gives us so freely. This love is incomprehensibly great. It is altogether boundless. That your soul may be more and more filled with the fire of divine love, know that the Sacred Heart, the tender Heart of Jesus, is filled for you with so immense, so excessive, so incomprehensible a love, both human and Divine, that it greatly surpasses all that men and angels could wish for or even imagine; for, I repeat it, this love is truly immense, being without limit and without end. The love of all mothers for an only son, compared to that of the Heart of Jesus, is but a little spark by the side of a vast conflagration. If all the love arising from natural attraction, relationship, or divine grace, which is to be found in the hearts of all men upon earth and of all angels and saints in Heaven were gathered together and put into the heart of one mother for her only son, it would not bear any comparison to the love of our God for us.

It is quite certain that nothing in Heaven and on earth is better, more perfect, more desirable, sweeter and more amiable than the very faithful love of Jesus Christ. Is it not then surprising and enough to make one weep bitterly, to see how seldom and in how small a degree the love of our Lord Jesus Christ is found even in the hearts of many Christians? Perhaps you, dear reader, may be suffering from this unfortunate and dangerous error, and may not know the happiness and sweet joy that the friends of God experience even in this world. I therefore conclude by begging you to recall to mind the numerous and wonderful proofs your Creator and Redeemer has given you of His love. I ask you to observe that this most loving and most tender Heart burned for you with a love so free and so generous that truly one can say with Saint John Chrysostom: ‘Plus quam amore tui ebrius et amens’. Jesus is inebriated with love. He is foolish, if I may so speak, and more than foolish with love of souls! Ah, if it were possible that during this life, your heart could contain for Jesus a mere nothing of the love with which His Heart burns for you, it could not hold it; but kindled suddenly by so ardent a heat, your heart would be in flames; it would be torn and would break. I earnestly invite you to meditate very often and very attentively on what I have been saying.

The Holy Spirit Enlightens the Soul

2011-06-06T09:25:00.003-04:00

The Holy Spirit’s doings tend towards what is good and salutary. His coming is gentle; the perception of Him is fragrant; His burden most light; beams of light and knowledge gleam forth before His coming. He comes with the tenderness of a true guardian: for He comes to save, and to heal, to teach, to admonish, to strengthen, to exhort, to enlighten the mind, first of him who receives Him, and afterwards of others also, through him. And as a man, who being previously in darkness then suddenly beholds the sun, is enlightened in his bodily sight, and sees plainly things which he saw not, so likewise he to whom is given the gift of the Holy Spirit, is enlightened in his soul, and sees things beyond man's sight, which he knew not; his body is on earth, yet his soul mirrors forth the heavens.

Oftentimes a man for the sake of Christ has been outraged and dishonoured unjustly; martyrdom is at hand; tortures on every side, and fire, and sword, and savage beasts, and the pit.

But the Holy Spirit softly whispers to him: Wait on the Lord, O man; what is now befalling you is a small matter, the reward will be great. Suffer a little while, and you shall be with Angels for ever. The sufferings of this present time art not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

The Holy Spirit portrays to the man the Kingdom of heaven; He gives him a glimpse of the Paradise of delight; and the martyrs, whose bodily countenances are of necessity turned to their judges, but who in spirit are already in Paradise, despise those hardships which are seen.

~ Saint Cyril of Jerusalem ~

Ascension Sunday

2011-06-04T10:04:00.004-04:00

First Reading, Acts 1:1-11

Saint Luke is the author of the Acts of the Apostles; and so, when he begins this book with the words, "In the first book," he is referring to the Gospel of Luke. Theophilus is probably someone that Luke knew personally but the name "Theophilus" means, "friend of God" or "one who loves God" which may indicate someone of honor or who was held in high esteem. Such a title, however, could be given to any devout person which may very well indicate Luke's intention of having this book read by all the faithful. In Luke's Gospel, he "dealt with all that Jesus did and taught." And at the conclusion of his Gospel he mentions our Savior's Ascension (cf. Luke 24:51) which means that the Ascension of our Lord in the Acts of the Apostles is not breaking news. Theophilus and the rest of Luke's readers are already aware of this phenomenal event. Saint Luke concludes the first sentence of this Reading with the words "He [Jesus] was taken up, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom He had chosen." It's a rather strange statement and no one knows with any certainty what he meant. The most accepted explanation among scholars is that Christ formed the Church and He set up a governing authority to run His Church; and the decisions that would be made by the governing authority would be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the apostles, the governing authority of Christ's Church, were somehow, by means that only God can explain, given the grace and experience of the Holy Spirit's guidance upon them even before our Redeemer's departure. Regrettably, some English translations avoid the difficulty of this verse by suggesting that our Lord's instructions to the apostles through the Holy Spirit followed His Ascension. While that may be more intelligible, it is, however, unfaithful to the Greek text. Our Lord's appearance to a relatively small amount of people after His Resurrection has always raised red flags among skeptics. It's moments like these that great credence must be given to the Catholic teaching that Scripture and Tradition are the rule of faith – and not Scripture alone. For example, there's no mention in Scripture of Jesus ever appearing to His Blessed Mother. To entertain such a thought as being true would be ridiculous. There is, however, a tradition in the Church which states that Jesus not only appeared to her, but she was first on the list. Perhaps the Evangelists were protecting her, plus any written testimony involving her about her own Son's miraculous Resurrection would likely rouse even more suspicion for the skeptics. Scripturally, Jesus did not make His Resurrected Presence known to the masses although Saint Paul does record that Jesus was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:6). One could only speculate on the reason(s) why Jesus chose not to make His Presence known to larger crowds; and speculate, many scholars have done throughout the centuries. The third sentence of this Reading begins with the words: "While meeting with them." The exact meaning of the Greek words is a bit hazy. Our liturgical text's translation is more in common with the classical or Hellenistic Greek; but when Saint Jerome was translating the Scriptural texts into Latin he chose the Latin word "convescens" which indicates that Jesus was "eating" with His apostles. This very different rendering of the Greek actually predates Saint Jerome in the West and may go back as far as the second century. This interpretation made its way to the East in the third century and is present in the writings of Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius and Theophylactus. The baptism with the Holy Spirit of which our Lord speaks is a reference to Pentecost. The spiritual life is a tremendous battle even to those who walked, ate and were taught by Jesus; and the question to our Savior about restoring the kingdom to Israel clearly shows a belief in the expectation of a temporal kingdom. It also is indicative of humanity's comfort zone with the physical life – trusting more in what can be perceived with the physical senses. In our own weakness perhaps we can find comfort at the expense of the apostles who were not always on the same page as Jesus but, nevertheless, loved infinitely by Him. Jesus gives the apostles their spiritual mission of being His witnesses. Interestingly, the Greek word "martus" is used which does mean "witness" but analogically it also means "martyr" which most of the apostles literally were. Certainly our Lord's call to be witnesses "to the ends of the earth" is not strictly limited to the apostles. The Church is very aware of this which is why she calls every Catholic to the mission of evangelization. When Jesus began His Ascension, eventually a cloud took Him from the sight of the apostles. Here we are today with our physical eyes still looking at the cloud – the veil of bread and wine which hides our Lord's true appearance. Saint Cyril of Alexandria, in his second letter to the Corinthians, writes about how those who possess the Spirit are rich in hope of the resurrection. He even goes on to write that possessing the Spirit means being immune from the corruption of the flesh. That sounds like a bold statement but what he is really talking about is not being confined to the physical world with all its corruption and its obstacles. In a homily by Pope Saint Leo the Great he says so beautifully that the day of Christ's Ascension is when our poor human nature was raised up beyond the highest heavenly powers to the very Throne of God the Father (cf. Sermo II de Ascensione). The Holy Spirit instructs us in the Letter to the Hebrews to lay aside every weight and sin surrounding us and run patiently to the fight proposed to us but always keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus (cf. Hebrews 12:1-2). What this Scripture text and these saintly men of God cited previously are speaking of is a deep spirituality -- and one that every Christian ought to pursue. How sad it is that Catholics can go through life and never pierce through the cloud – never are able to experience an intimate union with Jesus even after many years of receiving Him in the Eucharist. If only showing up for Mass on Sunday within itself constituted a deep, transforming prayer life -- but it doesn't. If only showing up at Mass just in the nick of time or even late without any preparation time spent at the Master's Feet would be sufficient to have an intense encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist – but it isn't. If only a passionate love affair meant that only one Person needs to be truly in love and make all the sacrifices – but it doesn't. Being in love and desiring a close union with our Savior means trying to pass through the cloud and follow Him daily. It was deep prayer, silence, and a strong devotion to Saint Joseph that kept Blessed Andre Bessette in Eucharistic Adoration for hours upon hours and he would sometimes need to be retrieved by his brothers in order to fulfill his daily duties with his religious community. Obviously Blessed Andre was able to see beyond the cloud or the veil of bread and truly know what it means to love and experience Divine Love. Saint Leo, in the aforementioned homily, said that the visible Presence of our Redeemer has passed over into the sacraments. Indeed, but surely it is not the desire of our Lord to never again be perceived or experienced in an invigorating manner. Our spiritual selves are called upon to gaze at the God we cannot physically see. This requires passing through the cloud, pushing aside the clutter and all that weighs heavily upon us. Saint Augustine said: "Hodie Dominus noster Iesus Christus ascendit in cælum; ascendat cum illo cor nostrum" -- "Today our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven; let our hearts ascend with Him" (Sermo de Ascensione Domini). If our hearts are to ascend beyond the cloud to an intimate meeting with Jesus in the liturgy, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, offered this gem when he wrote: "Only within the breathing space of Adoration can the Eucharistic celebration indeed be alive. . . Communion and Adoration do not stand side by side, or even in opposition, but are indivisibly one." When the gaze is heavenward, the soul will ascend toward heavenly things. For Jesus said that He will draw all things to Himself (cf. John 12:32).

Second Reading, Ephesians 1:17-23

Saint James elaborates on the fruits of wisdom: "The wisdom that is from above, first indeed is chaste, then peaceable, modest, easy to be persuaded, consenting to the good, full of mercy and good fruits, without judging, without dissimulation" (James 3:17). Anyone having such qualities surely possesses a most blessed knowledge of the Lord. The eyes of the heart portion of this Reading points to something similar to what was covered in the First Reading: exercising the spiritual life and coming to the knowledge of the glory that awaits us by keeping our gaze fixed on the prize and being in awe of the greatness of Almighty God. This is a deep absorption in prayer which many of the saints have attested leads to a wonderful closeness with our Lord. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that "by prayer every baptized person works for the coming of the Kingdom" (CCC 2632). This can be a difficult Reading to follow because much is covered in a lengthy sentence. Think of it as a blessing -- something you would bow your head to as these words are being prayed over you. It's mind boggling that in this vast universe each and every one of us is crucial. Jesus in His humility willed that He would be incomplete without His mystical Body. Humanity has been raised up higher than all of God's earthly creation to be participants in Christ's work of redemption.

Gospel, Matthew 28:16-20
"All power in heaven and on earth has been given to Me." Theologians have been banging their heads against the wall for centuries over this statement and heresy has also reared its ugly head because of it. If Christ is God and equal to the Father, why would "all power in heaven and on earth" have to be given to Him presumably from the Father? We humans are inquisitive creatures and are more comfortable with having all the answers instead of being shrouded in mystery. The Trinity, however, is a mystery and thus there is no foreseen definitive answer to that question. Certainly we could consider Christ's Human Nature and suggest that Jesus as Man received this power. While that answer may be at least partially true, it would never satisfy every theologian or heretical mind the Church has faced in her history on this issue. Jesus commissions the apostles and their successors by virtue of this power to teach and "make disciples of all nations". And how do we know that Jesus also commissioned the successors to the apostles? It is because our Savior promised to be with them "until the end of the age". In the Latin Vulgate are the words: "usque ad consummationem sæculi" -- "even to the consummation of the world." The Greek text translates as: "until the conclusion of the eon." Astronomically, an eon is one billion years. Jesus, however, most likely meant the more generic definition -- an indefinitely long period of time. The text, therefore, clearly shows that "I am with you always, until the end of the age" extends far beyond the natural lives of the apostles, thus their successors are included. The second sentence of this Gospel reads: "When they saw Him, they worshiped, but they doubted." That's not a bad verse to reflect upon either at Mass after the Consecration or at Eucharistic Adoration. It certainly delineates what is a very real aspect of the human struggle with the Blessed Sacrament on the battlefield of prayer.

He is so near

2011-06-03T11:22:00.003-04:00

Do you suppose it matters little what Heaven is and where you must seek your most holy Father? I assure you that for minds which wander it is of great importance not only to have a right belief about this but to try to learn it by experience, for it is one of the best ways of concentrating the mind and effecting recollection in the soul.

You know that God is everywhere; and this is a great truth, for, of course, wherever the king is, or so they say, the court is too: that is to say, wherever God is, there is Heaven. No doubt you can believe that, in any place where His Majesty is, there is fullness of glory.

Remember how Saint Augustine tells us about his seeking God in many places and eventually finding Him within himself. Do you suppose it is of little importance that a soul which is often distracted should come to understand this truth and to find that, in order to speak to its Eternal Father and to take its delight in Him, it has no need to go to Heaven or to speak in a loud voice? However quietly we speak, He is so near that He will hear us: we need no wings to go in search of Him but have only to find a place where we can be alone and look upon Him present within us. Nor need we feel strange in the presence of so kind a Guest.

We must talk to Him very humbly, as we should to our father, ask Him for things as we should ask a father, tell Him our troubles, beg Him to put them right, and yet realize that we are not worthy to be called His children.

Avoid being bashful with God, as some people are, in the belief that they are being humble. It would not be humility on your part if the King were to do you a favour and you refused to accept it; but you would be showing humility by taking it, and being pleased with it, yet realizing how far you are from deserving it.

~ Saint Teresa of Avila, ‘The Way of Perfection’ ~

Ascension Thursday

2011-06-02T09:00:00.002-04:00

Today is the traditional Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord. At Matins, the Carthusians heard a homily by Johannes Tauler, a fourteenth-century German-born mystic of the Order of Saint Dominic. Here’s what the monks reflected on:

After Christ had eaten with His disciples on the Mount of Olives, and reproved them, that they had spent so long a time with Him and yet were still slow to believe, before their eyes He ascended into heaven. Children, imagine how agonizing was the pain of the hearts of the disciples, who loved Him so extraordinarily; for it was not unreasonable that they should be filled with a restless, sorrowful heart yearning to follow after Him – for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The Ascension of Jesus Christ wills to draw after Him the hearts and minds of all His friends, and all their powers, inward and outward, that we may not dwell with contentment and satisfaction among the things of time; but that our walk and conversation, pleasure and satisfaction, may be in heaven. It cannot be otherwise but that the members should follow their Head, Who, as on this day, has ascended into heaven to prepare a place for those who shall come after Him; therefore we should say with the Bride in the Song of Songs: Draw me, and I will come after You.

And who can stop us from following evermore after our Head? For He has said: I ascend to My Father and your Father. His origin, His end, His blessedness and our blessedness, is truly a blessedness in Him. We have proceeded from the same origin, and therefore are partakers of the same end. Dear children, let us meditate how Christ has gone before us into the glory of His heavenly Father. We must observe the Way He has shown us and trodden for thirty-three years in poverty and in bitterness, even unto death. Likewise, we must follow the same path, if we wish to enter with Him into the Kingdom of heaven. Although all our teachers were dead and all our books burned, yet we should ever find instruction in His holy life. For He Himself is the Way, the Truth and the Life; and by no other way can we truly advance towards the same consummation, than in that which He has walked as our Exemplar while He was on earth.

As a magnetized stone attracts iron, so does Christ draw to Himself all hearts that were touched by Him. When iron is touched by the force of a magnetized rock, it rises above its natural quality, and it follows the stone uphill, even though that is contrary to its nature, and cannot rest in its own proper place, but strives to rise above itself. For all the souls that have been touched by the magnet Who is Christ, cannot be chained down by joy or grief, but are ever rising up out of themselves to God. They forget their own nature and follow after the touch of God, and follow it with all the greater purity, truth and availability, and nobly they have been touched by Him. Now let each one mark for himself, whether his soul has been touched by God or not. Those who have not been touched by God often begin many excellent undertakings from which we might expect great things to happen; but if we watch them for a time, behold it all comes to nothing, for they soon fall back again, and they plunge into their old customs and their natural inclinations.

Children, if our souls have not been touched by God, we have no right to blame Him, as people often say: ‘God does not touch me or move me as He does with others’. God touches, impels and admonishes everyone equally. His touch, His admonitions and His gifts find a different reception and response in different persons. With many, when God comes to them with His touch and His gracious gifts, He finds the chambers of their soul occupied and defiled by other guests. So then, He must go His way, and cannot come into us, for we are loving and serving someone else. Therefore, His gifts, which He offers unceasingly, remain unaccepted. This is the cause of our eternal loss: the guilt is ours, not God’s. How much useless trouble do we create for ourselves; insomuch that we never perceive our own condition nor God’s preference, and thereby do ourselves an unspeakable and eternal mischief. There is no better remedy for this than hearty, fervent, continual prayer. We may obtain this steadfastness, together with a firm, and entire, and loving trust in the unfathomable mercy of God, in which lies all our salvation, and with a diligent and faithful watchfulness, to keep our goings in accordance with the will of God.

Vigil of the Ascension

2011-06-01T09:31:00.003-04:00

The Lord, the Only-begotten and coeternal with the Father, could in the form of a servant and out of the form of a servant, if such were needful, pray in silence; but in this other way He wished to show Himself as One Who prayed to the Father, that He might remember that He was still our Teacher. Accordingly, the prayer which He offered for us, He made also known to us; seeing that it is not only the delivering of discourses to them by so great a Master, but also the praying for them to the Father, that is a means of edification to disciples. And if so to those who were present to hear what was said, it is certainly so also to us who were to have the reading of it when written.

Wherefore in saying this, Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, He showed that all time, and every occasion when He did anything or suffered anything to be done, were arranged by Him Who was subject to no time: since those things, which were individually future in point of time, have their efficient causes in the Wisdom of God, wherein there are no distinctions of time. Let it not, then, be supposed that this hour came through any urgency of fate, but rather by the divine appointment. It was no necessary law of the heavenly bodies that tied to its time the Passion of Christ; for we may well shrink from the thought that the stars should compel their own Maker to die.

The glorification of the Son by the Father is understood by some to consist in this: that He spared Him not, but delivered Him up for us all. But if we say that He was glorified by His Passion, how much more was He so by His Resurrection? For in His passion our attention is directed more to His humility than to His glory, in accordance with the testimony of the apostle, who says, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross: and then he goes on to say of His glorification: Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him, and given Him a Name which is above every name: that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. This is the glorification of our Lord Jesus Christ: that took its commencement from His resurrection.

~ Saint Augustine ~

The Visitation

2011-05-31T10:27:00.004-04:00

Saint Luke in his Gospel took great strides to delineate Our Blessed Lady as the New Ark of the New and Everlasting Covenant, the human Tabernacle of the Lord.

Notice some of the scriptural parallels:

In the Old Testament are these words:
‘The cloud covered the tabernacle of the testimony, and the glory of the Lord filled it’ (Exodus 40:32).
And in the New Testament:
‘The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God’ (Saint Luke 1:35).

In the Old Testament:
‘And David was afraid of the Lord that day, saying: How shall the ark of the Lord come to me’? (2 Samuel 6:9).
In the New Testament:
‘And whence is this to me that the Mother of my Lord should come to me’? (Saint Luke 1:43).

In the Old Testament:
‘And David danced with all his might before the Lord: and David was girded with a linen ephod. And David and all the house of Israel brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord with joyful shouting, and with sound of trumpet’ (2 Samuel 6:14-15).
In the New Testament:
‘Behold as soon as the voice of your salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy’ (Saint Luke 1:44).

In the Old Testament:
‘The ark of the Lord abode in the house of Obededom the Gethite three months’ (2 Samuel 6:11).
In the New Testament:
‘Mary abode with her about three months’ (Saint Luke 1:56).

Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote in his Summa Theologica that ‘Mary would not have been a worthy Mother of God if she had ever sinned’, thus we must profess with the Doctor Angelicus: ‘You are wholly beautiful, my love and without blemish’. We are sinners, and so, we can also say with Saint Elizabeth: ‘Whence is this to me that the Mother of my Lord should come to me’? Nevertheless Our Blessed Lady would like to be invited to our house, not only the house in which we reside where she can guide us in family matters and parenting skills, but also the inner house, the temple of the soul. She brings Jesus with her. There she perpetually sings her Magnificat. And since she stayed in the house of Zachary for three months, we know that when invited, she will always arrive with a charitable heart. Let us permit Our Lady and her divine Son to take up residence at our inner house, where together they can clean this house of all temporal desires, that this house may always be called a ‘house of prayer’ (Saint Matthew 21:13).

Unfathomable Nature

2011-05-31T10:09:00.004-04:00

The name Father has thus been revealed to men; the question arises: What is this Father's own Name? Yet surely the name of God has never been unknown. Moses heard it from the bush, Genesis announces it at the beginning of the history of creation, the Law has proclaimed and the prophets extolled it, the history of the world has made mankind familiar with it; even the pagans have worshipped it under a veil of falsehood. Men have never been left in ignorance of the Name of God.

And yet they were, in very truth, in ignorance. For no man knows God unless He confess Him as Father, Father of the Only-begotten Son, and confess also the Son, a Son by no partition or extension or procession, but born of Him, as the Son of the Father, ineffably and incomprehensibly, and retaining the fullness of that Godhead from which and in which He was born as true and infinite and perfect God. This is what the fullness of the Godhead means. If any of these things be lacking, there will not be that fullness which was pleased to dwell in Him. This is the message of the Son, His revelation to men in their ignorance. The Father is glorified through the Son when men recognise that He is the Father of a Son so Divine.

It is the Father to Whom all existence owes its origin. In Christ and through Christ He is the Source of all. In contrast to all else He is self-existent. He does not draw His Being from without, but possesses it from Himself and in Himself. He is infinite, for nothing contains Him and He contains all things; He is eternally unconditioned by space, for He is illimitable; eternally anterior to time, for time is His creation.

Let imagination range to what you may suppose is God's utmost limit, and you will find Him present there; strain as you will there is always a further horizon towards which to strain. Infinity is His property, just as the power of making such effort is yours. Words will fail you, but His Being will not be circumscribed.

Or again, turn back the pages of history, and you will find Him ever present; should numbers fail to express the antiquity to which you have penetrated, yet God's eternity is not diminished. Engage your intellect to comprehend Him as a whole; He eludes you.

God is everywhere and wholly present wherever He is. Reason, therefore, cannot cope with Him, since no point of contemplation can be found outside Himself and since eternity is eternally His.

This is a true statement of the mystery of that unfathomable nature which is expressed by the Name 'Father:' God invisible, ineffable, infinite. Let us confess by our silence that words cannot describe Him; let sense admit that it is foiled in the attempt to apprehend, and reason in the effort to define. He does not, as men do, receive the power of paternity from an external source. He is unbegotten, everlasting, inherently eternal. To the Son only is He known, for no one knows the Father save the Son and him to whom the Son wills to reveal Him, nor yet the Son save the Father. Each has perfect and complete knowledge of the Other.

Therefore, since no one knows the Father save the Son, let our thoughts of the Father be at one with the thoughts of the Son, the only faithful Witness, Who reveals Him to us.

Listen then to the Unbegotten Father, listen to the Only-begotten Son. Hear His words: The Father is greater than I, and I and the Father are One, and he that has seen Me has seen the Father also , and the Father is in Me and I in the Father, and I went out from the Father, and Who is in the Bosom of the Father, and whatsoever the Father has He has delivered to the Son, and the Son has life in Himself, even as the Father has in Himself. Hear in these words the Son, the Image, the Wisdom, the Power, the Glory of God. Next mark the Holy Spirit proclaiming: Who shall declare His generation? Note the Lord's assurance: No one knows the Son save the Father, neither does any know the Father save the Son and He to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Penetrate into the mystery, plunge into the darkness which shrouds that birth, where you will be alone with God the Unbegotten and God the Only-begotten. Make your start, continue, persevere. I know that you will not reach the goal, but I shall rejoice at your progress. For He who devoutly treads an endless road, though he reach no conclusion, will profit by his exertions.

Reason will fail for want of words, but when it comes to a stand it will be the better for the effort made.

~ Saint Hilary of Poitiers ~

Dominica Sexta Paschæ

2011-05-28T10:19:00.002-04:00

First Reading, Acts 8:5-8, 14-17
You may recall from last weekend's First Reading that Philip is one of the newly ordained deacons. Preaching to the city of Samaria is a further advancement towards the goal of the Church becoming universal. And the text indicates that miraculous events were occurring through the hands of Philip. Peter and John laid hands on the people of Samaria and they received the Holy Spirit. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reads: "Because the Holy Spirit is the anointing of Christ, it is Christ Who, as the Head of the Body, pours out the Spirit among His members to nourish, heal, and organize them in their mutual functions, to give them life, send them to bear witness, and associate them to His Self-offering to the Father and to His intercession for the whole world. Through the Church's sacraments, Christ communicates His Holy and sanctifying Spirit to the members of His Body" (CCC 739). Philip had the advantage of the Samaritans having already been somewhat evangelized by the woman at the well after her life altering conversation with Jesus (cf. John 4:5-42). That Gospel passage concludes by pointing out that many of the Samaritans had come to believe that Jesus is the Savior of the world. One probable obstacle to overcome was the Samaritan belief that God was to be adored on the mountain of Gerizim while Jews worshipped at Jerusalem (cf. John 4:20). It is not known at the time of Philip's visit if that barrier had yet been torn down. Certainly, if not then, at least eventually the house of universality would begin to be built brick by brick whereby Christians would comply to our Lord's plan of worshipping the Father in spirit and in truth with location being irrelevant (cf. John 4:23). This is quite a miraculous turn of events when considering the previous protocol was that "Jews do not communicate with the Samaritans" (John 4:9). Jesus began this good work and His example was continued – and is to be continued.

Second Reading, 1 Peter 3:15-18
Human beings do not sit in a classroom to be taught how to love. Love is instinctive because the Law of God, which is His Love, is written on every human heart. At the heart of every human struggle, however, is the human heart. The inner demons try to erase that which has been written by the Finger of God. The ways of God are perfectly harmonious. Angelic choirs resound from the human heart: "I have loved you with an everlasting love" (Jeremiah 31:3). But in moments of weakness comes a voice a bit out of tune: "All these things I will give you. . . " (Matthew 4:9). This is the temptation to lust after this world's goods -- it is the cornerstone of a secular society. And perhaps what makes humanity succumb to it is that in our brokenness, what is laid before us is often more attractive to the senses than that which has not even entered the heart of man – that which God has prepared for those who love Him (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:9). Saint Peter commands us to sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts. With every command is the option to disobey because humanity has been granted the gift of free will. Humanity's free will, indeed, has the power to make Jesus Lord of the heart. And to do so is the only way to fight off that mysterious, alluring whisper which tells us that we are capable by ourselves of being like gods (cf. Genesis 3:5). Nothing can explain the reason for hope more fervently than lives being lived in holiness by those who genuinely bear the Christian name, those who sanctify Christ as Lord in their heart. In Saint Matthew's Gospel our Savior teaches: "Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice sake; for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they shall revile you and persecute you and speak all that is evil against you untruly, for My sake; rejoice and be exceeding glad, for your reward is very great in heaven" (Matthew 5:10-12). Our Lord's Passion is a reminder of the inevitability of our own sufferings and eventual death; His Resurrection is our hope for a new and eternal life in which there is cause for rejoicing here and now -- and forever.

Gospel, John 14:15-21
The connection between love for the Lord and obeying His Commandments is not a new concept from Jesus. In the Old Testament God promises mercy unto many thousands who love Him and keep His Commandments (cf. Deuteronomy 5:10). There is, however, a distinction that perhaps can be made: Jesus taught that loving God and loving neighbor are the greatest Commandments; and the whole Law and the Prophets are dependent upon those two Commandments (cf. Matthew 22:36-40). Love, then, is the fulfillment of the Law. All of the "You shall not" warnings in the Ten Commandments deal with either a mistreatment of God or of our fellow human beings; and, of course, abusive behavior is incompatible with love. But in a mysterious way, since God became Man in the Person of Jesus Christ, the compatibility of God and man and their relationship to the Law is now very intimately fused. Jesus offers us an "Advocate". The Greek text uses the word "Parakletos" and the Latin Vulgate defines the Advocate with the word "Paraclitum". Most likely these two ancient words draw you to the word "Paraclete". It has also been translated as: Comforter, Intercessor, Teacher, or Helper. For the Church, the Advocate inwardly keeps the external teachings of Jesus engraved in her heart and soul and guarantees her infallibility. The Indwelling of the Holy Spirit on individuals is not limited strictly in meaning to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. The soul is renewed by grace and thus becomes a dwelling-place for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Saint Thomas Aquinas describes the union of the Advocate with the soul as a mystical union which varies in degree. The Advocate's consolation of the soul includes assistance, advice, protection, intercession, and everything to promote the growth of holiness welling up to eternal life. In this Gospel, the mission of the Advocate appears to be that of an Abider with the apostles after the visible Presence of Jesus ascends to heaven. Our love for the Son draws the Father's love, as well as the Son's response to our love which is perceived by our faith which comes from the Holy Spirit's Indwelling. Consider and reflect upon the remarkable work done by the apostles after the Ascension – and then understand that by living a sacramental life which manifests our love for God and neighbor, promotes that same Power within each of us to be effective and holy disciples.

That Nothing Might Hinder Our Seeking the Lord

2011-05-28T10:01:00.003-04:00

O Lord, two lessons have You taught us, Your servants: that You are, and what You are not. We crave a third: to know what You are. How true it is that in adding to our learning, You add to the load we bear. Precisely because that You are and what You are not can neither be disguised nor prove deceptive, our longing to know what You are is all the greater.

Would that we knew not what you are not, and could beguile ourselves with some enticing fancy instead of You, or rather would that we knew what You are and could cling to You in truth and content.

Show Your very Self to us, Lord. You know that our whole longing this day is for Yourself, our love for You is for Your own sake. Have we not forsaken worldliness completely, and this present world almost as fully, that nothing might hinder our seeking You?

~ Isaac of Stella ~

Saint Philip Neri: A Humble Priest

2011-05-26T08:08:00.004-04:00

Today is the feast of Saint Philip Neri. Blessed John Henry Newman had preached a couple of sermons on this great saint at the Birmingham Oratory. Here’s an excerpt:

Let us . . . inquire what Saint Philip's times were, and what place he holds in them; what he was raised up to do, how he did it, and how we, my Fathers of the Oratory, may make his work and his way of doing it a pattern for ourselves in this day. His times were such as the Church has never seen before nor since, and such as the world must last long for her to see again; nor peculiar only in themselves, but involving a singular and most severe trial of the faith and love of her children. It was a time of sifting and peril.

[The] Church . . . though full of divine gifts, the Immaculate Spouse, the Oracle of Truth, the Voice of the Holy Ghost, infallible in matters of faith and morals, whether in the chair of her Supreme Pontiff, or in the unity of her Episcopate, nevertheless was at this time so environed, so implicated, with sin and lawlessness, as to appear in the eyes of the world to be what she was not. Never, as then, were her rulers, some in higher, some in lower degree, so near compromising what can never be compromised; never so near denying in private what they taught in public, and undoing by their lives what they professed with their mouths; never were they so mixed up with vanity, so tempted by pride, so haunted by concupiscence; never breathed they so tainted an atmosphere, or were kissed by such traitorous friends, or were subjected to such sights of shame, or were clad in such blood-stained garments, as in the centuries upon and in which Saint Philip came into the world. Alas, for us, my brethren, the scandal of deeds done in Italy then is borne by us in England now.

It was an age . . . when civilization, powerless as yet to redress the grievances of society at large, gave to princes and to nobles as much to possess as before, and less to suffer; increased their pomp, and diminished their duties and their risks; became the cloak of vices which it did not extirpate, made revenge certain by teaching it to be treacherous, and unbelief venerable by proving it to be ancient. Such were the characteristics of Saint Philip's age; and Florence, his birth-place, presented the most complete exhibition of them -- and next to Florence, Rome, the city of his adoption.

It is not by powerful declamation, or by railing at authorities, that the foundations are laid of religious works. It is not by sudden popularity, or by strong resolves, and demonstrations, or by romantic incidents, or by immediate successes, that undertakings commence which are to last.

The Lord of grace Himself . . . grew up in silence and obscurity, overlooked by the world; and then He triumphed. He was the grain cast into the earth, which, while a man ‘sleeps and rises, night and day, springs up and grows whilst he knoweth not’. He was the mustard seed, ‘which is the least of all seeds, but, when it is grown up, becometh a tree, and shooteth out great branches, so that the birds of the air dwell under its shadow’. He grew up ‘as a tender plant, and as a root out of a thirsty land’; and ‘His look was, as it were, hidden and despised, wherefore we esteemed Him not’. And, when He began to preach, He did not ‘contend nor cry out, nor break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax’; and thus ‘He sent forth judgment unto victory’. So was it in the beginning, so has it been ever since. After the storm, the earthquake and the fire, the calm, soothing whisper of the fragrant air.

St. Philip was a child of . . . the convent of Saint Mark; here he received his first religious instruction, and in after times he used to say, ‘Whatever there was of good in me, when I was young, I owed it to the Fathers of Saint Mark's, in Florence’.

Reverend Father Philip, an old man of sixty, who, they say, is an oracle, not only in Rome, but in the far-off parts of Italy, and of France and Spain, so that many come to him for counsel; indeed he is another Thomas à Kempis, or Tauler. But it required to live in Rome to understand what his influence really was. Nothing was too high for him, nothing too low. He taught poor begging women to use mental prayer; he took out boys to play; he protected orphans. He was the teacher and director of artisans, mechanics, cashiers in banks, merchants, workers in gold, artists, men of science. He was consulted by monks, canons, lawyers, physicians, courtiers; ladies of the highest rank, convicts going to execution, engaged in their turn his solicitude and prayers. Cardinals hung about his room, and Popes asked for his miraculous aid in disease, and his ministrations in death. It was his mission to save men, not from, but in, the world. To break the haughtiness of rank, and the fastidiousness of fashion, he gave his penitents public mortifications; to draw the young from the theatres, he opened his Oratory of Sacred Music; to rescue the careless from the Carnival and its excesses, he set out in pilgrimage to the Seven Basilicas. For those who loved reading, he substituted, for the works of chivalry or the hurtful novels of the day, the true romance and the celestial poetry of the Lives of the Saints. He set one of his disciples to write history against the heretics of that age; another to treat of the Notes of the Church; a third, to undertake the Martyrs and Christian Antiquities; for, while in the discourses and devotions of the Oratory, he prescribed the simplicity of the primitive monks, he wished his children, individually and in private, to cultivate all their gifts to the full. He, however, was, after all and in all, their true model, the humble priest, shrinking from every kind of dignity, or post, or office, and living the greater part of day and night in prayer, in his room or upon the housetop.

And when he died, a continued stream of people . . . came to see his body, during the two days that it remained in the church, kissing his bier, touching him with their rosaries or their rings, or taking away portions of his hair, or the flowers which were strewed over him; and, among the crowd, persons of every rank and condition were heard lamenting and extolling one who was so lowly, yet so great.

Would that we, his children of this Oratory, were able -- I do not say individually, but even collectively, nor in some one generation, but even in that whole period during which it is destined to continue here -- would that we were able to do a work such as his! At least we may take what he was for our pattern, whatever be the standard of our powers and the measure of our success. And certainly it is a consolation that thus much we can say in our own behalf, that we have gone about his work in the way most likely to gain his blessing upon us.

My brethren, I do not feel it to be any want of devotion or reverence towards our dear Father, to speak of him as looking out to be taught, or willing to be governed. It is like his most amiable, natural, and unpretending self. He was ever putting himself in the background, and never thought of taking on himself a rule, or seizing on a position, in the Church, or of founding a religious body. He did not ask to be opposed, to be maligned, to be persecuted, but simply to be overlooked, to be despised. Neglect was the badge which he desired for himself and for his own. He took great pleasure in being undervalued. And hence you know, when he became so famous in his old age, and every one was thinking of him mysteriously, and looking at him with awe, and solemnly repeating Father Philip's words and rehearsing Father Philip's deeds, and bringing strangers to see him, it was the most cruel of penances to him, and he was ever behaving himself ridiculously on purpose, and putting them out, from his intense hatred and impatience of being turned into a show.

We have determined, through God's mercy, not to have the praise or the popularity that the world can give, but, according to our Father's own precept, ‘to love to be unknown’. May this spirit ever rule us more and more!

Bearing His Name always in the mind, in the heart and on the lips

2011-05-25T09:38:00.004-04:00

Today at Carthusian Matins:

Life in God is like a precious chain, rich in gold, in which one virtue is closely linked with another, and all are harmonised into one whole. This must be so, since they all constitute one body – namely, they deify a man who sincerely lives by them, as it were enriching him with their connected links. A man is enriched by the faith, and if you will, by the hope and humility, with which he calls on the most sweet Name of our Lord Jesus Christ; and he is enriched also by peace and love.

The gift and coming of the Holy Spirit is given to the faithful from God the Father through Christ Jesus and His holy Name, as the most Divine and compassionate Lord Jesus said to the apostles: ‘It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you’ (Saint John 16:7). And, ‘But when the Comforter comes, Whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth Who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness’ (Saint John 15:26).

Especially those who have wished to embrace the field of divine silence and consecrate themselves to God, having renounced the world to practise hesychasm with wisdom, and to prefer prayer to the Lord above any other work or care, begging His mercy with undaunted hope.

Such men should have, as their constant practice and occupation, the invoking of His most holy and sweet Name, bearing it always in the mind, in the heart and on the lips. They should force themselves in every way possible to live, breathe, sleep and wake, walk, eat and drink with Him and in Him, and shall we say, do all that they have to do.

~ Callistus and Ignatius Xanthopoulos ~

What a Gift!

2011-05-23T09:27:00.003-04:00

A Carthusian monk reflects on the Virgin Mother of God:

The Son of God was about to die. The Sacred Scriptures were fulfilled, the chalice had been drained to the dregs; all was consummated. Jesus could freely leave this life, which for our sakes he had freely taken up. But Mary, her heart transpierced by a sword, stood by the Cross with the beloved disciple. Seeing the immense void which His death was to create in the soul of His Mother, Jesus said to Saint John: “Behold thy Mother!”

What a gift! The Fathers of the Church have written long dissertations upon it. So profound is it that no human mind can fully penetrate its depth and meaning. Saint John himself, in whom it operated so many miracles of grace, did he realize all that it implied? Does not Jesus seem to say to the son of Zebedee: “Here is My Mother, I entrust her to you. My going is for her the supreme trial; without Me, earth will no longer hold anything for her. And yet, her presence is necessary to my infant Church. I adjure you, be to her another son; be to her a Jesus. Your affection, your tenderness, your filial love will help her to bear her exile. At the Last Supper, I allowed you to rest on My Heart and drink at the very source of divine charity, in order to prepare you for the mission with which I entrust you now. In this, as in all else, more than in all else, be mindful of my word – I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so do you also.”

It was thus that devotion to Mary and love for her was established in the Church. It was, so to speak, a sacrament of grace for souls. The reason for it was obvious: it was that Mary might be loved as Jesus loved her.

The divine commandment made to us in the person of Saint John – to love our Lady – goes beyond all time. The Carthusian author of La Clef du Ciel said: “What we see in the homage paid by the Church to the glorious Queen of Heaven is still and always will be the love of Jesus for her. It is her, it is His Soul on fire with the ardor of the Holy Spirit, which secretly touches our hearts, as a musician plucks the strings of his lyre, to the glory of the most noble of all creatures.”

It is the desire of this Son, so tenderly drawn to His Mother, that we should imitate the zeal and devotion that He has shown, in order to give glory to His Blessed Mother. Out of the thirty-three years which were to make up His life on earth, thirty were consecrated to the sanctification of Mary. “God Who became Man,” says Saint Grignon de Montfort, “found His freedom in being hidden within the womb of Mary. He made His Omnipotence shine forth in letting Himself be carried by the Blessed Virgin. He found His own and His Father’s glory in hiding His splendors from all creatures here below, and revealing them alone to Mary. He glorified His independence and His Majesty in depending upon that sweet Virgin, in His conception, His birth, in His Presentation in the Temple, in His hidden life of thirty years, and even in His death, where she was to be present, in order that He might make with her but one same Sacrifice and be immolated to His Father by her consent, just as Isaac of old was offered to the will of God by Abraham’s consent. Jesus Christ gave more glory to God the Father by His submission to His Mother during those thirty years than He would have given Him in converting the whole world by the working of the most stupendous miracles. Oh how highly we glorify God when, to please Him, we submit ourselves to Mary, after the example of Jesus!” (True Devotion).

“If all our members were transformed into as many tongues,” cries Saint Bernard, “we would still be unable to render worthy praise to Mary.” We need never be afraid of honoring our Lady too much; we shall never honor her enough!

Dominica Quinta Paschæ

2011-05-21T11:01:00.002-04:00

First Reading, Acts 6:1-7
When Padre Pio was nearing the end of his life, it saddened many. But the supernaturally gifted Italian Capuchin priest told the faithful that he will be of much more help to them in heaven than he ever could be on earth. Much grief was experienced with the passing of Pope John Paul II. During his ministry as our Holy Father, he called all of us to a new evangelization. Through this evangelization he foresaw what he defined as a new springtime for the Church. As laity, to evangelize does not necessarily mean a preaching of the Word of God in the same sense as the twelve apostles are charged with in this Reading. In very practical terms, to evangelize is to absorb what we are taught from the Word of God and take those lessons out into the world and live out those lessons. For us as laity, therefore, to evangelize is to live our faith by example. Quite often example is more powerful than preaching. It's an interesting spiritual house that the Holy Spirit has built: We have priests (pope, cardinals and bishops included) who are ministers of the Word of God like the apostles; there is the laity who take those lessons of the Word out into the world; and then there are deacons in which Stephen, Philip and the other five mentioned in this Reading are among the first. The diaconate is a ministry that identifies with both priestly and laity experiences. In a sense they serve as the liaison with priests and laypersons. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the role of the deacon as one who is involved in pastoral and liturgical ministries, as well as being ministers of social and charitable works (cf. CCC 1571). When we are faithful to our role in evangelization, then most certainly we will continue to witness an increase in the number of disciples, not only in the worldwide Church but also in our little corner of it. We lost a hero in John Paul II but have gained a powerful intercessor before the Throne of God. And with his prayers added to our own commitment to evangelize, we may soon witness a larger than life spreading of the Word of God; and rejoice as the Church's new springtime unfolds under Pope Benedict XVI.

Second Reading, 1 Peter 2:4-9
The first four words of this Reading are striking: "Beloved, come to Him"; and prompts a handful of questions to reflect upon: What means do I use to come to Jesus? What are other ways to come to Him that I've never tried? Do I come to Him often enough? Do I approach Jesus as fervently when things are going well as I do when I'm in trouble? In the Roman Catholic faith there is a treasure trove of devotions at our disposal which can greatly assist us in our approach to Jesus. Virtually all authentic Christocentric devotions are designed to help us meet Jesus at our inner sanctuary. And what a merciful and loving God we serve! We are human beings, and thus when we sin, we reject our Living Stone. But our Cornerstone, Who is chosen and precious in the sight of God, never rejects us. On the contrary, our belief in Him spares us from ever being put to shame; and our gift of holy priesthood endows us with the privilege to offer spiritual sacrifices that are not rejected, but accepted by God through Jesus Christ. We are sinful humanity and because of it we occasionally face the darkness; but with our acceptance of God's merciful love, the Light will always overpower the darkness. "Royal" priesthood has both an earthly and heavenly connotation. Royalty intimates governance, and so, we are called upon to govern our passions on earth and thus we will reign with Christ in heaven.

Gospel, John 14:1-12
When Pope John Paul II went home to the Lord, he left behind a flock of many troubled hearts. His death brought forth an array of concerns about the future of the Church. It is an occasion such as this where we can see how eternal Christ's words are. Our Lord's words of consolation were spoken two thousand years ago and yet they could easily be applied to the concerns of any age in history. Jesus departed to prepare a place for us so that we may be with Him. On 2 April 2005 Jesus Christ came back again to take John Paul II to Himself. And for us, those eternal words of our Lord needed to be heard in our spirit: "Do not let your hearts be troubled." Jesus assures us that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. This is boggling to the human mind. Jesus embodies so many things we've become familiar with in Sacred Scripture – in fact He is the Embodiment of Sacred Scripture – the Word made Flesh. He is the Embodiment of the Torah, the parting of the Red Sea or Gateway to freedom, the Bread of angels, the sacrificial Lamb, the Covenant, the Blood on the doorposts, the Promised Land, the Way, the Truth, the Life and the fulfillment of all the sacred mysteries of the Old Testament. It is perhaps the crux of what separates believers in the Divinity of Jesus from non-believers. In Pope Benedict's book, "Jesus of Nazareth," our Holy Father writes about how recent scholarship has detached Jesus from God and reduces Jesus to an anti-Roman revolutionary Who failed to overthrow the ruling powers. Rabbi Jacob Neusner, who is featured in Pope Benedict's book, also has written a book titled, "A Rabbi Talks with Jesus." Rabbi Neusner imagines having a dialogue with a first century Jew well-versed in the Law of Moses after Rabbi Neusner had listened to our Saviour's teachings on the Torah. The imaginary dialogue goes like this: The Torah expert asks concerning Christ's teachings on the Torah: "What did He [Jesus] leave out?" Rabbi Neusner answers: "Nothing." The Torah expert asks: "Then what did He add?" Rabbi Neusner answers: "Himself." It is reasonable to think that a Man cannot take all of this upon Himself. And let's face it, without faith in Jesus Christ, it would have to be deemed a fantastic notion. In fact, for some branches of monotheism it is considered insulting and scandalous to even consider that God became Man. On the surface that may appear to be an oppressive religious mandate but consider that Jews as well as Christians are taught from the Old Testament that no one can look on the Face of God and live (cf. Exodus 33:20). But in Christ Jesus, God has put on a human Face so that we can not only look upon Him but also Jesus calls each of us to a personal search for His Face. And what radiates from His Face promises to be an experience of Love like never experienced before. Our Redeemer asks us in this Gospel to have faith in Him. Our "yes" to Him doesn't mean abandoning what is reasonable or logical, but with God's help, opens us up to what is transcendent and the belief that with God all things are possible (cf. Matthew 19:26). Death of the faithful promises eternal joy but consequently it often leaves feelings of insecurity to those who still remain. It's amazing in any person's life that after taking into consideration the many years of prayer, years of going to Mass, years of receiving Jesus in the Eucharist, years of reading and listening to our Lord's words from Scripture that what Jesus said to Philip then still applies here and now: "Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know Me?" Such is our human weakness; and that inner fear or uncertainty we have of what the future holds, paints a vivid picture of the reality of how much we are in need of our Lord. Blessed John Paul II often said and was a living witness to the words, "Do not be afraid." His existence was a photo album of a life that had faith in Jesus Christ. "Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in Me." Such comforting and eternally rewarding words from our Saviour -- if only we have the faith to believe it.

Reciting the Divine Office respectfully, attentively, devoutly

2011-05-20T11:21:00.006-04:00

After the Sacrifice of the altar the Divine Office is one of the most important functions of my ministry. In making me responsible for this office, the Church wishes that several times a day her minister be present before the throne of his God’s mercies to draw down heavenly blessings on her children, and turn away from above their heads the scourges that the multitude of sins committed on earth call out for all too strongly. She wishes that I perform in her name, and in the name of the Christian people, that I take part here below in what employs the blessed spirits in heaven: Divinum Officium, imitatio coelestis concentus (S. Bonav. De Sexalis Seraph. c.8), that I begin during this life that concert of praises that I shall not cease to repeat in the other, if, as I must hope, I have the happiness to get there.

So I will direct all my attention to acquit myself worthily of this holy and consoling ministry, both as to the manner and as to the order in which I say it. As to the manner, I will direct all my attention to see that it is not an empty din of muddled words said out of obligation; I know well enough what reproaches the Jews merited for not having acquitted this duty of religion in any other way than this. This people honours me with their lips, says the Lord, and their heart is far from me. How many priests deserve this reproach, and as for myself too, do I not have some improvements to make on this score?

The indispensable conditions required for praying as one ought are found in this preparatory prayer that a laudable custom normally prefixes to the recitation of every part of the Divine Office: Aperi Domine os meum ut digne, attente, ac devote recitare valeam hoc officium, etc., namely, respectfully, attentively, devoutly.

Respectfully i.e., without haste, in a modest posture, in a suitable place.

Attentively for without attention there is no true prayer, prayer being a rational worship. To pray without attention is to act purely mechanically.

Devoutly for prayer is homage of the heart even more than it is of the mind, and the words of Our Lady prove that it is in the heart that lies the merit of prayer.

In the recitation of the Office, therefore, it will be very much to the point, indeed indispensable, always to prepare myself, even if only by fervently raising my heart to God.

I will take pains to repulse every distraction that comes up as soon as I notice it, and to avoid them persisting in spite of myself I will make an imperceptible pause at the end of each psalm while saying Gloria Patri, to renew my intention and refocus my attention if it has wandered for a moment. I will fix my mind to the best of my ability on the meaning of the Psalms that I am saying, in such a way as to follow the Psalmist in the various feelings that move him and that my heart may produce the same effect that animated him when he composed those wonderful canticles, Si orat Psalmus orate. Si gemit gemite,.si gratulatur gaudete, si timet timete (5. Aug. in Ps. 30), but when I do notice some involuntary distraction, I will try to accept not to go over it again as has sometimes happened, being satisfied in that case with humbling myself before the Lord, asking pardon of Him from the bottom of my heart, and starting again then with a new fervour to make reparation for past negligence.

So much for the manner in which I will acquit myself in a holy way of that important and consoling function. I will not add anything else save a desire that I might make this prayer on my knees, with uncovered head, as we read that the Venerable Cardinal Bellarmine and several other holy personages never failed to do.

As to the order, I will enter as much as I can into the spirit of the Church and its ancient practice by dividing up my saying of the office, and reciting it at the different times set out for it; if the Venerable Bellarmine, overburdened as he was with so many responsibilities, managed to conform with this edifying practice, it seems to me it should not be impossible for me, especially as I have always wanted to do it and have even made the attempt without difficulty while I was at the seminary.

~ Saint Eugène de Mazenod ~

O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Maria!

2011-05-18T08:47:00.003-04:00

This beautiful prayer comes to us from the mind and heart of a Carthusian monk:

O Lord Jesus, my God, I give You thanks for Your boundless love, and for the favors bestowed upon the Angels and men, and upon the whole world, from the noblest and worthiest of all Your creatures, the most holy Virgin Mary, Your Mother, down to me the most unworthy of all, unfit to appear before You on account of my sins and ingratitude.

Be forever blessed, O infinitely good Jesus, Who has from all eternity chosen Mary, this matchless Virgin, to be Your Mother! You made her wholly Immaculate. You preserved her from all sin. You prepared and possessed her soul, and adorned it with the fullness of all virtues and all graces. You were conceived in her womb; she is Your Mother. You were nourished at her holy breast. You willed that she should be present at Your preaching and at the sufferings of Your Passion and death. You allowed her to take part in our redemption. And now that she has been taken up to Heaven in body and soul, and is crowned with very great glory, You have given her to us to be our advocate, the Queen of mercy, and our Mother. Praise, glory and honor be to You forever for all these benefits! Most sweet Jesus, I offer you the heart of Mary and her merits, and through her I commend myself to Your most kind Heart.

O clement, O loving, O sweet Mary, may I be all yours and you all mine! Keep me, guide me, deliver me, preserve me from all sin, from all harm, from all danger, and remove from me everything that might come between my soul and God.

Life-changing Gifts Deserve Thanksgiving

2011-05-17T08:32:00.002-04:00

“When a person has eaten some delicious food at a banquet, he is careful not to take anything bitter in his mouth immediately after, lest he should lose the sweet flavor of those delicate viands. In like manner, when we have received the precious Body of Jesus Christ, we should take care not to lose its heavenly flavor by turning too soon to the cares and business of the world.” These are the words of Saint John Chrysostom.

We live in a time when priests usually preside at more than one Mass on a Sunday. For parents and their children, in addition to Mass, Sundays also mean softball practice or soccer practice or some other sport. And of course, Sundays also mean getting home in time for the big game. The Sunday liturgical celebration is in danger of becoming something obligatory that we must, therefore, squeeze in between everything else going on in our lives. And yet, the truth is that Mass is the most important thing we do each week. Nothing else we do has more eternal value for our souls. We all see it every week – church-goers heading for the exit right after Holy Communion. Being preoccupied with secular aspirations on a Sunday is not what makes saints.

The quote from Saint John Chrysostom exhorts us to offer a proper thanksgiving when Mass has concluded. It used to be a fairly common practice which today has subsided. For priests and anyone who prays the Divine Office, the breviaries prior to the post-Conciliar Liturgy of the Hours contained prayers that were appropriate Before and After Mass. Cardinal Francis Arinze, the Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments said: “Thanksgiving after Mass has traditionally been greatly esteemed for both the priest and the lay faithful.”

Saint Teresa of Avila instructed her Sisters about what to do after Mass: “Let us detain ourselves lovingly with Jesus and not waste the hour that follows Communion.”

Saint Philip Neri said: “We have to pay proper respect to our Lord, Whom you are carrying away with you.” Saint Philip defined the love of God as a “devouring fire.”

How much time should be spent in Thanksgiving has always seemed to depend on the individual. Cardinal Arinze recommends ten minutes. Saint Josemaria Escrivá said: “Do not leave the church almost immediately after receiving the Sacrament. Surely you have nothing so important on that you cannot give our Lord ten minutes to say thanks. Love is repaid with love.” But the Church has had some very extraordinary souls in her history. Those like Padre Pio, Jean Marie Vianney and Louis Marie de Montfort couldn’t be dragged away from Thanksgiving by wild horses. Hours upon hours have been spent in Thanksgiving by these beautiful souls as well as others.

Saint Catherine of Genoa once had a dream that she would not be able to receive our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. In this dream she was so grief-stricken by this that she cried uncontrollably. The next morning when she woke up, her face was wet. Thus it was not only in the dream that she shed many tears. Her love was so great for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament that she could not bear the thought of not receiving Him in Holy Communion.

Saint Gemma Galgani wrote to her spitiual director these words: “Today I went to Confession and the Confessor said that I must stop receiving Jesus. O my Father, my pen does not want to write more, my hand shakes strongly, I cry.” She also expressed these words to Jesus in Holy Communion: “You are my loving prey just as I am the object of Your immense charity.”

As Saint Josemaria said, these are examples of love repaying love.

What does our Lord Himself say about this? Here’s what our Divine Savior told Saint Faustina: “My great delight is to unite Myself with souls. When I come to a human heart in Communion, My Hands are filled with graces which I want to give to souls. But souls do not pay attention to Me: they leave Me to Myself and busy themselves with other things. They do not recognize love. They treat Me as a dead object.”

Our Lord invites us to His house and feeds us with “the living Bread which came down from heaven” (John 6:51). Jesus said: “If any man comes after Me, let him deny himself” (Matthew 16:24). This is a statement about priorities. Is the Lord truly the Center of our lives? Let us consider reintroducing the practice of spending some time in Thanksgiving after Mass. Most disconcerting and heartbreaking are our Redeemer’s words: “Will you also go away?” (John 6:68).

Our Lady's Poverty

2011-05-16T08:28:00.002-04:00

This particular piece from a Carthusian monk focuses on the poverty of the Virgin Mother of God, in order that she may ‘preserve her unique treasure’. Jesus tells us to ‘make to yourselves . . . a treasure in heaven which does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth corrupts. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also’ (Saint Luke 12:33-34). The possessions of this world’s goods or the lack thereof, causes much stress in the hearts of humanity. Our fallen nature renders us ‘control freaks’, making it difficult to surrender totally to our Lord and trust in His Providence. Jesus encourages us however, when He said: ‘Fear not, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you a Kingdom’ (ibid. verse 32).

Our annals record the apparition, in the year 1137, of Our Blessed Lady to a simple lay-brother of La Correrie near La Grande Chartreuse, to whom she said, having delivered him from some grievous temptation: ‘Keep on advancing always in the life of perfection. Love the coarse food, the poor clothing allowed you by your Rule, and spend yourself in manual labour’.

These are the counsel of a Mother, herself imbued with a great love for poverty, a virtue of which during the whole of her life she gave a wonderful example.

Daughter of David and the descendant of the kings of Judah, Mary counted it her glory to live hidden from the eyes of men. She heard herself spoken of as a carpenter’s wife, and rejoiced in it, just as her Son was happy to pass for a workman’s son.

Rich in the possession of her divine Son, Mary deprived herself of the goods of this world, in order to preserve her unique treasure. And yet as she was Queen of creation, she knew that she could have been trusted always to make use of created things in a lawful and holy manner. We too, therefore, should remain detached from the vanities of this world, if we would possess Him Who in truth only gives Himself to those who can repeat with the poor man of Assisi: My God, and my All!

The prospect of the unfading crown which will encircle the brows of those who conquer for Christ’s sake should make us generous in our detachment, like those athletes of whom the apostle speaks, who strip themselves of everything in order to fight in the arena (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:25). Did not Joshua once see his army put to flight by the enemies of God in punishment for a theft committed by a son of Israel, who had stolen objects vowed to the pagan gods?

Holy Mary, Mother of God: pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

Dominica Quarta Paschæ

2011-05-14T09:27:00.002-04:00

First Reading, Acts 2:14a, 36-41
This is a continuation of last weekend's speech from Peter. Again, it's very tempting to think that the hearers of this message are being read the riot act; but an angry tone delivered among adults usually produces the same in return. But the fact that the hearers "were cut to the heart" intimates something very different. Peter, perhaps in a deeply sad tone, delivered these poignant words. Fortunately, Peter is quick to offer a remedy for such a barbaric series of events in the form of sacramental Baptism. He might very well be wearing on his sleeve his own personal experience of betraying Jesus. Although as disciples of Jesus we are most grateful for our Lord's ocean of mercy, our often feeble minds are not so quick to forget some of the sins committed. The Image of our Lord nailed to the Cross is a vivid reminder of the wages of sin. But our Lord's love for us will not abandon us to live out a life of despair. We are a sacramental Church which produces healing and the gift of the Holy Spirit. In this Reading the question, "What are we to do, my brothers?" surely suggests a desire to repent. Much of the childhood and early adult years of Jesus was hidden. What we don't know and is interesting to consider is how many of the hearers of Peter's message grew up with Jesus and maybe played together as kids or were friends as teenagers? How many are a little older and perhaps associated with Joseph and Mary and maybe shared meals together? What drives friendships to utter betrayal? How did "Hosanna!" turn to "Crucify Him!"? Saint Peter makes it clear who the real enemy is: "Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, prowls about seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8). Saint Peter's exhortation to "save yourselves from this corrupt generation" reaches even our ears separated by two thousand years. We've all suffered the consequences for not always being so vigilant. The French philosopher, Blaise Pascal, said: "Jésus sera en agonie jusqu'à la fin du monde; il ne faut pas dormir pendant ce temps-là" – "Jesus will be in agony until the end of the world; during this time we must not sleep." When we find that sleep or a lack of vigilance has become habitual, that is also when we will find ourselves very much a part of the corrupt generation. To live a sacramental life is to stay close to the Bosom of Jesus Who envelops us with His Love; and love which freely offers forgiveness is a wounding blow to our adversary.

Second Reading, 1 Peter 2:20b-25
Saint Peter desires that we follow in the Footsteps of our Lord especially when he uses the example of Christ handing Himself over to the One Who judges justly. You can bet that the Church's first pope prays for us unceasingly in heaven. Our commitment to discipleship is an act of handing ourselves over to our Lord and trusting in His Providential care. Our sufferings in which Peter calls us to patient endurance are inevitable. No one will escape suffering. Suffering without patient endurance, however, no matter how minimal or extreme can be a catalyst to sin. Our struggle to be without deceit in our mouths, our struggle to remain silent when insulted and our struggle to offer no threats in the heat of the battle perhaps is caused by unwittingly adhering to the whispers of the tempter which leads to an unbeknownst pulling away from the embrace of Jesus. And because of that human weakness, that elusive ingredient within us that needs to control, or at least is led to believe we're in control, the straying sheep that we are need a means in which we can return to the Shepherd and Guardian of souls. And hopefully the graces received from the frequent reception of that sacrament will help us to remain more intently in the Bosom of our Lord while going astray like sheep becomes a rarity.

Gospel, John 10:1-10
Concerning the sheepfold, the Catechism of the Catholic Church shares these words: "The Church is, accordingly, a sheepfold, the sole and necessary gateway to which is Christ. It is also the flock of which God Himself foretold that He would be the Shepherd, and Whose sheep, even though governed by human shepherds, are unfailingly nourished and led by Christ Himself, the Good Shepherd and Prince of shepherds, Who gave His life for His sheep" (CCC 754). All three Readings this weekend plead with us to stay close to Jesus. This message would not be necessary if it weren't for our tendency to stray. The prophet Ezekiel speaks of God's intention of taking care of His sheep by taking the sheep away from shepherds who feed themselves. The prophecy also reveals that this will occur through a Davidic Prince (cf. Ezekiel 34:1-24). And of course this Prince from the line of David is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The thieves and robbers that our Lord speaks of could refer to the false prophets who preceded Him throughout salvation history; but Jesus is speaking mysteriously in the present tense when He says: "All who came before Me are thieves and robbers." The word "are" is present tense and agrees with the ancient texts, therefore, Christ is most likely referring to the scribes and Pharisees. There's a level of intimacy here that cannot be overlooked. There must be a deep, personal relationship with Jesus in order to recognize His Voice. And one can really get a sense of the personal closeness intended when Jesus says that He calls His own sheep by name. And that intimacy with our Lord rewards us with abundant life. The great opportunity we have in the here and now cannot be overemphasized. Meditating on Sacred Scripture every day enables us to recognize the Voice of the Master. In "The Plan of Life" of the Hermits of Bethlehem who are located in Chester, NJ, using our Blessed Mother as the model, there is a very beautiful passage which applies not only to hermits but anyone who desires to make Sacred Scripture a vibrant part of their life. The passage reads as follows: "Like Mary, the hermit strives to be a servant-bearer of the Word by daily opening oneself to the presence and mystery of the Word (Isaiah 50:4), listening to and pondering the Word (Luke 2:19, 10:39), believing and treasuring the Word (John 17:20), waiting patiently for the Word to take flesh in the heart through the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:14), proclaiming the Word not only by one's speech, but by the very actions and attitudes of one's life (John 2:5), celebrating the Word (Acts 2:46; Luke 4: 17, 18), responding in love to the Word (John 15:23; Mark 3:35), resting in the word (Psalm 62:1-5; Matthew 11:29) surrendering himself in trust that the day-to-day experience is the mysterious revelation of God's plan." And it was our Savior Himself Who said: "Blessed are they who hear the Word of God and keep it" (Luke 11:28).

A Sweet Paradise

2011-05-13T14:11:00.003-04:00

Today the Carthusians reflected on this at Matins:

When Jesus is near, all is well and nothing seems difficult. When He is absent, all is hard. When Jesus does not speak within, all other comfort is empty, but if He says only a word, it brings great consolation.

Did not Mary Magdalene rise at once from her weeping when Martha said to her: “The Master is come, and calls for you”? Happy is the hour when Jesus calls one from tears to joy of spirit.

How dry and hard you are without Jesus! How foolish and vain if you desire anything but Him! Is it not a greater loss than losing the whole world? For what, without Jesus, can the world give you?

Life without Him is a relentless hell, but living with Him is a sweet paradise. If Jesus be with you, no enemy can harm you.

He who finds Jesus finds a rare treasure, indeed, a good above every good, whereas he who loses Him loses more than the whole world.

The man who lives without Jesus is the poorest of the poor, whereas no one is so rich as the man who lives in His grace. It is a great art to know how to converse with Jesus, and great wisdom to know how to keep Him.

~ The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis ~