Dec 17 John of Matha, Briarch, Stephen Kaszap, nsj

John and Thommy, et al.
Good morning, I love you
12/16/09 1940

Getting a head start on tomorrow? Peeking ahead and discovering some things I hadn’t put together before; didn’t know before….




St. John of Matha b. 1160 d. 1213 c. 1655
December 17

John of Matha did not ring any bells except his mission to save Christians from the Moors in the midst of the crusades. But. When I read an entry about his as John de Matha, it rang a bell from Molloy. Is this the same de Matha as the high school in D.C.? Google took me right to the DeMatha home page. Molloy had a very good basketball team in 1966 and 1967. Rice was the better team, by far, in NYC - Dean the Dream Menninger and ten other guys on their twelve man team who could dunk. The gym wall at Rice was less than four feet from the baseline, dunking was much safer than doing layups. We had one guy who could dunk and one guy who could sometimes dunk - white guys, in 1966 were not dunkers. Rice was a great team. DeMatha was better - exponentially. A powerhouse with a national draw for basketball players.

John de Matha was born of pious and noble parents at Faucon, Provence, on June 23, 1160. His mother dedicated him to St. John the Baptist. [We named Jack in honor of his grandfathers. He selected John the Baptist then John the Apostle as his patron saints. He also chose John as his confirmation name - John Kenneth John Nolan. Sounds confirming to me.] His father, Euphemius sent John de matha to Aix where he received an education fit for a young nobleman. [We sent John and Thommy to Overbrook to get an education fit for a young Catholic. Unfortunately, that education was not leveraged in their primary abode after 1994. The good Dominicans and their lay teachers did their darndest, as did their father. So far, it seems like it was insufficient for a successful Catholic education - but, hey, infinity is a long time and it’s been only 20/22 years. Videbimus.]

John de Matha’s chief attention at school was to advance in virtue. A noble and Catholic endeavor. John de Matha gave the poor a considerable part of the money his parents sent him for his own use. [I wonder what my sons have done with the $40k+ they received for their education? Or, if not for their education, when scholarships and NC low cost high quality education was/is available, how have they preserved/leveraged this equity nut?]

Maybe more powerfully, John de Matha visited the hospital every Friday - helping the poor sick, dressing and cleansing their sores. Formative years spent in service - there is always something we can and should be doing to serve those less fortunate; and there’s always some less fortunate.

Upon his return home, John de Matha lived as a hermit. His friends interrupted his solitude with frequent visits. He got his father’s consent to go to Paris to study divinity. John de Matha received his doctorate in theology and was ordained in Paris in 1197, at 37 years old.

John de Matha celebrated his first mass in the Bishop of Paris's chapel, at which the bishop himself, Maurice de Sully, the abbots of St. Victor and of St. Genevieve, and the rector of the university assisted. John de Matha, with a propensity for solitude and the brilliance of a theologian par excellence also had the benefits of his nobility.

With two sons in college [?], I wonder still how they will find their natural, God given talents and meld that with the resources God gave them to excel. And then there are the advantages of connections; or the opportunity costs of continuing to cut themselves off from these gifts. How do you answer the question - what did you do with all that I gave you?

During his first Mass John de Matha had a vision of Christ holding by the hand two chained captives, one a Moor, the other a Christian. The Christian captive carried a staff with a red and blue cross.

John de Matha was thus inspired by God to resolve to devote himself to ransoming Christian slaves from their captivity brought about by the crusades. John de Matha joined St Felix of Valois in his hermitage to spend time in prayer and mortification. Imagine putting two holy men together in pursuit of union with God - perpetual prayer, contemplation, fasting, and other penances. How will you decide with whom to team up? For a short time? For a lifetime? How will you know your choices will bring you closer to God and an eternity with Him in heaven?

John de Matha confided his idea to St Felix. Late in 1197, the two went to Rome and Pope Innocent III approved their forming the Order of the Most Holy Trinity with John de Matha as their superior.

John de Matha and his Trinitarians secured the approval and support of King Philip Augustus of France and some of his important Lords. This resulted in their receiving property and money to build their order. The Order flourished, spread to France, Spain, Italy, and England, and sent many of its members to North Africa, to accompany the crusaders and redeem many captives. In 1201 they redeemed 186 slaves on their first voyage. In 1202, John de Matha went himself and purchased the freedom of 110 more. John de Matha raised more charity to free many in captivity under the Moors in Spain.

In 1210, John de Matha returned to Tunis. This time he suffered from the “infidels” enraged by his zeal in persuading the slaves to patience and constancy in faith.

As he was returning with one hundred and twenty slaves he had ransomed, the “barbarians” took away the helm from his vessel and tore all its sails, that they might perish in the sea. The saint, full of confidence in God, begged him to be their pilot, and hung up his companions' cloaks for sails, and, with a crucifix in his hands kneeling on the deck, singing psalms, after a prosperous voyage, they all landed safe at Ostia, in Italy.

Infidels. Barbarians. See how we love one another! Or the Uncivilized Indians of South America and North America. We sent the crusaders to the Moslem world - and they’re the barbarians? The words we choose, the names we give, matter; are meaningful; influence perception and, thus, behavior. How is it Christian to refer to our brothers as infidels, barbarians, and uncivilized? ….

St. John lived two years more in Rome, which he employed in exhorting all to penance with great energy and fruit. He died on the 21st of December, in 1213 aged sixty-one.

In seven and a half months, I’ll be sixty one. I doubt if anyone will recommend my cause for sainthood. More likely, I’ll be depending on the people at Mass who pray “for all those souls in purgatory who have no one to pray for them” - altho, there’s a section for the souls in purgatory in every Mass. Since high school I’ve twice a year - birthday and new year’s [one advantage to a July birthday] - stopped to reflect on what I’m doing, what I’ve done, what I plan to do. Obviously, insight and prayer are not enough. Still, there are a few good things on my list; hopefully even more than I know about. I’m sure there are more negatives than I know about - for all these sins I am heartily sorry….

Today, the Order of the Most Holy Trinity is active on five continents and in many countries, including the United States. In 1964, DeMatha had about 450 students; Molloy had 1600ish when I graduated in 1967. And they still had the much better basketball team.





St. Briarch
December 17 d. 627

Briach was an Irishman who entered a monastery in Wales. The FBI [foreign born Irish - so many priests came to America 1950’s and 1960’s.] were missionaries to the world long before the 20th century. Briach left home to find his place of study and spiritual development. He became a companion, some say disciple, of St Tudwal.

Briach and Tudwal went to Brittany. They built a monastery there. Briach became their abbot. His personal holiness and his building up the kingdom on earth elicited devotion to Briach [and Tudwal] sufficient to have him called saint. With this scarce information, we can create the life of this 7th c. saint. I wish we knew more about why he chose to go to Wales [or why did I choose BAMA after Shadowbrook?] and how did he select the monastery he did? Was it Tudwal or some other reason? Then how did they decide to go to France, settle in Brittany, develop their monastery there?

A prayer to St Briach tells us a little more about him. O holy Briach, thou dost teach us the value of renunciation, for thou didst renounce the world to seek salvation. Therefore we pray, that our lives may show forth the virtue of self denial and thereby attain the eternal salvation of our souls. … The Irish monk, it seems, majored in renunciation and self denial as their route to salvation…? Certainly we must include those qualities in our journey….




S.G. Stephen Kaszap b. 1916 d. 1935
December 17

I discovered this Servant of God in my new - bought used via Amazon.com - Jesuit Saints and Martyrs book by Joseph Tylenda, S.J., 1998. Then I was stunned by the plethora of citations via Google. ‘a Hungarian man who may become the first Boy Scout to be canonized.’ He’s also a hero of the Sodality. And, of course, a cause of the Jesuits. All this writing about a boy, a very young man, of 19. Try writing hundreds of complimentary pages about yourself or any other nineteen year old of your acquaintance. I must admit, I’ve read more about Stanislaus Koska and was much more impressed - but when I first read about the Jesuit novice saint, I was much more impressionable.

Stephen Kaszap was born March 25, 1916, in a small town near Budapest, Hungary. His father was chief supervisor at the local post office and his mother was a devoted homemaker. Stephen was the third of five children of this devout and affectionate Catholic couple.

I wonder how we know about Stephen’s parents? Did we conclude backwards from Stephen’s holiness and goodness that his parents were devout, affectionate, and devoted? Such is the best soil for our own holiness, it seems to me. Then at some point, we get to take responsibility for our saintliness or lack thereof. How much more responsibility do we have as a function of the Graces and benefits and resources given to us, made available to us, from our parents?

As a young child, Stephen Kaszap was happy and loving. Stephen Kaszap also sometimes displayed obstinate, aggressive behavior and, when teased by his brothers, was known for sudden fits of temper when he would fly into a blind fury and throw whatever he could grab in his small hands. Go figure? A study in child psychology? How much of the obstinacy and aggression do we attribute to his devout and affectionate parents? How much of who we are belong to our own graces and demons and how much did we get from our parents, family, ancestry, …? Yes is the answer to all that. I suppose we will be judged by how well we did with what was made available to us. Obstinacy and aggression can be positive qualities. Fits of temper, well didn’t Jesus lash out at the money changers? To what end; for what purpose; with what success?

Stephen Kaszap received his first Holy Communion on May 21, 1925, at the age of nine.
At thirteen, Stephen was sent to a boarding school conducted by Cistercian monks. For a twenty year old Servant of God, we have to get all the details of childhood. The kinds of details skipped over when we get the bio of older saints. What is important in our saintly pursuit? Everything. And everyone.

An early riser, Stephen Kaszap formed the habit of regular prayer and served Mass whenever possible. That was part of my early years. It was what I made available to my sons - which each took to in their unique way. Altar boys at the youngest possible age. Wanting to serve more than our good priests sometimes wanted to allow children on the altar to serve. Blew me away both at the Cathedral and St Henry. Still, both John and Thommy served Mass in our parish and at our school. And then, when Senior high came along, they went the path with their mother away from church et al. C’est domage.

At the Lycee, Stephen began to write a daily journal, a practice he continued until his death. In it, we can begin to see some of the secrets of his soul. Writing is one of many ways to reflect, to challenge oneself, to report oneself, to even make our own record of who we are, what we do, how we came to do it. The art of writing itself is a cleansing process. I recommend that you indulge yourself and posterity with your daily journal.

In 1931, his junior year, Stephen joined a sodality known as the Congregation of Mary. The purpose of the group was to increase the member's devotion and love of Our Lady, and to spread this devotion to their fellow students by word and example. We all should be a member of such a group - or more. Knights of Columbus. Cursillo. At college, there’s the Newman Club. Attend and teach Sunday School. This is a lifelong opportunity to be with people who are more likely to facilitate our journey to heaven.

Throughout his school years, Stephen Kaszap was an active member of the Boy Scouts. He felt that "the boy scout, par excellence, should be an example in everything. He is never rude nor silly, but earnest and manly; at the same time, he is always joyful." Stephen Kaszap fit his own model of the good scout. I went all the way through Cub Scouts. Grandma was a Den Leader. Both of my parents were active in Pack activities. I started into boy scouts and made it for one year. Then I self destructed. Beating up on the eagle scout son of the scout master was not a way to become a boy scout. I’m sorry that neither John nor Thommy stuck it out through cub scouts or started into boy scouts. I’m sorry that y’all didn’t have access to or didn’t pursue access to or weren’t given the wherewithal to stick it out in any of the endeavors you started in school [so far]. Pick a group that’ll make you better Catholic men and join them, participate with them, stick to it. It’s a lifetime process.

A fellow scout said "Steve often left the camp to go for a walk in the forest. He loved nature because he understood its language." His patrol leader testified that "Steve got up every morning earlier than the others to go to the edge of the forest to pray." He always attended the morning Mass before returning to the activities of the day. There is much in this one sliver of Stephen Kaszap’s youth to emulate. Walk in the forest. Learn the language of nature. Go daily to pray. Attend morning Mass as often as possible - and it’s more possible than you think.

During his school years, Stephen Kaszap was fortunate to have an excellent gymnastics teacher and he became an outstanding athlete, winning a number of medals. Another series of missed opportunities for y’all - athletics. Again it had to the necessary support to stick to any and all of the activities you started in. And, the absence of the expectation to excel, to do what was necessary to not only plan, not only compete, but to pursue and become your best, the best at what you do; a pitiful consequence of opportunity costs. There was only one reason Thommy did not get to play on the basketball team at St Pius X. He was not properly prepared; he was actively by systematic omission un-prepared, dis-prepared. And then he was sent into try outs set up to fail. It was a horrendous day for him; unnecessary and subsequently compounded by allowing him to not rise to the challenge to make the team next year. I am sorry that Thommy and John suffered unnecessarily so many of those disappointments and failings. [Well, given the choices of their “custodian”, these intentional outcomes were inevitable.]

John Kaszap wrote about his high school graduation, after a serious slump in grades in his sophomore year, "It was God's voice that guided me in my studies and helped me to carry them out with dedication." What voice do you hear to pursue your duties with dedication? How do you develop dedication? God’s voice. Parents’ voice. The kick in the pants to regain, to obtain, your attention. What’s missing in your muddling through school so far?

By the time he graduated from high school, Stephen Kaszap had chosen to give his life to God by following a call to a religious vocation. Stephen Kaszap entered the Jesuit novitiate, Manressa, in July of 1934 at the age of eighteen. In the eighth grade, I thought I had a vocation to the priesthood. My parish priest dissuaded me; told me to wait and see if the calling persisted after high school. The vocation, I believed, grew stronger through high school - meeting the Jesuits, I became enamored with their Society, their vocation. When I was moved to NYC and to Molloy [Marist brothers] becoming a Jesuit was part of my identity formation. … [Manresa - where Ignatius started his own religious transformation.]

Stephen Kaszap reflected an inner maturity and displayed a warm, calm, reserved nature while at the same time being informal and friendly. He set his sights toward growing in the spiritual life and the practice of virtues. "Sanctity does not consist of being faultless but rather in not compromising with my weaknesses.“ Do I resign myself to them? If I fall a hundred times, I get up a hundred times and continue to fight resolutely." In his journal, he writes more than once of having to fight temptations. He fought these battles as he had all others, with the strength and will of a champion. This is the formation of a young man. He happened to choose to do this formation in the Jesuit novitiate. It does not matter where. Growing in the spiritual life of faith and the practice of Catholic virtues is our duty wherever we are, no matter what age. It behooves us to choose people to be in our lives and places to live that foster the spiritual life and the development of virtues.

Stephen Kaszap loved and respected the saints. Of the queen of saints he wrote, "Love your Heavenly Mom! You love and long for your mother very much but, look, you'll find an even holier mother in the Virgin Mother! Love her and trust her unconditionally." We cannot dedicate ourselves to our Mother Mary enough, not only in our formation of the ideal woman, wife, mother but also as our most direct way to discover Jesus in our lives.

Early in the novitiate, Stephen Kaszap exhibited physical ailments. Totally unexpected for a world class athlete. Tonsils. Swollen, arthritic ankles. By Christmas, he had pus-filled abscesses on his fingers, neck and face. Stephen Kaszap went through these trials with a sunny heart, and wrote, "Any cross God gives must be carried with joy. A little illness is more useful than ten or twenty years spent in health."

Stephen Kaszap suffered a near fatal nosebleed, high fever and pleurisy. He wrote, "I suffer gladly for Christ and I don't run from pain."

Surgery was scheduled for March 19, the feast of St. Joseph. Steve whispered to his novice master, "I trust in St. Joseph very much. How small our sufferings are and how much the Church needs them! These thoughts make suffering much easier for me." What, in addition to our faith, makes suffering bearable, “easier”?

It soon became obvious that he did not have the required health to continue in the novitiate and the superiors decided to send him home, telling him that they would welcome him back when his health improved.

On October 18, 1935, he wrote his own version of Ignatius‘ prayer, Sacred Heart of Jesus grant that I might empty myself completely! I do not want to reserve anything for myself, for my own intentions, not even my prayers, my sufferings or anything else. Everything is yours, you gave them to me and I give them back to you, Sacred Heart. I want to serve the Seat of Love, Your Most Sacred Heart, with love and suffering." "My whole life should be a continuous Yes to God."

Stephen Kaszap went home in early November and by the 8th he was admitted again to the hospital. He went home in mid-December. On December 16 he was admitted to the hospital again. An emergency tracheotomy was performed about three in the morning. As soon as he regained consciousness he wrote a note requesting a priest but the nurse ignored it, convinced that his life was in no danger. At five, the night nurse was relieved. As the day nurse bathed his sweat soaked face, Stephen Kaszap wrote a note indicating he would like the last rites. The nurse went at once to fetch the priest. At ten minutes past six, God's young athlete raced home.

As the nurse and the priest entered the room where the dying young man lay, they realized he was no longer conscious. His open eyes were fixed on the crucifix and Marian medal in his hands, but he did not see the visitors. They found his final message, scrawled on a paper on the patient's bedside table: "God be with you! We will meet in Heaven! Do not weep, this is my birthday in Heaven. God bless you all!"

The priest anointed him and gave him absolution and the papal blessing. Then Stephen Kaszap stopped breathing and his soul slipped quietly away.

Only a few weeks before, Stephen had written in his journal, "Finally! Eureka! I found what I have for so long searched for, but could not find. What is it? ... It is grace, the grace to recognize God's gifts always, and never to resist it but to follow it and trust in it, so that it can mould our souls."

Saintly Youth of Modern Times - Google Books Result
by Joan Carroll Cruz - 2006 - Religion - 222 pages

NCCS - Stephen Kaszap, Servant of God
www.nccs-bsa.org/information/stephenKaszap.php -

SERVANT OF GOD, STEPHEN KASAP
Hungary, 1916 - 1935
Sodalist, boy scout, athlete, and Jesuit novice
(Courtesy of Ann Ball - www.annball.com)

Maybe a nineteen year old Hungarian youth will be an inspiration for you.

I love you
Dad/bill
2227

Dec 16 Beoc

Thommy and John
Good morning, I love you
12/16/09
1911


A quiet day today - recovering from yesterday’s introduction to aging - from head to toe…. The annual dental thing and a clear as day picture of one tooth that is much shorter now than it was two years ago - and it was short to begin with. Modern medico technology gives us a brilliantly clear picture of the tooth, almost in time lapse beauty - if it weren’t a picture of the tooth’s withering away and a pocket of infection taking over the little pooch where the tooth’s root once was. First we try antibiotics to alleviate the infection. If not, there‘s a technique to remove the tooth, clean out the hole, rub up the base of the root, and put the tooth back in. ….

And then there’s the toe thing - really a foot thing that includes the toes. It first felt like my sox were wadded up. Not so. Feels like a bit of swollenness at the balls of the feet and some tingling from midcalf to the tip of my middle toes. And the doc, with a consult from his orthopod partner, said it’s a not uncommon phenomenon with the nerve that comes down the leg, along the ankle, and on to the balls of the feet and toes. There’s a juncture at the ankle where nerve and vein come side by side-ish plus some connective type tissue. Anyway, it’s possible that the vein/connective tissue have bulged just enough to impact the nerve to cause the tingling and the sensation of numbness [not swollen]. Cure? There’s oral anti-inflammatory med plus keep the foot up [I’m learning to walk on my hands]. If that doesn’t work in a month, there’s the ole steroid shot to the foot. Beyond that I don’t want to talk about - having some one cutting around where nerves and blood vessels are so close, no thanks….

Packing, wrapping, and sending Christmas presents are this week’s tasks. Going to the post office tomorrow….

Not much else happening.

I got a 1998 book with the complete list of Jesuit saints, blesseds, venerables, and servants of God. None with 12/16 as their assigned day.

We do have one Irish saint, whom we can’t quite figure out which century he died… and, there are some who record him as a Welshman who came over to Ireland…. And his name? well, imagine an oral history run amuck! :)


St. Beoc
December 16 5th or 6th century

Also called Beanus, Dabeoc, Mobeoc, and Moboac.

Beoc is credited with founding a monastery in Lough Derg, in Donegal. That’s the whole bio from Angels and Saints. A man who had sufficient impact on his community, personally and with the founding of a monastery to be revered upon his death and beyond. What impact will we have on those in our family, community, parish, Church - in the immediacy of our life and our legacy, the remembrances, the seeds we sowed in people’s hearts….? And how will we do it? Beoc did it by his faith and through his building up the kingdom in the present and for the future. How is the foundation of our faith? How are we building up the present and making for a better future? How do others know us? Remember us?…

Til next time

I love you
Dad/bill

December 13 Damasus, Lucy, John of the Cross

Thommy and John et al.
Good morning
I love you.

12/13/09
1223

I started today with Saints of the Roman Calendar - a variation on my daily saints reading/prayer. I’ve had this book for a long time and haven’t used it much. With my other hardcopy sources somewhere yet undiscovered in the boxes filling my apartment qua storeroom, I’ve read this little red book. A lot easier to read in bed than the laptop…

I wouldn’t usually read about a saint not a John, Ken, William, Thomas, or Jesuit. But, the blurbs in this book are very short and tie into the prayers of the Mass - besides, there he was between The Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadalupe. For a short read, what the heck, why not…. I followed up Saints of the Roman Calendar with Angels and Saints and Catholic Encyclopedia on line…..



Pope Saint Damasus I
December 11 b: 306? d: 384

Damasus was elected Pope, i.e., bishop of Rome, in 366 (a sixty year old deacon of the Church of St. Lawrence the Martyr) by the clergy and the people. The son of a Spaniard father and, maybe, Roman mother, Damasus was probably born but certainly grew up in Rome. The history of the papacy is worth a read if only for Machiavellian reasons. To the extent that our leaders, our Popes in particular, personify our faith, our religion, our pursuit of eternal happiness, then their lives are worth our time to learn about them.

Damasus’ election was not uneventful. His reign was marked by violence from the start. Another group decided to elect a different Bishop of Rome. Both sides tried to enforce their selections through violence. Emperor Valentinian recognized Damasus and banished his opponent, (367) Ursinus, to Cologne. Though the physical fighting stopped, Damasus had to struggle with these opponents throughout his years as Bishop of Rome. [How much of this struggle accounted for his sidling up to Theolosius I? How much of this accounted for his vehement positioning of the Bishop of Rome as The Bishop? Or was his positioning a cause of the competitive election of the other man?]


Damasus was the first to use the term “Apostolic See”. Words do matter; names even moreso. Personal names; the title of the position we hold. To the extent that others first, usually, respond to our position rather than our person, Damasus hit the nail on the head - there’s more to who he was than bishop of Rome; the one liner, Apostolic See was a declaration, an affirmation of the primacy of the bishop of Rome. By the middle of the fourth century we had not begun to settle on the matter of ‘one leader’, a perpetuation of the Rock of Peter. Damasus took us a big step in that direction for better or worse. We have gone down that road more and more. I suggest too far and to our detriment have we centralized our leadership and de-emphasized the localness of our church, the place of our bishop in our local leadership - a man who might better serve us were he to rise from our midst by acclamation of the people and the clergy….

In the fourth century this Spaniard confronted the division between East and West by declaring the primacy of the West, the bishop of Rome. To make his point beyond “Apostolic See”, Damasus called St Jerome to Rome to, among other things, translate the Bible from Greek into Latin [the vulgate - the vulgate of the west!]. Damasus also translated the liturgy from Greek into Latin, except the Kyrie: thus, both furthering the divide between East and West and more publicly emphasizing his assertion of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome.

Damasus did not have cordial relations with his counterparts in the Eastern Church. Go figure! St Basil said Damasus was too proud to listen to those who told him the truth. A warning for all of us. Veritas Splendor! We seek Truth. Truth is not a function of perception, opinion, position - Truth is real and an absolute unto itself. We discover Truth; Truth is revealed to us. Aristotle. Ayn Rand. The messenger is irrelevant to Truth. Once we personalize the message, once we make Truth dependent upon a source [or maintain that any particular person can not be a bearer of Truth] then we too are subject to Basil’s admonition of Damasus.

The fourth century was rife with heresies - maybe to be expected in the formative years of our church. How do we know the boundaries of our faith until some go beyond and upon proper discernment we determine they went too far? Arianism; the Donatists; Novatianists; et al. Let’s assume that these were theologians of good faith and intellectual honesty pursuing the depths and breaths and limits of our beliefs. At some point they are determined as right or not right. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that we settled definitively on the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. If Pius IXth and the Church of his day had decided no to the Immaculate Conception, all those people, for 1,850 years, would have been wrong and, possibly, in hindsight, deemed heretics. How do you pursue your faith and how it is limitlessly constrained by the doctrines, the teaching authority, of Mother Church?

Damasus was a great promoter of devotion to the martyrs. He made the catacombs sanctuaries and accessible for devotion. He was also zealous in locating the relics of the martyrs so that out heroes of the faith would serve as our models.

In 379, Damasus took us, I suggest to you, way over the edge. It was through Damasus’ efforts that Theolosius I made Christianity the State Religion. A move consistent with Damasus’ identifying the Bishop of Rome as the Apostolic See and the first among all bishops. This, along with articles of faith, became a wedge between the East and West of our faith, our Body of Christ, our then and still today, divided Church. ….

You can see, I hope, why Damasus caught my attention. The son of a Spanish official living in Rome is elected Bishop of the eternal city. He then puts us on several interwoven paths of Church history - for better and worse….

Damasus was a writer, mostly of epigram and not long missives or tombs. From the Decree of Damasus (attributed to Damasus) [From The Faith of the Early Fathers , by William A. Jurgens, Copyright 1970, the Order of St. Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota]:

The arrangement of the names of Christ, however, is manifold:
Lord, because He is Spirit;
Word, because He is God;
Son, because He is the only-begotten son of the Father;
Man, because He was born of the Virgin;
Priest, because He offered Himself as a sacrifice;
Shepherd, because He is a guardian;
Worm, because He rose again;
Mountain, because He is strong;
Way, because there is a straight path through Him to life;
Lamb, because He suffered;
Corner-Stone, because instruction is His;
Teacher, because He demonstrates how to live;
Sun, because He is the illuminator;
Truth, because He is from the Father;
Life, because He is the creator;
Bread because He is flesh;
Samaritan, because He is the merciful protector;
Christ, because He is anointed;
Jesus, because He is a mediator;
Vine, because we are redeemed by His blood;
Lion, because he is king;
Rock, because He is firm;
Flower, because He is the chosen one;
Prophet, because He has revealed what is to come.

Damasus, in addition to a masterful politician on the world stage, was, obviously, a prayerful man, a thinker in images. Add your meditations to his insights. Add your own metaphors to his.


1315, time out for Patriots v. Panthers….
1609, Panthers win, with the 13 points….
1852, post nap….



Saint Lucy
December 13 b. ~283 d. ~304
Patron of Blindness

Another saint I picked up in the Saints of the Roman Calendar. … There’s Charlie Brown’s Lucy. There’s Lucy in the sky with diamonds. There’s KK’s daughter Lucy. Those are the Lucys I know….

And then there is the story of this young, betrothed woman who went on a pilgrimage from Syracuse to the tomb of St Agatha, patron of Catania. To understand Lucy’s story, you have to know Agatha’s.

Agatha is one of the most highly venerated virgin martyrs of Christian antiquity. Her martyrdom probably took place during the persecution of Decius (250-253; maybe 70 years before Lucy took her fateful pilgrimage). The veneration of this saint rapidly spread beyond her native Catania - she was an inspiration to many Christians in an era of many persecutions, certainly during Lucy’s time.

Agatha, beautiful daughter of a distinguished family, was desired by the Senator Quintianus. Agatha, however, was herself an avowed pious virgin and spurned the Senator’s advances. Calculate all the dynamics at play here. Man wants woman who dares to say no! Very [self] Important Person wants the hand of this beautiful damsel for his wife; and she dares say no! Roman Senator publicly wants Christian girl; and she says no! She chooses virginity instead of him; how dare she! The woman of that era did not have a say in the matter. What does it say about Agatha’s parents that they allowed this response to represent them to the Senator. But I digress.

The Senator had Agatha committed to a Brothel. Agatha would not be made into a prostitute to defile her virginity. [I wish we knew more about the how of this successful resistance.] …. The Senator then had Agatha subjected to cruel tortures - including having her breasts cut off. St. Peter intervened and had her healed. Eventually, Agatha succumbed to the tortures and died - giving herself, in finality, to God, not to Quintianus.

So, Lucy, daughter of a noble family, betrothed to her own important man, goes on a pilgrimage to St Agatha’s shrine, fifty miles away. Didn’t anyone see what was coming? What was possibly already decided? Lucy’s father died when she was young. She could not go to the shrine on her own; her mother, Eutychia, had to allow it; endorse it; accompany her. Eutychia was persuaded to make a pilgrimage to Catania, in the hope of being cured of a hemorrhage, from which she had been suffering for several years. Could it be that daughter had already decided - not this man, not any man, Lucy would be a virgin committed to Christ and the Church. She had to give her mother cover - - Like Tevya’s dream?

We know for sure that a Syracuse woman known as Lucy lost her life in the persecution of Christians in the early fourth century. Her veneration spread to Rome. The details of her bravery, her legend, our inspiration requires the details of martyrology.

Lucy’s mother arranged for a marriage - of course, she was beautiful, they were a distinguished family, Lucy’s husband would bring life long security to the girl and her mother and their family. Lucy knew her mother would not be dissuaded by a young girl’s private, personal [selfish] vow - especially one so socially illogical.

Through prayers at the tomb of St Agatha, Lucy’s long illness was cured. Pretty clear whose side God was on. Lucy’s mother was now prepared to listen to her daughter’s desire to give her dowry to the poor and commit her life to God/Church.

Alas, the rejected bridegroom did not see the light. [ok, a pun. Lucy means light]. The suitor, showing us all why Lucy and her parents made the right decision to begin with, betrayed Lucy to the governor as a Christian. The governor tried to send her into prostitution. The guards who came for her could not lift her; they found her stiff and as heavy as a mountain. After many tortures, Lucy was finally killed. Whatever the details for Lucy, we know that her faith withstood tests we can hardly imagine. One of them, according to legend, was that Lucy’s eyes were put out as part of her torture - thus, her being patron of the blind/people with eye trouble and in art she holds a dish with two eyes on it.

Though the details of her martyrdom cannot be regarded as accurate, there can be no doubt of the great veneration that was shown to St. Lucy by the early church. She is one of those few female saints whose names occur in the canon of St. Gregory, and there are special prayers and antiphons for her in his "Sacramentary" and "Antiphonary". She is also commemorated in the ancient Roman Martyrology.




St. John of the Cross
December 14 b. 1542 d. 1591 bl. 1675 c. 1726


Read Jim Kinn’s book - he’s insightful and helps understand a man and his mission in a way that the original sources make it difficult to do in our day and age. John of the Cross is a saint for all ages. Fr. Jim helps make him embraceable in our age….

John de Yepes, youngest child of Gonzalo de Yepes and Catherine Alvarez, poor silk weavers of Toledo, knew from his earliest years the hardships of life. John’s father gave up wealth, status, and comfort when he, an aristocrat, married a weaver’s daughter. He was disowned by his noble family. [It’s oxymoronic to say a “noble” family disowned their son. The secret of a Father‘s love, it‘s forever, no matter what.] It’s possible John was of Jewish descent; as was St Teresa of Avila.

Like Lucy, John’s father died when John was a child. John’s mother kept the family together even when it meant wandering homeless in search of work. Even when they found work, it was often not enough to feed all the children of the family; John often went hungry. [How was it like for Grandpa and his brothers and sisters? How much like John of the Cross’s was his youth? How does our not knowing more of the details make us less able to have fortitude and courage in our own tribulations?

John was sent to the poor school at Medina del Campo, where the family had gone to live, and proved an attentive and diligent pupil; but when apprenticed to an artisan, he seemed incapable of learning anything. We all must find our place of success. Let our failures teach us what we must improve. Let our successes be a guide to God’s will for us.

At fourteen, John took a job caring for hospital patients who suffered from incurable diseases and madness. In the midst of this poverty and suffering, John learned to search for beauty and happiness - not in the world but in God. What is it in our experiences that help us turn to God? What do our experiences teach us about the Love of God? How did a fourteen year old look into the ugliness of sickness and bedlam and find God’s beauty? How do we? Unfortunately, the blurbs I’ve read for this missive do not give us the details. Nor does John of the Cross’s own writings illuminate the path he took to his holiness although he does tell us that his road did go through many horrific patches.

For seven years John divided his time between waiting on the poorest of the poor, and frequenting a school established by the Jesuits. Already at that early age he treated his body with the utmost rigor; twice he was saved from certain death by the intervention of the Blessed Virgin. We might not discipline ourselves to the edge of death. We certainly must discipline ourselves to show our respect of our body as a Temple of God. The view in my mirror is not one of a temple….

The Carmelites having founded a house at Medina, he there received the habit on 24 February, 1563, and took the name of John of St. Matthias. Again, we don’t have the details that construct the bridge from hospital work and Jesuit schooling [both supremely Jesuit] to his joining the Carmelites. Possibly it was his austerity? Fortunately, he had a place to take his rigor. How did I choose the Jesuits? They happened to be at Cheverus. What if the teachers at Cheverus were Dominicans? I still think my desire to be one of God’s marines, the appeal of becoming a soldier for the pope was in me before I knew that meant Jesuit.

After profession he obtained leave from his superiors to follow to the letter the original Carmelite rule without the mitigations granted by various popes. He was sent to Salamanca for the higher studies, and was ordained priest in 1567. We have the inkling that John wanted to be an absolutist. What’s the sense of being a Carmelite if it did not mean following the rule laid down at the beginning; not the watered down version. Of course his superiors let him do that - so long as he went off to monastery out of sight, out of mind. Little did they know….

After John joined the Carmelite order at age 21, Saint Teresa of Avila asked him to help her reform movement. St. Teresa, had come to Medina to found a convent of nuns. She persuaded John to help her in the establishment of a monastery of friars carrying out the primitive rule. John supported her belief that the order should return to its life of prayer. He changed his name from John of Matthias to John of the Cross: from a name given to him by his order to a name taken by and for himself. Go figure! [Like from Jack to John?]

But! Many Carmelites felt threatened by this reform. Some members of John's own order kidnapped him. He was locked in a cell six feet by ten feet and beaten three times a week by the monks. There was only one tiny window high up near the ceiling.

Remember how John responded to the torturous experience of the hospital? In that unbearable dark, cold, and desolation, his love and faith were like fire and light. He had nothing left but God -- and God brought John his greatest joys in that tiny cell. When we have everything, it’s a gift from God. When we have nothing, we have the Gift of God. When our life is less than nothing, without light or love, John reminds us that our fire and light is God; who is forever with us. Like Mandela, in his cell, with the line from the poem, ‘I am captain of my soul’ - there is always God’s presence…. In the midst of his sufferings he was visited with heavenly consolations, and some of his exquisite poetry dates from that period.

After nine months, John escaped by unscrewing the lock on his door and creeping past the guard. Taking only the mystical poetry he had written in his cell, he climbed out a window using a rope made of strips of blankets. With no idea where he was, he followed a dog to civilization. He hid from pursuers in a convent infirmary where he read his poetry to the nuns. From then on, his life was devoted to sharing and explaining his experience of God's love. Our lives, too, should be one devoted to sharing and explaining our experience of God’s love. And when we do not experience God’s love, our life should be dedicated to our faith in God’s love and doing what it takes to discover His presence within us.

As John of the Cross wrote: "Who has ever seen people persuaded to love God by harshness?" and "Where there is no love, put love -- and you will find love."

The reform spread rapidly but partly through human passion which sometimes ran high, its existence became seriously endangered.

Try, after reading Fr. Jim’s book, reading John of the Cross in the original. John left us many books of practical advice on spiritual growth and prayer that are just as relevant today as they were then. Ascent of Mount Carmel; Dark Night of the Soul; and A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ

Since joy comes only from God, John believed that someone who seeks happiness in the world is like "a famished person who opens his mouth to satisfy himself with air." He taught that only by breaking the rope of our desires could we fly up to God.

Above all, he was concerned for those who suffered dryness or depression in their spiritual life and offered encouragement that God loved them and was leading them deeper into faith. "What more do you want, o soul! And what else do you search for outside, when within yourself you possess your riches, delights, satisfaction and kingdom -- your beloved whom you desire and seek? Desire him there, adore him there. Do not go in pursuit of him outside yourself. You will only become distracted and you won't find him, or enjoy him more than by seeking him within you."

Mother Teresa’s writings are a modern version of this quest, this faith, this love. Again, Mandala [Invictus tells a great story; it’s a so so movie], what is it that gets you up and going when your entire being wants to just lie down and give up?

Towards the end of his life, while praying before the crucifix, a voice asked John what he wanted for his service for the Lord. John answered that he desired to endure suffering for the Lord and to be despised and counted as nothing. Be careful what you wish for!

The opposition to the reform, and to John of the Cross personally, continued almost to his last days. As his final illness increased, he was removed to the monastery of Ubeda, where he at first was treated very unkindly. His constant prayer, "to suffer and to be despised", being thus literally fulfilled almost to the end of his life.

At last, even his adversaries came to acknowledge his sanctity, and his funeral was the occasion of a great outburst of enthusiasm.

John was not what one would term a scholar. But, he was intimately acquainted with the "Summa" of St. Thomas Aquinas, as almost every page of his works proves. [and how many people not considered a scholar have even flipped the pages of Aquinas’ tomb?] Holy Scripture he seems to have known by heart. [This may not be scholarly, but how many Catholics who are not serious students of scripture have memorized even small portions of the Bible?] John evidently obtained his knowledge more by meditation than in the lecture room. [Try daily prayer. Daily scripture reading/meditation/contemplation. No doubt much of scripture will become second nature to you.]

John’s own system, of mysticism like that of St. Teresa, whose influence is obvious throughout, might be termed empirical mysticism. They both start from their own experience, St. Teresa avowedly so, while St. John, who hardly ever speaks of himself, "invents nothing" (to quote Cardinal Wiseman), "borrows nothing from others, but gives us clearly the results of his own experience in himself and others. He presents you with a portrait, not with a fancy picture. He represents the ideal of one who has passed, as he had done, through the career of the spiritual life, through its struggles and its victories".

How do you develop your spirituality? Grounded in ‘study’ of Scripture and our Church Fathers? Assimilate God, Faith, Church into your own experience. How do you find God and make His Will the purpose and fulfillment of your life?

John’s axiom is that the soul must empty itself of self in order to be filled with God, that it must be purified of the last traces of earthly dross before it is fit to become united with God.

Not until sin is removed (a most formidable task) is it fit to be admitted to what he calls the "Dark Night", which consists in the passive purgation, where God by heavy trials, particularly interior ones, perfects and completes what the soul had begun of its own accord. It is now passive, but not inert, for by submitting to the Divine operation it co-operates in the measure of its power.

Here lies one of the essential differences between St. John's mysticism and a false quietism. The perfect purgation of the soul in the present life leaves it free to act with wonderful energy: in fact it might almost be said to obtain a share in God's omnipotence, as is shown in the marvelous deeds of so many saints.

As the soul emerges from the Dark Night it enters into the full noonlight described in the "Spiritual Canticle" and the "Living Flame of Love". St. John leads it to the highest heights, in fact to the point where it becomes a "partaker of the Divine Nature". It is here that the necessity of the previous cleansing is clearly perceived the pain of the mortification of all the senses and the powers and faculties of the soul being amply repaid by the glory which is now being revealed in it.

St. John has often been represented as a grim character; nothing could be more untrue. He was indeed austere in the extreme with himself, and, to some extent, also with others, but both from his writings and from the depositions of those who knew him, we see in him a man overflowing with charity and kindness, a poetical mind deeply influenced by all that is beautiful and attractive.

Sip from his cup….

I love you
Dad/bill

December 13 Finan of Clonard

Thommy and John et al.
Good morning, I love you
12/13/09 1611

I had Finan of Clonard tucked into a couple days’ worth of saints. Then I discovered The Penitential of Clonard - Finan’s effort to be Deuteronomy: 53 plus penances…. Each worthy of a passing thought, a personal commitment, a momentary reflection, some depth of meditation….


Finan of Clonard
December 13 b. ~ 470 d. 549


The “Teacher of the Irish Saints.” Someone had to train The Twelve Apostles of Ireland. It was Finan. Finan founded three churches in Ireland before being attracted to monasticism. Finan was trained himself by Sts Cadoc and Gildas in Wales. We all have our pedigree - it does matter from whence and from whom we come. Leverage your family - God chose them for you. Choose wiserly your teachers, mentors, advisors, and friends: as well as your disciples, students, followers…. It does matter who is important in your life.

Finan was born in County Carlow. It also does matter where you are born and in which place you have roots, from what soil you sprout your identity…. Stay rooted in your birth place and your baptism place; draw sustenance from your beginnings that were chosen for you. Play well the cards you are dealt.

Finan built schools, monasteries, and churches - no grass grew under his feet! Clonard, at Meath, was Finan’s most famous foundation. Finan started Clonard about 520. Under Finan’s direction [as abbot/bishop], Clonard became a renowned school for scripture study.

Finan is the father of Irish monasticism. Finan became convinced that the ascetic life offered the best way of consecrating one’s life to God. Asceticism and spiritual discipline are not the exclusive province of monks. Consecrating one’s life to God is each of our calling. Clonard’s and Finan’s importance derives from the number of disciples who left Clonard after benefiting from Finan’s spiritual direction. His most prominent pupils became known as the Twelve Apostles of Ireland.

The Twelve Apostles of Erin, who came to study at the feet of St. Finian, at Clonard, on the banks of the Boyne and Kinnegad Rivers, are said to have been St. Ciaran of Saighir (Seir-Kieran) and St. Ciaran of Clonmacnois; St. Brendan of Birr and St. Brendan of Clonfert; St. Columba of Tir-da-glasí (Terryglass) and St. Columba of Iona; St. Mobhí of Glasnevin; St. Ruadhan of Lorrha; St. Senan of Iniscathay (Scattery Island); St. Ninnidh the Saintly of Loch Erne; St. Lasserian mac Nadfraech, and St. Canice [i.e., Kenneth] of Aghaboe. Though there were many other holy men educated at Clonard who could claim to be veritable apostles, the above twelve are regarded by old Irish writers as "The Twelve Apostles of Erin". They are not unworthy of the title, for all were indeed apostles, whose studies were founded on the Sacred Scriptures as expounded by St. Finian.





The Penitential of Finnian

From: St. Finnian of Clonard. The Penitential of Finnia. Medieval Handbooks of Penance by John T. McNeil and Helen Gamer. New York: Columbia University Press, 1938.

Saint Finan of Clonard, like many other Irish monks, was concerned primarily with practical pastoral care in a simple society. His Penitential, an early attempt to formulate guidelines for penances, is a list of sins and the corresponding penance a priest was to give a layperson during confession. The purpose of the penances is to reconcile the repentant sinner with God.

The Penitential distinguishes between laymen, who are held to be less culpable for their sins, and clergy, who are held to a higher standard.

This is not only worth a meditation or two on its own; the Penitential is a good prep for the sacrament of reconciliation….


In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

1. If anyone has sinned in the thoughts of his heart and immediately repents, he shall beat his breast and seek pardon from God and make satisfaction, that he may be whole.

2. But if he has frequently entertained [evil] thoughts and hesitated to act on them, whether he has mastered them or been mastered by them, he shall seek pardon from God by prayer and fasting day and night until the evil thought departs and he is whole.

3. If anyone has thought evil and intended to do it, but opportunity has failed him, it is the same sin but not the same penalty; for example, if he intended fornication or murder, since the deed did not complete the intention he has, to be sure, sinned in his heart, but if he quickly does penance, he can be helped. This penance of his is half a year on an allowance, and he shall abstain from wine and meats for a whole year.

4. If anyone has sinned in word by an inadvertence and immediately repented, and has not said any such thing of set purpose, he ought to submit to penance, but he shall keep a special fast; moreover, thereafter let him be on his guard throughout his life, lest he commit further sin.

5. If one of the clerics or ministers of God makes strife, he shall do penance for a week with bread and water and seek pardon from God and his neighbor, with full confession and humility; and thus can he be reconciled to God and his neighbor.

6. If anyone has started a quarrel and plotted in his heart to strike or kill his neighbor, if [the offender] is a cleric, he shall do penance for half a year with an allowance of bread and water and for a whole year abstain from wine and meats, and thus he will be reconciled to the altar.

7. But if he is a layman, he shall do penance for a week, since he is a man of this world and his guilt is lighter in this world and his reward less in the world to come.

8. But if he is a cleric and strikes his brother or his neighbor or sheds blood, it is the same as if he had killed him, but the penance is not the same. He shall do penance with bread and water and be deprived of his clerical office for an entire year, and he must pray for himself with weeping and tears, that he may obtain mercy of God, since the Scripture says: “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer,” how much more he who strikes him.

9. But if he is a layman, he shall do penance forty days and give some money to him whom he struck, according as some priest or judge determines. A cleric, however, ought not to give money, either to the one or to the other .

10. But if one who is a cleric falls miserably through fornication he shall lose his place of honor, and if it happens once [only] and it is concealed from men but known before God, he shall do penance for an entire year with an allowance of bread and water and for two years abstain from wine and meats, but he shall not lose his clerical office. For, we say, sins are to be absolved in secret by penance and by very diligent devotion of heart and body.

11. If, however, he has long been in the habit of sin and it has not come to the notice of men, he shall do penance for three years with bread and water and lose his clerical office, and for three years more he shall abstain from wine and meats, since it is not a smaller thing to sin before God than before men.

12. But if one of the clerical orders falls to the depth of ruin and begets a son and kills him, great is the crime of fornication with homicide, but it can be expiated through penance and mercy. He shall do penance three years with an allowance of bread and water, in weeping and tears, and prayers by day and night, and shall implore the mercy of the Lord, if he may perchance have remission of sins; and shall abstain for three years from wine and meats, deprived of the services of the clergy, and for a forty-day period in the last three years he shall fast with bread and water; and [he shall] be an exile in his own country, until a period of seven years in completed. And so by the judgment of a bishop or a priest he shall be restored to his office.

13. If, however, he has not killed the child, the sin is less, but the penance is the same.

14. But if one of the clerical order is on familiar terms with any woman and he has himself done no evil with her, neither by cohabiting with her nor by lascivious embraces, this is penance: For such time as he has done this he shall withdraw from the communion of the altar and do penance for forty days and nights with bread and water and cast out of his heart his fellowship with the woman, and so be restored to the altar.

15. If however he is on familiar terms with many women and has given himself to association with them and to their lascivious embraces, but has, as he says, preserved himself from ruin, he shall do penance for half a year with an allowance of bread and water, and for another half year he shall abstain from wine and meats and he shall not surrender his clerical office; and after an entire year of penance, he shall join himself to the altar.

16. If any cleric lusts after a virgin or any woman in heart but does not utter [his wish] with the lips, if he sins thus but once he ought to do penance for seven days with an allowance of bread and water.

17. But if he continually lust and is unable to indulge his desire, since the woman does not permit him or since he is ashamed to speak, still he has committed adultery with her in his heart. It is the same sin though it be in the heart and not in the body; yet the penance is not the same. This is his penance: let him do penance for forty days with bread and water.

18. If any cleric or woman who practices magic misleads anyone by the magic, it is a monstrous sin, but [a sin that] can be expiated by penance. Such an offender shall do penance for six years, three years on an allowance of bread and water, and during the remaining years he shall abstain from wine and meats.

19. If, however, such a person does not mislead anyone but gives [a potion] for the sake of wanton love to some one, he shall do penance for an entire year on an allowance of bread and water.

20. If some woman by her magic misleads any woman with respect to the birth of a child, she shall do penance for half a year with an allowance of bread and water and abstain for two years from wine and meats and fast for six forty-day periods with bread and water.

21. But if, as we have said, she bears a child and her sin is manifest, she shall do penance for six years with bread and water (as is the judgment in the case of a cleric) and in the seventh year she shall be joined to the altar; and then we say her honor can be restored and she should don a white robe and be pronounced a virgin. So a cleric who has fallen ought likewise to receive the clerical office in the seventh year after the labor of penance, as saith the Scripture: “Seven times a just man falleth and ariseth,” that is, after seven years of penance he who fell can be called “just,” and in the eight year evil shall not lay hold on him. But for the remainder [of his life] let him preserve himself carefully lest he fall; since, as Solomon saith, as a dog returning to his vomit becomes odious, so is he who through his own negligence reverts to his sin.

22. But if one has sworn a false oath, great is the crime, and it can hardly, if at all, be expiated; but none the less it is better to do penance and not to despair: great is the mercy of God. This is his penance: first, he must never in his life take an oath, since a man who swears much will not be justified and “the scourge shall not depart from his house.” But the medicine of immediate penance in the present time is needful to prevent perpetual pains in the future; and [it is needful] to do penance for seven years and for the rest of one’s life to do right, not to take oaths, and to set free one’s maidservant or man servant or to give the value of one [servant] to the poor or needy.

23. If any cleric commits murder and kills his neighbor and he is dead, he must become an exile for ten years and do penance seven years in another region. He shall do penance for three years of this time on an allowance of bread and water, and he shall fast three forty-day periods on an allowance of bread and water and for four years abstain from wine and meats; and having thus completed the ten years, if he has done well and is approved by testimonial of the abbot or pries to whom he was committed, he shall be received into his own country and make satisfaction to the friends of him whom he slew, and he shall render to his father or mother, if they are still in the flesh, compensation for the filial piety and obedience [of the murdered man] and say: “Lo, I will do for you whatever you ask, in the place of your son.” But if he has not done enough he shall not be received back forever.

24. But if he killed him suddenly and not from hatred – the two having formerly been friends – but by the prompting of the devil, through an inadvertence, he shall do penance for three years on an allowance of bread and water, and for three more years he shall abstain from wine and meats; but he shall not remain in his own country.

25. If a cleric commits theft once or twice, that is, steals his neighbor’s sheep or hog or any animal, he shall do penance an entire year on an allowance of bread and water and shall restore fourfold to his neighbor.

26. If, however, he does it, not once or twice, but of long habit, he shall do penance for three years.

27. If anyone who formerly was a layman, has become a cleric, a deacon, or one of any rank, and if he lives with his sons and daughters and if he returns to carnal desire and begets a son with his concubine, or says he has, let him know that he has fallen to the depth of ruin, his sin is not less than it would be if he had been a cleric from his youth and sinned with a strange girl, since they have sinned after his vow and after they were consecrated to God, and then they have made the vow void. He shall do penance for three years on an allowance of bread and water and shall abstain for three years more from wine and meats, not together, but separately, and then in the seventh year [such clerical offenders] shall be joined [to the altar] and shall receive their rank.

28. But if a cleric is covetous, this is a great offense; covetousness is pronounced idolatry, but it can be corrected by liberality and alms. This is the penance for his offense, that he cure and correct contraries by contraries.

29. If a cleric is wrathful or envious or backbiting, gloomy or greedy, great and capital sins are these; and they slay the soul and cast it down to the depth of hell. But there is this penance for them, until they are plucked forth and eradicated from our hearts: through the help of the Lord and through our own zeal and activity let us seek the mercy of the lord and victory in these things; and we shall continue in weeping and tears day and night so long as these things are turned over in our heart. But by contraries, as we said, let us make haste to cure contraries and to cleanse away the faults from our hearts and introduce virtues in their places. Patience must arise for wrathfulness; kindliness, or the love of God and of one’s neighbor, for envy; for detraction, restraint of heart and tongue; for dejection, spiritual joy; for greed, liberality; as saith the Scripture: “The anger of man worketh not the justice of God", and envy is judged as leprosy by the law. Detraction is anathematized in the Scriptures; “He that detracteth his brother shall be cast out of the land of the living. Gloom devours or consumes the soul. Covetousness is “the root of all evil,” as saith the Apostle.

30. If any cleric under the false pretense of the redemption of captives is found out and proved to be despoiling churches and monasteries, until is confounded, if he has been a “conversus,” he shall do penance for an entire year on an allowance of bread and water and all the goods which were found with him of those things which he had gathered shall be paid out and lent to the poor: for two years he shall abstain from wine and meat.

31. We require and encourage contributing for the redemption of captives; by the teaching of the Church, money is to be lent to the poor and needy.

32. But if he has been a “conversus” he is to be excommunicated and be anathema to all Christians and be driven from the bounds of his country and beaten with rods until he is converted, — if he has compunction.

33. We are obliged to serve the churches of the saints as we have ability and to suffer with all who are placed in necessity. Pilgrims are to be received into our houses, as the lord has written; the infirm are to be visited; those who are cast into chains are to be ministered to; and all things commanded of Christ are to be performed, from the greatest unto the least.

34. If any man or woman is nigh unto death, although he (or she) has been a sinner and pleads for the communion of Christ we say that it is not to be denied to him if he promise to take the vow, and let him do well and he shall be received by Him. If he becomes a novice let him fulfill in this world that which he has vowed to God. But if he does not fulfill the vow which he has vowed to God, [the consequences] will be on his own head. As for us, we will not refuse what we owe to him: we are not to cease to snatch prey from the mouth of the lion or the dragon, that is of the devil, who ceases not to snatch at the prey of our souls; we may follow up and strive [for his soul] at the very end of a man’s life.

35. If one of the laity is converted from his evil-doing unto the Lord, and if he has previously wrought every evil deed, that is, the committing of fornication and the shedding of blood, he shall do penance for three years and go unarmed except for a staff in his hand, and shall not live with his wife. But in the first years he shall do penance on an allowance of bread and water and not live with his wife. After a penance of three years he shall give money for the redemption of his soul and the fruit of repentance into the hand of the priest and make a feast for the servants of God, and in the feast [his penance] shall be ended; and he shall be received to communion and shall resume relations with his wife after an entire and complete penance, and if it is satisfactory he shall be joined to the altar.

36. If any layman defiles his neighbor’s wife or virgin daughter, he shall do penance for an entire year on an allowance of bread and water, and he shall not have intercourse with his own wife; after a year of penance he shall be received to communion, and shall give alms for his soul. So long as he is in the body, he shall not go in to commit fornication again with a strange woman; or if [he defiles] a virgin two years shall be his penance, the first with bread and water. In the other [year] he shall fast for forty days, abstain from wine and meat, and give alms to the poor and the fruit of his penitence into the hands of his priest.

37. If anyone has defiled a vowed virgin and lost his honor and begotten a child by her, let such an one, being a layman, do penance for three years; but in the first year he shall go on an allowance of bread and water and unarmed and shall not have intercourse with his own wife, and for two years more he shall abstain from wine and meats and shall not have intercourse with his wife.

38. If, however, he does not beget a child, but never the less defiles the virgin, [he shall do penance for] an entire year on an allowance of bread and water, and for half a year he shall abstain from wine and meats, and he shall not have intercourse with his wife until his penance is completed.

39. If any layman with a wife of his own has intercourse with his female slave, the procedure is this: the female slave is to be sold, and he himself shall not have intercourse with his own wife for an entire year.

40. But if he begets by this female slave one, two, or three children, he is to set her free, and if he wishes to sell her it shall not be permitted to him, but they shall be separated from each other, and he shall do penance an entire year on an allowance of bread and water and shall have no further intercourse with his concubine but be joined to his own wife.

41. If anyone has a barren wife, he shall not put away his wife because of his barrenness, but they shall both dwell in continence and be blessed if they persevere in chastity of body until God pronounces a true and just judgment upon them. For I believe that if they shall be as Abraham and Sarah were, or Isaac and Rebecca, or Anna the mother of Samuel, or Elizabeth the mother of John, it will come out well for them at the last. For the Apostle saith: “And let those that have wives be as if they had none, for the fashion of this world passeth away.” But if we remain faithful we shall receive what God hath given whether unto prosperity or unto adversity, always with joy.

42. We declare against separating a wife from her husband; but if she has left him, [we declare] that she remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband according tot he Apostle.

43. If a man’s wife commits fornication and cohabits with another man, he ought not to take another wife while his wife is alive.

44. If perchance she is converted to penance, it is becoming to receive her, if she has fully and freely sought this, but he shall not give her a dowry, and she shall go into service to her former husband; as long as he is in the body she shall make amends in the place of a male or a female slave, in all piety and subjection.

45. So also a woman, if she has been sent away by her husband, must not mate with another man so long as her former husband is in the body; but she should wait for him, unmarried, in all patient chastity, in the hope that God may perchance put patience in the heart of her husband. But the penance of these persons is this – that is, of a man or woman who has committed fornication: they shall do penance for an entire year on an allowance of bread and water separately and shall not sleep in the same bed.

46. We advise and exhort that there be continence in marriage, since marriage without continence is not lawful, but sin, and [marriage] is permitted by the authority of God not for lust but for the sake of children [we have learned a few things since Finan], as it is written, “And the two shall be in one flesh,” that is, in unity of the flesh for the generation of children, not for the lustful concupiscence of the flesh. Married people, then, must mutually abstain during three forty-day periods in each single year, by consent for a time, that they may be able to have time for prayer for the salvation of their souls; and after the wife has conceived he shall not have intercourse with her until she has borne her child, and they shall come together again for this purpose, as saith the Apostle. But if they shall fulfill this instruction, then they are worthy of the body of Christ, as by good works they fulfill matrimony, that is, with alms and by fulfilling the commands of God and expelling their faults, and in the life to come they shall reign with Christ, with holy Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job, Noah, all the saints; and there they shall receive the thirtyfold fruit which as the Savior relates in the Gospel, he has also plucked for married people.

47. If the child of anyone departs without baptism and perishes through negligence, great is the crime of occasioning the loss of a soul; but its expiation through penance is possible, since there is no crime which cannot be expiated through penance so long as we are in this body. The parents shall do penance for an entire year with bread and water and not sleep in the same bed.

48. But if a cleric does not receive a child [to baptism], if it is a child of the same parish he shall do penance for a year on bread and water.

49. He is not to be called a cleric or a deacon who is not able to baptize and to receive the dignity of a cleric or a deacon in the Church.

50. Monks, however, are not to baptize, nor to receive alms; if, then, they do receive alms, why shall they not baptize?

51. If there is anyone whose wife commits fornication with another man, he ought not to hold intercourse with her until she does penance according tot he penalty which we laid down above, that is, after an entire year of penance. So also a woman is not to hold intercourse with her husband, if he has committed fornication with another woman, until he performs a corresponding penance.

52. If anyone loses a consecrated object or a blessing of God, he shall do penance for seven days.

53. He shall not go to the altar until his penance has been completed. Here endeth: thanks be to God.

Dearly beloved brethren, according tot he determination of Scripture or the opinion of some very learned men I have tried to write these few things concerning the remedies of penance, impelled by love of you, beyond my ability and authority. There are still other authoritative materials, concerning either the remedies or the variety of those who are to be treated, which now by reason of brevity, or the situation of a place, or from poverty of talent, I am not permitted to set down.

But if anyone who has searched out the divine Scripture should himself make larger discoveries, or if he will produce or write better things, we will both agree with him and follow him.

Here endeth this little work which Finnian adapted to the sons of his bowels, by occasion of affection or of religion, overflowing with the graces of Scripture, that by all means all the evil deeds of men might be destroyed.

I love you,
Dad/bill

Blurbs from Dec 10-11-12, 2009

John and Thommy et al.
Good morning. I love you.


Today, 12/11, there is no John, Kenneth, William, Thomas, or Jesuit. So, having not done this in a long while, I went back a day. Then I checked the Jesuit calendar and found one for tomorrow. Even bigger, 12/12 is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Friday in Greensboro. Here for a long weekend break from MGH. Monday I make a decision/they make a decision about how/whether we proceed. I am a clutz - poor interpersonal skills is the discussion. I don’t dance well and my dancing shoes are more like cleats than loafers. I should know better and do much better by now. And yet, I don’t. And, frankly my dear…. But I do. Maybe I can’t rather than won’t? …. Just shut up. Be patient! [how do you exclaim patience? Especially in the midst of a crisis. Except maybe it’s not a crisis. No one else seems to be in an urgent/emergent mode. I could be missing the whole picture! And it’s their hospital not mine - my deal is purely mercenary and they’re the client. I should be able to let the chips fall where they may. They are not my chips! I may be a part of the scenario; though I should do my own strategy - be a part and remain apart. Where is the patient advocacy? Where is the pride in work? Where is the duty to do what is right? To make the wrongs right, for the patients’ sake: come what may? It’s all a bluster to cover up my ineptness. …

Today I’ve written a letter. Gone to Mass. Avoided everything else on my to do list. Now I’m here - another avoidance? C’est la vie….



St. Edmund Genings
December 10 b. 1567 d. 1591 c. 1970

This saint made my day because this is also the day for Bl. John Mason, a man martyred for his faith when he was convicted of harboring St. Edmund.

One of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Forty is only one group. Here is a good place for a tirade about our English brethren and their treatment of Catholics qua Catholics. But let’s not delve into the monstrosity known as the British Crown…. Know that many of our Catholic forebears were martyred in England/Wales because they refused The Oath or simply sustained their faith and religious practices.

This applies to us, especially in unCatholic/antiCatholic Greensboro NC and the various homes and schools we enter. How do we sustain our faith, maintain our religious practices, in the face of the powers in our own lives who are antiCatholic? How do we respectfully, lovingly live our Catholic lives, a statement of faith and, by the comparisons the antiCatholics make, a rebuke of the way others close to us choose to live? Like the Forty Martyrs, the antiCatholics will/do martyr us in their own vile way - how do we respond to the withdrawal of friendships and affection [of love]? How do we respond to the punitive reactions put upon us? In the living of our faith, in the practice of our religion, we live a holy martyr’s life not unlike Edmund Genings, John Mason, and the many martyrs of England.

Edmund Genings converted to Catholicism when he was seventeen. A Lichfield boy, in the home of Protestant England, heard a different calling and said, in spite of the tremendous risk, Yes, Lord, I am here for you. The words of Mary we hear so often as we ramp up to Christmas - I am the handmaid of the Lord, do unto me according to your will. Your Will. Is it God’s will that we pursue to live? Let “God’s will” be the answer to the antiCatholics in your life.

Edmund Genings followed his calling to serve God to Rheims where he was ordained in 1590 [a mere 23! What will you do when you are 23?]

Edmund Genings returned to the English Mission - of course knowing the likely result. He was martyred in Gray’s Inn Fields in London in 1591. One year a priest. Was it worth it? Once you start down the garden path of God’s will, you do not know where it takes you or how long it will take to get there. We are always on the threshold of infinity; or, better, in the midst of our infinity. So, it’s not one year but our forever serving God’s will.




Bl. John Mason
December 10 d. 1591 bl. 1929

John Mason was a layman who took Fr. Edmund Genings into his home. I wonder about John Mason’s home and family - married? children? extended family? How did he meet Edmund Genings? What possessed this man to invite a 23 year old priest into his home? John Mason knew what would happen if/when he got caught. And he did it anyway. Who will you take into your life because God brings him/her to you? Knowing the risks - maybe not martyrdom but ridicule or austricization?

John Mason was martyred at Tyburn - he was hanged, drawn, and quartered with Sts. Edmund Genings and two others. A gruesome death! What are you willing to risk for your faith and religion? For your immortal soul?



Bl. Thomas Somers
December 10 d. 1610

Thomas Somers worked for a time as a schoolmaster. If anything can test your faith, your mettle, your essence, it’s teaching. You must know who you are and why you do what you do in order to be a good teacher. Thomas Somers discovered that he was called not only to teach but to preach the word of God - to be a priest.

Thomas Somers went to Douai to study for the priesthood - remember the history, it was treason to teach men to become a priest in England, northern France had the nearest seminaries. Thomas Somers was ordained and quickly returned “home” to serve the Church, the Catholic cause, in London. Try to fathom what these Englishmen did! Why they did it! Gilbert and Sullivan should have done a musical about these EnglishMen!

Thomas Somers was arrested for being a priest. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn with Blessed John Roberts. A spectacular showing - a long running show of England’s finest sense of justice…. These men literally spilled their guts for faith, for us.



St. Thomas of Farfa
December 10 d. 720

Thomas de Maurienne was not originally from Farfa. He was born in Savoy, France (well, Gaul). Thomas de Maurienne became a Benedictine in the late seventh century - a high water mark for their brand of monasticism. Who and what will you join? Which group of people will you most dearly identify yourself? Family? Faith? A covey of friends? An organization? Parish?

Thomas de Maruienne made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Take your own pilgrimages to the holy places from which you can draw spiritual sustenance. Go and be with God. Thomas spent three years in Jerusalem - certainly in service, penance, and prayer. Three years dedicating himself to the purpose of his pilgrimage.

While in prayer before the Holy Sepulchre, Our Lady appeared to him and told him to return to Italy and restore the deserted monastery at Farfa. Few of us get such a clear vision of what God wants us to do. Praying to Mary, meditating upon her life, her holiness, will help us discern God’s will for us; and, more importantly, will prepare us to say yes when we recognize His calling. [At the same time, the Duke of Spoleto received a vision guiding him to aid in the rejuvenation of the monastery at Farfa.]

God inspires and, in this case, both men said yes; and here we are considering their example and the consequences of their ‘yes’ for us. How much has not been done because one person in the chain says no? Saying no to our own calling not only costs us but innumerable other people. If Thomas de Maruienne or if the Duke said no, Farfa would likely not have been rejuvenated - you can calculate that the people touched by this Benedictine revival in northern Italy, might not have gotten a similar grace from another intermediary….

For over a century, Frankish monks led the Benedictine efforts in Farfa.

Abbot Thomas of Farfa received the accolades of sainthood - imagine the grace needed to get Italian laymen and French monks to agree to the everlasting holiness of this man.



Bl. Thomas Holland, S.J.
December 12 b. 1600 d. 1642

How does the son on an English gentleman develop a vocation? Develop a vocation? That’s not it. We start by pursuing, discerning God’s will - or not. If yes, the likelihood of finding our vocation is much higher - we’re either listening to God’s call or we’re not. When not, our going where God calls is purely chance and a very low probability. How do we know what is God’s will? Ah, our friend Ignatius has a systematic approach to that - pick up his long retreat section that leads us through the process….

After college study in France, Thomas Hollandwent to Valladolid, Spain for his seminary training. Valladolid, in north central Spain, was a magnet for seminarians from all over. The royalty of Spain got a bit antsy about the loyalties of the seminarians. Thomas Holland was sent to represent them to reassure the Prince. How does a man become a leader of men? How did Thomas Holland have the courage to not only represent the seminarians but face the Prince - whom, if he did not convince him of his and their loyalty, was in a mood to squash them all like pesky bugs? What is the source of your leadership? Your courage? Or is the question better, Who is the Source?

At 24. Thomas Holland entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Watten in Flanders. My novice class was about half right out of high school; the other half were relatively new college grads up to a few guys in their early forties. How does a man at 24 come to affirm for himself, and persuade others he’s right, that his vocation is to be, in this case, a Jesuit? How do you affirm to yourself that the vocation you have chosen, the calling you are following, is the one from God for you? I wish we had more from the writings about the saints to tell us about their process, to inform us about how to go about the process.

Thomas Holland, not unlike many of the Jesuits in the first century of the Society, went through a relatively short training before ordination - relatively short. In my day, the path was two years novitiate, two years ‘juniorate’, four years college, three years service [usually as a high school teacher], three years theology, ordination, and a fourth year, post ordination, of theology before final vows into the Society. That path is still the usual - although very few are accepted into the journey before graduating from college.

Thomas Holland served the Jesuits, and the communities in which he taught/served in several leadership roles in Ghent and at St. Omer’s seminary in France.

In 1635, Thomas Holland, the writings say, ‘was sent’ on the English Mission. The discernment process never stops. Within the Jesuits - as, I am sure, with all religious orders - it is a formal process, both personal and with your spiritual advisor and your superiors. What am I called to do? What does the Society need me to do? How do we find God’s will in all the cross currents of needs, wants, hopes, aspirations? It is very possible that Thomas Holland was sent without the English Mission’s being his answer to ‘what does God want of me?’ And yet, he went.

The vow of obedience. I’ve taken a long life of disobedience to learn that obedience is a promise and duty of love. Love, honor, obey. The vows of obedience taken by priests and religious. First of all a love of God. How do we show our love for Him? Know and exemplify his commandments - His explicitly telling us how we can best show him that we love Him. If you love me, do as I ask you to do. Better, anticipate my asking you and do that. With God, there are no secrets; we have His Word for what Love looks like….

Imagine what it took to be a priest in London in 1635. Thomas Holland was adept in disguising himself, and could speak French, Spanish, and Flemish to perfection. Living and serving in secret in public was the life of a priest of that era. Living every moment in fear of being caught as an enemy of the state. How do you do it? How do you live every day being a Catholic and worried that you’ll be found out? How do you personify what is most important to your life and not get caught by the wrong people doing it? What a toll that must take.

Thomas Holland was arrested on suspicion of being a Catholic priest on a London street on 4 Oct., 1642. Seven plus years of service. Thomas Holland was committed to the New Prison. He was transferred to Newgate, and arraigned at the Old Bailey, 7 December, for being a priest. The jury found him guilty, to the indignation of the Lord Mayor, Sir Isaac Pennington, and another member of the bench named Garroway. Even friends in high places will not likely be enough when “everyone” around you is antiCatholic.

On Saturday, 10 December, sentence was passed. On his return to prison great multitudes went to Thomas Holland, and he heard many confessions. On Sunday and Monday he was able to say Mass in prison, and soon after his last Mass was taken off to execution. There Thomas Holland made a considerable speech and to said many prayers with the crowd, and when the cart was turned away, he was left to hang till he was dead.

The Jesuits by practice keep a detailed diary of individuals and the Order. The individuals have a duty to report. The superiors have a responsibility to collate the individuals’ reports and to supplement the activities of the Order and its people. We have a lot of information from and about Thomas Holland. The blurbs in the abridged Butler give us plenty to consider about ourselves and our own circumstances. Retrieving some of the original documentation will also shed some light on the how and why….

I got to Mass just as the priest started the prayers of the faithful. Does missing the Liturgy of the Word mean I missed Mass?….




Friday, 12/11/09, of the second week of advent. Two candles lit. Gaudate Sunday coming up….


Reading 1
Is 48:17-19

Thus says the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I, the LORD, your God, teach you what is for your good, and lead you on the way you should go.
If you would hearken to my commandments, your prosperity would be like a river,
and your vindication like the waves of the sea; your descendants would be like the sand, and those born of your stock like its grains, their name never cut off or blotted out from my presence.


How do we address God? Jesus gave us Abba, Dad. The Holy One. The Lord. God. Our Redeemer. Names are important. What we call Him sets us in relation to Him. I suggest you scan the Bible for the many names we use. Try a few of them on for size. Like we change what we call people depends on the circumstance as well as our feeloughts not to mention the actual relationship between any two people, what we call God affects how He comes into our consciousness, how we let Him affect us, How we experience His love….

God teaches us what is for our Good. He leads us on the way we should go. That too is the responsibility given to parents by God; to teachers and other authorities -- but especially and in particular to parents. God gives us a specific teaching about that: Honor your father and your mother.

If you listen to God’s commandments, your prosperity will be like a river, for generation after generation. Simple enough…. Love God, do His will…. And your prosperity will be like a river.



Responsorial Psalm
Ps 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6

R. (see John 8:12) Those who follow you, Lord, will have the light of life.
Blessed the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked or walks in the way of sinners, nor sits in the company of the insolent, But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.

Follow God and by definition you have the Light of Life. Like the Jews in the desert. They followed the torch in the sky!

Blessed are you when you delight in the law of the Lord. When you meditate on the law day and night. More mundanely, blessed are you who does what God says shows him your love. When we love someone, the Loved One has a responsibility to help us show our love to them. God does that with His Laws. So, too, will all the loves of our lives - the better they love us, the better they tell us how to love them and the more we love them the more we will do/anticipate then do what shows to them our love.

As much as it is important, imperative, that we show that we love God, love our Loved Ones, it is necessary to also not do , to avoid, the people and things that prevent our loving, that make us less lovable: do not hang around with sinners or the insolent; do not take advice from, glean ‘wisdom’ from the wicked. It is important who you hang with, listen to….

R. Those who follow you, Lord, will have the light of life. He is like a tree planted near running water, That yields its fruit in due season, and whose leaves never fade. Whatever he does, prospers.

Psalm 1 is one of the few scripture passages I’ve memorized and that’s stuck with me. Follow God, be a good Catholic, and you will be like a tree planted near running water, bearing fruit for yourself and those who seek sustenance in your shade…. Follow our faith and whatever you do will prosper in the eyes of those who only count.


R. Those who follow you, Lord, will have the light of life. Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away. For the LORD watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked vanishes.

The Bible, God’s word, is not one sided. He tells it like it is, the good the bad and the ugly. Follow Jesus and you have the light of life. Not so the wicked! The wicked are like chaff which the winds blow away; like the chaff that is used as fodder for the fire. The way of the wicked vanishes. The Lord watches over the just and the fruits of the Just are everlasting….



Gospel
Mt 11:16-19

Jesus said to the crowds: “To what shall I compare this generation?
Personalize the question. To what shall Jesus compare you? Your generation? Are you like…

children who sit in marketplaces and call to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance, we sang a dirge but you did not mourn.’
Children in the marketplace. Ragamuffins? Runabouts? Brats who assume the rest of us are suppose to move to your music?


For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is vindicated by her works.”

The children of the marketplace want it both ways - they want the unpleasant holiness of Jesus and His people to be disparaged and dismissed. Are those who live an ascetic, disciplined life possessed by the devil? Wouldn’t that be convenient for those of us who have no inclination to emulate the holy ones? So Jesus goes to the wedding at Cana; he calls the little children to him; he listens to and counsels sinners; he goes to dinner with tax collectors. So we can wave him off because he is one crazy dude who keeps very bad company.

Wisdom is vindicated by her works! Or, the proof is in the pudding….



12/12/09
1100
Continuing…



Our Lady of Guadalupe
December 12
Patron of the Americas

Our Lady of Grace parish held their now annual super celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe last night. Native American dancing and music - native, that is, to Aztecs et al. And they moved their celebration from the parish church to a public venue with more space but, in the spirit of ‘where two or more are gathered in My Name’, no less holy. … Fr Melo is a holy, pious man. He continues to improve the talent of the supporting cast. The priest who wrote in this week’s ncr re: liturgy as theater would be proud of this celebration.


Missionaries who first came to Mexico with the conquistadors had little success in the beginning. Christianity was not popular among the native people.

Missionaries were common companions of the conquering explorers. The conquistadors were sent with high hopes and clear intentions - find lands and treasures for the king, and get to keep a share of the booty. And any peoples found in the new land were, like the land, to become subject to the new rulers. One way to cement that new allegiance was to align their religion with that of the king’s. Even when we grant the purist motives to the missionaries - sometimes hard to do - it is difficult to disconnect their efforts for men’s souls from the king’s efforts to rule the


In 1531 miracles began to happen. Jesus' own mother appeared to humble Juan Diego. The signs -- of the roses, of the uncle miraculously cured of a deadly illness, and especially of her beautiful image on Juan's mantle -- convinced the people there was something to be considered in Christianity.

Today’s GSO News-Record calls this legend. We call it fact. What is so unbelievable about the reality of miracles? The witness of the Indian Juan Diego and his community? What does the fact of their experience and witness - not to mention the six million Native Mexicans who soon accepted the faith - mean to your embracing your baptism and confirmation?

Mary, again and again, brings us to her Son. Like at the wedding at Cana where Mary simply told the wine steward, listen to my son, he’ll take care of your dilemma for you. Mary’s silent witness at the foot of the cross. Her presence in the upper room when the Paraclete stormed in. Her appearances through the generations. The inspiration she has given to uncounted men and women of faith - especially those of us who struggle with their faith: I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your word. At Christmas time let’s not forget Mary’s part. [I’ll save my Joseph ‘rants’ for another time.]

We have the feast of the Immaculate Conception; and today’s Lady of Guadalupe - go tell the bishop to build a church here. Of course the bishop didn’t attribute any credibility to Juan Diego. And even if he did ultimately relent to the miracles brought via Mary and the peasant to build a building, might not Mary had meant to build The Church, the Body of Christ, the gathering of two or more in His name; maybe not so much to build as to recognize Jesus in the Indians and illuminate their faith in the Christian beliefs?….


God has chosen Mary to lead us to Jesus.

So what is your relation to Mary? Catherine Mary, your grandmother’s name. The good Irish Catholic New Yorker who she was, named after the Mother of God had her many devotions to Mary in prayer and action. The good Dominican sisters and their clanging rosaries were no subtle reminder of the importance of Mary in their lives as well as how she should be important in yours.

I had Jesuits - at Cheverus, in the novitiate of course, and subsequent personal study and spiritual development - who have their own Ignatian approach to a devotion to Mary.

I also had the Marists for two years at Molloy - they too had the rosary on display; plus we said the rosary every day during lunch time along with the Angelus. Every day for two years we said the Angelus and the Rosary. We celebrated Mary’s feasts as special occasions, routinely special like the extraordinariness of ordinary time. How have you ingrained your relationship with Mary? She unabashedly loves all of God’s children, the brothers and sisters of her Son. She also has no qualms about her purpose - the handmaid of the Lord - to lead us to her Son…. Go with her to Him….


Mary appeared to Juan Diego as a beautiful Aztec princess speaking to him in his own Aztec language. If we want to help someone appreciate the gospel we bring, we must appreciate the culture and the mentality in which they live their lives. By understanding them, we can help them to understand and know Christ.

It bothers many people to see Mary represented as a woman of another culture - note the Korean Madonna at St. Pius. As Jesus’ mother, Mary is our Mother, too. So our art, our imagination, personalizes Mary. What’s wrong with that? Like the icons, our statues, our artwork, the mosaics, the stained glass windows, the many representations of Mary are meant to stimulate our heart, mind, soul to bring us closer to Mary so that she can more easily lead us to Jesus. To better present ourselves, we need a smidgen of chameleon so that we will be seen in the eyes of the beholder; and seen as Jesusesque so that our Gospel message will be better, more easily received. So too with Mary. No sense appearing to a little girl in France or to a 55 year old Aztec in Mexico looking like a first century Galilean - what’s with that?! She came to be seen so that she could be a light to follow to her son….


Oral and written, Indian and Spanish, the account is unwavering. To a neophyte, fifty five years old, named Juan Diego, who was hurrying down Tepeyac hill to hear Mass in Mexico City, on Saturday, 9 December, 1531, the Blessed Virgin appeared and sent him to Bishop Zumárraga to have a temple built where she stood. She was at the same place that evening and Sunday evening to get the bishop's answer. He had not immediately believed the messenger; having cross-questioned him and had him watched, he finally bade him ask a sign of the lady who said she was the mother of the true God. The neophyte agreed so readily to ask any sign desired, that the bishop was impressed and left the sign to the apparition.

Juan was occupied all Monday with Bernardino, an uncle, who seemed dying of fever. Indian specifics failed; so at daybreak on Tuesday, 12 December, the grieved nephew was running to the St. James's convent for a priest. To avoid the apparition and untimely message to the bishop, he slipped round where the well chapel now stands. But the Blessed Virgin crossed down to meet him and said: "What road is this thou takest son?" A tender dialogue ensued. Reassuring Juan about his uncle whom at that instant she cured, appearing to him also and calling herself Holy Mary of Guadalupe she bade him go again to the bishop.

Without hesitating he joyously asked the sign. She told him to go up to the rocks and gather roses. He knew it was neither the time nor the place for roses, but he went and found them. Gathering many into the lap of his tilma a long cloak or wrapper used by Mexican Indians he came back. The Holy Mother, rearranging the roses, bade him keep them untouched and unseen till he reached the bishop. Having got to the presence of Zumárraga, Juan offered the sign. As he unfolded his cloak the roses fell out, and he was startled to see the bishop and his attendants kneeling before him: the life size figure of the Virgin Mother, just as he had described her, was glowing on the poor tilma.



At Mass this morning [St Paul’s], the Pastor did not offer us a homily: not even a mention of the significance of the feast day. Well, it apparently isn’t a significant feast day - the turnout at Mass this morning was if anything less than usual. Here we have a Saturday - what used to be the day when we celebrated a Mass in honor of Mary; not so much, rarely, any more. Plus, we have the feast of our Patron of the Americas, Our Lady of Guadalupe. Still, we do not have any specialness to our celebration. Ok, we did say the Gloria; but not the Credo. We did not sing. We did not stop after the liturgy of the Word (the shorter versions of the two options for each reading) for a moment of silent reflection on the readings or on the feast. I felt cheated.




Reading 1
Zec 2:14-17 or Rv 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab


We got the Zec reading - shorter and, to me, less Mary-esque. Still….

Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! See, I am coming to dwell among you, says the LORD.
Let Mary be our Zion? Let both the reality of God’s gracing Zion and the symbolism of that for Mary be the focus of your contemplation. God says He is coming to dwell amongst us - not only where two or three are gathered but, like Mary, personally, really, dwell in us, personally and individually. Sing and Rejoice will be the least of our expressions the second we allow the reality of God’s presence in us reach our consciousness. Burst out into song, like Jesus Christ Superstar! Like that band Rush loves so much, begins with an M, I’ve got their discs somewhere in the Christmas pile. Sing! Rejoice! God dwells amongst us! Us personally. Us familially. Us as Church.


Many nations shall join themselves to the LORD on that day, and they shall be his people, and he will dwell among you, and you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you.
With the Lord amongst us, within us, how can we not join ourselves to the Lord? Be one with Him as He is with us. I know, maybe better than most, how difficult that it - well, maybe joining with Jesus is not so difficult, maybe the difficulty I have is disengaging from my sinful self…. Know that God sent us Mary; listen and follow her to her Son….

The LORD will possess Judah as his portion in the holy land, and he will again choose Jerusalem. Silence, all mankind, in the presence of the LORD! For he stirs forth from his holy dwelling.
When He comes, He possesses us, He makes us a Jerusalem - - only to the extent that we choose to show Him to the world through/by us…. There is time to Sing and Rejoice. There is time to be silent in the presence of the Lord. A time for all things in all seasons. Let us rejoice and be glad. Let us also celebrate His presence in silence; relish His being our soul….


I love reading Revelations - and I don’t have to be stoned to really get into it; though that might enrich the experience. Reading Revelations straight up, without antecedent study of the literature/symbolism etc of the time is a challenge. Accompany John’s Revelations with Jung’s writings about symbolism, collective unconscious, et al.: kerpow! Then there’s the slower, ponderous, but insight enhancing reading of Revelations with a readable commentary - the Jerusalem Bible e.g., or any of the other tombs that I have or you can find in most university libraries - - the Benedictine Abbey is just down the road.


God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple. A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

Mary as a Great Sign in the sky. We have so many pictures of John’s imagery of the Madonna. Never mind the depth of symbolism, just picture the image John gives us. How do you express your personal revelations about Mary, God’s messenger….

She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth.

That was pre-epidurals. I remember when your mother was with child - because I was with her through much of those times. For John, she chose to remain in New Orleans until June, the first sixish months of the pregnancy. When we got to the hospital, there’d be no labor to give birth - John was to be born C-Section to prevent his catching the virus infecting his mother’s birth canal. Unfortunately, a hot shot anesthesiologist decided to administer the epidural rather than let the nurse anesthetist do what she was a master at doing. He missed! It was maybe a worse headache than birth pains. It did delay the delivery long enough for me/us to see most of the Giants/Bears Game on tv - thus the Giants and Bears trinkets that are around here somewhere that celebrate John’s birth. When the OB guy showed up it was nearly tennish but no one thought it a good idea to wait a couple more hours so John could be born on the same day as his grandfather [and, later, cousin.]

Thommy was a VBAC [pronounced veeback; vaginal birth after c-section]. This time the epidural was expertly administered. We had the pleasure of a birthing room and a small army of expert support. The canal was clear and Thommy came out to be caught in the biggest hands I’ve seen since I met Bob Cousey - this OB couldn’t drop the new born, his hands were so large. There was grunting and pushing but, thanks to modern medicine and a competent needle wheeler no wailing in pain….


Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems. Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth.

The devil is not a subtle presence. He too celebrates each birth. And he never gives up his desire to devour the child - - be constantly on your guard….


She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod.

Your mother gave birth to two sons. We knew that pretty early on in the pregnancy. We chose your names even before the impregnations - there was a logic to each: the name of your grandfathers and the name of your father [like the first two boys born to Catherine and Kenneth Nolan]. We prayed for all tens and from there we knew we would love you ‘til the end of time. What is your destiny? I.e., what is God’s will for you? How will you discern it? How will you leverage the grace to achieve God’s will for you? …. Oro pro vobis.


Her child was caught up to God and his throne.
Mary’s child is from God’s throne and sits there now and forever. …

The woman herself fled into the desert where she had a place prepared by God.
We each have a place prepared for us by God. The place where we fulfill God’s will. The place from which we defeat the devil in our lives….

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have salvation and power come, and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed.”
Remember this each time we celebrate a Marian Feast. Remember this during Christmastime.




Responsorial Psalm
Judith 13:18bcde, 19

There isn’t much to the Book of Judith - I.e., it’s short, not sparse in substance. The women of the Bible are worth much more than the beautiful fiction of Orson Scott Card - though I recommend his works to you. Read the Bible’s women to learn to better know and respond to women.
I’ve known two Judith’s in my lifetime. An aunt, Judy; Walter’s [grandpa’s brother’s] wife, mother to Nancy, David, and Jill. With whom we lived for several months after we moved from Portland to NYC. Lots of stories from that brief and formative period with them - imagine four adults and six children, two families under one roof. Judy has been a matronly presence in my life, probably the aunt with whom I most closely identify; who, among all my aunts, is most a fiber of my identity….
I dated a Judith, Judi, for a couple of years when I worked at Nassau County Medical Center. She and I remain friends. If I were to regret not marrying someone, she’d be at the top of the list…..


R. (15:9d) You are the highest honor of our race.
Blessed are you, daughter, by the Most High God, above all the women on earth;
and blessed be the LORD God, the creator of heaven and earth.

WOMAN personified deserves this special honor, don’t you think? You’d better. If you do not, you will not become the best husband you can be. To the extent that you believe a particular woman is God’s will to be your wife, she will also be ‘daughter by the Most High God’ who will bless God first and foremost.

Mary, Judith, Ruth, get to know those honored of our race so that you might better find the woman God created for you if marriage is your vocation.

Your deed of hope will never be forgotten by those who tell of the might of God.

What has Mary done for you? What ‘deed of hope’? What has Mary done for you lately? If you cannot identify her presence in your life, you’re not looking good enough.




Gospel
Lk 1:26-38 or Lk 1:39-47

Watch 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' - - over and over again….

The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”

The recognition of the Immaculate Conception? Certainly, Mary was a holy woman - one reason to get to know her well; so that you might identify the woman for you by the extent to which she is like Mary your Mother.


But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.

It wasn’t the angel that frightened her? A sign of her holiness? Maybe she was used to receiving messages from God in various ways. But ‘full of grace’ and ‘the Lord is with [her]’? Holy implies humble, too.


Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
How many times does God tell us “Do not be afraid” - some one’s counted it, of course. The number’s over 150, I think. Do not be afraid for you have found favor with God. It is the favor with God part that exorcises the fear. [as opposed the ‘fear God’ phrase that really has nothing to do with our definition of ‘fear’.] Be in favor with God and there is nothing to fear….


“Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end.”

When you anticipate your first child [if that is your vocation], consider the Angel’s words to Mary and apply them to your hopes for your child.

But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And the angel said to her in reply, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.”

When confronted with the will of God for you, remember this interchange. God’s will for you is accompanies by “the Holy Spirit will come upon you” and the firm knowledge that “nothing will be impossible for God”. With this faith, you can respond like Mary did - both in words and a life time of service to God’s will - -

Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”


Then the angel departed from her. Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
Left alone by the Angel, stunned by the Word, imbued with the Spirit, Mary’s first act is to go see Elizabeth. [I’ll skip my commentary about Joseph….]


When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

If you are blessed with fatherhood as your vocation, remember Elizabeth’s exclamation. The blessing of a child is a gift from the Holy Spirit. Be sure to cry out often to your wife/motherofyourchild - Most Blessed are you among women and Blessed is the fruit of your womb! Another reason you want your wife/motherofyourchild to be like your Mother Mary - it will be natural and easy to exclaim this blessing every morning and every night….


And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

Blessed are you who believes that what is spoken to you by the Lord will be fulfilled. Elizabeth’s words are for us, too.

And Mary said: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

Here’s another reason why you want your spouse to be like your Mother Mary - you want a woman who believes, aspires, that her soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, that her Spirit rejoices in God y’all’s savior. And it will be such greatness that will lift the two of you and your children to God and into heaven….


But what do these readings have to do with Our Lady of Guadalupe? It’s 1303 and I’m typed out. Put your own spin on the connections….



I Love you,
Dad