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‘Lord, teach us to pray’ (Luke 11:1-4)

April 1st, 2024

If you seek, you will find… if you ask… the Lord does teach us how to pray.

When we set ourselves in a certain place, if we sacrifice a bit of our time, and a bit of our will, to make some sacred space and time for the Lord in our lives, we will learn God’s Will for building up the True Kingdom in Justice.

The Lord’s Prayer is to set our needs before the Lord, to examine our conscience, and to learn God’s Will for us.
It is a model of prayer that leads us into Christian meditation, as it has for the Church fathers, doctors of the Church, and popes.
Our Catechism on Christian Prayer is organized according to the Lord’s Prayer (CCC§2759).

Saint Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church, teaches that meditation on the Lord’s Prayer, on the Word of God, is a matter of life and death for Christians.
From Saint Jerome, we hear that ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.

Therefore, we do the hard work of meditating and reasoning on Scripture, the Word of God, to learn the Will of God, to learn God’s desire for our Christian life, to learn to see God’s Grace working in our lives, and to love the Lord with all our mind (Mark 12:30).

Prayer is hard work, disciplining ourselves, healing our hardened hearts, to conform our hearts and minds away from our selfishness, toward God’s Good Will for our salvation. Bishop Robert Barron reminds us that, as Christians, we often conclude our prayer with ‘through Christ our Lord…’ which should be sobering, to our often petty petitionary prayers for our wants rather than others’ true needs…

Saint Alphonsus Liguori defines prayer as entering into familiar conversation with the Lord who loves you.
It is not for us to tell, or demand, or try to take from God, to try to make ourselves God, which is the cause of our Fall.
It is to humbly open ourselves to the Word of God, to Divine Revelation, about the next step in our journey in Faith, from where we find ourselves. Always examine the Spirit (1 John 4).
And when others know we are praying for them, it disposes them also to God’s grace in their life.
For those who disrespect prayer, consider how many people believe their phones and devices are listening to them for advertising and surveillance purposes, yet they fail to perceive the effects of praying to our loving Creator, in whom we live and move and have our being… (Acts 17:28).

Discipline in devotions can help. With the prayer of the Rosary, we are not simply vocalizing prayers but we are meditating on the glorious, luminous, joyful, and sorrowful Way of the Cross.

With the same Cross and prayer beads, Saint Faustina, whom we remember today, gives us the Divine Mercy prayer to meditate on God’s saving goodness and mercy for humankind.

Divine Mercy by Lydia Paterson at Saint Pius X Church, Holy Redeemer Parish, Diocese of Saint John, New Brunswick.

In the Divine Mercy chaplet we have the beautiful, ancient prayer known as the Trisagion:
‘Holy, Mighty, Immortal One, have mercy on us.’

This meditation draws us into contemplation, to ‘Be still and know that I AM God’ (Psalm 46:10), to glimpse Life eternal, to be infused with the Love of God and the desire to seek His face.

When we encounter the Lord in prayer, in meditation, in contemplation, in living Christian life, we may recognize like James and Peter and John do in our letter to the Galatians (2:1-14) the graces that we have been given. These are the supernatural gifts God gives us for our salvation, especially in His invitation for us to respond to his Will, and to participate in His Divine plan for building up the true kingdom and for our entering into Life eternal.

This is all part of the gift God makes of His own Life, to infuse us with His Holy Spirit, to heal wounds, and to sanctify our souls.

Then let us ‘go out to all the world and tell the good news.
Praise the Lord, all you nations! Extol Him, all you peoples!
Great is his steadfast love toward us; the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever‘ (Mark 16:15; Psalm 117).
Triduum

March 28th, 2024

The Church was born of the paschal mystery.
For this very reason the Eucharist, which is in an outstanding way the sacrament of the paschal mystery, stands at the centre of the Church’s life.

This is already clear from the earliest images of the Church found in the Acts of the Apostles: “They devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (2:42). The “breaking of the bread” refers to the Eucharist.

Two thousand years later, we continue to relive that primordial image of the Church.

At every celebration of the Eucharist, we are spiritually brought back to the paschal Triduum: to the events of the evening of Holy Thursday, to the Last Supper and to what followed it. The institution of the Eucharist sacramentally anticipated the events which were about to take place, beginning with the agony in Gethsemane. Once again we see Jesus as he leaves the Upper Room, descends with his disciples to the Kidron valley and goes to the Garden of Olives. Even today that Garden shelters some very ancient olive trees. Perhaps they witnessed what happened beneath their shade that evening, when Christ in prayer was filled with anguish “and his sweat became like drops of blood falling down upon the ground” (cf. Luke 22:44). The blood which shortly before he had given to the Church as the drink of salvation in the sacrament of the Eucharist, began to be shed; its outpouring would then be completed on Golgotha to become the means of our redemption: “Christ… as high priest of the good things to come…, entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:11- 12).
From Saint John Paul II’s Ecclesia de Eucharistia § 3

The Crucifixion, George Bellows
Palm Sunday

March 23rd, 2024

Experiencing Mark’s account of Christ’s self-Sacrifice for us (Mark 14-15), our only adequate response might be from the ancient Eucharistic devotion, let all mortal flesh keep silence.

No words can help entering into the most Holy Week, more than fully entering into our Lord’s Passion, Holy Thursday’s service, Good Friday’s veneration of the Cross, and the Easter Vigil light of Christ’s Resurrection, well prepared and well celebrated.

Palm Sunday, recalls Christ, the anointed one, entering into Jerusalem humbly, in witness to God’s saving Truth.  

The people initially prepare His way with branches, singing Hosanna, meaning, Save us, Lord, give us Salvation (CCC#559).
Christ does. He offers us His Life, true, eternal Life.
But His concern is not for passing powers, possessions, or influences.

Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem, Félix Louis Leullier

So those serving themselves put down their palms, and seek to put the Lord of Life to death (Mark 14-15).

Even Christ’s Disciples, after being given Christ’s very Life in His Institution of the Holy Eucharist, in the Last Supper, fall asleep, fall away, deny, mock, betray.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The first line of Psalm 22, inviting us to pray the Psalm, as we should on this day.
The Lord does not despise the affliction of the afflicted, the Lord does save, the ends of the earth shall remember, all the families of the nations shall worship the Lord, our hearts will live forever!

Let us sing with Saint Paul’s hymn (Philippians 2:6-11).

Christ Jesus humbled Himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name
which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bow,
of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father!
Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary

March 18th, 2024

This Solemnity shows that the Sacrament of Matrimony is all about God’s Saving Plan, throughout all of Salvation History.
Saint Joseph and our Blessed Virgin Mary show us how. As Saint John Paul II states, Joseph and Mary are the summit from which holiness spreads all over the earth, through the Holy Family (Pope John Paul II’s 1989 Apostolic Exhortation Redemptoris Custos, on the person and mission of Saint Joseph in the life of Christ and of the Church).
Our Lord and Saviour began His Saving mission through Joseph and Mary’s holy union, manifesting His all-powerful Will to purify and sanctify the family, the sanctuary of love and cradle of life.

God’s constant saving mission for us, through the family, begins from the very beginning of the Bible, from Genesis.
Our reading from Saint Paul has our father in Faith Abraham, hoping against hope, believing in the Lord’s promise that he would become the father of many people, many nations of God, thus shall his descendants be (Romans 4:13-22).
Abraham’s wife Sarah, in their old age, laughed at the promise (Genesis 18), but then laughed in rejoicing and named their son Isaac, meaning, ‘rejoicing,’ ‘laughter,’ at the fulfillment of this promise (Genesis 21).
God’s saving plan always has the last laugh.

God’s saving plan continually works through the family.

The prophet Nathan offers the Lord’s promise to King David, that through his family, his kingdom, his throne, will stand firm forever (2 Samuel 7:4-16).

From Matthew’s Gospel (1:16-24), we have Joseph identified as the son of David, true heir to the throne, unlike the imposter tyrant king Herod of the time.
Joseph is identified as son of Jacob, and so Joseph’s namesake is revealed as the dreamer of dreams from the Lord, whose saving plan for that family continued despite being sold into slavery in Egypt.
Joseph listens to this dream for the Holy Family: ‘do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home… she will bear a son and you are to name Him Jesus, ‘God saves,’ because he will save us from our sins.

Joseph hears the Word of the Lord, through the messengers of the Lord, in his dream, not in speaking back.

Joseph wakes, doing, serving, the Word of the Lord, taking his part in God’s Saving Plan, our Salvation History.

From the Litany of Saint Joseph, Joseph is the
renowned offspring of King David,
Spouse of the Mother of God,
Guardian of our saving Lord Jesus Christ,
Head of the Holy Family, and
Protector of the Holy Church.Protector of the Holy Church, because the
Church is nothing other than the family of God, a
communion of Christian families and persons reflecting the communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
continuing the saving mission of evangelizing all people and nations,
Baptizing in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
(Matthew 28; Catechism of the Catholic Church §§ 1655, 2205).

Let us pray with Saint Joseph, that we take up our part, with our families, in Salvation History.
Let us pray again our Collect: Grant, we pray, almighty God, that by Saint Joseph’s intercession, Your Church may constantly watch over the unfolding of the mysteries of our salvation.

Saint Joseph, Mariotto di Nardo
All that is watered by the Living Water shall not fade, shall not fail… their fruit will serve for food, their leaves for medicine… (Ezekiel 47; John 5)

March 12th, 2024

By the Bathesda pool, Jesus, the source of living water, saw a man lying there, waiting for healing for so long.

Do you want to be well?

What is our answer?

If we truly seek the source of living water, if we long for the city of God, we can pray with our Psalm (46):

Be still, and know that I AM God.

Jesus will come to us. The living water will come to us. In our illness, in our work, in our situation in life, Jesus will come to us.

Look, you are well; do not sin any more.

“Have you seen this, son of man?”

Do we see the living waters of grace and healing, flowing from the altar, from the temple, from the city of God? Or do we stay stuck, seeing only sin?

Do we look down to the passing earthly city, possessed by possessions… or do we look up to the eternal city of God, to true freedom in the light of truth which never fades, and never fails?

In the presence of the source of the living water… Do you want to be well?

The Piscina Probatica or Pool of Bethesda, by James Tissot
For what nation is there so renowned, that has ceremonies, and just judgments, and all the Law… (Deuteronomy 4:1-9; Matthew 5:17-19)

March 4th, 2024

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your being and with all your might; and you shall love each other as oneself (Deuteronomy 6:4-5, the shema; Leviticus 19:18).

‘Serve the LORD with all your heart’ ; the pure in heart will see God (1 Samuel 12:20; Matthew 5:8).

Observe these carefully, for by these you will give evidence of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations.

To love God, and neighbour as oneself, is to be not far from the kingdom of God (Mark 12:28-34).

Whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:19).

God has given His Word, His Wisdom, to us, to be a blessing, to be the light of Life to the nations (John 8:12).

Let us take care and earnestly be on our guard, to not forget the things our own eyes have seen, nor let them slip from our memories, but to teach these commandments of life and love to our children and our children’s children (Deuteronomy 4:9).

Let us not be ashamed of the Gospel; let our good works give Glory to the Wisdom of God our Father in heaven (Matthew 5:15-16).

Our Judeo-Christian Tradition has given us the Law, civil law, the hospital, the university, a human economy and a living family wage, and the inspiration for the UN Declaration of Human Rights by insisting on the sacredness of all human life (see Thomas Woods’ How the Catholic Church built Western Civilization).

Outside of this Tradition, on Christ’s Way of the Cross, and now, we have only those asking, ‘what is truth?’ (John 18:38).

The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament, by Raphael
Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter

February 22nd, 2024

“Who do you say that I Am?”
Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Matthew 16:15-20

Chair of Saint Peter in Rome

Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?”
Peter said to Him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love You.”
Jesus said to him, “Feed My lambs.”
Jesus said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?”
Peter said to Him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love You.”
Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.”
Jesus said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because Jesus said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” and he said to him, “Lord, You know everything; you know that I love You.”
Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.”
John 21:15-18

The Chair of Saint Peter, for Peter’s successor bishops of Rome, are to be “the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful”
(Catechism of the Catholic Church # 882).

The Catholic Church has commemorated the Chair of Saint Peter for his episcopacy (his seat, or his chair) in Antioch (once commemorated on January 18th, before the commemoration of the Conversion of Saint Paul), and in Rome (commemorated on February 22).
These commemorations were unified to one Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter on February 22, but the time between the two dates have important memorials of witnesses testifying to the mission of the Catholic Christian Church:

To sum up… Peter is accompanied by a Roman martyr, Paul by a martyr of one of the oldest Greek churches, that of Ephesus, where both he and Saint John the Evangelist had lived and preached. Between their two feasts are celebrated martyrs from the two extremes of the Christian world in antiquity, Persia and Spain; native Romans, one the highest authority in the Catholic Church, and one the least and last of its members; a Roman soldier from the venerable see of Milan, representing the might of the Empire, subjected to Christ; and a young woman who in the pagan world was a person of no standing at all, but in the Church is honored as one of its greatest and most heroic figures. The eight day period from January 18-25, then, becomes a celebration not just of the two Apostles who founded the church in the Eternal City, but of the universality of that church’s mission to “preside in charity” over the whole Church, as Saint Ignatius of Antioch says, and bring every person of whatever condition to salvation in Christ.
Gregory DiPippo, “The Two Feasts of St Peter’s Chair”
Ash Wednesday

February 14th, 2024

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51).

Today, Ash Wednesday, this is how the Psalmist, King David, prays: a great and powerful king in Israel, but at the same time frail and sinful.
At the beginning of these 40 days of preparation for Easter, the Church puts his words on the lips of all who take part in the austere liturgy of Ash Wednesday.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, … take not your holy Spirit from me.” We hear this plea echoing in our hearts, while in a few moments we will approach the Lord’s altar to receive ashes on our forehead in accordance with a very ancient tradition. This act is filled with spiritual allusions and is an important sign of conversion and inner renewal. Considered in itself, it is a simple liturgical rite, but very profound because of its penitential meaning: with it the Church reminds man, believer and sinner, of his weakness in the face of evil and especially of his total dependence on God’s infinite majesty.

The liturgy calls for the celebrant to say these words as he places ashes on the foreheads of the faithful: “Remember, man, you are dust and to dust you will return”; or, “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.”
from an Ash Wednesday homily by Pope John Paul II

Ash Wednesday, Julian Fałat
Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, World Day of the Sick

February 11th, 2024

Our Blessed Virgin Mary, identifying herself as The Immaculate Conception, appeared to 14-year old Bernadette in a grotto near the Gave river in France, over 18 times between February 11 and July 16, 1858.
Bernadette, not knowing how to respond at first, prayed the Rosary.
The Virgin joined her in prayer.

“Ever since the apparitions, Lourdes is known as the place that welcomes all who are physically or spiritually ill and who, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, the Immaculate Conception, seek to rediscover peace, health and serenity. Seventy healings have been recognized by an autonomous group of physicians – as well as many conversions.“

Our Lady of Lourdes and Bernadette Soubirous, Virgilio Tojetti

Because you are the smile of God, the reflection of the light of Christ, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit,

because you chose Bernadette in her lowliness, because you are the morning star, the gate of heaven and the first creature to experience the resurrection,

Our Lady of Lourdes, with our brothers and sisters whose hearts and bodies are in pain, we pray to you!
Pope Benedict XVI offered this prayer on the 150th anniversary of the Lourdes apparitions, in the Eucharist for the World Day of the Sick
Memorial of Saint Scholastica

February 10th, 2024

‘In life and in death united in God… As their minds had always been united in God, in the same way the bodies were joined in the same sepulcher… Those who arrive today – after fifteen centuries of history – to the majestic abbey of Montecassino, will live the emotion of being before of the tomb of the Holy Brother and Sister, guides to an unbroken chain of God-seekers down through the centuries and into the future.’

In the monastery, Saint Scholastica observed the rule of silence- ‘either speak of God or keep silence, for, what in this world is so worthy of speech?’

Saint Scholastica, Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs

Saint Benedict, Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs