Pastoral echoes: Cardinal Montini on Vatican II

Over the course of this Lent, along with my dear friend Stefania, without whose help this would not have been possible for me, I have been working on what, as far as we know, is the first ever English translation of then-Cardinal Montini's (later Pope Paul VI) 1962 Lenten pastoral letter written to flock his in the Archdiocese of Milan from Rome, where he was serving on preparatory commissions for the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. The Italian title of his letter is Pensiamo al Concilio, or, in English, something like, Let's Think About the Council. This translation is part of an effort begun and brought to fruition by initiative of my brother deacon Eric Stoltz, who has graciously allowed me to participate. The effort is Conciliaria. You can link to Conciliaria by clicking on the picture of the Second Vatican Council on the upper right of this blog.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini during a Corpus Christi procession

We are completing the translation week-by-week. So far we have translated and posted a little more than half of the letter's sixty-three sections in four installments. At the rate of nine sections per week there will be a total of seven installments. It is a remarkable letter that shows what a great and pastoral heart Giovanni Battista Montini had, what a tremendous love for the Lord and for Christ's Bride, the Church, which he so faithfully served until the moment he drew his last breath. For his tireless efforts and courageous exertions he is arguably the most maligned and disparaged of popes. I encourage one and all to read Peter Hebblethwaite's Pope Paul VI: The First Modern Pope and/or to watch the 2010 film Paul VI: The Pope in the Tempest. Please go to the links below to read then-Cardinal Montini's breathtaking pastoral letter of 1962:

Pensiamo al Concilio, Part I

Pensiamo al Concilio, Part II

Pensiamo al Concilio, Part III

Pensiamo al Concilio, Part IV

Desiring God: Sts. Perpetua and Felicity

In the wake of posting about the inextricable relationship between desire and struggle, or the struggle borne of desire, it seems fitting that today we observe the liturgical memorial of the martyrs Perpetua and Felicity of Carthage. Perpetua and Felicity, were martyred 7 March AD 203. Perpetua was a 22-year old newly married noble, and a nursing mother. Her co-martyr Felicity, was an expectant mother and Perpetua's slave. However, they were sisters in Christ, even before their martyrdom in the Roman coliseum at Carthage, where they were killed and devoured by wild beasts. Martyred with them were several catechumens: Revocatus, who, like Felicity, was a slave, along with Saturninus and Secundulus.

Deacons appear throughout what is believed to be Perpetua's actual prison testimony of her experience, which is passed down as The Passion of St. Perpetua. Her Passio was originally written in Latin and later translated into Greek. It was widely disseminated in the early Christian Church. First, in Section III, St. Perpetua wrote: "Then Tertius and Pomponius, those blessed deacons who tried to take care of us, bribed the soldiers to allow us to go to a better part of the prison to refresh ourselves for a few hours. Everyone then left that dungeon and shifted for himself. I nursed my baby, who was faint from hunger. In my anxiety I spoke to my mother about the child, I tried to comfort my brother, and I gave the child in their charge."

Then, in Section VI of her account, after a failed attempt by her father to win her a reprieve before Hilarianus the Roman governor, she wrote, "Then Hilarianus passed sentence on all of us: we were condemned to the beasts, and we returned to prison in high spirits. But my baby had got used to being nursed at the breast and to staying with me in prison. So I sent the deacon Pomponius straight away to my father to ask for the baby. But father refused to give him over. But as God willed, the baby had no further desire for the breast, nor did I suffer any inflammation; and so I was relieved of any anxiety for my child and of any discomfort in my breasts..."

Finally, in the Xth Section she records a vision or dream she had on the night before her martyrdom, which was 6 March AD 203: "The day before we fought, I saw in a vision that Pomponius the deacon had come hither to the door of the prison, and knocked hard upon it. And I went out to him and opened to him; he was clothed in a white robe ungirdled, having shoes curiously wrought. And he said to me: Perpetua, we await you; come. And he took my hand, and we began to go through rugged and winding places. At last with much breathing hard we came to the amphitheatre, and he led me into the midst of the arena. And he said to me: Be not afraid; I am here with you and labour together with you. And he went away..."

With a deep diaconal bow to my friend Fr. Peter Nguyen, S.J., I quote one of the three sermons St. Augustine preached on these glorious martyrs of Latin Africa "For Perpetua and Felicitas are the (names of two, but the reward of all... so that we glory in perpetual felicity" (Augustine, Serm. 281.3.3- it is important to note that these sermons, along with others, were (re-)discovered in Erfurt, Germany just a few years ago).

Father,
your love gave the Saints Perpetua and Felicity
courage to suffer a cruel martyrdom.
By their prayers, help us to grow in love of you.
We ask this through Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns
with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Desiring God=struggle

I have to admit that with everything I have going on presently it has been very difficult to post anything here. On the whole, that is a good thing, but I still miss it and feel slightly perturbed when I let a day go by without putting anything up. It's not so much that it is a compulsion (I have considered that on more than one occasion) but there isn't a day that goes by that I don't experience something I am eager to share.

In my homily for the First Sunday of Lent I preached that what ought to motivate us in our spiritual disciplines is our desire for God. But this prompts a question, "What about when I desire something, or even someone, more than I desire God?" We'd all be less than honest if we did not acknowledge that this is sometimes true. Sometimes it is very often true. One of the best definitions of sin is to desire something/someone more than we desire God. While ruminating on lack of desire for God, a passage from Frank McCourt's memoir Angela's Ashes came to mind, the part where he describes the experience of losing his virginity while he was working as a messenger boy. While doing his job he came to know a girl by the name of Theresa Carmody who was consumptive (she later dies). McCourt, describing what went through his head as he entered the throes of passion, wrote, "my head is filled with sin and iodine and fear of consumption and the shilling tip and her green eyes and she’s on the sofa don’t stop or I’ll die and she’s crying and I’m crying for I don’t know what’s happening to me if I’m killing myself catching consumption from her mouth I’m riding to heaven I’m falling off a cliff and if this is a sin I don’t give a fiddler’s fart." Let's face it, sometimes we don't give a fiddler's fart either, it is a spiritual state. It's precisely in the struggle, even in our giving in, that Christ comes to meet us.

Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified (1 Cor. 9:24-27)

Artists struggle with their art. There is no great work of art that is not the result of an agon, a struggle. As the title of the film about the life Michelangelo puts it, "the agony and the ecstasy." It was Blessed Teresa of Calcutta who urged us to make of our lives something beautiful for God. If Dostoevesky was correct, then beauty will only save the world because beauty entails struggle.

In the end, it is not our own exertions that will win the race, but Christ's love and fidelity, which can't truly be grasped in any other way except through experience, all experience, nothing remaindered. The philosopher Martin Heidegger was convinced that we experience something very important in and through boredom. I also preached that engaging in the struggle helps us to grasp our weakness, our great need, which creates the condition for us to experience for ourselves that Jesus is the joy of human desiring.

Transfiguration: terror, terrified, terrific

Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, "Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified (Mark 9:2-6).

Terror is an element that is palpably present in our readings for this Second Sunday of Lent. Abraham, while walking along with his son Isaac towards Mount Moriah, must have felt terror as he puzzled over the incomprehensible command that Lord God had given him and which, with great trust in God, he set out to faithfully fulfill. St. Paul, in our second reading, writes what we can take to be reassuring words either in a sentimental way or in a meaningful way. When taken sentimentally, we must take his words, "If God is for us, who can be against us," out of context and take it to be true only insofar as everything in life is going our way, those days when we can sing Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah from our hearts. In context the apostle's words have deep meaning. The context is similar to the context of our first reading. God shows us the He is for us by not sparing "his own Son but hand[ing] him over for us all." In short, we can only know that God for us by way of experience, painful experience. After all, it is a few verses earlier in the eighth chapter of his Letter to the Romans that St. Paul tells us: "We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose."

On the holy mountain, Peter, James, and John were not transported out of the world, as it were, but were allowed to see things as they really are, to behold reality in all God's glory. They were changed precisely because they were terrified. The Greek word that is the last word of verse six is ekpfoboi, which is the plural of ekfobos, meaning stricken with fear or terror, exceedingly frightened, terrified. In the King James Version this word is translated, "they were sore afraid." After all, "terrified" and "terrific" are closely related, both linguistically and existentially, like "awesome" and "awful." Like Jesus' three disciples, we are to be transfigured, transformed, changed, converted evermore into the likeness of Christ in and through experience, not over and above it.

Worthiness is never the issue

I take it as a good sign that so far during Lent I am just soaking things in, not generating a lot of disparate thoughts, but going deeper with the help of some very good guides. One guide I have had for many years, as long time readers know, is Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, who I consider to be one of the greatest spiritual masters of the last century. His books are short, but packed with wisdom and insight. Even in re-reading his works, especially Beginning to Pray, which is his best-known work, and Living Prayer, which I am currently reading, there is always more than when I first read them. For end of this first full week of Lent, I am sharing one more excerpt of beginning to pray because I think it captures well the reasons we observe Lent, which too often becomes a sort of pseudo-spiritualized effort at self-improvement.

Marc Chagall, The Prodigal Son

[W]e are, in the Church, the children of God, and these first words 'Our Father' establish the fact and make us take our stand where we belong. It is no good saying we are unworthy of this calling. We have accepted it, and it is ours. We may be the prodigal son and we will have to answer for it, but what is certain is that nothing can transform us back into that which we no longer are. When the prodigal son returned to his father, and was about to say: 'I am no longer worthy to be called thy son, make me as one of thy hired servants' (Lk 15:19), the father allowed him to pronounce the first words: 'I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy son,' but there he stopped him. Yes, he is not worthy, but he is a son in spite of his unworthiness. You cannot cease to be a member of your family, whatever you do, whether worthy or not. Whatever we are, whatever our life is, however unworthy we are, we are called to be the [children] of God, or to call God our father, we have no escape. That is where we stand.

When, like prodigals, we return to our Father in the sacrament of penance it is important to understand that we don't go there to find out whether or not God will forgive us. We are always already forgiven because of Jesus Christ. We go to realize, that is, to make real, to experience, like the prodigal, the great love and Divine Mercy of our Father.

Making God's kingdom a present reality

"Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself" (Phil. 3:17-21 ESV- italicizing and emboldening emphasis mine).

In the passage above, St. Paul is referring to the fact that, in the words of Metropolitan Anthony, "we are a colony of heaven." By this, Metropolitan Anthony goes on to observe, the apostle "means a group of people whose mother city is heaven, who are on earth to conquer it for God and to bring the kingdom of God if only to a small spot. It is a peculiar type of conquest, which consists in winning over over people to the realm of peace, making them subject to the prince of peace and making them enter into the harmony which we call the kingdom of God. It is indeed a conquest, a peacemaking that will make us sheep among wolves, seeds scattered by the sower, which must die in order to bear fruit and to feed others."

Seeing Lent for what it is meant to be

We are now ten days into the holy season of Lent. We are passed the silliness and quickly passing trendiness that is for many Ash Wednesday. Past all the "giving up" of things only to make ourselves slightly miserable, and all the rest. We are past it being easy, at the point where perhaps you have failed. So, the question is, do you persevere, or give up? For those who try and fail, Lent is a time to experience how God's grace exposes our weaknesses, which is the only way God can perfect our desire. It is a time of humility, but not humiliation. While God might permit us to be humiliated for His sake (in all such circumstances we are blessed), God does not humiliate us, but humbles us so that we become more like Christ.

This beautiful version of the prayer composed by the ancient Syrian deacon, St. Ephrem, is our Friday traditio for this second Friday of Lent.