On the eve of All Hallows, we turn to the Little Flower

Today marks the day in 1887 when fourteen year-old Thérèse Martin, after asking for and receiving her father's permission to enter the convent, which her three older sisters had already done, that she spoke with Bishop Hugonin to receive his permission. She made an appointment to speak with the bishop after being denied permission by her pastor. Prior to meeting with her parish priest she spoke to the superior of the convent, who told her that she could not enter until she turned twenty-one. The bishop told her that it would be up to the convent's superior, the same one who requested that she wait. Of course, Thérèse died on 30 September 1897 aged 24.

Undaunted, the young Thérèse went to Rome on pilgrimage with her father and during an audience with Pope Leo XIII, received his reluctant blessing to enter. I always find this story remarkable because it is easy to see how those involved probably found this young woman impertinent and annoying. In retrospect, it is clear that God was calling her. She found out that she was granted permission to enter the Carmel on 2 January 1888, her fifteenth birthday. I also find it remarkable that the Little Flower is one of only three women doctors of the Church, along with Sts. Catherine of Siena and Teresa of Avila- Catherine a third order Dominican and Teresa a Carmelite, responsible for reforming the order to which Thérèse belonged.
apropos of Halloween, St. Thérèse as St. Jean d'Arc
I think this passage from her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, gives great insight into why Pope John Paul II named her a doctor:

"I understand that Our Lord's love is revealed as well in the simplest soul who doesn't resist His grace in anything, as in the most sublime of souls. In fact, since the essence of love is to bring oneself low, if every soul were like the souls of the holy Doctors who have shed light on the Church through the clarity of their doctrine, it seems that God wouldn't come down low enough by coming only as far as great hearts. But He created the child who doesn't know anything and only cries weakly, He created poor primitive persons who only have natural law as a guide - and it is to their hearts that He consents to come down: Here are wildflowers whose simplicity delights Him..."

How can anyone read such words and not be filled gratitude and love? This is why the Little Flower, along with St. Francis, is the most beloved of the saints. In her book, which saved my life last winter, Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life, Kathleen Norris mentioned that her late husband intermittently worked on translating the little plays Thérèse wrote for the sisters to perform. How I would love to read these!

Reading from The Story of a Soul last night was all the more powerful for me because I was reading from the book that belonged to my dear friend Sara before she entered to the convent to take the veil as Christ's bride, though she is postulant.

Edith Piaf, the great French singer, whose life was certainly dissolute, largely due to her troubled upbringing, much of which took place in the brothel where her grandmother was madam, was greatly devoted to the Little Flower. At one point in her childhood Piaf became blind due to keratitis. The prostitutes pooled their money to send her on a pilgrimage to St. Thérèse. She was healed, her sight restored. While never a church-goer, in every city she visited, Piaf would seek out a shrine to the Little Flower and ask her for her prayers. I can only imagine the great affection Thérèse has for her dear Edith and the unfailing advocacy of her intercession to Christ and His Blessed Mother for this wayward soul, who was often lost and confused. Our Little Flower understood well that the object of authentic love is "the good of another, the destiny of another," her relationship with Christ, who loves us so much that we are utterly incapable of fathoming it because His love for us is infinite. His infinite love is the only thing capable of satisfying us because our desire, from which arises our great need, is bigger than the world!

Today is All Hallows eve. All Hallows (i.e., All Saints) is the grand feast with which we begin this glorious month on the Christian calendar, dedicated to remembering our beloved dead, which inevitably leads us to consider our own mortality. It is also the month of my own birth. So, along with St. Thérèse, I invoke, as I always do, the intercessions of my two great patrons, Sts. Stephen and Martin, along with my friends St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, St. Gianna Molla, St. Mary Magdalene, Sts. Perpetua and Felicity, who I ask to pray to the Lord our God for me and those who have been placed on my heart.

Even if you've been intermittent, or completely remiss praying the rosary this month, pray it today, the last day of the month of the rosary, meditating on the Joyful mysteries.

Veni Sancti Spiritus, veni per Mariam.

"They've got a name for the winners in the world and I want a name when I lose"

Steely Dan's Deacon Blues is our Friday traditio. I also have a fondness for Donald Fagen's solo album Nightfly and I care for Fruit Loops a great deal.

On Fridays, I begin my day with the plea of the psalmist from Psalm 51- "Have mercy on me God, in your kindness. In your compassion blot out my offense."

As we come to the end of the month dedicated to the rosary, let's not abandon praying it daily. My dear friend Sharon, from whose blog of sorts, Quaerere Deum, I get a daily dose of beauty via many lovely photographs, also publishes insights once in awhile. The other day she put up this statement by Fr. Aldo Trento: "I cannot start the day without that Gospel of the poor that is the rosary". Let's not read these words sentimentally, thinking,, "Ah, what a holy little priest clicking his beads," while making some pseudo-pious request, like "Pray for me!" You know what I'm writing about. Instead, take it as a challenge to experience what Fr. Aldo experiences through the unfailing intercession of Our Lady, who gives him a heart for the poor he serves daily in Asunción, Paraguay.

Today we meditate on the Sorrowful mysteries.

Veni Sancti Spiritus, veni per Mariam.

Friendship: the fruit of the charism

I am so happy to be reading the third volume of Is It Possible to Live This Way?: An Unusual Approach to Christian Existence. However, it is the first of these volumes I will read without my companion Sara, who is in the cloister. It is funny that receiving the book almost immediately brought me to writing her a letter, in which I ask her to receive permission for me to mail this book to her. I think about how we never got around to discussing the section of poverty in volume two. I know she read it and re-read it, but we never talked about it, even though it was transformative, as they say, for us both.

Anyway, I am happy to have my lovely wife, who is a companion, along with other companions, with whom I have had a fruitful journey so far. I guess my point here is gratitude for the gift of friendship, which is a gift of the gift, a fruit of the charism we share.

True to form, Don Giussani, in his very first words to the aspiring Memores Domini, to whom these presentations were originally given as part of their formation, says: "Man's awareness is his capacity to order all things towards their destiny, towards their origin and their destiny: this awareness unites things, and thus it is the Creator's tool for completing His work." Just think about that for one minute, not just what it means, but what it implies, and the response is calls forth!

Veni Sancti Spiritus, veni per Mariam.

Snow

It's snowing. The landscape is transfigured!



Apropos of certain phenomena forever transpiring in the world, I make the plea of the psalmist in Psalm 43, the opening lines of Morning Prayer today, my own: "Defend me, O God, and plead my cause against a godless nation. From deceitful and cunning men rescue me, O God."

Veni Sancti Spiritus, veni per Mariam.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis

How is praying the rosary daily during this month of the rosary going? Today presents a fresh opportunity to start anew on this last week of the month. On Mondays we are encouraged to meditate on the Joyful Mysteries, events in the great unfolding of the mystery of our redemption in the world.

Deacon Greg Kandra, writing on The Deacon's Bench, posts a story about "pastoral" objections to the new English translation of the Roman Missal, which Bishop Donald Trautman characterizes as "slavish" and "elitist." Therefore, he objects to it because "[t]he vast majority of God's people in the assembly are not familiar with words of the new missal like 'ineffable,' 'consubstantial,' 'incarnate,' 'inviolate,' 'oblation,' 'ignominy' 'precursor,' 'suffused' and 'unvanquished.' The vocabulary is not readily understandable by the average Catholic." Ironically, this strikes me as a bit elitist, not giving many people in the assembly their due. It also presents us with an opportunity to teach the faith by (re)acquainting people with these words, words that are appropriate to use with regard to the mysterium tremendum. Sacred language is always different from everyday, ordinary language. After all, sacred means set apart, consecrated for a religious purpose. In all, I think the reform of the reform is a response to how irrelevant being relevant quickly becomes, especially in worship.

The only part of the retranslation that I really have difficulty with is changing "one in being with the Father" in the Creed to "consubstantial with the Father." My reason for this is that, despite the fact that the latter is a more literal translation of the Latin "consubstantialem Patri," it does not capture the original symbol of faith, which in the original Greek is homoousios, as well as "one in being."

Let's keep our bishops in prayer as they prepare to meet next month and complete their work on the collects for the new translation of missal, the ordinary of which has already been approved by the Holy See. You can see it for yourself here.

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

Veni Sancti Spiritus, veni per Mariam.

Year B 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Jer. 31:7-9; Ps 126:1-6; Heb 5:1-6; Mk 10:46-52

Whenever we encounter instances of Jesus performing miracles, like his restoring Bartimaeus’ eyesight in today’s Gospel, it is easy to overlook what is really important about these miraculous events, namely that they are meant to reveal him, to open our eyes in order for us to see that it is Jesus Christ who saves, heals, and liberates us from all that binds- the powers of the world, of sickness, and ultimately of death itself. Because it begins with the words, “Thus says the LORD,” our reading from Jeremiah is an oracle of salvation, which invites us to praise God and to proclaim God’s goodness to others, as does the prophet who rejoices in Israel’s return from exile.

Jesus’ restoring the blind man’s sight causes him not only to physically see, but to see things clearly for the first time, which means to see Jesus, who is Christ the Lord. This is indicated by the fact that, upon gaining his sight, Bartimaeus followed Jesus on his way (Mark10:52). It requires no great leap on our part to see that the primary concern in our Gospel today is spiritual blindness. It is important to note that this retelling comes at the end of a section of St. Mark’s Gospel about discipleship that begins in chapter eight with Jesus healing the blind man at Bethsaida. For the disciple, to truly see does not mean to see as Jesus sees, but to see Jesus and to follow him. Like Bartimaeus, in addition to gaining our sight, we must also to throw off the cloak that shields us from the demands of being Christ’s disciples, of not only seeing things in light of the Gospel, but acting in accordance with what we see, which is to act rationally.

In our present situation the blindness that is too pervasive is blindness to our humanity, to what it means to be human. Even in this age of liberation in the western world, we reduce our humanity at every turn. In our blindness we resist this at the level of ideology, which often devolves into many pointless political disputes. Such disputes are quite frequently irresolvable due to the fact that while we argue for the correct position (i.e., what the church teaches), we do so using the same premises as those with whom we dispute. In other words, the real struggle of our current situation is anthropological, it is about what being human means, which cannot be correctly understood apart from the Incarnation of the Son of God, who came to free us and to restore us to our authentic nature.

Liberation in and through Christ Jesus comes at a cost, the cost of following him, which costs nothing less than your whole life. As Bartimaeus and the other disciples discovered, following Jesus on his way means following him to the cross, the destination to which the entirety of the Gospel According Saint Mark leads. It is the cross, as you experience it in and through the circumstances of your life that allows you to emerge from your confusion, your blindness. In the words of the author Juan Manuel de Prada, Jesus shows us that we "do not need to build towers in order to reach heaven, for the simple reason that heaven is already within [us]..."

Our authentic nature as human beings, what constitutes us at our deepest level, is the fact that you and I are a direct relationship with God. It is in and through Christ, who, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us, did not glorify “himself in becoming high priest, but rather the one who said to him ‘You are my son…’” that we directly come to know our authentic nature, recognizing it first in ourselves and then in others (Heb. 5:5). Stated simply, it is only through Christ that can truly see what it means to be human.

So, today, the Lord’s Day, on which we commemorate and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the one who heals and liberates us from everything that afflicts and binds, even death, along with Bartimaeus and the prophet Jeremiah, we gratefully acknowledge the great things God has done for us through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, which is why "we are filled with joy." Gaining our spiritual sight means to see that "[t]he eternal revolution," wrought by Christ, "consists in revealing to us "the meaning of life, restoring to us our [authentic] nature; from this discovery is born a joy with no expiration date" (Juan Manuel de Prada). So, like Bartemaeus, take courage because Jesus is calling you to follow him on his way to glory, which is your destiny. After all, he did not come to make our way his way, but to make his way ours.

Veni Sancti Spiritus, veni per Mariam.

We are all beggars

Kristin Moulton, a religion reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune writes about panhandling in Salt Lake City. People in need always present us with a challenge that we ignore at the expense of a troubled conscience, but what should we do? Once again, she gave me the opportunity to share a few of my thoughts- Can believers really pass by the beggar?: Panhandling & piety » For clergy and congregants, it's not always an easy call.

While I am on matters of relevance to Utah Catholics, Fr. Erik posts Moulton's balanced and informative Trib article on Judge Memorial's production of the musical Rent. He adds some concise commentary afterwards. I not only agree that what is true is not dependent upon how many people object or approve, we judge by a different criteria, but I take issue with Principal Bartman's statement that he did not receive "one negative comment from students and parents in the Judge community," a tack he also took on Doug Wright's radio show. This not only falls to prey to the idea of truth by committee, but shows an incomplete understanding of what it means to be a Catholic institution, which means to be in communion with the whole church. Let's be clear and, while we're at it, fair: nobody is arguing against the requirement to love, to understand, to serve, or be compassionate toward anyone, let alone those in need. Maybe we need to be clearer on what love concretely demands of us. It seems to me, as Pope Benedict taught in Deus Caritas Est, that charity requires telling the truth, which must be done in love. This is always a challenge. I want to be clear: my objection to Rent is that it is ideology disguised as art, or art reduced to politics, and all the catchy tunes in the world doesn't change that fact.

Apropos to both issues, it was Don Giussani, giving testimony before Pope John Paul II, who said, "Existence expresses itself, as ultimate ideal, in begging. The real protagonist of history is the beggar: Christ who begs for man's heart, and man's heart that begs for Christ."

Veni Sancti Spiritus, veni per Mariam.