In our last Latin Lesson, we learned The Sign of The Cross, with which we begin all things. Now, since we can only access our Savior Jesus Christ through his adorable Mother Mary, the Hail Mary or Ave Maria is our subject. The prayer runs thus:
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
You can get a rather laughable, yet serviceable, pronunciation here.
Pointing out the obvious is always a good place to start, and thus Ave means "hail" and Maria is Mary in the romance languages. Gratia means "grace". The phrase "ex gratia" is used for legal services which are provided free of charge, and literally translates "by favor" or "out of kindness". This is where we get our word gratuity from (a tip), which is a further payment beyond the required done out of kindness, at least in theory. Plena is where we get the "full of". The word plenary, which is applied to indulgences which grant a full remission of temporal punishment (as opposed to partial) comes from this Latin word. Tecum is two words combined: te and cum. Te means "you" and cum means "with". That shouldn't be too hard for any scholar of a romance language (Spanish especially).
With the next sentence we get into some good grammar. Not that we have "benedicta tu in mulieribus" and then "benedictus fructus ventris tui". The difference is in who they are talking about! The -a is applied to Mary, because she is a woman, thus she gets the feminine ending (benedicta, -us, -um is a routine first declension adjective). The -us is masculine, and thus Jesus gets it. Don't be confused by the -us you think you see in Mary's like in mulieribus. It is actually -ibus, which is in fact feminie, fitting for the embodiment of all femininity. Having a beginning understanding of Latin grammar can get you a long ways, but if you don't get this, it doesn't matter. You can still pray in Latin, and understand what you are praying!
With that out of the way, benedictus is blessed (like our Holy Father Pope Benedict), and fructus is fruit. Ventris means "womb" here, but can mean stomach or belly in the context of eating. A woman with children is called a venter in English.
Mater means mother, like alma mater, which means "nourishing mother" (a proper title for The Mother of God!). Dei is like God, like "deify". Ora (from the first conjugation orare) is a verb meaning "to pray" here, though also to speak other places. Thus we have "to orate". Pro nobis means for us, which again is rather standard for a romance language. Peccatoribus means sinners. I don't know of any English words that come from this, though the Internet tells me peccatophobia is the fear of making mistakes. Peccatoribus is used famously in the Tridintine Mass (the Pre-Vatican II Mass), where the priest says aloud "nobis quoque peccatoribus" surrounded by silence on either side. The phrase means "and also us sinners".
Nunc is "now". Mortis is "death", as in mortuary. And again nostrae, like nobis is the first person plural.
Orate Fratres! (Pray brethren)
Friday, May 28, 2010
"May God Reward You"
Christianity was founded by beggars. And yet, we are sometimes alarmed at the flagrant begging of our fellow Christians. Some examples:
The renowned Fr. Z at "What Does The Prayer Really Say?" has an Amazon wish list and regularly reports that "so and so from such and such" bought him a book, or an expensive can of tomatoes, or what have you. He also has an extensive collection of bird feeders which are filled with donated money. Now, nobody quite knows what Fr. Z does (he is often on a plane, and hangs out with plenty of big hitters at the Vatican), but we can assume that the Church he serves hardly leaves him destitute.
J.P. Sonnen, over at Orbis Catholicus Secundus (there was a primus prior...) has a "Donate" button on the side of his blog. This is perhaps understandable: he is a student at the Angelicum as well as a father of a few young children. It's understandable that he doesn't have the money for the camera that takes the Catholic eye-candy pictures I (and readers all over the world) fawn over.
And then there are the truly destitute: the religious who are the warriors and support of the Church. Every order that takes vows of poverty (almost all) exists by the good will of others and their own hard work. The Carmelite Monks in Wyoming, men after my own heart, live off of the donations of others, and even accept stocks, bonds and other securities! They supplement this income by roasting coffee. Buy some Mystic Monk coffee here.
The point of all this is that Catholics have no problem out and out begging. And why should they! Our Lord became human so that he could beg! Certainly nobody can encourage laziness or greed, and in the end it is prudence (perhaps the most illusive, yet most necessary of the virtues) which governs the matter.
But, lest it be thought that Catholic beggars stop there, I remind you that prayer, the beautifully free, infinitely valuable gift given to us by God is worth more than any worldly repayment. Thus Fr. Z reports, "As I mentioned several days ago, I will say Mass tomorrow, Friday in the Octave of Pentecost for those who follow the traditional calendar, for the intention of those benefactors who have sent donations and used the wish list. It is my duty and pleasure to pray for those who have been so supportive."
J.P Sonnen makes a point of assuring his readers that he prays for them (whether they donate or not) and also inserts the eminently Catholic phrase, "may God reward you". This phrase might alarm us. At the beautiful Church of St. Agnes in St. Paul Minnesota the almost militant crew of alter boys they have trained are instructed by a wall card in the sacristy to neatly hang up their cassock and surplice in the dignity of their vocation of alter boy. The message, which really reads rather harshly ends, "may God reward you". It seems almost cruel: chew out the young boys, and then guilt trip them with God's promises? No, that is not it at all! The line is simply a divine "thank you" - the benefactor is saying, "since I am powerless to thank you, being in the position of a beggar, I'll ask God to help you". The phrase is associated with religious communities first and foremost, especially Carmelite and Poor Clare women.
So, be assured that the Red Cardigan Society will continue to provide their services (if you can call them that!) free of charge, and we don't know how to put a donate button on the side of our blog, so that won't show up either. But next time you see a Christian all but begging for money, don't be alarmed. God will reward you.
The renowned Fr. Z at "What Does The Prayer Really Say?" has an Amazon wish list and regularly reports that "so and so from such and such" bought him a book, or an expensive can of tomatoes, or what have you. He also has an extensive collection of bird feeders which are filled with donated money. Now, nobody quite knows what Fr. Z does (he is often on a plane, and hangs out with plenty of big hitters at the Vatican), but we can assume that the Church he serves hardly leaves him destitute.
J.P. Sonnen, over at Orbis Catholicus Secundus (there was a primus prior...) has a "Donate" button on the side of his blog. This is perhaps understandable: he is a student at the Angelicum as well as a father of a few young children. It's understandable that he doesn't have the money for the camera that takes the Catholic eye-candy pictures I (and readers all over the world) fawn over.
And then there are the truly destitute: the religious who are the warriors and support of the Church. Every order that takes vows of poverty (almost all) exists by the good will of others and their own hard work. The Carmelite Monks in Wyoming, men after my own heart, live off of the donations of others, and even accept stocks, bonds and other securities! They supplement this income by roasting coffee. Buy some Mystic Monk coffee here.
The point of all this is that Catholics have no problem out and out begging. And why should they! Our Lord became human so that he could beg! Certainly nobody can encourage laziness or greed, and in the end it is prudence (perhaps the most illusive, yet most necessary of the virtues) which governs the matter.
But, lest it be thought that Catholic beggars stop there, I remind you that prayer, the beautifully free, infinitely valuable gift given to us by God is worth more than any worldly repayment. Thus Fr. Z reports, "As I mentioned several days ago, I will say Mass tomorrow, Friday in the Octave of Pentecost for those who follow the traditional calendar, for the intention of those benefactors who have sent donations and used the wish list. It is my duty and pleasure to pray for those who have been so supportive."
J.P Sonnen makes a point of assuring his readers that he prays for them (whether they donate or not) and also inserts the eminently Catholic phrase, "may God reward you". This phrase might alarm us. At the beautiful Church of St. Agnes in St. Paul Minnesota the almost militant crew of alter boys they have trained are instructed by a wall card in the sacristy to neatly hang up their cassock and surplice in the dignity of their vocation of alter boy. The message, which really reads rather harshly ends, "may God reward you". It seems almost cruel: chew out the young boys, and then guilt trip them with God's promises? No, that is not it at all! The line is simply a divine "thank you" - the benefactor is saying, "since I am powerless to thank you, being in the position of a beggar, I'll ask God to help you". The phrase is associated with religious communities first and foremost, especially Carmelite and Poor Clare women.
So, be assured that the Red Cardigan Society will continue to provide their services (if you can call them that!) free of charge, and we don't know how to put a donate button on the side of our blog, so that won't show up either. But next time you see a Christian all but begging for money, don't be alarmed. God will reward you.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Religious Life
Jesu et Maria sit nobis in via!
This summer, Eau Claire will be losing one of its most valuable and hidden treasures, St. Bede’s monastery. Benedictine sisters have lived and worked there for some time, and have been part of Eau Claire for even longer. They have been teachers primarily, and their lessons flowed from a life of prayer and close communion with each other and God. In their wooded retreat just beyond city limits, they lived quietly, observing the 1500 year old Benedictine way of life through vows of obedience, stability and devotion to the monastic way of life.
Sadly, this monastery, like many across the States, is suffering from a loss of vocations. The Benedictine nuns will be leaving Eau Claire and merging with their motherhouse in St. Joseph, MN. American soil seems particularly unfertile for new vocations. But such is life. As the oldest institution on the planet, the Catholic Church is familiar with the waxing and waning of devout populations. In the long run, Christ’s bride is unafraid. The Lord did, after all, promise that the Church built on Peter would not fail (Mt 16:18). The Church is only saddened that so many will not enjoy answering Christ’s call.
There are many different forms of religious life, but there are two sweeping categories that most fall into: the actives and the contemplatives. Active monks and nuns are those who have an “apostolate” or active ministry in the world. They might run a school like the St. Bede’s sisters, or a hospital, such as Sacred Heart Hospital, which used to be run by Franciscan nuns. Active religious work in the community during the day, but retreat into their “cloister” which is closed off from anyone who is not part of their monastery. There, they pray the Psalms in the Liturgy of the Hours and sleep, knowing they are safe in the palm of the Father.
Contemplative religious dedicate themselves wholly to prayer. They are often strictly cloistered, meaning they rarely, if ever, leave the confines of the monastery; the strictest only accept family for visitors and then only twice a year. Thus physically separated from the world, they become hidden spiritual fathers and mothers of the world, as we discussed in Reginae Eclessiae. They realize the depths of their uselessness and so commend the world to God in constant prayer. Their lives are not separate from the world, but aimed at serving it purely. They give up all worldly possessions and desires, not because these things are evil, but because after leaving them behind, they are free to pray always. Their goal and purpose is to be a well-spring of prayer that the Church might draw from to quench Her thirst.
There are many orders of religious life: Benedictines, Trappists, Cistercians, Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites and many more. My personal favorites are the Carthusians. Over 90% of their waking day is observed in silence. The only sounds are the tolling of bells, the occasional hand saw, and a melodious chant at Mass, Vespers, and Vigils. Each monk lives in a four room cell with a small garden. In one room he works, in another he prays, another he studies, and the last he uses only to pray a quick Hail Mary when returning from the three times a day he leaves his cell.
Their life is spent in silence and solitude; their only company is the Lord. No visitors are allowed into the monastery nor do they ever leave, yet the monks have a peculiar knack for getting martyred. Three were killed after the Anglican Church was founded and the Papists were persecuted. More were killed when Carthusians in Italy opened their doors to refugees fleeing the Nazi armies. Apparently, the Nazi’s did not like the monks protecting Jewish and Italian families. It’s amazing how these monks reacted to their torture and subsequent death. “The Silent Summer of 1944,” which was run in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, retells their tale. “Brother Gabriele, for example, had a burning flame repeatedly held up to his beard. The monk courageously faced the pain wordlessly and calmly looked at his torturer, who finally gave up, confused by such behavior.” Dom Giovanni Abetini was beat with a rod while balancing a Breviary on a board. If the book of prayer fell, he was beat and ridiculed. These stories come from a 2004 trial held in La Spezia, Italy. Vincenzo Rizzo was a young man protected by the monks, who testified to many other horrors the monks and refugees were subjected to.
Contrary to popular marketing practices, the Carthusians are content not to advertise. The American Charterhouse has a website with an extensive description of their type of spirituality, but that’s about it. It consists mostly of extended quotes from non-Carthusian authors, simple photographs of the monastery, and quotes from the Rule written by St. Bruno 900 years ago. They’re up front about telling people interested in joining the Carthusian ranks that most likely they won’t make it. They refuse all honors from the Church. None of their monks go on to become Bishops. Nor do they pursue the canonization process for any monk who shows exceptional virtue. Instead, they bury him in a grave marked with a plain white cross. The monks say “laudabiliter vixit” which is the Latin equivalent of “he did alright.” In the grave, the monk is happy to finally fade away into obscurity, remembered by no one but the Christ. Yet, in their 900 year existence, the brothers are still around. Despite their attempts to be forgotten by the world, their lives are like cities built on hills, beacons of light in the darkness.
Men and women in religious life are essential to the body of Christ. Christianity could not hope to survive without them. They are God’s promise of salvation in their little oasis, safe from most worldly desires. They are models of the interior life that all souls seduced by the Lord are called to. Nothing is more important to them than God, and their poverty, silence, and solitude shows this. By observing their outward lives, we laymen learn how our interior lives should be orientated. It may be necessary for us to live in houses, earn adequate amounts of money, and other activities that aren’t conducive to contemplation of God, but we are to strive to be detached from all created things. Never should we put our faith in our possessions or even other people; they’re going to fail us eventually. We can love these things, accepting them as good, but that is very different than trusting in them. Instead, we ought to follow the example of the monks, abandoning our trust in things and placing it all in God.
Christus Vincit, Christus Regnat, Christus Imperat!Monday, May 3, 2010
The Sign of The Cross - Latin Lesson #1
Because Latin is the official language of the Roman Catholic Church (thus helping all who use it to remain obedient to the Church), and because it is not our native tongue (thus making present the mystery of God and prayer in the very words we use), the Red Cardigan Society has a wholly positive view of the moderate use of Latin in prayer and liturgy. For that reason, we will be posting Latin lessons from time to time, designed for the person who has no inclination to learn the proper grammatical procedures of Latin. Thus the mystery of Latin will not remain also inaccessible.
To begin with, the sign which begins all things:
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen
In is rather obvious. Nomine means name, like our word "nominal", which means "in name only", like "he is only nominally a Catholic". Patris is "of the father", coming from the word pater, where we get "paternity" and "patron". The "of the" part comes from the declension of the noun [the genitive case]. [It comes from pater, -is, which is betrayed as a third declension noun by the genitive -is]. "et" means and, as in "et cetera", meaning and the rest. "Filii" is son, from filius, where we get "filial". Spiritus Sancti means [literally "the breath/air/soul/life of the sacred/divine/holy", spiritus being in the nominative case, sancti in the genative, a la Whitaker's Words]. Sancti here is the same word used in the "Sanctus" or Holy sung at Mass. And "Amen" is exactly the same!
Perhaps a discourse on the great mystery of the Sign of The Cross is due on this blog, but for now, revel in the mystery of the Trinity which you can now invoke in this mysterious, but now access able, language.
To begin with, the sign which begins all things:
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen
In is rather obvious. Nomine means name, like our word "nominal", which means "in name only", like "he is only nominally a Catholic". Patris is "of the father", coming from the word pater, where we get "paternity" and "patron". The "of the" part comes from the declension of the noun [the genitive case]. [It comes from pater, -is, which is betrayed as a third declension noun by the genitive -is]. "et" means and, as in "et cetera", meaning and the rest. "Filii" is son, from filius, where we get "filial". Spiritus Sancti means [literally "the breath/air/soul/life of the sacred/divine/holy", spiritus being in the nominative case, sancti in the genative, a la Whitaker's Words]. Sancti here is the same word used in the "Sanctus" or Holy sung at Mass. And "Amen" is exactly the same!
Perhaps a discourse on the great mystery of the Sign of The Cross is due on this blog, but for now, revel in the mystery of the Trinity which you can now invoke in this mysterious, but now access able, language.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Bishop Slattery's Homily
On Saturday the first Solemn High Mass in the Extrodinary Form was celebrated at the
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C. I was unable to watch the festivities, as I was occupied listening to an amazing homily by a Fransiscan at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, WI. Unfortunately there is no transcript of that homily (it certainly deserves it!), but Bishop Slatery's homily at the High Mass is a good substitute. Where as the Fransiscan talked about the Eucharist, Immaculate Conception and Assumption, all three very Catholic, Bishop Slattery talks about suffering, obedience and Truth, also all very Catholic. It's worth a meditative read.
---
We have much to discuss – you and I …
… much to speak of on this glorious occasion when we gather together in the glare of the world’s scrutiny to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the ascension of Joseph Ratzinger to the throne of Peter.
We must come to understand how it is that suffering can reveal the mercy of God and make manifest among us the consoling presence of Jesus Christ, crucified and now risen from the dead.
We must speak of this mystery today, first of all because it is one of the great mysteries of revelation, spoken of in the New Testament and attested to by every saint in the Church’s long history, by the martyrs with their blood, by the confessors with their constancy, by the virgins with their purity and by the lay faithful of Christ’s body by their resolute courage under fire.
But we must also speak clearly of this mystery because of the enormous suffering which is all around us and which does so much to determine the culture of our modern age.
From the enormous suffering of His Holiness these past months to the suffering of the Church’s most recent martyrs in India and Africa, welling up from the suffering of the poor and the dispossessed and the undocumented, and gathering tears from the victims of abuse and neglect, from women who have been deceived into believing that abortion was a simple medical procedure and thus have lost part of their soul to the greed of the abortionist, and now flowing with the heartache of those who suffer from cancer, diabetes, AIDS, or the emotional diseases of our age, it is the sufferings of our people that defines the culture of our modern secular age.
This enormous suffering which can take on so many varied physical, mental, and emotional forms will reduce us to fear and trembling – if we do not remember that Christ – our Pasch – has been raised from the dead. Our pain and anguish could dehumanize us, for it has the power to close us in upon ourselves such that we would live always in chaos and confusion – if we do not remember that Christ – our hope – has been raised for our sakes. Jesus is our Pasch, our hope and our light.
He makes himself most present in the suffering of his people and this is the mystery of which we must speak today, for when we speak of His saving presence and proclaim His infinite love in the midst of our suffering, when we seek His light and refuse to surrender to the darkness, we receive that light which is the life of men; that light which, as Saint John reminds us in the prologue to his Gospel, can never be overcome by the darkness, no matter how thick, no matter how choking.
Our suffering is thus transformed by His presence. It no longer has the power to alienate or isolate us. Neither can it dehumanize us nor destroy us. Suffering, however long and terrible it may be, has only the power to reveal Christ among us, and He is the mercy and the forgiveness of God.
The mystery then, of which we speak, is the light that shines in the darkness, Christ Our Lord, Who reveals Himself most wondrously to those who suffer so that suffering and death can do nothing more than bring us to the mercy of the Father.
But the point which we must clarify is that Christ reveals Himself to those who suffer in Christ, to those who humbly accept their pain as a personal sharing in His Passion and who are thus obedient to Christ’s command that we take up our cross and follow Him. Suffering by itself is simply the promise that death will claim these mortal bodies of ours, but suffering in Christ is the promise that we will be raised with Christ, when our mortality will be remade in his immortality and all that in our lives which is broken because it is perishable and finite will be made imperishable and incorrupt.
This is the meaning of Peter’s claim that he is a witness to the sufferings of Christ and thus one who has a share in the glory yet to be revealed. Once Peter grasped the overwhelming truth of this mystery, his life was changed. The world held nothing for Peter. For him, there was only Christ.
This is, as you know, quite a dramatic shift for the man who three times denied Our Lord, the man to whom Jesus said, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Christ’s declaration to Peter that he would be the rock, the impregnable foundation, the mountain of Zion upon which the new Jerusalem would be constructed, follows in Matthew’s Gospel Saint Peter’s dramatic profession of faith, when the Lord asks the Twelve, “Who do people say that I am?” and Peter, impulsive as always, responds “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
Only later – much later – would Peter come to understand the full implication of this first Profession of Faith. Peter would still have to learn that to follow Christ, to truly be His disciple, one must let go of everything which the world considers valuable and necessary, and become powerless. This is the mystery which confounds independent Peter. It is the mystery which still confounds us: to follow Christ, one must surrender everything and become obedient with the obedience of Christ, for no one gains access to the Kingdom of the Father, unless he enter through the humility and the obedience of Jesus.
Peter had no idea that eventually he would find himself fully accepting this obedience, joyfully accepting his share in the Passion and Death of Christ. But Peter loved Our Lord and love was the way by which Peter learned how to obey. “Lord, you know that I love thee,” Peter affirms three times with tears; and three times Christ commands him to tend to the flock that gathers at the foot of Calvary – and that is where we are now.
Peter knew that Jesus was the true Shepherd, the one Master and the only teacher; the rest of us are learners and the lesson we must learn is obedience, obedience unto death. Nothing less than this, for only when we are willing to be obedient with the very obedience of Christ will we come to recognize Christ’s presence among us.
Obedience is thus the heart of the life of the disciple and the key to suffering in Christ and with Christ. This obedience, is must be said, is quite different from obedience the way it is spoken of and dismissed in the world.
For those in the world, obedience is a burden and an imposition. It is the way by which the powerful force the powerless to do obeisance. Simply juridical and always external, obedience is the bending that breaks, but a breaking which is still less painful than the punishment meted out for disobedience. Thus for those in the world obedience is a punishment which must be avoided; but for Christians, obedience is always personal, because it is centered on Christ. It is a surrender to Jesus Whom we love.
For those whose lives are centered in Christ, obedience is that movement which the heart makes when it leaps in joy having once discovered the truth.
Let us consider, then, that Christ has given us both the image of his obedience and the action by which we are made obedient.
The image of Christ’s obedience is His Sacred Heart. That Heart, exposed and wounded must give us pause, for man’s heart it generally hidden and secret. In the silence of his own heart, each of us discovers the truth of who we are, the truth of why we are silent when we should speak, or bothersome and quarrelsome when we should be silent. In our hidden recesses of the heart, we come to know the impulses behind our deeds and the reasons why we act so often as cowards and fools.
But while man’s heart is generally silent and secret, the Heart of the God-Man is fully visible and accessible. It too reveals the motives behind our Lord’s self-surrender. It was obedience to the Father’s will that mankind be reconciled and our many sins forgiven us. “Son though he was,” the Apostle reminds us, “Jesus learned obedience through what He sufferered.” Obedient unto death, death on a cross, Jesus asks his Father to forgive us that God might reveal the full depth of his mercy and love. “Father, forgive them,” he prayed, “for they know not what they do.”
Christ’s Sacred Heart is the image of the obedience which Christ showed by his sacrificial love on Calvary. The Sacrifice of Calvary is also for us the means by which we are made obedient and this is a point which you must never forget: at Mass, we offer ourselves to the Father in union with Christ, who offers Himself in perfect obedience to the Father. We make this offering in obedience to Christ who commanded us to “Do this in memory of me” and our obediential offering is perfected in the love with which the Father receives the gift of His Son.
Do not be surprised then that here at Mass, our bloodless offering of the bloody sacrifice of Calvary is a triple act of obedience. First, Christ is obedient to the Father, and offers Himself as a sacrifice of reconciliation. Secondly, we are obedient to Christ and offer ourselves to the Father with Jesus the Son; and thirdly, in sharing Christ’s obedience to the Father, we are made obedient to a new order of reality, in which love is supreme and life reigns eternal, in which suffering and death have been defeated by becoming for us the means by which Christ’s final victory, his future coming, is made manifest and real today.
Suffering then, yours, mine, the Pontiffs, is at the heart of personal holiness, because it is our sharing in the obedience of Jesus which reveals his glory. It is the means by which we are made witnesses of his suffering and sharers in the glory to come.
Do not be dismayed that there are many in the Church who have not yet grasped this point, and fewer yet still in the world will even dare to consider it. But you – you know this to be true – and it is enough. For ten men who whisper the truth speak louder than a hundred million who lie.
If, then, someone asks of what we spoke today, tell them we spoke only of the truth. If someone asks why it is you came here to Mass, say that it was so that you could be obedient with Christ. If someone asks about the homily, tell them it was about a mystery. And if someone asks what I said to the present situation, tell them only that we must – all of us – become saints through what we suffer.
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C. I was unable to watch the festivities, as I was occupied listening to an amazing homily by a Fransiscan at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, WI. Unfortunately there is no transcript of that homily (it certainly deserves it!), but Bishop Slatery's homily at the High Mass is a good substitute. Where as the Fransiscan talked about the Eucharist, Immaculate Conception and Assumption, all three very Catholic, Bishop Slattery talks about suffering, obedience and Truth, also all very Catholic. It's worth a meditative read.
---
We have much to discuss – you and I …
… much to speak of on this glorious occasion when we gather together in the glare of the world’s scrutiny to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the ascension of Joseph Ratzinger to the throne of Peter.
We must come to understand how it is that suffering can reveal the mercy of God and make manifest among us the consoling presence of Jesus Christ, crucified and now risen from the dead.
We must speak of this mystery today, first of all because it is one of the great mysteries of revelation, spoken of in the New Testament and attested to by every saint in the Church’s long history, by the martyrs with their blood, by the confessors with their constancy, by the virgins with their purity and by the lay faithful of Christ’s body by their resolute courage under fire.
But we must also speak clearly of this mystery because of the enormous suffering which is all around us and which does so much to determine the culture of our modern age.
From the enormous suffering of His Holiness these past months to the suffering of the Church’s most recent martyrs in India and Africa, welling up from the suffering of the poor and the dispossessed and the undocumented, and gathering tears from the victims of abuse and neglect, from women who have been deceived into believing that abortion was a simple medical procedure and thus have lost part of their soul to the greed of the abortionist, and now flowing with the heartache of those who suffer from cancer, diabetes, AIDS, or the emotional diseases of our age, it is the sufferings of our people that defines the culture of our modern secular age.
This enormous suffering which can take on so many varied physical, mental, and emotional forms will reduce us to fear and trembling – if we do not remember that Christ – our Pasch – has been raised from the dead. Our pain and anguish could dehumanize us, for it has the power to close us in upon ourselves such that we would live always in chaos and confusion – if we do not remember that Christ – our hope – has been raised for our sakes. Jesus is our Pasch, our hope and our light.
He makes himself most present in the suffering of his people and this is the mystery of which we must speak today, for when we speak of His saving presence and proclaim His infinite love in the midst of our suffering, when we seek His light and refuse to surrender to the darkness, we receive that light which is the life of men; that light which, as Saint John reminds us in the prologue to his Gospel, can never be overcome by the darkness, no matter how thick, no matter how choking.
Our suffering is thus transformed by His presence. It no longer has the power to alienate or isolate us. Neither can it dehumanize us nor destroy us. Suffering, however long and terrible it may be, has only the power to reveal Christ among us, and He is the mercy and the forgiveness of God.
The mystery then, of which we speak, is the light that shines in the darkness, Christ Our Lord, Who reveals Himself most wondrously to those who suffer so that suffering and death can do nothing more than bring us to the mercy of the Father.
But the point which we must clarify is that Christ reveals Himself to those who suffer in Christ, to those who humbly accept their pain as a personal sharing in His Passion and who are thus obedient to Christ’s command that we take up our cross and follow Him. Suffering by itself is simply the promise that death will claim these mortal bodies of ours, but suffering in Christ is the promise that we will be raised with Christ, when our mortality will be remade in his immortality and all that in our lives which is broken because it is perishable and finite will be made imperishable and incorrupt.
This is the meaning of Peter’s claim that he is a witness to the sufferings of Christ and thus one who has a share in the glory yet to be revealed. Once Peter grasped the overwhelming truth of this mystery, his life was changed. The world held nothing for Peter. For him, there was only Christ.
This is, as you know, quite a dramatic shift for the man who three times denied Our Lord, the man to whom Jesus said, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Christ’s declaration to Peter that he would be the rock, the impregnable foundation, the mountain of Zion upon which the new Jerusalem would be constructed, follows in Matthew’s Gospel Saint Peter’s dramatic profession of faith, when the Lord asks the Twelve, “Who do people say that I am?” and Peter, impulsive as always, responds “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
Only later – much later – would Peter come to understand the full implication of this first Profession of Faith. Peter would still have to learn that to follow Christ, to truly be His disciple, one must let go of everything which the world considers valuable and necessary, and become powerless. This is the mystery which confounds independent Peter. It is the mystery which still confounds us: to follow Christ, one must surrender everything and become obedient with the obedience of Christ, for no one gains access to the Kingdom of the Father, unless he enter through the humility and the obedience of Jesus.
Peter had no idea that eventually he would find himself fully accepting this obedience, joyfully accepting his share in the Passion and Death of Christ. But Peter loved Our Lord and love was the way by which Peter learned how to obey. “Lord, you know that I love thee,” Peter affirms three times with tears; and three times Christ commands him to tend to the flock that gathers at the foot of Calvary – and that is where we are now.
Peter knew that Jesus was the true Shepherd, the one Master and the only teacher; the rest of us are learners and the lesson we must learn is obedience, obedience unto death. Nothing less than this, for only when we are willing to be obedient with the very obedience of Christ will we come to recognize Christ’s presence among us.
Obedience is thus the heart of the life of the disciple and the key to suffering in Christ and with Christ. This obedience, is must be said, is quite different from obedience the way it is spoken of and dismissed in the world.
For those in the world, obedience is a burden and an imposition. It is the way by which the powerful force the powerless to do obeisance. Simply juridical and always external, obedience is the bending that breaks, but a breaking which is still less painful than the punishment meted out for disobedience. Thus for those in the world obedience is a punishment which must be avoided; but for Christians, obedience is always personal, because it is centered on Christ. It is a surrender to Jesus Whom we love.
For those whose lives are centered in Christ, obedience is that movement which the heart makes when it leaps in joy having once discovered the truth.
Let us consider, then, that Christ has given us both the image of his obedience and the action by which we are made obedient.
The image of Christ’s obedience is His Sacred Heart. That Heart, exposed and wounded must give us pause, for man’s heart it generally hidden and secret. In the silence of his own heart, each of us discovers the truth of who we are, the truth of why we are silent when we should speak, or bothersome and quarrelsome when we should be silent. In our hidden recesses of the heart, we come to know the impulses behind our deeds and the reasons why we act so often as cowards and fools.
But while man’s heart is generally silent and secret, the Heart of the God-Man is fully visible and accessible. It too reveals the motives behind our Lord’s self-surrender. It was obedience to the Father’s will that mankind be reconciled and our many sins forgiven us. “Son though he was,” the Apostle reminds us, “Jesus learned obedience through what He sufferered.” Obedient unto death, death on a cross, Jesus asks his Father to forgive us that God might reveal the full depth of his mercy and love. “Father, forgive them,” he prayed, “for they know not what they do.”
Christ’s Sacred Heart is the image of the obedience which Christ showed by his sacrificial love on Calvary. The Sacrifice of Calvary is also for us the means by which we are made obedient and this is a point which you must never forget: at Mass, we offer ourselves to the Father in union with Christ, who offers Himself in perfect obedience to the Father. We make this offering in obedience to Christ who commanded us to “Do this in memory of me” and our obediential offering is perfected in the love with which the Father receives the gift of His Son.
Do not be surprised then that here at Mass, our bloodless offering of the bloody sacrifice of Calvary is a triple act of obedience. First, Christ is obedient to the Father, and offers Himself as a sacrifice of reconciliation. Secondly, we are obedient to Christ and offer ourselves to the Father with Jesus the Son; and thirdly, in sharing Christ’s obedience to the Father, we are made obedient to a new order of reality, in which love is supreme and life reigns eternal, in which suffering and death have been defeated by becoming for us the means by which Christ’s final victory, his future coming, is made manifest and real today.
Suffering then, yours, mine, the Pontiffs, is at the heart of personal holiness, because it is our sharing in the obedience of Jesus which reveals his glory. It is the means by which we are made witnesses of his suffering and sharers in the glory to come.
Do not be dismayed that there are many in the Church who have not yet grasped this point, and fewer yet still in the world will even dare to consider it. But you – you know this to be true – and it is enough. For ten men who whisper the truth speak louder than a hundred million who lie.
If, then, someone asks of what we spoke today, tell them we spoke only of the truth. If someone asks why it is you came here to Mass, say that it was so that you could be obedient with Christ. If someone asks about the homily, tell them it was about a mystery. And if someone asks what I said to the present situation, tell them only that we must – all of us – become saints through what we suffer.
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