A Meditation for Corpus Christi

Remember all the desert way
through which the Lord your God has brought you:
forty years of willful wandering.
Remember the affliction and the testing.
Remember the great and terrible wilderness
wherein there was the serpent burning with his breath,
and the scorpions.
Remember the thirsty ground where there was no water.
Remember who brought you water out of the flinty rock.
Remember who fed you in the wilderness
with manna which your fathers did not know (cf. Dt 8:15-16).

Remember, and out of your remembering
give voice to the Eucharistic amazement
that is what we have in common — O joy! — with all the saints.
Remember the sustenance in full ears of wheat, his gift to you.
Remember the honey dripping from the rock to your heart’s content (cf. Ps. 80:17).

Remember, and out of your remembering
let praises spring high and sweet and clear.
Praises to fill full the church, but even that is not enough.
Praises pouring out the doors,
praises streaming in procession,
touching every blade of grass and every leaf.
Praises stretching into the vastness of the sky overhead,
praises sinking deep into the earth,
praises sent like sparks to the East and to the West, to the North and to the South,
praises to inflame the cosmos with Eucharistic fire.

Remember, Mother Church, the holy and venerable hands,
the hands that, taking bread, broke and gave it,
the hands that have strengthened the bolts of your gates,
the hands that blessed your children within you (cf. Ps 147:12).
Remember the voice of him whose word runs swiftly,
blessing and saying, “Take and eat, this is my Body”;
“This chalice is the new testament in my Blood” (cf. 1 Cor 11:24-25).

Remember the Crucified, the Risen One, the Lord of glory
whose Face alone plants peace in your borders,
whose Heart would save your souls from death,
and feed you in time of famine (cf. Ps 32:19).
Remember his hands, his Face, and his Heart,
remember his words on the night before he suffered,
and out of your remembering, let praise come to flower on your lips.
Praise to fill that Upper Room,
praise to fill the Church,
praise to fall like a balm on every heart that has forgotten
the language of the Great Thanksgiving.

Remember the chalice of blessing
and adore the Blood of Christ.
Remember the bread that we break
and adore the Body of Christ.
Remember the one Bread by which we, though many, are made one (cf. 1 Cor 10:16-17).
Remember the chalice of the Blood
in which every tear of yours dissolves into joy.
Remember the broken Bread by which every brokenness of yours is made whole.
Remember the chalice offered to those who have nothing to offer.
Remember the Bread given to those who have nothing to give.
Remember, and into your remembering
welcome the immensity of a silence that seeks only to adore.
Tacere et adorare!

Adoring silence: liturgy of the angels, language of the prophets, poem of the saints.
Adoring silence: Eucharistic amazement too deep, too wide, too high for words.
Adoring silence spread like a mantle over the sighs and groans of a world
that has forgotten to be still in the presence of the Word.
Adoring silence, well-kept secret of a ceaseless jubilation.
Adoring silence, hidden from the learned and the clever.
Adoring silence cherished by the little ones.
“Yes, Father, for such is your gracious will” (cf. Lk 10:21).

Remember the living Bread which came down from heaven
and eating that Bread, be assumed even now into future glory.
Remember the Flesh of the Word given
in a mystery of word and Spirit, handed over in the Upper Room
Remember the Flesh of the Word lifted to the Father from the altar of the Cross.
Remember the Flesh of the Word drawing all flesh to itself
divine Flesh for the children of Adam,
healing Flesh for Eve’s sorrowing children,
God’s very Flesh for the life of the world.
Remember, and adore.

Remember the chalice that flows and overflows,
the chalice of salvation, the cup of your surpassing joy.
Remember the Blood gushing with the water
from the Open Side.
Remember the Heart’s Blood that to your hearts carries life.
Remember the Chalice that leaves on every tongue the taste of eternity,
and on your lips the lingering sweetness of the Kiss of the Mouth of God.
Remember the fire-filled Chalice,
the Chalice spilling Spirit into every open mouth.

Remember Him on whom you feed;
see him held before your eyes,
raised to the Father in the Holy Spirit,
held out to you, his hunger meeting yours.
Remember, and pronounce the “Amen” for which he waits.
The Amen of your amazement,
the Amen of your joy,
the Amen of your adoring silence.
And listen closely.
To that Amen of yours the Angels add their Alleluia.
Amen, Alleluia.

O Eucharistic adoration of heaven and of earth!
Amen, Alleluia.
Saying all that can be said.
Amen, Alleluia.
O Eucharistic song!
Amen, Alleluia.
Song of angels praising
and of archangels shining together with thrones;
song of dominations bowing low,
and of the awestruck powers;
song of the incandescent seraphim,
and of the heavenly hosts of every rank adoring.
Amen, Alleluia.

Song of the Church today.
Song of the saints dazzling with Christ-Beauty,
song of the least of his brethren
summoned today to stand in his presence,
driven by the Spirit to walk before him,
compelled by love to kneel and to adore.
Corpus Christi. Amen, Alleluia.

From the Bull Transiturus of Pope Urban IV, 11 August 1264

Bishop Urban, servant of the servants of God, to the venerable brothers, Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, and other prelates of the Church, health and the apostolic blessing.

About to pass from this world to the Father, our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ, since the time of his Passion was at hand, instituted the great and wonderful Sacrament of his Body and Blood, bestowing his Body as food and his Blood as drink. For, as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we announce the death of the Lord. Indeed, at the institution of this Sacrament, he himself said to the Apostles: Do this in memory of me: so that for us the special and outstanding memorial of his love would be this venerable Sacrament; a memorial in which we attain the corporeal Presence of the Saviour himself.

Other things which we remember we embrace spiritually and mentally: we do not    thereby obtain their real presence. However, in this sacramental commemoration, Jesus Christ is present with us in his proper substance, although under another form. As he was about to ascend into heaven, he said to the Apostles and their helpers, I will be with you all days even unto the consummation of the world. He comforted them with a gracious promise that he would remain and would be with them even by his corporeal presence. Therefore he gave himself as nourishment, so that, since man fell by means of the food of the death-giving tree; man is raised up by means of the food of the life-giving tree. Eating wounded us, and eating healed us. Thus the Saviour says, My Flesh is real food. This bread is taken but truly not consumed, because it is not transformed into the eater. Rather, if it is worthily received, the recipient is conformed to it.

We should celebrate continuously the memory of this memorial, because the more frequently his gift and favour are looked upon, so much the more firmly are they kept in memory. Therefore, although this memorial Sacrament is frequented in the daily solemnities of the Mass, we nevertheless think suitable and worthy that, at least once a year – especially to confound the lack of faith and the infamy of heretics – a more solemn and honourable memory of this Sacrament be held. This is so because on Holy Thursday, the day on which the Lord himself instituted this Sacrament, the universal Church, occupied with the reconciliation of penitents, blessing the chrism, fulfilling the Commandments about the washing of the feet and many other such things, is not sufficiently free to celebrate so great a Sacrament.

Moreover we know that, while we were constituted in a lesser office, it was divinely revealed to certain Catholics that a feast of this kind should be celebrated generally throughout the Church. Therefore, to strengthen and exalt the Catholic Faith, we decree that, besides the daily memory that the Church makes of this Sacrament, there be celebrated a more solemn and special annual memorial. Then let the hearts and mouths of all break forth in hymns of saving joy; then let faith sing, hope dance, charity exult, devotion applaud, the choir be jubilant, and purity delight. Then let each one with willing spirit and prompt will come together, laudably fulfilling his duties, celebrating the Solemnity of so great a Feast.

(Translation:  James T. O’Connor (1988) from The Hidden Manna.)

Thursday, 19 June

9:45 a.m. Tierce
10:00 a.m. Holy Mass followed by
Procession with the Most Blessed Sacrament
Exposition and Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament until Vespers at 6:00 p.m.

During the Octave of the Feast:
Exposition and Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament
daily from Holy Mass until Vespers

Blaming the Jesuits

Father Blake of Brighton, with his customary candour, writes in a recent post:

I blame the Jesuits and the Spirit of the Council of Trent for the cerebralization of prayer and the Spiritual Life.  The Pre-Tridentine life of Christians was rich in actions, signs and symbol; prayer was more than just silent contemplation, it involved bodies too, corporal penance, fasting, prostrations or genuflections, pilgrimage, processions, almsgiving, caring for the needy; these things formed the environment of prayer.

Father Blake’s contention is not new. It was, in fact, at the beginning of the last century, the crux of an impassioned exchange between learned Benedictines and Jesuits. On the Benedictine side, the protagonists were Dom Lambert Beauduin, the founder of Amay, and Dom Maurice Festugière. On the Jesuit side, stood R.P. Jean–Jacques Navatel and, later, R.P. Paul Peeters of the Bollandists.

Individualism or Submission

Dom Beauduin argued that the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, insofar as they tend to focus on the individual man and his personal psychological response the subjects proposed to his meditation, these being quite independent of the liturgical calendar of the Church, foster individualism rather than a spirit of humble submission to the grand ecclesial program deployed in the sacred liturgy. The soul jesuitically trained is quite comfortable doing things one’s own way; the Benedictine soul, in contrast, is brought up to live in reference and in deference to Tradition, finding Tradition’s purest expression and principal organ in the sacred liturgy.

Jesuits, as practical individuals, are wont to pray privately in whatever posture a man finds congenial; there is a certain distrust of ritual, corporate ceremony, and rubrics. This approach to private prayer even affects the way certain Jesuit priests celebrate Holy Mass. Benedictines, on the whole, are wont to submit to whatever rites, ceremonies, and rubrics have been passed on to them. Schooled by long hours in choir, day after day, they habitually engage their bodies in a kind of sacred choreography that affects their most intimate yearnings Godward. Just as the Jesuit’s approach to personal prayer colours his approach to the liturgy, so too do a Benedictine’s liturgical instincts colour his personal prayer.

 A Retreat Long Ago

Reflecting on my own experience, I am obliged to concur with Dom Beauduin. I once attempted an Ignatian retreat under the direction of an experienced and acclaimed Jesuit Father. It was all very foreign to me . . . almost like another religion. I found it impossible to relate to an ascetical method that makes abstraction of the Divine Office and of the round of liturgical seasons, fasts, and feasts that express what Dom Beauduin called la piété de l’Église, the piety of the Church. The good Father’s indifference to the Divine Office — an option, so he said, for those who like that sort of thing — cast a chill over the whole experience. I persevered until the end of the retreat and did my best to make the prescribed times of meditation. I recently came across my notes of that retreat. It was not altogether fruitless. I just found it odd to search for one’s own subjective way while ignoring the objective riches of the sacred liturgy, all gloriously available, and flowing with living water in an infinity of rivulets.

 Dom Beauduin’s Indictment

For Dom Lambert Beauduin, the Jesuit approach carried with it the risk of making holiness depend on one’s personal effort rather than on one’s submission, in faith, to the objective and salutary impact of the Church’s liturgy. Dom Beauduin went so far as to say, and I quote here his conversation with Père de Montrichard, that “the complete method of Saint Ignatius, taken as the principal base of Christian piety, is destructive of the Catholic spirit, that is, of what is universal.”

 The Controversy

The Benedictine—Jesuit controversy over the place of the liturgy in the Christian life was ignited when, in 1913, Dom Festugière, a monk of Maredsous, published a lengthy article in La revue de Philosophie, in which he developed the teaching of Pope Saint Pius X in Tra le sollecitudini (22 November 1903): the liturgy is the primary and indispensable source of the authentic Christian spirit. Certain Jesuits, alerted to Dom Festugière’s article, took offense at its premise, and set out to counter it with their own arguments in favour of the Spiritual Exercises. Zealous sons of Saint Ignatius, among them the learned Father Navatel, director of the Jesuit review Études, argued, even in the face of Pope Pius X’s clear affirmation, that the liturgy need not be considered the primary and indispensable source of Christian piety, and that one could grow in holiness without engaging in the liturgical life of the Church save, of course, in the sacraments. Many Jesuits, as well as a multitude of religious congregations and pious sodalities under Jesuit direction, felt shaken by the new wave of emphasis on liturgy, fearing that it would gain popularity and, in the end, diminish the appeal of the Spiritual Exercises and of the various currents of piety derived from them.

Dom Festugière held firmly to his defense of the teaching of Pope Pius X, repeating it in season and out of season:

We deem it necessary to provide before anything else for the sanctity and dignity of the temple, in which the faithful assemble for no other object than that of acquiring this spirit from its foremost and indispensable font, which is the active participation in the most holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church. (Tra le sollecitudini, 22 November 1903)

Dom Lambert Beauduin developed the same seminal intution in his epoch–making essay, La piété de l’Eglise (1914). He unveiled the basic framework of the Christian asceticism and mysticism already contained in the liturgical books of the Church —the Missal, Breviary, Pontifical, and Ritual — and proposed these as the “foremost and indispensable” sources of the Christian life.

 The Question of the Choral Office

The nexus of the controversy lay, I think, deeply buried in the suppression of the choral celebration of the Hours in the Society of Jesus in 1550. Although dictated by a pressing need for increased apostolic mobility and freedom, the Jesuit refusal to submit to the tradition of the choral Office symbolized the crisis that, for a long time already, had threatened a troubled household of three: liturgy, theology and piety. Liturgy fled to the cloisters for refuge; theology set up shop in the universities; and piety found a new home among the proponents of the Spiritual Exercices and their disciples.

Let it be said that Saint Ignatius himself was not without a certain devotion to liturgical prayer. In the Spiritual Exercises he recommends that the retreatant so arrange things “that it be in his power to go each day to Mass and to Vespers, without fear that his acquaintances will put obstacles in his way.” While not wanting his men bound to the choral Office in their own houses, Saint Ignatius was not, in any way, opposed to their attending the Hours, whenever it was convenient for them to do so, in monasteries and collegiate churches.

Father Willie Doyle, S.J., one of Saint Ignatius’s Irish sons and model of priestly holiness presents the private recitation of the Divine Office as integral to the life of the priest. Father Doyle writes: “Holy, too, are the lips of the priest, formed to utter words no other man may speak. Seven times a day with the Psalmist, in the Divine Office, they sing the praises of God.”

 Poetry, Science, and the Practical

The advent of the Great War in 1914 quieted the Benedictine—Jesuit controversy for a time. It resurfaces, nonetheless, again and again, remaining a litigious point even among men of virtue and learning, faithful sons of the Church. In his famous essay on the mission of Saint Benedict, Blessed John Henry Newman recognizes a certain necessary diversity of charisms in the Church. Among many, he singles out three: that of the Benedictines, that of the Dominicans, and that of the Jesuits. To the sons of Saint Benedict, he ascribes the gift of Poetry; to the sons of Saint Dominic, the gift of Science; and to the sons of Saint Ignatius, the gift of the Practical.

To St. Benedict, then, who may fairly be taken to represent the various families of monks before his time and those which sprang from him (for they are all pretty much of one school), to this great Saint let me assign, for his discriminating badge, the element of Poetry; to St. Dominic, the Scientific element; and to St. Ignatius, the Practical. (John Henry Newman)

What would the Church be without the poem of the sacred liturgy? What is science without poetry? And where can the practical man (the Jesuit) go, if he has not the poet (the monk) to show him the way?

Mediator Dei

When, in 1947, Pope Pius XII wrote the encyclical Mediator Dei, he was fully and painfully conscious of two opposing currents of thought concerning the sacred liturgy and the interior life. At the risk of oversimplifying an exceedingly complex issue, I would argue that Pope Pius XII was, in effect, attempting in Mediator Dei to reconcile the longstanding Benedictine —Jesuit controversy. Not surprisingly, a number of Dominicans aligned themselves with the Belgian, French, and German Benedictines; the Jesuits, for their part, had behind them the strength of the Apostleship of Prayer, various retreat movements, and an enormous sphere of influence in institutions of learning and among congregations of women religious.

Two Currents

The theological current emanating from the  Rhineland Abbey of  Maria Laach, and made illustrious by the writings and teachings of Dom Ildefons Herwegen, Dom Odo Casel, and Dame Aemiliana Löhr, promoted an “objective” approach to the spiritual life, an approach exclusively grounded in and expressed by the action of Christ in the liturgy. Some in “the opposing camp” misconstrued the affirmation of the sacred liturgy’s primacy over personal prayer as an absolutisation of the former and a denigrating dismissal of the latter.

To add to the complexity of the situation, there were, notably among certain German Benedictine proponents of objective liturgical spirituality, voices critical of adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament, of acts of reparation, and of the Eucharistic mysticism typified by Mother Mectilde de Bar and by the Institute she founded. The criticisms articulated by a few even affected the Institute of the Benedictines of Perpetual Adoration. I shall address this particular question in another article.

Repairing the Breach

A serene attention to the teachings of Mediator Dei would, I think, go a long way towards repairing the Benedictine—Jesuit breach. Here, then, are some of the pertinent articles of Mediator Dei with my own comments in italics:

25. It is an error, consequently, and a mistake to think of the sacred liturgy as merely the outward or visible part of divine worship or as an ornamental ceremonial. No less erroneous is the notion that it consists solely in a list of laws and prescriptions according to which the ecclesiastical hierarchy orders the sacred rites to be performed.

Here Pope Pius XII is correcting those in the “Jesuit” camp who were arguing that the liturgy is external and, therefore, not essential to the cultivation of the interior life, especially for the laity, for whom regular meditation and examinations of conscience would be, at least, sufficient and, in most cases, more beneficial.

26. It should be clear to all, then, that God cannot be honored worthily unless the mind and heart turn to Him in quest of the perfect life, and that the worship rendered to God by the Church in union with her divine Head is the most efficacious means of achieving sanctity.

Pope Pius XII is telling both sides to listen attentively: he reminds the “objectivists” that the mind and heart must be turned to God in quest of the perfect life and, to the “subjectivists” recalls that the worship rendered to God by the Church in union with her divine Head is the most efficacious means of achieving sanctity. Both sides stand admonished.

27. This efficacy, where there is question of the Eucharistic sacrifice and the sacraments, derives first of all and principally from the act itself (ex opere operato). But if one considers the part which the Immaculate Spouse of Jesus Christ takes in the action, embellishing the sacrifice and sacraments with prayer and sacred ceremonies, or if one refers to the “sacramentals” and the other rites instituted by the hierarchy of the Church, then its effectiveness is due rather to the action of the church (ex opere operantis Ecclesiae), inasmuch as she is holy and acts always in closest union with her Head.

28. In this connection, Venerable Brethren, We desire to direct your attention to certain recent theories touching a so-called “objective” piety. While these theories attempt, it is true, to throw light on the mystery of the Mystical Body, on the effective reality of sanctifying grace, on the action of God in the sacraments and in the Mass, it is nonetheless apparent that they tend to belittle, or pass over in silence, what they call “subjective,” or “personal” piety.

Pope Pius XII sets about showing both what is right in the “objectivist” position and what needs to be corrected in it.

29. It is an unquestionable fact that the work of our redemption is continued, and that its fruits are imparted to us, during the celebration of the liturgy, notable in the august sacrifice of the altar. Christ acts each day to save us, in the sacraments and in His holy sacrifice. By means of them He is constantly atoning for the sins of mankind, constantly consecrating it to God. Sacraments and sacrifice do, then, possess that “objective” power to make us really and personally sharers in the divine life of Jesus Christ. Not from any ability of our own, but by the power of God, are they endowed with the capacity to unite the piety of members with that of the head, and to make this, in a sense, the action of the whole community. From these profound considerations some are led to conclude that all Christian piety must be centered in the mystery of the Mystical Body of Christ, with no regard for what is “personal” or “subjective, as they would have it. As a result they feel that all other religious exercises not directly connected with the sacred liturgy, and performed outside public worship should be omitted.

30. But though the principles set forth above are excellent, it must be plain to everyone that the conclusions drawn from them respecting two sorts of piety are false, insidious and quite pernicious.

“Two sorts of piety” — Pope Pius XII refers here to the “objective” piety promoted by the Benedictines and the “subjective” piety promoted by the Jesuits. He demonstrates that it is not a question of one or of the other but, rather, of both together, the objective calling forth the subjective response, and the subjective response disposing one to receive the fulness of what is objectively given.

31. Very truly, the sacraments and the sacrifice of the altar, being Christ’s own actions, must be held to be capable in themselves of conveying and dispensing grace from the divine Head to the members of the Mystical Body. But if they are to produce their proper effect, it is absolutely necessary that our hearts be properly disposed to receive them. Hence the warning of Paul the Apostle with reference to holy communion, “But let a man first prove himself; and then let him eat of this bread and drink of the chalice.”[30] This explains why the Church in a brief and significant phrase calls the various acts of mortification, especially those practiced during the season of Lent, “the Christian army’s defenses.”[31] They represent, in fact, the personal effort and activity of members who desire, as grace urges and aids them, to join forces with their Captain – “that we may discover . . . in our Captain,” to borrow St. Augustine’s words, “the fountain of grace itself.”[32] But observe that these members are alive, endowed and equipped with an intelligence and will of their own. It follows that they are strictly required to put their own lips to the fountain, imbibe and absorb for themselves the life-giving water, and rid themselves personally of anything that might hinder its nutritive effect in their souls. Emphatically, therefore, the work of redemption, which in itself is independent of our will, requires a serious interior effort on our part if we are to achieve eternal salvation.

To the Jesuits, Pope Pius XII concedes the importance of engaging the intelligence and the will in a serious effort. This would been sweet music to Jesuit ears.

32. If the private and interior devotion of individuals were to neglect the august sacrifice of the altar and the sacraments, and to withdraw them from the stream of vital energy that flows from Head to members, it would indeed be sterile, and deserve to be condemned. But when devotional exercises, and pious practices in general, not strictly connected with the sacred liturgy, confine themselves to merely human acts, with the express purpose of directing these latter to the Father in heaven, of rousing people to repentance and holy fear of God, of weaning them from the seductions of the world and its vice, and leading them back to the difficult path of perfection, then certainly such practices are not only highly praiseworthy but absolutely indispensable, because they expose the dangers threatening the spiritual life; because they promote the acquisition of virtue; and because they increase the fervor and generosity with which we are bound to dedicate all that we are and all that we have to the service of Jesus Christ. Genuine and real piety, which the Angelic Doctor calls “devotion,” and which is the principal act of the virtue of religion – that act which correctly relates and fitly directs men to God; and by which they freely and spontaneously give themselves to the worship of God in its fullest sense[33] – piety of this authentic sort needs meditation on the supernatural realities and spiritual exercises, if it is to be nurtured, stimulated and sustained, and if it is to prompt us to lead a more perfect life. For the Christian religion, practiced as it should be, demands that the will especially be consecrated to God and exert its influence on all the other spiritual faculties. But every act of the will presupposes an act of the intelligence, and before one can express the desire and the intention of offering oneself in sacrifice to the eternal Godhead, a knowledge of the facts and truths which make religion a duty is altogether necessary. One must first know, for instance, man’s last end and the supremacy of the Divine Majesty; after that, our common duty of submission to our Creator; and, finally, the inexhaustible treasures of love with which God yearns to enrich us, as well as the necessity of supernatural grace for the achievement of our destiny, and that special path marked out for us by divine Providence in virtue of the fact that we have been united, one and all, like members of a body, to Jesus Christ the Head. But further, since our hearts, disturbed as they are at times by the lower appetites, do not always respond to motives of love, it is also extremely helpful to let consideration and contemplation of the justice of God provoke us on occasion to salutary fear, and guide us thence to Christian humility, repentance and amendment.

Pope Pius XII continues his endorsement of elements of the Jesuit program, wedded, as it is, to “devotional exercises, and pious practices in general, not strictly connected with the sacred liturgy”. He further affirms the role of the will, saying that it must be “consecrated to God and exert its influence on all the other spiritual faculties”. The will is enlightened and moved by “an act of the intelligence”. This act of the intelligence depends on one’s “knowledge of the facts and truths which make religion a duty is altogether necessary”. Again, sweet music to Jesuit ears.

33. But it will not do to possess these facts and truths after the fashion of an abstract memory lesson or lifeless commentary. They must lead to practical results. They must impel us to subject our senses and their faculties to reason, as illuminated by the Catholic faith. They must help to cleanse and purify the heart, uniting it to Christ more intimately every day, growing ever more to His likeness, and drawing from Him the divine inspiration and strength of which it stands in need. They must serve as increasingly effective incentives to action: urging men to produce good fruit, to perform their individual duties faithfully, to give themselves eagerly to the regular practice of their religion and the energetic exercise of virtue. “You are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”[34] Let everything, therefore, have its proper place and arrangement; let everything be “theocentric,” so to speak, if we really wish to direct everything to the glory of God through the life and power which flow from the divine Head into our hearts: “Having therefore, brethren, a confidence in the entering into the holies by the blood of Christ, a new and living way which He both dedicated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, and a high priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart, in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with clean water, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering . . . and let us consider one another, to provoke unto charity and to good works.”[35]

Practical results: the very goal of the Ignatian method. And for the protagonists of the Benedictine approach, Pope Pius XII says, “Let everything, therefore, have its proper place and arrangement; let everything be “theocentric,” so to speak, if we really wish to direct everything to the glory of God through the life and power which flow from the divine Head into our hearts”.

34. Here is the source of the harmony and equilibrium which prevails among the members of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. When the Church teaches us our Catholic faith and exhorts us to obey the commandments of Christ, she is paving a way for her priestly, sanctifying action in its highest sense; she disposes us likewise for more serious meditation on the life of the divine Redeemer and guides us to profounder knowledge of the mysteries of faith where we may draw the supernatural sustenance, strength and vitality that enable us to progress safely, through Christ, towards a more perfect life. Not only through her ministers but with the help of the faithful individually, who have imbibed in this fashion the spirit of Christ, the Church endeavors to permeate with this same spirit the life and labors of men – their private and family life, their social, even economic and political life – that all who are called God’s children may reach more readily the end He has proposed for them.

“Serious meditation on the life of the Redeemer” is a not–so–veiled allusion to the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius.

35. Such action on the part of individual Christians, then, along with the ascetic effort promoting them to purify their hearts, actually stimulates in the faithful those energies which enable them to participate in the august sacrifice of the altar with better dispositions. They now can receive the sacraments with more abundant fruit, and come from the celebration of the sacred rites more eager, more firmly resolved to pray and deny themselves like Christians, to answer the inspirations and invitation of divine grace and to imitate daily more closely the virtues of our Redeemer. And all of this not simply for their own advantage, but for that of the whole Church, where whatever good is accomplished proceeds from the power of her Head and redounds to the advancement of all her members.

And in a nod to the Benedictine side of the debate he affirms the goal of “participation in the august sacrifice of the altar”, concluding that “whatever good is accomplished proceeds from the power of her Head and redounds to the advancement of all her members”.

36. In the spiritual life, consequently, there can be no opposition between the action of God, who pours forth His grace into men’s hearts so that the work of the redemption may always abide, and the tireless collaboration of man, who must not render vain the gift of God.[36] No more can the efficacy of the external administration of the sacraments, which comes from the rite itself (ex opere operato), be opposed to the meritorious action of their ministers of recipients, which we call the agent’s action (opus operantis). Similarly, no conflict exists between public prayer and prayers in private, between morality and contemplation, between the ascetical life and devotion to the liturgy. Finally, there is no opposition between the jurisdiction and teaching office of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and the specifically priestly power exercised in the sacred ministry.

Pope Pius XII makes a grand affirmation here: “No conflict exists between public prayer and prayers in private, between morality and contemplation, between the ascetical life and devotion to the liturgy”. This is his attempt to bring the Benedictine and Jesuit approaches together — public prayer (Benedictine) and prayers in private (Jesuit); morality (Jesuit) and contemplation (Benedictine); ascetical life (Jesuit) and devotion to the liturgy (Benedictine).

37. Considering their special designation to perform the liturgical functions of the holy sacrifice and divine office, the Church has serious reason for prescribing that the ministers she assigns to the service of the sanctuary and members of religious institutes betake themselves at stated times to mental prayer, to examination of conscience, and to various other spiritual exercises.[37] Unquestionably, liturgical prayer, being the public supplication of the illustrious Spouse of Jesus Christ, is superior in excellence to private prayers. But this superior worth does not at all imply contrast or incompatibility between these two kinds of prayer. For both merge harmoniously in the single spirit which animates them, “Christ is all and in all.”[38] Both tend to the same objective: until Christ be formed in us.[39]

Here Pope Pius XII comes down strongly on the side of the Jesuits: “the Church has serious reason for prescribing that the ministers she assigns to the service of the sanctuary and members of religious institutes betake themselves at stated times to mental prayer, to examination of conscience, and to various other spiritual exercises”. At the same time, he affirms the Benedictine position: “Unquestionably, liturgical prayer, being the public supplication of the illustrious Spouse of Jesus Christ, is superior in excellence to private prayers”. He concludes with a synthesis: “This superior worth does not at all imply contrast or incompatibility between these two kinds of prayer. For both merge harmoniously in the single spirit which animates them, “Christ is all and in all.”[38] Both tend to the same objective: until Christ be formed in us”.

Ah, I Cannot Speak

At Matins today, the stammering words of the prophet Jeremiah are placed in the mouth of the Saint John the Baptist: “Ah, ah, ah, Lord God; behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child” (Jeremias 1:6). At Holy Mass, the words of the prophet Isaias are used in the same way. This is the liturgy’s way of telling us that John is the greatest of the prophets, greater than Isaiah and Jeremiah put together, and that he is more than a prophet.

Called From the Womb

John’s mysterious greatness in the plan of salvation is no mere human choice; it is something divine in origin. Saint John himself said, “A man cannot receive any thing, unless it be given him from heaven” (John 3:27). “The Lord,” he says, “hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother he hath been mindful of my name” (Is 49:1). This certainty makes the Baptist very humble. He does not want to be mistaken for more than he really is. “You yourselves do bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not Christ, but that I am sent before him’” (John 3:28).

And Thou, Child

From his tender childhood John knows that he is sent before One who is greater than himself. John’s father, the priest Zacharias, must have repeated to him many times over what he sang under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit on the eighth day after his birth: “And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest; for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways” (Luke 1:76-77). In the monastic tradition, the same text is chanted at the clothing of a novice. John the Baptist remains, for all time, the model of the monk: child, prophet, herald, and friend of the Bridegroom.

I Knew Thee in the Desert

Saint Luke tells us that John grew and became strong in spirit and lived hidden in the wilderness, anticipating the moment set by God for his appearance to Israel. We can only wonder what transpired between the young prophet and the God of Israel during those years of hidden life in the desert. John, like Jesus, is prepared for his mission by years of silence, far from the multitudes and the tumult of the cities. We are reminded of the words of Hosea, “Thou shalt know no God but me, and there is no Saviour beside me. I knew thee in the desert, in the land of the wilderness” (Osee 13:4-5). The earliest hermits and monks of the Church looked to Saint John the desert-dweller as their model and advocate. John is the friend of all those who seek the Face of God in silence; he is the friend of those who live a humble life, “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).

The Great Responsory at First Vespers plays on the word eremus; it means both desert and hermitage or monastery. It suggests that the role of Saint John the Baptist remains actual, especially in the context of the eremitical or cenobitical monastic life. His is “the voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths” (Mark 1:3).

Silence and Adoration

When, after years of preparation in the desert, John speaks, he does so out of a profound interior silence, and it is that causes his words to flash like fire bringing sinners to repentance. In Orientale Lumen, Pope Saint John Paul II insisted on the necessity of silence for all Christians:

We must confess that we all have need of this silence, filled with the presence of Him who is adored; in theology, so as to exploit fully its own sapiential and spiritual soul; in prayer, so that we may never forget that seeing God means coming down the mountain with a face so radiant that we are obliged to cover it with a veil (cf. Exodus 34:33), and that our gatherings may make room for God’s presence and avoid self-celebration; in preaching, so as not to delude ourselves that it is enough to heap word upon word to attract people to the experience of God; in commitment, so that we will refuse to be locked in a struggle without love and forgiveness. This is what man needs today; he is often unable to be silent for fear of meeting himself, of feeling the emptiness that asks itself about meaning; man who deafens himself with noise. All, believers and non-believers alike, need to learn a silence that allows the Other to speak when and how he wishes, and allows us to understand his words. (OL 16)

The Desert: A School of Humility

Silence prepared and sustained the preaching of Saint John the Baptist; and it was in silence, in the mysterious encounter with the Lord of the desert that John became profoundly humble. Humility is not an attitude that can be improvised and cultivated from without. Humility blossoms from within. True humility, Christian humility is the fruit of the experience of God, an experience that throws us to the ground with our foreheads in the dust, an experience that fills us with the spirit of adoration. The link between humility and adoration cannot be emphasized enough. The adoring soul will be humble; the humble soul will adore. John emerges from the silence of the desert a profoundly humble man. In the desert he came face to face with God and everything in him became adoration.

Friend of the Bridegroom

Saint John insists that his mission is one of humble preparation: “I am not he whom you think me to be: but behold, there cometh one after me, whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to loose” (Acts 13:25). The people are impressed by this wild-looking prophet who comes out of years of silence and austerity in the desert. John dispels all ambiguity concerning his own person. “I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. He that hath the bride, is the bridegroom” (John 3:29). Even when admiring crowds gather around him and respond to his word, John remains utterly lucid. His humility is not swayed; he is at the service of the Bridegroom, and to the Bridegroom alone belongs the bride.

Joy Fulfilled

Saint John gives himself the most beautiful title to which a servant of Christ, especially a priest, can aspire. John is the friend of the Bridegroom. “The friend of the bridegroom,” he says, “who standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth with joy because of the bridegroom’s voice. This my joy, therefore, is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:29-30).

A Burning and Shining Lamp

The vocation of John, the humble friend of the Bridegroom, was to be visible only for a time. “He was a burning and shining lamp,” says Our Lord, “and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light” (John 5:35). John’s shining light was to be hidden away in the darkness of a prison cell. The Bridegroom had arrived; the Friend of the Bridegroom had to disappear. The voice of John the Baptist had been heard crying in the wilderness, denouncing sin, calling men to justice and sinners to repentance. But, then, the voice of the Eternal Father was heard, coming from heaven: “Thou art my Son, the Beloved; with thee I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). After this, the voice of the Baptist was heard less and less, until finally, it was silenced by death, a cruel and ignominious death not unlike the immolation of the Lamb which it prefigured.

Witness to the Light

Today’s solemnity confirms and deepens the monastic call to silence and to humility. Graced from the womb of his mother in view of an extraordinary mission, Saint John the Baptist served the designs of the Father for the length of time and in the place determined by the Father’s loving providence. “Sent from God, he came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light” (John 1:6-8).

Mysterious and Unexpected Turns

John the Baptist knew that he was destined to return to the hidden life, to a life of silence and obscurity, like the grain of wheat which falls into the earth and dies in order to bear much fruit (Jn 12:24). He shows us that every vocation is subject to mysterious and unexpected turns and yes, every vocation is subject to the mystery of the Cross, sometimes in dramatic ways, but more often in the humble obscurity of day to day existence. These things are necessary if we are to decrease and allow the Lord Jesus to increase. To each one of us, Saint John the Baptist says: “Prepare to disappear.”

The Imprint of the Lamb

Saint John the Baptist shows us that the hidden and silent life is a necessary and inescapable part of discipleship. A vocation that is not marked with the sign of the Cross is suspect. A life that is without its moments of obscurity, silence and apparent uselessness, does not bear the imprint of the Lamb. The more a soul is surrendered to the love of the Bridegroom, the more deeply will that soul be marked by the Cross.

Marked By the Cross

Ultimately, the sign of the authenticity of the mission of Saint John the Baptist is his participation in the Passion and Cross of Jesus, in Jesus’ paschal humiliation, in Jesus’ going down into the valley of the shadow of death. And the sign that any vocation is blessed by God is that it is marked by the Cross.

“I claimed thee for my own before ever I fashioned thee in thy mother’s womb; before ever thou camest to birth, I set thee apart for myself” (Jeremias 1:5).

The Word of God, Alive and Full of Energy

This word from God uttered in mystery long ago, and received in faith by the prophet Jeremias, and applied, by a splendid intuition of the Church to Saint John the Baptist, becomes today, by the singular grace of this Holy Mass, a word addressed to each of us, to you and to me.

The word of God is not uttered once and for all, and then, locked away, as it were, in some sort of sacred archive. When the word of God is proclaimed in the sacred liturgy, it rises to newness of life; it is invested with a wondrous energy; it becomes efficacious, doing in us that for which it comes forth from the mouth of God. Thus do we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “God’s word to us is something alive, full of energy; it can penetrate deeper than any two-edged sword, reaching the very division between soul and spirit, between joints and marrow, quick to distinguish every thought and design in our hearts: (Hebrews 4:12). I beg you, then, in the words of the psalmist: “Would you but listen to his voice today! Do not harden your hearts” (Psalm 94:8).

Claimed and Set Apart by God

It is to you, then, that the Word of God comes today. It is addressed directly to each of you, a blazing arrow shot from the heart of God into your hearts: “I claimed thee for my own before ever I fashioned thee in thy mother’s womb; before ever thou camest to birth, I set thee apart for myself” (Jeremias 1:5).

Vocation

What is a vocation? It is the unfolding of a mysterious design of God and a gracious summons of His mercy. Implicit in the Church’s doctrine of the universal call to holiness — that is, that you and I are called to be saints, nothing less than saints — are these astonishing truths: God claimed you — you — for His own before ever he fashioned you in your mother’s womb. Before ever you came to birth, God set you apart for Himself. This is the divine message that shapes one’s journey through life, and gives it meaning.

The Call to Holiness

Holiness cannot be stereotyped. Holiness comes in a splendid variety of forms, and colours. There is no age, no state in life, no occupation, no background, no place, nor race, nor culture that is, of itself, foreign to holiness. We, therefore have no excuse. God would have each us become a saint. To resist the call to holiness is to resist the will of God. “This is the will of God,” says the Apostle, “your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3).

Under the Hand of God

We heard, concerning John the Baptist, in the Holy Gospel: “And indeed the hand of the Lord was with him. The child grew up and his spirit matured. And he lived out in the wilderness until the day he appeared openly to Israel” (Luke 1: 66, 80). Submit, then, to the hand of the Lord today, by placing yourselves humbly and willingly under the immense, and tender, and powerful liturgy of His Church. Open your eyes, your ears, and all your senses to every word uttered, to every note sung, to every gesture, and movement, and to the sacred silence which envelops this Mass and allows for the penetration of its particular grace into the most secret place of your souls.

Ready to Appear Openly

It will happen with you, as it happened with Saint John the Forerunner. You will grow up into holiness. Your spirit will mature. At the hour prepared by God, you will be ready to appear openly, not to Israel, as did Saint John over two-thousand years ago, but to Ireland today, just as it is, beset by dire predictions of the end of Catholicism — as men and women called to nothing less than holiness. “So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

To the Altar of the Lamb

All of this begins — and all of it must return — to the altar of the Holy Sacrifice. There, the Lamb is immolated; there the Lamb is offered; there the Lamb is given us as food and drink. It is time to hasten to the altar, for I hear the voice of the Baptist, the “Friend of the Bridegroom” (John 3:29), saying, “Behold the Lamb of God” (John 1:36).

Pope Pius XII and Eucharistic Adoration

Already, in the years immediately following the Second World War, and mostly in northern Europe, voices were raised in criticism of certain expressions of Eucharistic piety such as exposition of the Most Blessed Sacrament, perpetual adoration, acts of reparation, and the frequent celebration of Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. These practices were criticized as being late developments, suited to the triumphalistic ethos of the Catholic Reformation (1545–1563), and detrimental to the promotion of an objective liturgical piety shorn of all unnecessary accretions.

Even within cloisters, there arose a movement to purify monastic piety of elements judged to be subjective and devotional. For Benedictines especially dedicated to the cultus of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar in a life of perpetual adoration and reparation, such criticisms were devastating. Aware of the pernicious ideas concerning adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament that were in circulation, Pope Pius XII addressed them in Mediator Dei. Today, sixty–seven years after Mediator Dei (20 November 1947) the teachings of Pope Pius XII remain pertinent.

From Mediator Dei:

128. The divine Redeemer is ever repeating His pressing invitation, “Abide in Me.”[121] Now by the sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ remains in us and we in Him, and just as Christ, remaining in us, lives and works, so should we remain in Christ and live and work through Him.

129. The Eucharistic Food contains, as all are aware, “truly, really and substantially the Body and Blood together with soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.”[122] It is no wonder, then, that the Church, even from the beginning, adored the body of Christ under the appearance of bread; this is evident from the very rites of the august sacrifice, which prescribe that the sacred ministers should adore the most holy sacrament by genuflecting or by profoundly bowing their heads.

130. The Sacred Councils teach that it is the Church’s tradition right from the beginning, to worship “with the same adoration the Word Incarnate as well as His own flesh,”[123] and St. Augustine asserts that, “No one eats that flesh, without first adoring it,” while he adds that “not only do we not commit a sin by adoring it, but that we do sin by not adoring it.”[124]

131. It is on this doctrinal basis that the cult of adoring the Eucharist was founded and gradually developed as something distinct from the sacrifice of the Mass. The reservation of the sacred species for the sick and those in danger of death introduced the praiseworthy custom of adoring the blessed Sacrament which is reserved in our churches. This practice of adoration, in fact, is based on strong and solid reasons. For the Eucharist is at once a sacrifice and a sacrament; but it differs from the other sacraments in this that it not only produces grace, but contains in a permanent manner the Author of grace Himself. When, therefore, the Church bids us adore Christ hidden behind the eucharistic veils and pray to Him for spiritual and temporal favors, of which we ever stand in need, she manifests living faith in her divine Spouse who is present beneath these veils, she professes her gratitude to Him and she enjoys the intimacy of His friendship.

132. Now, the Church in the course of centuries has introduced various forms of this worship which are ever increasing in beauty and helpfulness: as, for example, visits of devotion to the tabernacles, even every day; benediction of the Blessed Sacrament; solemn processions, especially at the time of Eucharistic Congress, which pass through cities and villages; and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament publicly exposed. Sometimes these public acts of adoration are of short duration. Sometimes they last for one, several and even for forty hours. In certain places they continue in turn in different churches throughout the year, while elsewhere adoration is perpetual day and night, under the care of religious communities, and the faithful quite often take part in them.

133. These exercises of piety have brought a wonderful increase in faith and supernatural life to the Church militant upon earth and they are reechoed to a certain extent by the Church triumphant in heaven which sings continually a hymn of praise to God and to the Lamb “who was slain.”[125] Wherefore, the Church not merely approves these pious practices, which in the course of centuries have spread everywhere throughout the world, but makes them her own, as it were, and by her authority commends them.[126] They spring from the inspiration of the liturgy and if they are performed with due propriety and with faith and piety, as the liturgical rules of the Church require, they are undoubtedly of the very greatest assistance in living the life of the liturgy.

134. Nor is it to be admitted that by this Eucharistic cult men falsely confound the historical Christ, as they say, who once lived on earth, with the Christ who is present in the august Sacrament of the altar, and who reigns glorious and triumphant in heaven and bestows supernatural favors. On the contrary, it can be claimed that by this devotion the faithful bear witness to and solemnly avow the faith of the Church that the Word of God is identical with the Son of the Virgin Mary, who suffered on the cross, who is present in a hidden manner in the Eucharist and who reigns upon His heavenly throne. Thus, St. John Chrysostom states: “When you see It [the Body of Christ] exposed, say to yourself: Thanks to this body, I am no longer dust and ashes, I am no more a captive but a freeman: hence I hope to obtain heaven and the good things that are there in store for me, eternal life, the heritage of the angels, companionship with Christ; death has not destroyed this body which was pierced by nails and scourged, . . . this is that body which was once covered with blood, pierced by a lance, from which issued saving fountains upon the world, one of blood and the other of water. . . This body He gave to us to keep and eat, as a mark of His intense love.”[127]

135. That practice in a special manner is to be highly praised according to which many exercises of piety, customary among the faithful, and with benediction of the blessed sacrament. For excellent and of great benefit is that custom which makes the priest raise aloft the Bread of Angels before congregations with heads bowed down in adoration, and forming with It the sign of the cross implores the heavenly Father to deign to look upon His Son who for love of us was nailed to the cross, and for His sake and through Him who willed to be our Redeemer and our brother, be pleased to shower down heavenly favors upon those whom the immaculate blood of the Lamb has redeemed.[128]

136. Strive then, Venerable Brethren, with your customary devoted care so the churches, which the faith and piety of Christian peoples have built in the course of centuries for the purpose of singing a perpetual hymn of glory to God almighty and of providing a worthy abode for our Redeemer concealed beneath the eucharistic species, may be entirely at the disposal of greater numbers of the faithful who, called to the feet of their Savior, hearken to His most consoling invitation, “Come to Me all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will refresh you.”[129] Let your churches be the house of God where all who enter to implore blessings rejoice in obtaining whatever they ask[130] and find there heavenly consolation.

The “Deputation” Argument

The whole Benedictine—Jesuit controversy of the beginning of the last century is something that has long captured my attention. My own research into the question is beginning to show that the Jesuit “anti–liturgical” prejudice of the early 1900s was based on certain theses related to “liturgical deputation” that should have been put to rest by Sacrosanctum Concilium, but were not — certainly not in Jesuit circles. In a nutshell, the “liturgical deputation” position, adopted by some Jesuits of the last century, argues that the full liturgical life as laid out in the books of the Roman Rite — Missal, Breviary, Pontifical, and Ritual — pertains only to those who, by canonical mandate, are deputed to carry out the rites therein contained.

This argument, as put forward by L. Malevez, S.J., in the wake of the lively disputes following the publication of Maritain’s Liturgie et contemplation, sustains that only those canonically deputed by the Church to pray the Divine Office (clergy in major Orders, religious in solemn vows) need have an interest in doing so. The Jesuit author further argues that the liturgy is something remote and unfamiliar to the laity, and that the Spiritual Exercises, and the resolutions they foster, better equip the laity for a holy Christian life in the real world. The problem — and this was the argument of the Benedictines engaged in the fray — is that this Jesuit position flies in the face of Pope Saint Pius X’s clear teaching:

We deem it necessary to provide before anything else for the sanctity and dignity of the temple, in which the faithful assemble for no other object than that of acquiring this spirit from its foremost and indispensable font, which is the active participation in the most holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church. (Tra le sollecitudini, 22 November 1903)

“Foremost and Indispensable” Called into Question

The Jesuit position was (and, I think, largely remains) that the “active participation in the most holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church” need not be considered the “foremost and indispensable font” of the authentic Christian spirit, and that, for layfolk, there are other more practical and effective means of acquiring the authentic Christian spirit, namely the Spiritual Exercises, meditations, examinations of conscience, and private devotions. The Belgian Benedictines of Maredsous and Mont–César, led by Beauduin, Festugière, Vandeur, and even Marmion, rose up in defense of the teaching of Pius X and re–affirmed it, stressing the phrase, “the foremost and indispensable font” Herein lies the crux of the problem.

The Liturgical Movement

The Jesuits involved in the debate would have said that for the ordinary Catholic, regular ongoing access to “the foremost and indispensable font” was, practically speaking, limited to Holy Mass, Confession, and Holy Communion. They would have supplemented this regime of liturgical minimalism for the laity by preaching the Spiritual Exercises, by promoting the Apostleship of Prayer, and by offering instruction in systematic meditation and examinations of conscience.

The Belgian Benedictines, having invested so much in the great classical Liturgical Movement (see the famous Missel–Vesperal of Dom Lefebvre, Bruges, also called the Saint Andrew’s Missal) held fast to their belief that the fulness of the liturgical life needed to be opened to the lay faithful, that is, not only sung Mass with their participation, but also the Divine Office (principally Vespers), and the whole panoply of processions, blessings, and sacramentals contained in the Pontifical and Roman Ritual. This latter position was adopted by Dom Virgil Michel of Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville and, through his teachings and publications, gained ground in the United States. The popularisation of the full liturgical life was further promoted by the Augustinian Canon Pius Parsch, by Monsignor Martin Hellriegel, and — res mirabilis — by the Jesuit, Father Francis X. Weiser! One of the American Liturgical Movement’s magnificent achievements was the publication of the Collegeville Short Breviary (1941), which knew a phenomenal success, and might well have been taken as a model for the post–conciliar adaptations of the Roman Breviary — but that is another story! In Ireland, the Legion of Mary under the charismatic leadership of its saintly founder, Frank Duff, in collaboration with the Benedictines of Glenstal Abbey, produced the Saint Columba Breviary for the use of layfolk engaged in the workaday world.

A Return to Mediator Dei

The Benedictines saw the Jesuit position as an attack on the Liturgical Movement, and the Jesuits saw the Liturgical Movement as a threat to their apostolate of preaching the Spiritual Exercises. Mediator Dei was written, I believe, to address the dilemma. Pope Pius XII specifically names the Benedictines and the Jesuits in the text of the encyclical. As the argument continues, even today, I think that a return to Mediator Dei is the only salutary way to address the debate in an enlightened manner.

Blessed Columba Marmion’s doctrine concerning the liturgy is luminous and serene. His repetition of the phrase, “nowhere, as in the liturgy” affirms the teaching of Pope Saint Pius X that active participation in the liturgy is the foremost and indispensable font of the true Christian spirit.

Filled as We are with a most ardent desire to see the true Christian spirit flourish in every respect and be preserved by all the faithful, We deem it necessary to provide before anything else for the sanctity and dignity of the temple, in which the faithful assemble for no other object than that of acquiring this spirit from its foremost and indispensable font, which is the active participation in the most holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church. (Tra le sollecitidini, 22 November 1903)

It must be understood, of course, that when Blessed Marmion refers to the liturgy in this text, he is referring not only to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, but also, in a special way, to the Divine Office, and the full complement of rites contained in the Pontifical and the Roman Ritual.

Christ Set Before Our Eyes

From Advent to Pentecost, the Church unfolds before our gaze the whole life of her Divine Spouse, not merely as it is found in the Gospels, but illustrated, if I presume to say so, by the prophecies, the letters of St. Paul, the commentary of the holy Doctors. The whole existence of Christ, integral and living, is re–enacted before our eyes; the Church offers for our contemplation, one by one, under their particular aspect of splendour, in characteristic relief and according to their sequence, all the mysteries of Jesus; the Church presents therein, in its appropriate place, all that He said, all that He did, all that He realized in His Person, all that He willed for us.

The Virtue and Grace of All His Mysteries

Nowhere else, as in the liturgy, can we become so well acquainted with the the gestures of Jesus Christ, the words which fell from His lips, the feelings of His Divine Heart; it is the Gospel relived at each stage of the earthly life of Christ, Man–God, Saviour of the World, head of His mystical body, and bringing with Him the virtue and grace of all His mysteries for our souls’ benefit.

The Liturgy: the Most Perfect Expression of Revelation

Nowhere, as in the liturgy, does there exist such a complete, simple, orderly, and deep exposition of all the marvels which God has performed for our our sanctification and salvation; it is the most perfect expression of Revelation and that most adapted to our souls’ needs, it is an exposition which appeals both to the eyes of the body and of the imagination and which moves the attentive souls to its depths.

An Incomparable Source of Supernatural Light

The liturgical cycle is an incomparable source of supernatural light. Moreover — and this is an essential truth for our sanctification — we may derive from it the special fruit which Our Lord willed to attach to each of His mysteries when, as our head, He lived with them here below.

Blessed Columba Marmion
Christ in His Mysteries, pp. 22 and following

Dom Columba Marmion was 31 years old and a monk of Maredsous for three years when, in November 1889, he wrote the following to a newly–ordained Irish priest, one of his former pupils at Clonliffe.

A priest can do so much for God if, in offering the Holy Sacrifice, he unites the oblation of himself, his life, his love, all he has, with that of the Divine Victim. He can obtain priceless graces for all mankind, can stay the anger of God, and gain powerful aid for the Church, not to speak of the great merit he gains for himself. Let us try to be faithful and loving towards Our dear Lord. It is in the heart of the priest He expects to repose, when He is outraged by sinners; and also, He so often finds even there but coldness and ingratitude.

We have crossed the threshold,
not only of Your feast, but also of Your mystery,
O Pierced One.
We have been in pilgrimage to Your Heart.
It was the light of Your Eucharistic Face that drew us on,
compelling us, impelling to seek in its radiance
the wound in Your side.

Now before us lies the door
opened not by the turn of a key
but by the thrust of a lance,
and beyond the door the abode of love.
“He has brought me to the banqueting house,
and is banner over me was love” (Ct 2:4).

We opened our books to First Vespers
and found there not the mere form of words
but the traces of a burning, blazing Word
– Your Heart –
and beneath the text
embers glowing
waiting to be fanned again into flame
by a mingling of Spirit-Breath with ours,
breath well spent in the chants of Your Church.

The Spirit came again to the help of our weakness,
loosing our tongues for the praise of Love wounded and wounding,
teaching Love’s own language:
strange to those in exile from Your Heart
but now become — O wonder!–
our native tongue.
Strange and blessed
this language of Your Church,
spilling fire in antiphons
and rivers of light in psalms,
infusing Your prayer, O Christ, Eternal Son, Eternal Priest
– nothing less than that –
into all of us who know not how to pray as we ought.

Your Heart’s prayer
poured into every aching emptiness of ours.
Your Heart’s song
rising in our silence.
Your Heartbeat
making us bold
by a gift of words not of our making.
And in those words Heart speaks to heart.
In them
Your Heart speaks to the Father;
and the Father’s heart to yours.
In them Your Heart sings to Your Church, Your Bride;
and her heart sings to yours.

This is Love’s exchange,
hidden from the learned and the clever
but revealed to little ones,
splashed like pure water on the lips of children
to delight the Father
and to fall all shining onto the cracked and dusty face
of a world grown old in thirst.

You stood up once
as you stand before us now,
– it was the last day of the feast, the great day –
and cried out, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink;
out of His heart shall flow rivers of living water” (cf. Jn 7:37-38).
You said this about the Spirit
that blazes from Your face –
and rushes from Your open side
in water and in blood.

Where is the heart held aloft,
the heart become a chalice to catch the torrent in its flow?
Where are hands to press that chalice
to the lips of those who, with weary step,
return from empty cisterns?
My heart?
For this I give it
and for this I give my hands.
My heart to cup the flow of love,
my hands to tip the chalice.

It is Your Face, O Christ, that we came seeking,
the Face that sought us first,
Your Eucharistic Face seen now as through a glass darkly,
a polished monstrance crystal cut by faith.
And we all, with unveiled face,
beholding Your glory veiled here,
are being changed into Your likeness (cf. 2 Cor 3:18)
and drawn beyond the threshold wound,
Your Heart’s pierced portal.

“Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away.” (Ct 2:13-14).
It is time for us to be like the nesting dove
time for us to spread our wings
and, lifted by the Spirit, to hide in the cleft of the rock.
There, “they shall hunger no more,
neither thirst any more;
the sun shall not strike them,
nor any scorching heat” (Apoc 7:16).

Pass through the narrow gate.
Apostle of the Sacred Heart,
sent out from that secret place,
be a dove made white in the Blood,
and like the dove, after every mission far-flung or near
to it return to be silent and adore.

Adorers of the Sacred Heart
we will all of us be in the end
for adoration will have the last word
as it must have the first.
“The hour is coming and now is,
when the true adorers shall adore the Father
in spirit and in truth,
for such the Father seeks to adore Him” (Jn 4:23).

Adoration then will be the only word,
an ocean of light dissolving every other discourse
and bathing a broken world
in the healing water and the cleansing blood.
“And He who sat upon the throne said,
‘Behold, I make all things new’” (Rev 21:5).
“And they shall see His face,
and His name shall be on their foreheads.
And night shall be no more;
they need no light of lamp or sun,
for the Lord God will be their light” (Rev 22:4-5).

O Eucharist, Sun of Life,
radiating the Heart’s flame of fire!
O Host burning and yet not consumed!
“And Moses hid his face,
for he was afraid to look at God” (Ex 3:6)?

Gentle Christ, humble hidden Bread,
to look at you is all refreshment.
Irresistible God.
“After this I looked,
and lo, in the heaven an open door!
And the voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said,
‘Come up hither’” (Rev 4:1).
And I looked and looked
and looked at Him whom they have pierced (cf. Zech 12:10).
“And the angel who talked with me came again,
and waked me, like a man that is wakened out of his sleep.
And he said to me, ‘What do you see?’” (Zech 4:1-2).
“A Eucharistic Face,” I said,
“and an Open Heart.”

Thou hast set Thy Heart on us (cf. Dt 7:7)
that we might set our hearts on Thee.
In this is consecration,
not that that we have consecrated ourselves to Thee,
but that Thou hast set Thy Heart on us.
“For their sake,” Thou didst say,
“I consecrate Myself,
that they also may be consecrated in truth” (Jn 17:19).

This the Beloved Disciple understood
not by any labour of the mind
but by the resting his head
on the Heart of the Lamb.
“In this is charity,
not as though we had loved God,
but because He hath first loved us,
and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn 4:10).

This he learned
not by searching far and wide,
but by abiding with Mary near the cross,
there to gaze on the “One whom they have pierced” (Jn 19:37).
This he learned, John the eagle,
gazing unblinking into the Sun
that rose each day before his eyes
in the Breaking of the Bread.
“This is My Body which is given for you.
Do this for a commemoration of Me.
In like manner the chalice also,
after He had supped, saying:
‘This is the Chalice, the new testament in my blood,
which shall be shed for you’” (Lk 22:19-20).

Teach us, John of the seeing heart,
how to gaze with unveiled faces
on the Face here veiled,
that we may discern in the Bread broken and given
the Eucharistic Heart, the water and the blood (cf. Jn 19:34).

He who gazes
is drawn into mysteries hidden from the wise and clever,
to “what no eye hath seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man conceived,
what things God hath prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9).

These things children understand
and those who like them
gaze through the crystal of a pure heart.
For this is given the water and the blood
that we with eyes bathed in light
might look upon the Sacred Host
and see the Face, the Heart of Love.

“Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden”
–Love’s invitation –
“and I will refresh you” (Mt 11:28).
No crushing deity here.
No annihilating power.
Here lies bare the weakness of Love
and the meekness of one Humble unto death.

Love waits
not for our gaze alone
but for the “Yes” of hearts already claimed by Love.
On us He hath set his heart,
the Pierced One, the Victim and the Priest.

People burdened with sufferings of all sorts often come to the monastery to ask for our prayers. I often recommend enrolling the sick, the burdened, and the troubled in our Benedictine Eucharistic Guild and — mostly importantly — I remember those recommended to our prayers at the altar in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

I also turn, on their behalf, to our friends, the saints in heaven, knowing that that intercession of the saints is powerful over the Heart of Jesus.  Does not Saint James write: “When a just man prays fervently, there is great virtue in his prayer. Elias was only a mortal man like ourselves, and when he prayed and prayed that it might not rain on the land, there was no rain for three years and six months; then he prayed anew, and rain fell from heaven, and so the land yielded its harvest” (James 5:16–18). During this Mectildian Jubilee Year (1614–2014), it  is fitting that we seek boldly the intercession of Mother Mectilde de Bar. Given the significance of this, the 400th anniversary of her birth, Mother Mectilde will, in some way, be constrained to hear our petitions and present them at the throne of the Lamb.

Supplica to Mother Mectilde of the Holy Sacrament

Mectilde of the Holy Sacrament,
humble daughter of Saint Benedict
and spiritual mother of countless souls,
incline a kindly ear to this our supplication,
and take pity on our distress.

Thou art no stranger to the ravages of war, of famine, and of sickness;
thou knowest well the anxiety of the homeless,
the wanderings of the exile,
and the sorrows of the broken–hearted.

Thou who didst so love Our Lord Jesus Christ,
hidden and silent in the adorable Sacrament of the Altar,
and the Blessed Virgin Mary, His Mother,
co–victim with Him in His sacrifice,
come now to teach us thy way of abandonment
to the mysterious designs of God.

Thou who wast docile to the guidance of the Holy Ghost
in tribulation’s darkest hours,
and wast comforted by the gift of fortitude in times of desolation,
teach us to heed the Divine Advocate’s most gentle voice,
and to welcome the outpouring of His gifts.

To thee, Mother Mectilde, God didst give a heart to adore and to make reparation;
school us, then, in adoration in spirit and in truth,
such as the Father desireth,
and in prayer without ceasing.

Thou hast become a mother to generations of souls
who, following thy example and enriched by thy teaching,
have offered themselves freely as victims to the God of love,
in imitation of the spotless victim Christ
who never having known sin,
took sin upon Himself our sakes,
so that in Him we might be turned into the holiness of God.

Give us now, the blessed assurance,
that our tears are precious in the sight of the Lord
and that our light and momentary afflictions
will bring with them a reward multiplied in every way,
and an eternal weight of glory.

Allow us, through thy intercession,
to experience the wondrous reality that is the Communion of the Saints.
Thou who didst shew compassion for every human misery,
come to close to us now;
let us experience thy solicitude and thy tender care.

Mother Mectilde, we ask thee boldly
to intercede for the physical emotional, and spiritual healing of those
for whom we pray now with urgency and with confidence: N. and N.
Let their healing redound to the glory of God;
let it turn many souls to the radiant countenance of Jesus Christ
hidden for us under the appearance of the Sacred Host,
and to His Face disfigured and sorrowful
in the poor, the sick, and the dying.

Finally, through thy prayers,
may it be given us to experience the maternal Heart of the Immaculate Virgin Mary,
your heavenly Abbess and our Queen,
and to find close to her
an inexhaustible spring of pity and of hope,
of purity and of joy. Amen.

Ten Reasons Why the Mectildian Jubilee Year Is Significant for the Whole Church

Image of Mother Mectilde courtesy of the Benedictines of Perpetual Adoration of Warsaw, Poland

1. Catherine Mectilde de Bar, born at Saint–Dié in Lorraine (France) on 31 December 1614, deserves to be universally known in the Church. She is a woman of the stature of a Gertrude the Great, of a Teresa of Avila, and of a Marie de l’Incarnation. Mother Mectilde’s  life and mission are a vivid and compelling demonstration of the role of women in the Church today and in every age. Her writings, steeped in Sacred Scripture and in the liturgical tradition that formed her as a Benedictine nun, reveal a woman of profound human insights and of supernatural wisdom.

2. Mother Mectilde presents the grace of Baptism as being intrinsically ordered to actual participation in the victimhood of Christ by reception of the adorable mysteries of His Body and Blood in Holy Communion.  In affirming this, she elucidates with the brightness of her own Eucharistic experience the universal call to holiness articulated in Chapter V of the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium.

3. The vocational journey of Catherine Mectilde de Bar was marked by unforeseen turns, by sufferings of body and soul, by new beginnings, by constant displacements, and by an immutable stability in the One Thing Necessary. In this, Mother Mectilde speaks to the young men and women of today who must discern their vocations with an immense courage in the midst of uncertainty, movement, and rapid change.

4. The past fifty years have witnessed a massive loss of faith in the real presence of Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist and in Holy Mass as a visible though unbloody sacrifice making present the mystery of Christ, Priest and Victim, in His oblation to the Father. Mother Mectilde’s lucid and fiery Eucharistic doctrine defies every attempt to empty the Mass of its essentially sacrificial character as defined by the Council of Trent.

5. The study of the life and writings of Catherine Mectilde de Bar constitute a precious locus theologicus in which it will be possible to engage certain key teachings of the Council of Trent with the authentic magisterium of the Second Vatican Council in such a way as to arrive at a fruitful synthesis of liturgical continuity, Eucharistic theology, and mystical experience.

6. Mother Mectilde offers a vision of Benedictine life capable of rejuvenating monasticism — especially where it has become institutionalized and listless — with an infusion of Eucharistic vitality. Her commitment to perpetual adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament corresponds to a contemporary yearning, especially among young people, for a personal, transforming encounter with the Face of God.

7. Catherine Mectilde de Bar’s intimate and cordial relationship with the Blessed Virgin Mary is a model of life–giving Marian piety. The place she gives to Our Lady as the Abbess of her monasteries suggests that every community and family can become, under Mary’s royal  protection, and consecrated to her maternal Heart, the cenacle of a continuous Pentecost, a school of apostles and evangelists, and a fruitful womb bearing new life in every generation.

8. Mother Mectilde’s attachment to the sacred liturgy, to the worthy celebration of the Holy Mysteries in an environment marked by beauty, by profound reverence, and by a humble decorum is an invitation to the recovery of what earlier generations held as sacred and great while, at the same time, recognizing every effort at growth and progress duly undertaken in organic continuity, without rupture and, above all, in charity.

9. Catherine Mectilde de Bar lived in a time marked by superstition, sorcery, dalliance with the powers of darkness, blasphemy and sacrilege. Recent distressing events in churches on every continent have demonstrated that global society today has more in common with  war–torn 17th century France than one might think.  Mother Mectilde bound herself in self–sacrificing love to the perpetrators of such horrible crimes, offering herself as a victim of reparation, that is, as an offering irrevocably made over to God with the intention of supplying for the love and adoration denied Him by those who hate Him and outrage His holiness while, at the same time, praying God to show them mercy and grace them with repentance.

10. Catherine Mectilde de Bar is an icon of the kind of spiritual motherhood needed in the Church today, not only in monastic and religious communities, but in every context where the Church is being born, and born again, of the Eucharist. Ecclesia de Eucharistia. Mother Mectilde demonstrates that the altar itself — the place set apart for the immolation of the Divine Victim — becomes a wellspring of supernatural fecundity in the life of every woman who adhering to the Holy Sacrifice, enters into the victimhood of Christ and, with Him, adores the Father in the Holy Spirit.

For the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

I am your Mother,
the Mother given you by my Son Jesus, from the Cross,
in the solemn hour of His Sacrifice.
And you are my son, dear to my Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart,
precious to me, and ever under the mantle of my protection.
Let me live with you
as I lived with John,
the second son of my Heart
and the model for all my priest sons down through the ages.

Speak to me simply
and with complete trust in the compassion of my maternal Heart
and in the power given to my maternal intercession.
There is nothing
that you cannot bring to me,
nothing that you cannot present to me,
nothing that you cannot offer me,
even to your very sins.

Anything given to me by My sons, I press to my Heart;
all that is impure, every vestige of sin
is consumed in the flame of love
that burns in my Immaculate Heart,
in the fire of love that is the Holy Spirit in me,
the very Fire of the Divinity.

Give to me, then, all that you would offer to my Son and to His Father.
It will be purified as gold in the furnace
because I will press it to my Heart.
Nothing impure can endure the flame of love
that burns in my Heart.
Only love remains.

Give me your weaknesses,
your past sins, your daily faults,
and I will present to my Son only the love with which,
in spite of all your weaknesses,
you desire to love Him, and with Him, love the Father.

I am your Mother.
I am the Mother from whom you need hide nothing.
Even those things that you think are hidden
appear clearly to me in the pure light of the Godhead.

When I see a priest son of mine disfigured or polluted by sin,
I am moved, not to judge him but, to show him mercy
and to employ all the means at my disposal
for his full recovery from the vestiges of sin.
So many of those who struggle
against inveterate habits of sin and pernicious vices
would find themselves quickly set free from them
if they would only approach me with filial confidence
and allow me to do for them
what my maternal and merciful Heart moves me to do.

There are no limits to my intercessory power
because the Father has so ordained it.
One can never go wrong in turning to me.
No matter how complex the problem,
no matter how sordid the sin,
I am the Handmaid of the Divine Mercy,
the Refuge of Sinners,
and the Mother of all who struggle against the forces of darkness.

Come to me, then.
I can even say those comforting words
first spoken by my beloved Son:
“Come to me, and I will give you rest.”
It is not enough to have some practices in my honour
in the course of the day:
I desire more, and you are called to more.
You are called to reproduce
the life of Saint John with me in the Cenacle
and at Ephesus.

If only you knew the bonds of love for Jesus,
and of obedience to the Father,
and of joy in the Holy Spirit that united John’s soul to Mine.
We were the nucleus of a family of souls
that has grown wondrously through the ages:
the family of all those who, like John,
lived with me, learned from me, and allowed me
so to love them
that love for my Jesus blazed in their hearts
like a great fire,
the fire that my Son came to cast upon the earth.

From In Sinu Iesu, The Journal of a Priest

This is the homily that I preached in 2009 at First Vespers of Saints Peter and Paul in the Cathedral of the Holy Family in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The liturgical references are to the reformed rite.

Spiritually in Rome

This evening, with the Church’s evening sacrifice of praise, we enter into the festival of the Apostles Peter and Paul and bring the Pauline Year to a close. The Vespers hymn given us by the Church would have sing: “The beauteous light of God’s eternal majesty / Streams down in golden rays to grace this holy day (Aurea luce). We find ourselves on pilgrimage to the Eternal City; spiritually we are in Rome at the tombs of Peter, the Keeper of Heaven’s Gate, and of Paul, the Teacher of the Nations. Describing Rome as the eyes of faith see her, the hymn goes on to say:

O happy Rome! who in thy martyr princes’ blood,
A twofold stream, art washed and doubly sanctified.
All earthly beauty thou alone outshinest far,
Empurpled by their outpoured life-blood’s glorious tide.

Grace Abounds All the More

The mere tourist on a Roman holiday, rushing from one attraction to another, and distracted by a wildly delicious assault of sights, sounds, smells, and tastes, misses the city’s most precious secrets: the mortal remains of Saints Peter and Paul, and the immortal holiness of streets, and stones, and earth soaked in the blood of a host of other martyrs. “But Father,” you may object, “I have been to Rome” — it is rife with sin and thievery.” Saint Paul, addressing the Romans, answers, saying: “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20).

A Cascade of Graces

Mystically transported to the tombs of Saints Peter and Saint Paul and enveloped by the liturgy of the feast, we are already standing under a cascade of graces coming down from the Father of lights (Jas 1:17). Every feast in the Church’s calendar, indeed every Hour of the Divine Office of every feast, is the vehicle of a particular grace: one coloured by the saint or mystery being celebrated and divinely adapted to whatever our present needs may be.

First Antiphon

The first antiphon, taken from Mathew 16:16-17, is composed of a word pronounced by Peter, and of Jesus’ reply. Peter confesses his faith: “Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.” Straightaway Our Lord confirms him in his faith: “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona.” This first antiphon framed Psalm 116 for us: the shortest psalm in the Bible. Psalm 116 has but two verses: a clarion call summoning all the nations to praise the Lord because His mercy over us is confirmed, and because His truth will abide forever.

Blessed Art Thou
If you would enter into the grace of the first antiphon and psalm, make Peter’s confession of faith your own, and then listen to Our Lord say to you, “Blessed art thou.” If your own faith is beset with doubts, and uncertain in the face of suffering, lean on the faith of Peter and of the Church. Persevere in repeating Peter’s prayer — “Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.” Say it even if you feel nothing. Say it even if you think that your prayer is going nowhere. Say it even if you think no one is listening. The mercy of Christ will, at the appointed hour, break through the darkness that surrounds you, and you will hear Him say to you, as He said to Peter, “Blessed art thou.”

Second Antiphon

The second antiphon is taken from Matthew 16:18. Our Lord Jesus Christ speaks, saying: “Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church” (Mt 16:18). These words, once addressed to Simon Bar-Jona have been repeated to each of his 265 successors as Bishop of Rome. This is the antiphon sung to greet the Pope every time he solemnly enters Saint Peter’s Basilica. And this is the text written in monumental letters around the base of the great dome of Saint Peter’s.

Pray for the Pope and for the Church

Today, this antiphon opens and closes Psalm 147, a hymn in praise of the Lord who so loves His Church that He blesses her children, places peace in her borders, and fills her with the wheat of the Most Holy Eucharist, the swift-running efficacy of His Word, and the very Breath of His mouth, the Holy Spirit. Both the antiphon and the psalm invite us to pray fervently and gratefully for Pope Benedict XVI and for the Church. Prayer for the Pope is as old as the Church herself. We read in Acts 12:5: “But prayer was made without ceasing by the Church for him [Peter]” (Ac 12:5).

Third Antiphon

The third antiphon is addressed to Saint Paul. It is an artfully crafted composition, made up of Acts 9:15 and 1 Timothy 2:7. This illustrates, incidentally, that the Church is sovereignly free in her use of Sacred Scripture in the liturgy. Guided by the Holy Ghost, she so grasps the unity of the Bible, that she knows how to lift out first one verse and then another. She then reassembles them in such a way that they become a fitting expression of her prayer for all times.

In Acts 9:15, Our Lord appears to Ananias in a vision. When Ananias protests to Him that he wants nothing to do with this hateful Saul, Our Lord answers, “Go thy way, for this man is to me a vessel of election” (Ac 9:15). That is the first part of the antiphon. In the second part — 2 Timothy 2:7 — Paul boasts of his divinely conferred credentials: “I am appointed a preacher and an apostle, (I say the truth, I lie not,) a doctor of the Gentiles in faith and truth.”

Grace

This antiphon opens and closes a canticle that Saint Paul either composed or learned from hearing it sung in the assemblies of the Church. It is a song of praise and thanksgiving, glorifying God the Father for having chosen us in Christ, His Beloved Son, for the praise of His glorious grace. In this canticle, grace is the keyword. Grace is the graciousness of God in action, through the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Grace is what changed Saul into Paul, making him God’s vessel of election, and the preacher of the truth in the world. Grace is what will change us from what we are — frail, broken sinners — into the saints God wants us to be forever. Hold fast to the Our Lord’s own words to Saint Paul: “My grace is sufficient for thee; for my power is made perfect in infirmity” (2 Cor 12:9).

The Reading

It comes as no surprise that the short lesson this evening should be from Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. It is, in fact, the salutation from the very beginning of his letter: “To all that are at Rome — and, spiritually, we are there this evening – the beloved of God called to be saints. Grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 1:7). This is a greeting that delivers what it wishes. It is the word of God uttered in the midst of the Church: no vapid sentimentality here, but rather the efficacious Word of God sent like a flaming arrow into the hearts of those who hear it.

The Responsory

The Reponsory tells us that the Apostles spoke the Word of God with confidence and boldness, bearing witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Latin text has cum fiducia, with assurance, confidence, and trust. Trust in whom? Trust in our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit. “I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you forever” (Jn 14:16). There is no reason then to be timid and shrinking about our Catholic faith, even in an intimidating culture that mocks it, rejects the hope it offers, and would have us dilute it. Apostolic Catholic Christianity is to be lived cum fiducia, with confidence, and boldly.

Magnificat Antiphon

The Magnificat Antiphon will have us sing: “The glorious Apostles of Christ, just as they loved each other in life, so too, are they not separated in death.” Did Peter and Paul love each other? Yes. Did they always agree about everything? No. It is this that makes their fraternal love credible, even more compelling. What was this charity with which they loved each other? It is the charity that Saint Paul describes in First Corinthians: a charity that is patient, is kind, that envieth not, that dealeth not perversely, and that is not puffed up; a charity that is not ambitious, that seeketh not her own, that is not provoked to anger; a charity that beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, and endureth all things” (1 Cor 13:4-7).

The Collect

The Collect, in its own way, tells us quite a lot about God and about ourselves. It is proper to this evening and different from the one that we will hear at Mass and at the Hours tomorrow:

Give us, we beseech Thee, O Lord our God,
to be lifted up by the intercession of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul,
so that through them to whom Thou gavest Thy Church
the first proofs of heavenly gifts,
Thou wouldst provide us with helps for everlasting salvation.

We pray to God as a people in need of being lifted up. We are fallen and falling . . . but God is ever ready to lift us up. Today He does so by the intercession of Saints Peter and Paul. Both of them knew what it is to fall. . . and to fall in a spectacular way. Now, in the glory of heaven, they are well placed to help us rise from the sin that, again and again, knocks us down. In the beginning, God gave Saints Peter and Paul signs and demonstrations of His heavenly protection; what He did for them in the first days of the Church, He is ready to do for us in 2009, at this end of the Year of Saint Paul and beginning of the Year of the Priest.

A Lamp to Our Feet

Under Saint Peter’s watchful eye, Saint Paul is handing the torch to Saint John Mary Vianney, the Curé d’Ars. Pray that this torch be for all of us, but especially for the priests of our diocese of Tulsa, “a lamp to our feet, and a light to our paths” (Ps 118:105).

For the feast of the Commemoration of Saint Paul, here is an extract from a magnificent sermon of Saint John Chrysostom. The icon depicts Saint John Chrysostom writing on Saint Paul’s Epistles while the Apostle himself, leaning over his shoulder, guides and encourages him.

Paul, the Spiritual Trumpet

As I keep hearing the Epistles of blessed Paul read, and that twice every week, and often three or four times, whenever we are celebrating the memorials of the holy martyrs, gladly do I enjoy the spiritual trumpet, and get roused and warmed with desire at recognising the voice so dear to me, and seem to fancy him all but present to my sight, and behold him conversing with me.

Ignorance of Paul

But I grieve and am pained, that all people do not know this man as much as they ought to know him: but some are so far ignorant of him as not even to know for certain the number of his Epistles. And this comes not of incapacity, but of their not having the wish to be continually conversing with this blessed man.

A Continual Cleaving to the Man

For it is not through any natural readiness and sharpness of wit that even I am acquainted with as much as I do know, if I do know anything, but owing to a continual cleaving to the man, an earnest affection towards him. For what belongs to men beloved, they who love them know above all others; because they are interested in them. And this also this blessed Apostle shews, in what he said to the Philippians: “Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the Gospel.”

Read Saint Paul With a Ready Mind

And so ye also, if ye be willing to apply to the reading of him with a ready mind, will need no other aid. For the word of Christ is true which saith, “Seek, and ye shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”

Pay Attention When Saint Paul Is Read in Church

But since the more part of those who here gather themselves to us, have taken upon themselves the bringing up of children, and the care of a wife, and the charge of a family, and for this cause cannot afford to give themselves wholly to this labour, be ye at all events roused to receiving those things which have been brought together by others, and bestow as much attention to the hearing of what is said as ye give the gathering of goods.