Pages from the Past: Keeping Communion

Why is the devil’s characteristic ploy to divide? Because God is a communion.

Satan cannot bear that we should be like God, manifesting God and enacting God’s very way of being.

Whenever there is polarization you have the sign of Satan’s activity, and you also know what the urgent task is: to draw together, reunite, reconcile. Perhaps that is also why the Pope is a Pontifex, a bridge-builder; not just between man and God like the Roman Pontifex Maximus, but among people.

The place to start is always the family, because the family does not exist without communion, and communion does not exist where individuals are focused on themselves in the first place.

"Pages from the Past" are randomish excerpts from my old journals. I process things in writing, so there were a lot of volumes, but here and there I found notes that were still pertinent or helpful. I got rid of the books (hello, shredder!) and typed up the things I wanted to save, whether for myself (mostly) or to share. 

Retrieving Friday as a Day of Penance

With the ugly news coming out of Pennsylvania (old, almost all of it, but new to us and hideous), there are only so many words that can be offered in response. Sister Theresa Aletheia (@pursuedbytruth) is inviting others to join with her today in observing a day of fasting today, Friday, "in reparation for the sins of clergy who have preyed on the vulnerable and those who have protected and enabled them. We also pray for justice and healing for the victims." The Dominican Friars in Washington DC will also be keeping a day of fast on the last day of their community retreat, and invite others to join them in "prayer and penance in reparation."

Technically, every Friday (except for Solemnities) is a day when all Catholics are asked to offer some kind of penance, "a time when those who seek perfection will be mindful of their personal sins and the sins of mankind which they are called upon to help expiate in union with Christ Crucified" (according to a 1966 statement from the US Bishops, echoing an age-old tradition). When I was small, there was a shared communal penance of abstaining from eating meat on Fridays. (In my family that involved a lot of fish sticks.) While this is no longer Church Law in the US, it is still highly recommended. However, some personal form of penance, preferably a positive act of self-giving, is expected of all Catholics, "making of every Friday a day of self-denial and mortification in prayerful remembrance of the passion of Jesus Christ."

The headlines invite us to take up this much-neglected exhortation from 52 years ago and dust it off. It is more relevant than ever. Friday penance, in its communal dimension, does not say that all of us share blame or guilt for the sins that were committed by our clergy or covered up by generations of bishops. What it does say is that, as Jesus suffered on the Cross to "take away the sins of the world," sins that he did not personally commit, we unite ourselves in our small acts of penance in solidarity with him for the good of the whole Church. We also take upon ourselves, in penance, a tiny share of suffering in our own body as a way of asking the Lord to lighten the burden borne by the victims of those sins that are so hard even to hear about.

Communal penance is an acknowledgement that "we, though many, are one body" (1 Cor 12:12): the good or evil done by any member affects all the members. The charity of the saints stirs those around them to greater charity; the indifference of the tepid spreads like the common cold; mortal sins imperil everyone with a diminished ardor for the things of God. I know that not all of my contributions to society have been unfailingly positive. I owe a personal debt of penance for my sins and those which others may have committed because of failures on my part; those hard-to-identify sins of omission really ought to have much more focus in the daily examen of conscience.

Setting apart a period of time for Eucharistic Adoration is another way of observing Friday "in prayerful remembrance of the passion of Jesus Christ." I've prepared a prayer guide for a Eucharistic Holy Hour that can be made privately or by groups; I already heard of one parish which will be using it. (You may find that it has too much material for one hour; don't try to fit it all in! Use whatever helps you to turn to the Lord in freedom of spirit.)

St Paul reminded the Romans, "Where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more" (Rom 5:20). It was true in the first century; it is true in the twenty-first, though the "enemy of the human race" is working very hard to make us forget that. Jesus has already won the victory. Let us place ourselves at the foot of his Cross to claim that victory not only for ourselves, but for every soul he died for.

Pages from the Past: Heavenly Glory

On this Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, a reflection from St Thomas on what awaits us in the world to come when we will be restored to our full human nature, body and soul, but with a glorified body such as the Risen Christ had when he appeared to the Apostles at Easter, and as Our Lady was privileged to have in her Assumption.

Aquinas: “Will all have glory equally?"

"I say that there will be an equal repayment in a certain respect, but in a certain respect not. 

"For beatitude can be considered as regards the object, and in this way there is one beatitude for all; or it can be considered as regards participation in the object, and in this way not all will participate equally….He who has a soul more enlarged with charity will accept more…” 

"Pages from the Past" are randomish excerpts from my old journals. I process things in writing, so there were a lot of volumes, but here and there I found notes that were still pertinent or helpful. I got rid of the books (hello, shredder!) and typed up the things I wanted to save, whether for myself (mostly) or to share. 

Mary's Assumption and the Latest Scandal

The sickening revelations just keep on coming; 70 years worth of credible allegations, settlements and secrets. Some of the details are so revolting they cry to Heaven for vengeance. I can feel helpless, unless I go to the Lord in a spirit of reparation, to offset, in union with the Eucharistic Jesus and his infinitely precious sacrifice, some of that horrible debt of justice. I created a prayer guide for personal or group Eucharistic Adoration in Reparation which you can download and copy. (It is a bit long, so you might prefer to just download it to a device rather than print it all out!)

I can't help but relate the sins committed in and against the body to the feast we celebrate tomorrow: Mary's Assumption, body and soul, into Heaven. It is not only a dogma of faith that Mary was taken up into Heaven with her human (and now glorified) body: it is a dogma of faith that is surprisingly unknown to many Catholics, even Sunday Massgoers, that our own bodies are destined for the same kind of resurrection and glorification. When Paul had to scold the Corinthians about their lax sexual morals, he did so in the light of the resurrection of the body: "The body is not for immorality: it is for the Lord, and [amazingly] the Lord is for the body" (1 Cor 6:13).

In the words of Pope John Paul (July 9, 1997):

Mary’s Assumption reveals the nobility and dignity of the human body. In the face of the profanation and debasement to which modern society frequently subjects the female body, the mystery of the Assumption proclaims the supernatural destiny and dignity of every human body, called by the Lord to become an instrument of holiness and to share in His glory.

Mary entered into glory because she welcomed the Son of God in her virginal womb and in her heart. By looking at her, the Christian learns to discover the value of his own body and to guard it as a temple of God, in expectation of the resurrection. The Assumption, a privilege granted to the Mother of God, thus has immense value for the life and destiny of humanity.

A First Saturday Prayer for the Church

On this First Saturday (and feast of St John Vianney, patron saint of parish priests), I am sharing another of Alberione's prayers, this one to Mary as "Mother of the Good Shepherd." Although Alberione was somewhat obsessive about inculcating in the Pauline Family a special devotion to Mary under the title "Queen of the Apostles," he made an exception of sorts for one of the congregations. The Sisters of Jesus the Good Shepherd (nicknamed "Pastorelle" Sisters) were founded to work alongside parish priests in the care of souls. He entrusted them to Mary under the title of "Mother of the Good Shepherd" (sometimes "Mother of the Divine Shepherd"); it helps all of us understand what Alberione meant by "Queen of Apostles"! This is from the First Saturday prayers written for the Sisters of Jesus the Good Shepherd (the picture is a detail of the mosaic in the Sisters' motherhouse chapel).

Mother of the Good Shepherd,

Have pity on your scattered children, on so many who are still straying like sheep without a shepherd. Save the innocent, convert sinners, strengthen the weak, sustain the wavering, comfort the troubled, assist the sorrowful. Form many saints! Give us apostles and good pastors! 

You know, Mother, what a valley of tears we live in, how we walk in the midst of so many enemies, what fragile clay we are made of. Turn your merciful gaze toward us. May you lead us to Jesus, Way and Truth and Life, the eternal Shepherd of all; to the joy of Heaven. Amen.

A Prayer for Priests

On this First Friday, a prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for his priests (adapted from a set of Sacred Heart prayers by Bl. James Alberione):


Jesus, Divine Master, 

I bless and thank your most loving Heart for the institution of the priesthood. Priests are sent by you, as you were sent by the Father. To them you entrusted the treasures of your doctrine, of your law, of your grace, and souls themselves. 

Grant me the grace to love them, pray for them, and support their efforts to build up the Body of Christ of which I want to be a living, active member. Jesus, I especially entrust to your Sacred Heart today the priests towards whom I have a special debt of charity: the priest who baptized me or welcomed me into the full communion of your Church; the priests who have heard my confessions and absolved my sins in your name; priests who have ministered to me over the years and who may now be worn out, discouraged, or tempted; priests in whose vocation I have had some role to play.

Jesus, send good laborers into your harvest. May priests be the salt which purifies and preserves; may they be the light of the world; may they be the city placed on the mountain. May they all be formed according to your heart. And one day in heaven, may they have around themselves, as a crown of joy, a multitude of souls won for you.

The Potter, the Clay, and the Scandal. UPDATED.

After I posted this reflection earlier today, I received some information that requires me to edit out what may not in fact be based in objective truth. While outright erasing is not standard blogging protocol (strikethrough is the preferred method of indicating a correction), I do not wish to keep any untruths live on my blog, since they will live long enough in the ether as it is. So this is a completely re-edited post, with references to particulars deleted. In the interests of truth and charity, please do not make any effort to find the original post.

With all the disheartening news in the Catholic world over the past several weeks, the Scripture readings during this same time have been extraordinarily pertinent and consoling. It is as if the Mass readings were tailored precisely to our questioning and our disillusionment. It makes me feel sorry for Catholics who are trying to work their way through all of this without "the lessons of encouragement...in the Scriptures" (see Romans 15:4, but also 1 Cor 10:11!). If you cannot make it to daily Mass, at least make the daily readings an essential part of your prayer life!!!

In the midst of new revelations (of old evils), today's readings are no exception. They follow from yesterday's passionate thread about the treasure of the Word of God, worth "selling all" to possess. (Indeed, Jeremiah sounds like no one more than Augustine with his distressing admission, "When I found your words I devoured them. They became my joy and the happiness of my heart...")

Today we are looking at Judgment Day, but not before another encouraging word from Jeremiah. Sent to the potter's house, the prophet tells us basically that we cannot mess things up badly enough that God cannot rework the situation to good. Not the original good, and not the good outcome we may expect or require, but a genuine good for which we will glorify him forever.

"Whenever the object of clay which he was making turned out badly in his hand, he tried again, making of the clay another object of whatever sort he pleased. ... 'Can I not do to you, house of Israel, as this potter has done?' says the LORD. Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, house of Israel."

Today I am using this reading as a springboard to pray for priests who have fallen seriously in their vocation, or who are struggling wearily and are disheartened and afraid, even terrified, as their past sins, long ago repented and forgiven, threaten to come to light. Some of these men were corrupted in their youth. Pressured to please their superior, may have ended up with habits of alcohol abuse, pornography, or immoral behavior (even all of the above), but they were permitted to go forward to the altar of God, bringing their newly acquired compulsions with them to the ministry.

When yet another disedifying story reached me yesterday, I wanted blood. No more secrets! No more hiding! No more hypocrisy! I wanted all the names published on the front page of the New York Times. I wanted to see a procession of men in cassocks beating their breasts and chanting "mea maxima culpa."

But then last night I couldn't sleep, thinking of the priests whose worse nightmare is coming true a decade or more after they have repented, confessed, and done penance. I've been praying for them nonstop ever since. Some of these men (and others who may have never confronted the matter face-on) may be tempted to suicide. Satan still "prowls like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8), and no morsel is more tasty to him than someone consecrated with priestly chrism.

I am convinced that many of these men have faced the full truth of the wrong that was done to them, and which they themselves in turn did to others. I do not for a minute doubt that some of these men are living saints, daily offering reparation for those evils and actively cooperating with grace in the daily effort to replace vice with virtue and laboring in ministry to make positive atonement for the damage done to the Body of Christ through their sins.

God can work with the clay in his hands. We can only see that things have turned out very badly indeed, but God is infinitely creative and faithful. All this will turn out to good in some mysterious way (Romans 8:28). Our part is to cooperate with forthrightness, fidelity, charity, and prayer. "For men it is impossible, but not for God" (Matthew 19:26).