Showing posts with label saints. Show all posts
Showing posts with label saints. Show all posts

Thursday, June 16, 2016

At Long Last, Mary Magdalen Gets a Promotion

Mary of Magdela,
Apostle to the Apostles


This book by Susan
Haskins is one of a number
of books which up date
this inspiring woman
for a modern audience
Madeline Mancini was my godmother at Baptism. She had been my mother's sponsor at Confirmation and maid of honor at her wedding. Madeline was an Italian immigrant who reached the rank of assistant to a top New York City couture designer and later built her own fashion business in California. My baptism was rushed because she was dashing to the west coast with only $500 in her pocket and a dream urging her on.

Her name was chosen for my middle name and she seemed in my childhood to be a fairy godmother who would infrequently and unexpectedly fly east to drop into our lives with beautiful gifts and sophisticated news. She was good and she was wise and she was always generous.

July 22, the day set aside in the Roman calendar in honor of St. Mary Magdalene, has special significance for me not only because of my godmother but also as the day I entered religious life. She became my patron. But as I studied scripture and read her story and learned of how her reputation had been maligned through the ages, I became even more respectful of her position among the closest of Jesus' followers and dismayed at a lack of due respect.

Recently Pope Francis raised the commemoration of St. Mary Magdalene on July 22 from that of a simple memorial to the level of feast. It has been reported by CRUX that "liturgically speaking, the decision by Pope Francis....puts Mary Magdalene's feast on par with the celebrations of the male apostles, with a Vatican official hailing her as 'an example and model for every woman in the Church.' " Finally, Mary of Magdala is getting the recognition she requires because she was, as St. Thomas Aquinas named her, "Apostle to the Apostles." During the Solemnity of the Easter Feast and the octave that follows one is impressed with the number of times her name appears in the scripture readings for Mass.

Most in our Church are not aware of the subtle differences in liturgical celebration between a commemoration, memorial, feast and solemnity. Sacristans are usually the most knowledgeable about what each level of celebration requires. Often priests don't often realize the requirements. Therefore, most Catholics need some catechesis or explanation of the true significance of this decision apart from the formal rules of liturgical celebration. What is of real importance are the facts at the heart of this change and their meaning for the People of God.

I hope that on July 22 priests and catechists will find a way
to let people in on the not so secret secret that Mary Magdalen held an important place in the most intimate circle surrounding Jesus; that it is probable she was a leader among the woman who traveled with him and saw to his needs as well as those of the men who followed him.  This group of women supported the ministry from their own means and took, in some cases, considerable risk in demonstrating their loyalty to this itinerant preacher. How did Mary Magdalen achieve this position, after all she was an outsider, a woman who seemed to be of some means and whose personal story is not revealed in scripture. Yet we have received in great and unusual detail the moving  account of her devotion to the crucified Lord; the effort at the dawn of day to anoint his body in death and the astonishing reward of encountering Him risen and glorified pronouncing her name.

Scripture scholarship encouraged by the Church over the last 75 years has brought us to new understanding of who Mary Magdalen was. A great effort has been made to correct a thousand years of popular Christian culture which had conflated or mistakenly combined the accounts of three women in the Gospel stories and identify the result as Mary Magdalene. Art, popular literature and poor teaching lumped the woman caught in adultery, the sinful woman who anointed Jesus at Bethany and Mary Magdalene, "from who seven demons had been driven out." Scholars uniformly tell us that these are three separate woman. There is also no hint at all about the nature of Mary Magdalene's demons. We do know that in Jesus' time any physical infirmity or abnormal behavior was attributed to the evil work of demons dwelling within the person. So Mary may have suffered from some physical illness or disability or some mental illness that we might label as a personality disorder or depression among others.

So what might the Church be teaching us when they describe St. Mary Magdalene as "example and model". It is clearly not an image of repentant sinner, as she has so often been depicted. Rather she is a model of dedication and devotion, courage and conviction and very great love. These gifts enabled her to contribute to Jesus' ministry, to support Him on the path to Jerusalem, and to work well with others in the effort. Not to be forgotten is the scene at the foot of the cross; she steadfastly remained rooted in face of horror still supporting her Lord as well as his agonized mother.

On the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene may we be inspired to working well with others to speak as Jesus spoke supporting His teaching of love and mercy wherever we find ourselves. May we learn to be remain rooted at the foot of the Cross as we struggle with our own suffering and that of our poor world. And may we carry in our hearts the hope offered to her in the garden so that we too may declare, "I have seenthe Lord".                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        




Monday, September 17, 2012

Feast of Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen:
Abbess, Mystic, Prophet, Author, Musician (1098-1179)

Hildegard's feast has been set in the Roman Martryology for centuries but it is only now that she is being officially declared a saint AND Doctor of the Church. She will be the 35th individual declared Doctor of the Church and the fourth woman after St. Catherine of Siena, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Therese of Lisieux. We were given hints that Pope Benedict XVI  might make some proclamation of Hildegard when he spoke of her frequently in his talks in 2010-11. The early effort to officially canonize her suffered from neglect but she was canonized by acclamation in Europe, especially in Germany. It seems that the Pope will present her name and about 20 others to the upcoming Synod of Bishops in Rome. Also on the list are two Americans, Kateri Tekakwitha and Sister Mary Ann Cope of Molikai.
 
Research for revision of material for my presentation at Holy Cross Monastery on October 10 has brought a great discovery. A doctoral student at the University of Tennessee, Allison Elledge has written a number of very significant papers on Hildegard. She has made great use of new translations and her own linguistic skills. Her great success is to view Hildegard in her time and place rather than through the lens of our experience. She down plays the feminist but emphasizes the freedom of the prophet and the calls to reform issued by Hildegard in her texts, letters and sermons. There are a number of papers so just Google.
 
For other words about Hildegard search this blog. Use the search box in the side bar to the right.


Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Great Feast for the "Double Institute" of Redemptorists and Redemptoristines

St. John Neumann,
Redemptorist
and Bishop of Philadelphia

Today is the feast of a great Redemptorist and immigrant American saint. It is receiving a great deal of attention from the Redemptorists and in the Diocese of Philadelphia because this year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Newmann in Bohemia. In addition, his shrine at St. Peter the Apostle Church in that city has recently undergone an extensive renovation in preparation for celebrations and for receiving many pilgrims.

St. John Newmann was very small in stature, spoke with a strong accent and indifferent to his attire. He did not suit the Catholic elite of Philadelphia set as they were on enhancing their image in the eyes of what was perceived as a critical if not prejudiced Protestant majority. It seems that those who supported John Neumann's assignment as Bishop of Philadelphia were less interested in the the needs of the wealthy than they were in the needs of an ever increasing flow of immigrants into the city. For them, John Newmann was the prefect choice for Bishop, a true pastor. A narrated slide show on the life and work of this saint can be viewed at the Redemptorist website.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Feast of St. John the Evangelist

El Greco
John
the Beloved
Apostle

The Gospel for the Mass of Christmas Day was the majestic and moving openning of the Gospel of John - "In the beginning was the Word..." Today the Church gives us the opportunity to celebrate the memory of the author of that work whoever he/she may be and the Apostle John for whom the Gospel was named, as was customary for authors wanting to give praise to their principal source.

This morning Fr. Thomas Deely, CSsR made his way over to our monastery, faithful as he is to his contemplative sisters, in spite of 18 inches of snow and higher drifts. In the course of his homily he reminded us of the custom of blessing wine on this day. I suspect that the legend mentioned in the first blessing is something from the Gospel of Thomas. This Gospel did not make the cut when the Gospel canon that we know today was decided upon.

Be so kind as to bless and consecrate with Your right hand, Lord, this cup of wine, and every drink. Grant that by the merits of Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist, all who believe in You and drink of this cup may be blessed and protected. Blessed John drank poison from the cup, and was in no way harmed. So, too, may all who this day drink from this cup in honor of Blessed John, by his merits, be freed from every sickness by poisoning and from any harms whatever. And, when they have offered themselves in both soul and body, may they be freed, too, from every fault, through Christ our Lord.  Amen.
Bless, Lord, this beverage which You have made. May it be a healthful refreshment to all who drink of it. And grant by the invocation of Your holy name that whoever tastes of it may, by Your generosity receive health of both soul and body, through Christ our Lord. Amen

Fr. Tom left a bottle of blessed wine with us which we will share at our dinner. We are very grateful for the attentiveness of all of the Redemptorists at Mt. St. Alphonsus Retreat Center who are so faithful in providing us with daily Mass. Many contemplative nuns are not so fortunate.

Do you know someone named John who may appreciate a feastday greeting from you today? 


Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Hildegard of Bingen on the Screen

New Film from Germany  
VISION

A few months ago I received notice from Zeitgeist Films (US distributors of "Into Great Silence") of their coming release of VISION, a German film about the life of Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), medieval abbess, mystic, writer, herbalist and composer. I read reviews in the NY Times, Huffington Post, and Commonweal. All give account of this amazing woman's accomplishments, courage, ingenuity and trust in her inspirations - the prophetic visions which she believed came from God alone. They also spoke of the intensity of direction and acting and the visual beauty of the film. This is the kind of movie that will appear only in theaters specializing in foreign films and art cinema so you may have to hunt around for it or wait for the DVD to be issued. It is worth the effort.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Feast of St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church


Saint Teresa in Ecstacy by Gian Lorenzo Bernini
1652

The original Italian title of this famed work is also translated as "The Transverberation of Saint Teresa". While the word is a strange one, it suggests the pulsation of energy between God and Teresa which must have been present in the mystical relationship between this strong-willed and dynamic woman and the God who so desires to be in intimate relationship with us. This was a woman of her time and place. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) was born in Renaissance Spain, a country reeling like the rest of Europe from the consequences of the Protestant Reformation. She began a reform of her Carmelite Order at the same time that the Council of Trent ws shoring up the frayed edges of the Roman Catholic Church. She embodied paradox. After a mid-life conversion experience she was drawn to a more contemplative and solitary expression of contemplative life within community than was the usual Carmelite practice of her experience. Yet, she could not escape the natural responses of her extroverted, expressive, and highly personable way of being. In spite of great physical pain and illness she went from place to place in the crudest and most uncomfortable of conveyances to establish monastery after monastery. And in a time when women did not think of writing books she wrote many. Eagerly read today, her words (Autobiography, The Interior Castle, The Way of Perfection) continue to resonate with truth as she describes the spiritual journey of the soul searching for God and what that journey demands. These works earned her the title "Doctor of the Church". She is a doctor of souls who knows human weakness and human nature and counsels in favor of the necessity of self knowledge and interior honesty. She is funny, self-deprecating, intensely female and much in love with God. She lived in the "freedom of the children of God".

Friday, October 01, 2010

Doing It Her Way

St. Therese of Lisieux
of the Child Jesus
and of the Holy Face

Today is the feast of the saint often referred to as "The Little Flower". Perhaps that reference was one of the things that turned me off  with regard to St. Therese for so many years. Perhaps my disposition was also based on an early reading of her much edited autobiography, so massaged by her well-meaning sisters and others in the Carmelite community of Lisieux. We now know they had edited out the muscle of this young soul and left only weak submission behind. Fortunately, those impressions have been corrected by publication of the unedited "Story of a Soul", by wonderful essays from spiritual, theological and psychological points of view appearing in the journal "Carmelite Studies" (Experiencing St. Therese Today, ICS Publications, 1990), and, most recently, by the 2007 biography "Everything is Grace", by Joseph Schmidt, FSC.

Fifteen year old Therese arrrived at the Carmel of Lisieux with a lot of the emotional baggage we speak of so freely today.  As an infant she experienced separation from her mother and family and, over a year later, separation from her surrogate mother. Barely out of toddlerhood, she lost her mother who had suffered with cancer of the breast for years. Later, one after another, she endured the loss of yet other substitute mothers, her older sisters who entered Carmel before her. At the same time she was gradually losing the father she adored, one of those who tended to pamper this bereft child who experienced what would now be diagnosed as clinical depression. She knew her father's mind was gradually slipping into a world which neither she nor her sisters could penetrate. In the large community of Carmel she had to stand alone, serve her King, prove herself, and deal with the challenges of community life.

So many approach the pursuit of God, especially in religious life, thinking that God is calling them to holiness of life and greater love for Him. They assess the calling rightly but often their notion of how one goes about following the call is much too limited. The spirituality of St. Therese has none of these limits. While she speaks of her formal devotional life - meditating on scripture, communal and private prayer, other devout practices - she does not place these at the heart of her spiritual life. Rather she comes to see that it is the "little way of love" which must be the core, center stage for the pursuit of holiness. And this "little way" has everything to do with human interaction, with her responses to those around her, to those with whom she must work, pray, eat, and recreate in the Carmel of Lisieux. She develops an acute awareness of self, a mystical consciousness, of her own responses and behavior when she is hurt, insulted, discounted, rejected, past over. But she also becomes aware of what happens when she makes the effort to see another's pain, to imagine their feelings, their predicaments, their struggles. She determines to be love in the heart of Carmel because this is what love of her King, Jesus Christ, requires.

St. Therese would not advise those who ardently wish to grow in holiness to increase the hours on their knees, or the number of Rosaries, or their bodily mortifications. Rather she would advise them to pray for clear-eyed self-awareness, for a mystical consciousness of the call to love. It is a call to love those whom it is impossible to avoid each day - our children, our spouses, our co-workers, our community members, friends, and family, as well as the people "down the street" in our neighborhood, town, country, and world.

Monday, November 02, 2009

All Souls' Day


Before Heaven ---
a Graduate School of Love

The Office of Readings of the Liturgy of the Hours provides opportunity to reflect upon some of the most powerful passages of scripture and some of the most inspiring literature of the Fathers of the Church. Every now and then wonderful sections from the documents of the Second Vatican Council appear. For the memorials of saints or feasts readers at Office are free to choose an appropriate alternative text. This morning we heard a reflection from a book we frequently use, Saint of the Day: Lives, Lessons and Feasts, 4th revised edition (ed. Leonard Foley, OFM and Pat McCloskey, OFM, St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2001. The editors comment for today:
Whether or not one should pray for the dead is one of the great arguments which divide Christians. Appalled by the abuse of indulgences in the Church of his day, Martin Luther rejected the concept of purgatory. Yet prayer for a loved one is, for the believer, a way of erasing any distance, even death. In prayer we stand in God's presence in the company of someone we love, even if that person has gone before us into death.

The article concludes with a quote from Fr. Leonard Foley, OFM - Believing in Jesus.

We must not make purgatory into a flaming concentration camp on the brink of hell - or even a 'hell for a short time.' It is blasphemous to think of it as a place where a petty God exacts final punishment...St. Catherine of Genoa, a mystic of the fifteenth century, wrote that the 'fire' of purgatory is God's love 'burning' the soul so that, at last, the soul is wholly aflame. It is the pain of wanting to be made totally worthy of One who is seen as infinitely lovable, the pain of desire for union that is now absolutely assured, but not yet fully tasted.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

For All the Saints

Celebrating a Solemnity
All Saints' Day



This is the stained glass dome over the sanctuary of the chapel of Mount St. Aphonsus Pastoral Retreat Center. Our monastery of Mother of Perpetual Help is on the property of the Mount which opened in 1909 as the major seminary for the Baltimore Province of the Redemptorists (Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer). It was transformed into a retreat house in the late 1980s. It is surrounded by hundreds of acres on the west shore of the Hudson River in Esopus, south of Kingston, NY.

Depicted here is the arrival of the soul of St. Alphonsus de Liguori, religious founder, moral theologian and Doctor of the Church, into the realm of heaven where the three persons of the Blessed Trinity and the Blessed Mother welcome him with all the angels. Below them is an array of saints; on the left martyrs and apostles and on the right well known saints like Teresa of Avila and St. Francis Xavier and also Redemptorist saints, most prominently St. Clement Hofbauer and St. Gerard Majella. Just below the dome are seen just the heads of twelve mosaic angels, each representing a virtue. It was the custom of Redemptorists and Redemptoristines to focus on one of these virtues each month of the year.

This work of art is an appropriate image for this great feast - "the saints in vast array." We all have our favorites, our patrons, our courts of last resort when the chips are down. Some may have a very particular devotion to a saint like Therese of Lisieux. Others have made a study of a saint like John of the Cross whose depths can never be fully plumbed.

But today I suggest that we think of the saints we ourselves have known, the saints we may have in our families, in our circles of friendship, in our church communities, or even in the larger culture around us. Those who have died are in the Communion of Saints. We do see and experience and benefit from the saintliness of others. We need to think about them, remember why we call them saints, what made them saints. Maybe in the thinking some of it will rub off on us. For them we owe a prayer of thanks to God. We owe thanks to the 'saints' who may live with us or befriend us or serve us in some way. The age of miracles has not passed. IF we think about it, we will remember some. If we look around we may see some in action.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Feast of Redemptorist Saint

St. Gerard Majella, Religious
1726-1755


St. Gerard is the best-known of all the Redemptorist saints and blesseds. Those who pray for pregnant women and nursing mothers are familiar with this patron. He was a most devoted and determined follower of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer and a loyal son of St. Alphonsus. He has always been a favorite of Redemptoristines because he was a great friend to our foundress, Maria Celeste Crostarosa. St. Alphonsus gave express permission for Gerard to correspond with and visit Maria Celeste in Foggia, Italy. It is a long story which is covered elsewhere in the blog and at our website. Maria Celeste was forced to leave the community which was living under her inspire rule and eventually founded a new monastery in Foggia. It is testimony to the respect St. Alphonsus still held for her that he gave Gerard permission to continue his relationship with her.

For a more detailed biography and a wonderful video by Fr. Corriveau, a Redemptorist go to their website at http://ww.redemptorists,net/saints-gerard.cfm

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Memorial of Redemptorist

Blessed Kaspar
Stanggassinger, CSsR

Redemptorist
Priest
Teacher of
Misionaries

Today the Redemptorist/Redemptoristine family honors the memory of a faithful priest who died too young. He is quoted as saying, " The saints have a special intuition. For me, who am not a saint, what is important are the simple truths; the Incarnation, the Redemption and the Holy Eucharist." Kaspar Stanggassinger was proclaimed blessed by Pope John Paul II on April 24, 1988. Follow the link to the international Redemptorist website. Go to MENU and click on Beatified Redemptorists and go to Stanggassinger. A more direct link to his page did not do the job so you have to work a bit. The website is very well constructed and informative for those with the time and interest to prowl around. Perhaps you will be inspired to pray for the intention of the Redemptorists' upcoming international General Chapter. They would be grateful for your support.

Prayer

Almighty and eternal God, who gave Blessed Kaspar the grace to announce the faith with joy and to dedicate himself to the formation of candidates for the priesthood, grant, through his intercession that we may follow his example and become cooperators of the divine Redeemer in word and deed. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Feast of St. Mary Magdalene

The Story of a Name


In the final days of my first long private ten day retreat in the monastery, a retreat in preparation for being received into the novitiate, a note was slipped under my door. Then prioress, Sr. Moira, was asking if I had a preference for my name in religion. In the past, sisters and nuns routinely had their named changed by their novice mistress or prioress sometimes with consultation and sometimes without. The names of saints, frequently of with significance for the charism, would be substituted for their baptismal names. In addition, particularly in contemplative monastic orders, a predicate would be added to the name. The Little Flower had two predicates - Sister Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face! In the mid-1960s the documents of the Second Vatican Council reiterated the primacy of our baptismal call therefore many sisters and nuns returned to the use of their baptismal name, the name by which they were called into the life of Christ Jesus.

Sr. Moira's request to me was a very kind one. I had given the issue some thought. I wrote back to her, "As if the name of Hildegard is not long enough I would like to add Magdalen of the Resurrection to my name if the space offered on whatever document has room enough." On the last day of my ten day retreat my novice habit was blessed in the sacristy before Mass. The next morning I appeared in chapel wearing that habit (a burgundy jumper and white blouse) and the white veil of a novice (an option in our monastery) ready for Morning Prayer which was the setting for being received into the Novitiate. There followed a procession to the Formation Room (place for instruction during Novitiate) where a special blessing was given by the Prioress and the community.

Why Hildegard Magdalen of the Resurrection? I entered this monastery nine years ago today. I looked upon Mary Magdalene as the patroness of the process of my formation and integration into this company of women. Evidence indicates that Mary Magdalen was a mature woman when she joined the company of Jesus. Her past has been the subject of great conjecture. But surely it was varied and unlike that of the other women who followed Jesus. I imagined that it took her a while to fit in. She would help me to "fit in." I was also influenced by the image of the Magdalen presented in Andrew Lloyd Weber's Jesus Christ Superstar. There is such a haunting quality to her words, "I don't know how to love him..." I was learning the contemplative monastic way of loving Jesus. And one last thing. My baptismal godmother's name was Madeline. I was not given a middle name at baptism but when I entered a small Catholic girls academy for high school the sisters insisted that I have one and I chose Madeline. My godmother was a creative, joyful, generous women who had achieved a great deal in her life while overcoming poverty, lack of formal education and personal strife. She too was a role model.

Each year I marvel at the frequent mention of Mary Magdalene in the Easter liturgies and in the Mass readings of the Easter Octave. This is a major contribution to the transformation of her reputation from that of repentant prostitute to the Apostle to the Apostles. It is unfortunate that her person as been conflated with that of the woman who anointed Jesus at Bethany and the woman caught in adultery. Today, scholars agree that these are probably three separate people. That makes it so much more interesting!

I pray that Mary Magdalene will intercede for all woman striving to make their way in the company of Jesus.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Feast of St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr


Sacramentals:
Teachers
and
Reminders

Today's feast, accompanied as it is by the traditional blessing of throats, always brings me back to the Church of my youth. Vatican II or no Vatican II, this tradition clings. Why should that be? Why do we persist in the use of material things in our liturgies and rites? Why the incense, the water, the ashes, the palm, the oil, the rosaries, the scapulars and medals? For many I am more modern than most. But if it is possible to have modern and traditional side by side informing each other, that is my vision. Perhaps this is a reflection of the particular historical span of my own lifetime - one foot in the pre-Vatican II Church (for about 20 years) and the other foot firmly planted in the post-Vatican II era. I have the great blessing to know both.

However, as a former educator, it is easy for me to see the Church in her teaching capacity. And as a teacher, I can admire her appreciation, perhaps unconscious, of varied learning styles. In the Middle Ages, when few could learn through the written word, elaborate stained glass windows became the picture books teaching the mysteries, presenting role models, inspiring faith.

So today the Church persists in this teaching style, recognizing that while liturgy and rites offer praise, petition and thanksgiving to God, they must also teach, inspire and leave a lasting image. With this in mind, we can even enter into the theatrical. There is nothing which cannot be used to communicate God and God's love to all people.

So today, tactile and visual learners got a boost. A blessing was pronounced begging protection from diseases of the throat and all other illnesses invoking the intercession of good St. Blaise, 4th century bishop and martyr in present day Armenia. Crossed candles lightly embrace throats, one person at a time. No part of us escapes God's attention; each of us are known as individuals; our loving God is intimately aware of our needs. We were told today that in the past the candles would have been lit for the blessing and many a veil singed or worse. Fortunately, that visual effect has been rejected. But the use of the sacramental, a tool to encouragement faith and stimulate devotion continues.

We are beings possessing five senses and good teachers capitalize on all of them. We can use anything to make the light bulb go on, to stoke the fire of faith. In continuing to use the 'smells and the bells' we acknowledge our humanity, our frail and weak natures and humbly utilize all that will help us on the journey to God.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Time for Another Book Recommendation

Memorial of
Saints Timothy, Titus
and Paula Too!

Seems entirely fitting that on the day following our remembrance of the Conversion of St. Paul and the close of the Year of St. Paul, we should be remembering two of his loyal disciples, Timothy and Titus. Isn't it amazing to think that within so few years after the death of Jesus Paul should be able to exercise so much influence? To think of the loyalty to his person he was able to engender and, even more, the absolute attachment to the person of Jesus Christ in his followers. This is even more breath taking. He had the Madison Avenue advertizing executive's power to persuade without modern trappings, media or dreadful jingles! It seems he was chosen by God expressly for the message. What exciting times those must have been!

But in my breviary, appears a small, simple penciled note next to the names of Timothy and Titus. It just says, "St. Paula." This was noted because one of our sisters bears her name. Now Sr. Paula's names and feasts are rather convoluted because her name in religion was Sr. Mary Peter and she returned to using her baptismal name, Paula, many years ago. The feast of Sts. Peter and Paul seems to suit her these days. But it is good to remember St. Paula too.

What I have learned about Paula comes chiefly from a marvelous book by Patricia Ranft. The following comes from Macmillan Publisher's website.

Patricia Ranft, Professor of History, emerita, at Central Michigan University, is the author of numerous studies on religious, intellectual and women’s history. Her books include Women and the Religious Life in Premodern Europe (1996), a History Book Club selection; Women and Spiritual Equality in Christian Tradition (1998); A Woman’s Way: The Forgotten History of Women Spiritual Directors (2000); and Women in Western Intellectual Culture, 600-1500 (2002), all published by Palgrave Macmillan. With this current study she returns to her earlier interest in the medieval religious renewal movement, about which she published some dozen articles.

In writing about Paula, Ranft quotes extensively from St. Jerome. Now Jerome has a reputation for being somewhat of a curmedgeon, to say the least. But, it turns out that some of his best friends, supporters and intelectual partners were women. One third of his surviving letters were written to women. He met Paula and her circle of influential and holy women friends in Rome. She and her daughter followed him to the Holy Land. Later she founded monasteries, mastered Hebrew and continued to assist Jerome. He wrote, "If all the members of my body were to be converted into tongues, and if each of my limbs were to be gifted with a human voice, I could still do not justice to the virtues of the holy and venerable Paula." He praise her as a mother, scholar of Holy Scripture, linguist, and advisor. The great variety of her roles is particularly attractive to this contemplative nun who has her own checkered past as wife, mother, scholar and now nun. What a model she provides.

It is no wonder that Professor Ranft includes Paula in the ranks of female spiritual directors of note. Her book is a fascinating and informative corrective to many erroneous notions about the influence and contribution of women through the ages of both secular and religious history.

More about spiritual directors will come on another day.

HAPPY FEAST DAY to all named Paula loving and serving God as wives, mothers, teachers, scholars, advisors AND spiritual directors.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Feast of Little Known Redemptorist Blessed


January 14
Blessed Peter Donders, Priest

Today at our Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office) we honored the memory of this virtually unknown Redemptorist who was declared 'blessed' by Pope John Paul II.

His story so admirably illustrates the Redemptorist commitment to bring the news of God's love and redemption to the most abandoned and the poorest of the poor.

The following overview of his life comes from the "Sacramentary and Lectionary Supplement for the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer."

Peter Donders was born in Tilburg in Holland on October 27, 1809. From his youth he felt himself called to the priesthood, but, because of the poverty of his family, his schooling was cut short so he could take up the weaver's trade of his father. This did not prevent him from teaching catechism to children in his free time. He also had a good and influence on people his same age. At the age of twenty-two, the the help of his parish priest, he entered the minor seminary of St. Michael-Gestel as a seminarian and part-time worker, thus paying for his room and board. He was ordained a [diocesan] priest on June 5, 1841. He was able to follow his missionary vocation, setting out for Suriname, which was then a Dutch colony [in South America].

For the next fourteen years, his base of ministry was in the city of Paramaribo where he dedicated himself to some 2,000 resident Catholics and also regularly visited the slaves of the plantations (around 8,000 of them in the Paramaribo area of some 40,000 in all of Suriname), as well the military garrisons and the native Indians and black slaves along the rivers. In 1856, he offered himself as a volunteer for the government leprosarium of Batavia, where he remained, with the exception of a few short intervals, for the next twenty-eight years, caring for the residents bodily and spiritually. He left them, only for a few months, in 1866, when he asked to join the Redemptorists to whom Pope Pius IX had confided the Apostolic Vicariate of Suriname. He was invested with the religious habit on November 1 of that year and professed his vows on June 24, 1867.

Religious profession, in associating him with a missionary congregation, gave him a more vivid sense of the apostolic life in community, allowing him to leave Batavia more often to give himself to the conversion of the native Indians and black slaves. But the name of Donders remained bound to the leprosarium of Batavia. He died among his lepers, poor among the poor, on January 14, 1887, mourned as their benefactor and invoked as a saint. He was beatified in 1982, during the 250th jubilee year of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer.

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Great Advent Feast for So Many


Happy
Saint Nicholas Day

The Reform Church in Kingston, NY is fondly called "The Old Dutch Church". Before being taken by the British, it was first settled in the 17th century by the Dutch who called it Wiltwyck. The Old Dutch, the first Church in the town, still continues, has an active congregation, assists civic endeavors, presents a living Nativity every Christmas and hosts wonderful organ concerts and an annual joint Christmas concert of the Mendelssohn Club (male voices) and the Kingston High School choir. I am dipping way into nostalgia here. This last concert is one of the events I have missed since entering the monastery over eight years ago.

When my sons were young we could walk from our home up Main Street to the Old Dutch every December 6th and see St. Nicholas enter town astride his beautiful horse with loyal Black Peter at his side. St. Nicholas carried a huge bag from which he would repeatedly grab a fistful of candy to throw out to the many children crowding around him. Alas this tradition is no more. But it was an exciting occasion for the children, a connection with history and an Advent tradition which went along with the Advent wreath on the kitchen table and the Jesse Tree decorated with homemade biblical symbols and hung on a door. Sometimes I wonder how much of this they remember.

But here in our monastery we maintain our own tradition for this celebration of the great saint, patron of so many (children, sailors, pawn brokers, coopers, young unmarried woman, bankers and even prostitutes). His legends are many. Just google his name and find out. You will also find out how the remains of this Bishop of Smyrna in present day Turkey came to rest in Bari, southern Italy.

Today each of us found a little gift from St. Nicholas in our mail box. Every year, Sr. Moira, supervisor of our kitchen and cuisine, makes a most delicious, huge St. Nicholas cookie painted as the image of the saint. We love it. We are blessed to benefit from Sr. Moira's artistry and generosity which adds so much beauty to the life of our community of contemplative nuns.

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Feast of St. Francis of Assisi


Many tributes to Il Poverello (the poor one), that is St. Francis of Assisi, will appear today on blogs and websites. Reports of special services in which animals, a part of Francis' beloved world of God's creation, will be blessed in his name, will appear in local newspapers. Many, as part of their daily prayer practice, will repeat the well-known prayer of St. Francis saying, "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred let me sow love; where there injury pardon...",

Here I would like to share a memory held since the summer of 1961; the summer in which my mother, father, younger sister and I drove through Europe for three months. I was sixteen years old, the perfect age to see and to grasp the meaning of other worlds, other cultures. My father, in his orderly German fashion, had meticulously planned each day of our trip. A stack of index cards marked the itinerary and what we simply could not miss at each stop along the way. Often we went to places far off the well-beaten tourist track; the small museum in a remote section of East Berlin where we was the famous bust of the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti, Dante's tomb in Ravenna, and the catacombs of Palermo.

Assisi was, on the other hand, a popular tourist spot. Neither of my parents would have chosen it as a place to visit for only religious reasons. The motivation was to see the architecture and particularly to view the Giotto frescoes in the upper church of the Cathedral of Assisi. Just recently I spoke to my father about our visit and he commented, "We saw them before the earthquake." We also shared the same memory of our approach to Assisi by car. From the back seat, I was the navigator for my father during this trip. Each time we entered a city or town, I invariably had my nose in the AAA map book. On a number of occasions I would break my concentration and look up from the map only to find something unexpected and astonishing before my eyes. As we approached Assisi via a dusty road on the Perugian plain, I looked up to see the town rising before me, a Shangrila miraculously perched on on the prow of a hill. This is the steep side of Assisi which just seems to tower over the plain. My father and I agreed on the image and its breath taking effect.

We left Assisi on August 15th, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary. Departure days always required an early start. My sister and I wanted to go to Mass on this holy day of obligation and our only option was a very early morning Mass in the crypt of St. Francis. As I recall, not many were present. I found it a very intimate experience of devotion combined with the significance of history and the aura created by the presence of the holy remains of the saint.

My grandmother's sister had a great devotion to St. Francis. When I was a young girl I asked her what prayer she would recommend that I memorize beyond the usual ones required. She thought for a while and then said, "Memorize the Prayer of St. Francis." In youth I did not appreciate the wisdom of that choice. I have come to treasure both the memory and the prayer.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Feast of St. Romuald

Saint Romuald (951c. - 1025/27) was the founder of the Camaldolese order and a major figure in the eleventh-century renaissance of eremitical asceticism. The following comes from Richard McBrien's Lives of the Saints (pgs.245-46).

Born of a noble Ravenna family, Romuald Onesti fled to a local Cluniac monastery after his father killed a relative in a duel over property. His austere lifestyle and devotional practices irritated some of the other monks, and after about three years he left the monastery and place himself under the spiritual direction of a hermit near Venice. He lived a solitary life for some ten years and only returned to his home area to assist his father, who had also become a monk after his duel and was having doubts about his vocation. In 998 the emperor Otto III appointed Romuald abbot of San Apollinare in Classe (the very monastery he had originally entered some years earlier), but he resign after only a year or two to live once again as a hermit, this time at Pereum, which became an important center for the training of clergy for the Slavonic missions. He later wandered through northern Italy, setting up hermitages, and obtained a mandate from the pope to carry out a mission to the Magyars in Hungary, desiring a martyr's death. Illness upset his hopes, and he returned to Italy.

After prolonged study of the Desert Fathers, he concluded that the way of salvation was along the path of solitude. He founded a monastery at Fonte Avellana, later refounded by his disciple Peter Damian, and another in Camaldoli, an isolated valley in Tuscany....After Romuald's death, this latter community developed into a separate congregation, known as the Camaldolese order. He did not leave a written rule.

His distinctive contribution to Benedictine monasticism was to provide a place for the eremetical life within the framework of the Rule of St. Benedict...

The charism of his Calmadolese order is to live a eremetical life in community. Camaldolese monasteries, like the one at Big Sur in California, feature separate hermitages in which their monks spend most of their time in prayer, work, and tending a small patch of land. They come together at set times in the day for communal prayer.

Romuald did not write a rule for his monks. But the following is attributed to him and speaks of the fertile soil that is the silence and solitude of the hermitage. It is known as St. Romuald's
Brief Rule.


Sit in your cell as in paradise.

Put the whole world behind you and forget it.

Watch your thoughts like a good fisherman

watching for fish

The path you must follow is in the Psalms;

never leave it.

If you have just come to the monastery,

and in spite of your good will

you cannot accomplish what you want,

then take every good opportunity

to sing the psalms in your heart

and to understand them with your mind.

And if your mind wanders as you read,

do not give up;

hurry back and apply your mind to the words once more.

Realize above all that you are in God's presence,

and stand there with the attitude of one

who stands before the emperor.

Empty yourself completely

and sit waiting, content with the grace of God,

like a chick who tastes nothing and eats nothing

but what his mother gives him.