Monday, First Week of Advent

From the 2020 Book of Grace-Filled Days.

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St. Camillus de Lellis – July 18

Celebrated in most of the rest of the world on July 14, but here in the US on July 18 – today!

A fascinating figure – mercenary, gambler…and then…

Painting Source and analysis

When you live in a landscape framed and defined by Scripture, the great Tradition and the lives of the saints, stories like those of St. Camillus de Lellis become no longer shocking.  You see how God’s grace and power reaches into every corner of human life, into the corners of life of every kind of human person, and you can so very easily understand that you, too, have a place, that this Word is very near to you. 

Living in the flesh – as Paul calls it – meaning, the worldly world, the material world of just things and people without reference to the One who loved us into existence and in Whose Image we are – you don’t get this. You look out and you see winners and losers, successes and failures, the talented and the schlubs, and you know who matters in that world and who doesn’t, who might as well just give up.

And maybe, you can’t help but suspect, you’re in that latter group.

And you shrug and watch that purposeful, meaningful world climb past, regretful and maybe even envious, and perhaps even hopeless and a little bit lonely. There they go, doing important things. 

But that’s not real. That’s not The Real. Living in the Real World – God’s world – you know this. It’s so close to you, it’s what you breathe, that gift.   Sure, you may struggle with some of it, wondering and wandering, but if your primary reference point is this crazy Word of God filled with the small and weak plucked out for greatness and the sinners starting over and the dead blinking in the light –  and then day after day meeting his small, weak, sinful once-dead saints living those same stories again and again…

…life looks different, and you can live it in a different way.

From the Loyola Kids Book of Saints. 

A bit more available for your perusal here. 

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The Blessed Carmelite Martyrs of Compiègne

Today is their memorial.

Their story is told in my Loyola Kids Book of Saints.

Their story from the website of the Carmelites of Great Britain.

Now, here’s something interesting. There have been a couple of filmed versions of this story based in some sense on Bernanos’ play (and Le Fort’s book). Here’s a website comparing them – the 1960 version starring Jeanne Moreau (!) and a more sober 1984 version made for television. Below is a clip of the execution scene and it is quite effective and moving, showing mostly the crowd reactions and transitioning rather slowly to the sisters.

And then, of course, Poulenc’s opera. From First Things last week:

Sister Blanche bolts and hides out alone in the ransacked house of her father, who has just met his nobleman’s end on the guillotine. She resists Mother Marie’s entreaties to come join her sisters in their new gathering place, supposedly a safe one. In fact, it is the last stop before prison, where they are packed into one cell to await their execution. Courage means acknowledging one’s fear and rising above it, and in the final scene, the nuns singing hymns go bravely to their death one by one. The long legato lines of Salve Regina are punctuated but not interrupted by the thuds of the falling blade, until a solitary voice is left to intone the final lines of Veni Creator. Then that voice too is extinguished. The final nun to perish is Sister Blanche, who has arrived at the last minute to realize Sister Constance’s prophetic wish that the two friends die together.

The moral universe of Dialogues is notably opposed to that of the most famous French opera, Georges Bizet’s Carmen (1875)—whether Poulenc explicitly intended the contrast or not. Courage is the great theme of both, but where Poulenc presents the blessed fortitude of nuns willing to die for their faith, Bizet displays the hell-bent daring of characters who risk their lives—and some of whom lose their lives—in the service of the world, the flesh, and the devil: sexual heat, the crowd’s applause, or criminal greed. Here is an operatic world we are more familiar with: perfervid professions of love that are really something less than love, duty and honor and a nobler beloved all abandoned, and the ultimate murder of Carmen, who is as steadfast in her boldness in the face of death as she is volatile in her carnal desires.

Francis Poulenc felt the pull of the profane as well as the sacred, in his work as in his life. He wrote two other operas: Les Mamelles de Tirésias (Tiresias’s Teats, 1947), an opéra-bouffe or farce about the gender-fluid blind seer of Greek mythology, and La Voix Humaine (The Human Voice, 1959), the one-sided phone conversation of a woman cast off by her lover. In performances, the opera often ends with her suicide. Erotic misery was familiar territory to Poulenc, a gay man who was writing Dialogues while watching a lover die of cancer, and fearing he had cancer himself. His sexual temptations had long been a spiritual trial for him, for he was unable to renounce either his desire for men or his devotion to the Catholic Church. Dialogues des Carmélites presents, as eloquently as any modern work of art I know, the courage required to live and die in one’s faith, even though Poulenc knew himself incapable of such heroic will.

And then a clip of the Salve Regina from the Met’s production:

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What’s the story?

Of late, the first readings at daily Mass have been moving through Genesis, and on to Exodus this coming week. What do we hear? What’s their story? What’s our story?

God’s interaction with our lives is ongoing and surprising. As long as there is life on earth, there is no final moment, no perfection, no end to the journey, and it is wrong to attempt to characterize any one moment as the irreformable manifestation of God’s will.

We encounter God, we journey with him, we turn off and away, we forget, we go our own way, and need to be brought back. Again and again and again.

This week , we’ll hear about Moses and the Burning Bush. Here you go, from the Loyola Kids Book of Catholic Signs and Symbols:

The Burning Bush is in a section about symbols related to Old Testament narratives. The sample here is the more “basic” entry – on the facing page (not shown) is a full-page treatment at a deeper level for older children.

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Of course, we are in Ordinary Time, and the Loyola Kids Book of Seasons, Feasts and Celebrations has it covered. A few pages from the section on Ordinary Time:

As schools gear up for starting again (some in just three weeks or so around these parts,) please consider purchasing these for gifts and recommending them to your local public library, Catholic parish program and Catholic school!

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St. Kateri Tekakwitha – July 14

May her example help us to live where we are, loving Jesus without denying who we are.

Today is the feast of SAINT Kateri Tekakwitha. She’s in The Loyola Kids Book of Saints. Published before her canonization. I’m hoping a new edition can be produced at some point – a new edition of the Book of Heroes was published a couple of years ago, hopefully this will be next.

There are two major shrines to St. Kateri, one in the United States, the other in Canada. We visited the one in Canada a lifetime ago, and I can’t find photos, so you’ll have to trust me on that one.

In the United States, near Fonda, New York. This is the area where she lived for much of her life after her parents died, and where she met the Jesuit missionaries who facilitated her conversion.

In Kahnawake, Quebec, across the river from Montreal. This is the location of the mission where Kateri moved after life in her previous community became too difficult because of her conversion, where she died, and where she is buried.

Her canonization process was begun in 1884 at the Third Plenary Council in Baltimore. She was declared Venerable in 1943 by Pius XII, beatified in 1980 by John Paul II, and canonized in 2012 by Benedict XVI.

Here are John Paul’s remarks upon her beatification, and here’s Benedict’s homily at her canonization Mass (along with six others).

Kateri impresses us by the action of grace in her life in spite of the absence of external help and by the courage of her vocation, so unusual in her culture. In her, faith and culture enrich each other! May her example help us to live where we are, loving Jesus without denying who we are. Saint Kateri, Protectress of Canada and the first native American saint, we entrust to you the renewal of the faith in the first nations and in all of North America! May God bless the first nations!

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July: Most Precious Blood of Jesus

In the Catholic liturgical calendar, every month has a special devotion to which it’s dedicated. Here’s a list.

July is dedicated to the Most Precious Blood of Jesus.

In the Loyola Kids Book of Seasons, Feasts and Celebrations, there’s a final section of the months of the year, the special devotion for each month noted, as well as 2-3 notable feasts – mostly saints’ – celebrated during that month. Here’s the beginning of the July section.

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In 1960, Pope John XXIII issued an apostolic letter on the subject. It’s here, and here’s an excerpt:

From the very outset of our pontificate, in speaking of daily devotions we have repeatedly urged the faithful (often in eager tones that frankly hinted our future design) to cherish warmly that marvellous manifestation of divine mercy toward individuals and Holy Church and the whole world redeemed and saved by Jesus Christ: we mean devotion to his Most Precious Blood.

From infancy this devotion was instilled in us within our own household. Fondly we still recall how our parents used to recite the Litany of the Most Precious Blood every day during July.

It’s an interesting letter, more for what is indicates about the thinking about liturgical reform on the cusp of the council than about the Precious Blood. You can sense all sorts of threads being woven, different, but related concerns bubbling: not wanting to weaken popular devotion, but also wanting to make sure it’s soundly rooted and coherent, wary of a devotional hodge-podge, emphasizing that yes, it flows organically from you guys, but remember who’s got the final say, and finally, an anxiety about the impact of the Church and Catholics on the world – this should make you stronger witnesses….but don’t forget we’re in charge….make it vigorous, but don’t go crazy, please.

The litany promulgated by John XXIII in 1960.

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From the Loyola Kids Book of Catholic Signs and Symbols – I don’t have an entry for “blood” – but this is close:

(Remember, this is the first page of the entry. There’s a second page, facing, with a more in-depth explanation)

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Of course, devotion to the Precious Blood has a firm place in Catholic spirituality, as distasteful as it might be the modern mind. But then we get – as we often do- to the irony of the discomfort. Many of us grew up hearing it was important to focus on Jesus’ humanity – well, there you have some humanity: blood.

One of the many saints with a special devotion to the Precious Blood was Catherine of Siena. In my book Praying with the Pivotal Players, written to accompany Bishop Barron’s first Pivotal Players video series, I’ve got a chapter on blood. An excerpt and then page scans:

Blood. Some of us are wary of the sight of it or even repulsed, but in Catherine’s landscape, there is no turning away. The biological truth that blood is life and the transcendent truth that the blood of Christ is eternal life are deeply embedded in her spirituality. We see these truths in the Dialogue, in passages like the one above, and even in her correspondence.

For in her letters, Catherine usually begins by immediately setting the context of the message that is about to come:  Catherine, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, write to you in his precious blood….

The salutation is followed by a brief statement of her purpose, which, by virtue of Catherine’s initial positioning  of her words in the context of the life-giving blood of Jesus, bear special weight and authority: in his precious blood… desiring to see you a true servant….desiring to see you obedient daughters…desiring to see you burning and consumed in his blazing love…desiring to see you clothed in true and perfect humility….

In both the Dialogue and her letters, Catherine takes this fundamental truth about salvation – that it comes to us through the death, that is, the blood of Christ – and works with  it in vivid, startling ways. She meets the challenges of describing the agonies and ecstasies of the spiritual life with rich, even wild metaphors, and the redemptive blood of Christ plays its part here. For as she describes this life of a disciple, we meet Christ’s friends, followers, sheep, lovers as those drunk on his blood, inebriated. They are washed in the blood and they even drown in it….

Note: The book is out of print, and you can purchase used copies on Amazon (hence my rare Amazon link here).

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St. Irenaeus – June 28

First…why?

Why highlight these saints so often when there is so much…news happening?

Simple: Because through the saints, we learn how to be disciples. We learn how rich, textured and diverse Catholic life is. Because saints lived in the past, when we make reflecting on the life, work, witness or writing of a saint part of our day, we situate our faith more properly than we do if we situate our faith only in the present moment.

In short: We grow more from a few moments of being quietly attentive to the real world around us, consciously situated in the greater cosmic context of traditionally-centered faith, than we do from one more session of racing through scads of information and opinion via a screen. I know I do, at least.

For example:

Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced (ridiculous as the expression may seem) more true than the truth itself.

Mike Aquilina:

St. Irenaeus is an important link in tradition’s golden chain. He probably composed his works when he was very old, in the late 100s in the land we now know as France. When he was a young man, though, he lived in Asia Minor, where he studied under the holy bishop Polycarp, who had himself converted to Christianity under St. John the Apostle. Irenaeus treasured the stories of John that he had learned from his master. His few, small anecdotes are a precious witness to the life of the apostle.

And all of Irenaeus’s life gave witness to the teaching of the apostles. The man was steeped in Scripture, steeped in liturgy, in love with the Church and all of its glorious structures of authority. In Irenaeus’s voluminous writings we find it all: the Mass, the papacy, the office of bishop, the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, the condemnation of heresy. One of my favorite lines from his work is this, quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking.” This is the most primitive form of the axiom that later Fathers would state as “Lex orandi, lex credendi.” The law of prayer is the law of belief. The liturgy is the place where living tradition truly lives.

Then Bishop Barron, with thoughts that challenge the common contemporary claim (sometimes said aloud, other times implied) that the Faith as shaped through the centuries and handed down to us is an obstacle to the workings of the Spirit.

Now this regula veritatis, Irenaeus insists, was not so much his work but that of the apostle John, the mentor to Polycarp who in turn taught Irenaeus himself. “For John, the disciple of the Lord … wishing to put an end to all such ideas (Gnosticism) … and to establish the Church in the rule of truth” handed on this formula. Time and again, Irenaeus characterizes his work as the handing on of the apostolic teaching; in fact, his short summary of the Adversus Haereses bears the straightforward title Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching. In a word, the regula does not represent a philosophical consensus or an externally imposed matrix of interpretation, but rather the apostolically ratified distillation of the essential biblical worldview, the fundamental metaphysics that St. John and his companions insisted must undergird the biblical story. This is why, for Irenaeus, these “doctrinal” claims are not the least bit distorting but clarifying. Indeed, apart from them, the biblical witness would remain opaque and the essential story murky and open to misinterpretation. To suggest that the regula fidei should be set aside in order to allow the authentic intention of the biblical authors to emerge would have struck Irenaeus as so much nonsense.

Then, B16:

As can be seen, Irenaeus did not stop at defining the concept of Tradition. His tradition, uninterrupted Tradition, is not traditionalism, because this Tradition is always enlivened from within by the Holy Spirit, who makes it live anew, causes it to be interpreted and understood in the vitality of the Church. Adhering to her teaching, the Church should transmit the faith in such a way that it must be what it appears, that is, “public”, “one”, “pneumatic”, “spiritual”. Starting with each one of these characteristics, a fruitful discernment can be made of the authentic transmission of the faith in the today of the Church. More generally, in Irenaeus’ teaching, the dignity of man, body and soul, is firmly anchored in divine creation, in the image of Christ and in the Spirit’s permanent work of sanctification. This doctrine is like a “high road” in order to discern together with all people of good will the object and boundaries of the dialogue of values, and to give an ever new impetus to the Church’s missionary action, to the force of the truth which is the source of all true values in the world.

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Repeating what I said yesterday about Cyril, if you have a mind to study the Church Fathers via these talks either as an individual or as a parish study group, feel free to use the free pdf of the study guide I wrote for OSV.  For example the reflection questions for the section on Clement, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen are:

1. These thinkers of early Christianity did not shy from engaging with non-Christian thinking. How would you describe their relationships to it? What seems to you to be their standard for what elements of non-Christian thinking to accept or reject?

2. Apologetics is still an important part of Christian expression. What issues have you experienced as being areas in which you or others you know are called upon to offer an “apologia”? Are there any resources you have found particularly helpful?

3. All of these thinkers — and most in this book — emerged from the East, the birthplace of Christianity. What do you know about the Eastern Catholic churches today? Have you ever attended an Eastern Catholic liturgy?

4. Irenaeus battled Gnostic heresies in which only an elite had access to the ultimate saving spiritual knowledge. Can you see any currents of this element of Gnostic thinking in the world today? Do you ever catch yourself thinking along these lines?

5. These thinkers were engaged in very creative work, but work that was very faithful to the tradition they had been handed by the apostles. What kind of creative, faithful ways of teaching and expressing faith are you aware of today? If you were in charge of evangelization  for the Church in your area, what kinds of approaches would you encourage?

6. Justin Martyr felt that certain elements of his pagan life had actually worked to prepare him for his Christian life. Are their any elements of your life before your fuller coming to faith that you feel have prepared you for deepening your faith today?

7. Ignatius and Origen both longed for martyrdom. What do you think about that?

8. Several of these thinkers indicate the importance of the bishop of Rome. How do you see the importance of the papacy expressed in the Church and the world today?

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Also: The many feastdays of St. Irenaeus.

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Thomas, John and Paulinus

Yes, it’s the feast of St. Thomas More today – but it’s also St. John Fisher and Paulinus of Nola, so let’s survey all three.

First, since you probably know the most about him – St. Thomas More.

In the news today – a deep dive by Edwin Pentin at the NCRegister about the present status of the relic of St. Thomas More’s head in a now (of course) Anglican church.

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Now, from my books:

From Be Saints!

I usually don’t give Amazon links, but Be Saints is unfortunately, although not surprisingly, out of print, so that would be your best source in getting a copy – based on B16’s talk to young people on his 2010 journey to England, featuring paintings, of course, by Ann Engelhart – check out her Instagram here, which will bring lovely images into your day.

I also have a chapter of St. Thomas More in The Loyola Kids’ Book of Saints.

And here’s my son’s recent look at the film A Man for All Seasons. He wrote about in the context of his run-through of Academy Award Best Picture films. (He’s currently going through the films of William Wyler.) And do check out his new novel!

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St. John Fisher – a good list of links to his works.

His last words on the scaffold:

Christian people, I am come hither to die for the faith of Christ’s Holy Catholic Church, and I thank God hitherto my stomach hath served me very well thereunto, so that yet I have not feared death.

Wheefore I do desire you all to help and assist me with your prayers, that at the very point and instant of death’s stroke, I may in that very moment stand steadfast without fainting in any one point of the Catholic faith free from any fear; and I beseech Almighty God of His infinite goodness to save the king and this Realm, and that it may please Him to hold His holy hand over it, and send the king good Counsel.

He then knelt, said the Te Deum, In te domine speravi, and submitted to the axe.

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Finally, Paulinus of Nola. We’ll head to B16 for more information:

Paulinus, a contemporary of St Augustine to whom he was bound by a firm friendship, exercised his ministry at Nola in Campania, where he was a monk and later a priest and a Bishop. However, he was originally from Aquitaine in the South of France, to be precise, Bordeaux, where he was born into a high-ranking family. It was here, with the poet Ausonius as his teacher, that he received a fine literary education. He left his native region for the first time to follow his precocious political career, which was to see him rise while still young to the position of Governor of Campania. In this public office he attracted admiration for his gifts of wisdom and gentleness. It was during this period that grace caused the seed of conversion to grow in his heart. The incentive came from the simple and intense faith with which the people honoured the tomb of a saint, Felix the Martyr, at the Shrine of present-day Cimitile. As the head of public government, Paulinus took an interest in this Shrine and had a hospice for the poor built and a road to facilitate access to it for the many pilgrims.

While he was doing his best to build the city on earth, he continued discovering the way to the city in Heaven. The encounter with Christ was the destination of a laborious journey, strewn with ordeals. Difficult circumstances which resulted from his loss of favour with the political Authorities made the transience of things tangible to him. Once he had arrived at faith, he was to write: “The man without Christ is dust and shadow” (Carm. X, 289). Anxious to shed light on the meaning of life, he went to Milan to attend the school of Ambrose. He then completed his Christian formation in his native land, where he was baptized by Bishop Delphinus of Bordeaux. Marriage was also a landmark on his journey of faith. Indeed, he married Therasia, a devout noblewoman from Barcelona, with whom he had a son. He would have continued to live as a good lay Christian had not the infant’s death after only a few days intervened to rouse him, showing him that God had other plans for his life. Indeed, he felt called to consecrate himself to Christ in a rigorous ascetic life.

In full agreement with his wife Therasia, he sold his possessions for the benefit of the poor and, with her, left Aquitaine for Nola. Here, the husband and wife settled beside the Basilica of the Patron Saint, Felix, living henceforth in chaste brotherhood according to a form of life which also attracted others. The community’s routine was typically monastic, but Paulinus, who had been ordained a priest in Barcelona, took it upon himself despite his priestly status to care for pilgrims. This won him the liking and trust of the Christian community, which chose Paulinus, upon the death of the Bishop in about 409, as his successor in the See of Nola. Paulinus intensified his pastoral activity, distinguished by special attention to the poor

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As I’ve mentioned before, these General Audience talks of B16 were collected into books, and I did study guide for OSV’s edition. It’s out of print, and I have it available here, as a free download. Perhaps consider it for a parish study group? You don’t have to spend but a few cents – point folks to the talks online, download this and print it out, there you go.

The Paulinus-related pages are below.

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“…yeah….”

Saw John Wick 4 last night.

Better than watching the Vols lose, I suppose.

This is all I’m going to say about it. We’ll be spoiler-free here.

No, it’s not a spiritual journey. It’s…John Wick.

But what it shows, once again, is the truth of something I have been saying for years:

One of the post-Vatican II (here we go) tropes I lived through was the consistent denigration of physical expressions of faith, from medals and holy cards to church buildings themselves. People these days comment on this, but they never really seem to grasp the motivation – they rumble on about wreckovation and revolution without any attempt at all to look at what was actually being said and written at the time.

It was actually pretty simple: All of that stuff was an expression of, first, an immature faith that required “props” and externals. Secondly, all that stuff was time bound – it did not express the faith of Modern Man. Third, all of that stuff functioned as a distraction, a diversion. It lulled people into thinking they were practicing the faith, that they were faithful, but actually all they were doing was sitting in a pretty building, listening to nice music, not even actively participating, the horror. Fourth, it was essential that people get past all that to understand and live the reality of Church, which is the people of God, not a building.

It was absolutely necessary to strip all of that away so that we would grow up, recognize Christ in each other and in the community, witnessing to Christ in the modern world as modern people, who of course, as Modern People, have no use for those externals. They’re put off by all of that. That stuff is not what’s going to attract Modern Man.

Well, they were wrong, weren’t they?

This is a false dichotemy. For church buildings are witnesses to the presence of Christ in the world: in the middle of a city, in a neighborhood, in a suburb, on a rural road in the midst of cornfields.

And people – yes modern people in the 21st century – still see them, go to them, and experience them as such, even if they don’t believe. Even if it’s just functioning as a prop or a background –

…that prop or background is the most powerful and immediate way to connect action or an inner state with important, essential human experiences and promptings: contemplating love, death, meaning, purpose and connection.

And it’s not just cultural baggage. There really is something integral about the sights and sounds of traditional Christianity, east and west, that organically evokes and connects even non-believers to these truths and sensibilities.

So in John Wick 4 – you not only have John, in a candle-doused church (I mean…who lit all those candles? Who’s maintaining them? Okay, it’s a movie, I know….) musing to Caine, the blind assassin – Donnie Yen is the best part of the film, I think – about whether or not he can communicate with his dead wife, but you also have this….

I wish I had a screen shot – one might eventually turn up, but it hasn’t yet – but one of the final scenes of John Wick 4 has John sitting on the stairs in front of Sacre Coeur, the gleaming white church in the background, and not just because a huge fight scene has taken place on the 222 steps leading up to the basilica, but because….it’s an important moment. What’s below is a shot of filming from this website.

Whether the filmmakers intended it or not, whether it was chosen just because it was cool and because of those steps, this moment happening in this place carries a meaning that it wouldn’t if it were happening in front of another iconic Paris landmark like the Eiffel Tower. They can’t help it. It’s just there: built into the building that stands as a witness in the midst of the city, in the thick of the chaos, violence and death.

…yeah…..

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The Loyola Kids Book of Seasons, Feasts & Celebrations

It’s here!

So – let me tell you how it got here.

About two years ago – I just looked up the email, and yes, it was two years ago in April – a local man, a relation of one of my kids’ friends, had purchased a bunch of copies of some of my books, including Be Saints and the Loyola Kids Book of Heroes from me to distribute to kids in disadvantaged populations with whom he worked.

We exchanged emails about this, and in one he said, Unsolicited suggestion for a book in the future -“Children’s Book of Holidays and Holy Days…”

Me: Smacks forehead.

Of course. Why had I not thought of this before? So I pitched it, Loyola said yes, and here we are.

So, thank you!

And many thanks to Loyola for going with the idea, and of course, their great support over the years, not only for the books in this series, but in the other books I have published with them: The Words We Pray, The Catholic Woman’s Book of Days and the two Bible studies.

The Loyola Kids Book of Saints was published in 2001 and still sells very well! Over twenty years…not bad.

Anyway, you can get a closer look at the new book in the feature below. And since you’re here, I posted the Issuu videos on the other books as well.

Thank you for your support, for purchasing and sharing these books!

(Note: My links, if possible, do not go to Amazon, but to the publisher. I only link to Amazon when a book is out of print or it’s one I republished for Kindle. Please support your Catholic publishers and local booksellers.)

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