Blog by-the-Sea

Pope Benedict's Video Message to the U.S.

CNN posted the full video of the Holy Father's message to the U.S. today, which runs about 5-1/2 minutes.  The YouTube video shows the message without the ad.  The written text of the message is posted in a lot of places, including Vatican Radio, which also has an audio recording of the address playable on Real Player (click on the speaker at the end of the text).

The Easter Triduum in Rome

(Updated to include Holy Saturday and moved up.)

The Vatican has a web page on Holy Week 2008.  As the official translations become available, they are being posted there.  Sandro Magister also has a post with all 6 of the Pope's Holy Week homilies, including Palm Sunday, two on Holy Thursday, his address at the end of the Way of the Cross on Good Friday, and his homily from the Easter Vigil.

An Introduction to the Easter Triduum

This past Wednesday, the Holy Father spoke about the Easter Triduum in a greeting to students and in his catechesis for Wednesday's General Audience.  Zenit has a translation.  At the end of the audience, he said in English:

On Holy Thursday the Church recalls the Last Supper. At the Chrism Mass, the Bishop and his priests renew their priestly promises and the sacramental oils are blessed. The Mass of the Lord’s Supper commemorates Jesus’ institution of the sacrament of his Body and Blood and his commandment that we should love one another. On Good Friday, we ponder the mystery of sin as we listen to the account of the Lord’s passion and venerate the wood of his Cross. Holy Saturday, a day of silence and prayer, prepares for the joy of the Easter Vigil, when the light of Christ dispels all darkness, and the saving power of his Paschal Mystery is communicated in the sacrament of Baptism."

Holy Thursday

Catholic News Service has an article about the Holy Father's homilies at the Holy Thursday Chrism Mass and the Thursday evening Mass of the Lord's Supper.  Asia News also has an article.

Sandro Magister has English translations of the Holy Father's homilies at the Chrism Mass  and the Mass of the Lord's Supper, and Teresa Benedetta also has translations of both at Papa Ratzinger Forum.   At the Chrism Mass, the Pope spoke about the servant role of a priest, by knowing the Lord in His Word, closeness to Him, and obedience to Him.  He said that Jesus "illustrated the sum total of his supreme priesthood in the act of washing the Apostles' feet. With his act of love to the very end, he washes our dirty feet; with the humility of his service, he purifies us from our affliction with pride. And this he makes us worthy to sit at the table of God."

In the Mass of the Lord's Supper, he spoke again about the foot washing that is part of the Holy Thursday liturgy, and about the need all of us have for purification.  On the topic of prayer and purification, he said, "if we welcome Jesus’ words with an attitude of meditation, prayer and faith, they will develop in us their purifying strength."  Also from the Mass of the Lord's Supper:

"The debt that the Lord has condoned us is always infinitely greater than all the debts that others can owe us (cfr Mt 18, 21-35). This is what Maundy Thursday invites us to do: not to let rancor towards another become within us a poisoning of the soul. It exhorts us to purify our memory continually, forgiving each other from the heart, washing each other's feet, so that we can together present ourselves at God's banquet."

Good Friday

Father Raniero Cantalamessa, ofmcap, the Preacher of the Pontifical Household, delivered the homily at the Good Friday liturgy in St. Peter's Basilica.  Fr. Cantalamessa's website has an English translation of the homily, titled  "The Tunic Was Without Seam."  Here is an excerpt from it:

"If the unity of the disciples must be a reflection of the unity between Father and Son, it must above all be a unity of love, because such is the unity that reigns in the Trinity. Scripture exhorts us to "do the truth in love" -- 'veritatem facientes in caritate' (Ephesians 4:15). And Augustine affirms that 'one does not enter into the truth if not through charity' -- 'non intratur in veritatem nisi per caritatem.'"

Zenit has an English translation of Cardinal Zen's meditations for this year's Way of the Cross at the Colosseum.  There are some photos at Papa Ratzinger Forum.

Here is part of the prayer at the seventh station:

"The great Saints understood the saving value of the Cross so deeply that they could cry out: 'Either suffer or die!' Give us the grace at least to accept your invitation to carry our cross behind you. You prepared a personal cross for each one of us."

From the Holy Father's address at the end of the Way of the Cross (also available at the Sandro Magister website:

"The cross, fount of life and school of justice and peace, is the universal patrimony of pardon and mercy. It is permanent proof of a self-emptying and infinite love that brought God to become man, vulnerable like us, unto dying crucified."

Holy Saturday

In his Wednesday General Audience, the Holy Father said this about Holy Saturday (Zenit translation):

"Holy Saturday is marked by a deep silence. The Churches are left undecorated and there are no particular liturgies set aside for this day. While waiting for the Resurrection, the faithful persevere in the wait with Mary by praying and meditating. A day of silence is necessary to ponder the reality of human life, the forces of evil and the enormous power of good unleashed by the passion and resurrection of Christ."

Asia News has an article about the Easter Vigil.  The Vatican English translation of the entire text is online.  The Pope spoke about the Resurrection as uniting all baptized persons and believers, overcoming the differences between them, and even historical differences.  He spoke about the symbols involved in baptism, which are water and light (fire).  Finally, he spoke about the custom in the Early Church of turning toward the Lord in turning East, toward the rising sun, lifting up our hearts ("Sursum corda"), and being "converted ever anew."  Here is the final paragraph:

"In the early Church there was a custom whereby the Bishop or the priest, after the homily, would cry out to the faithful: "Conversi ad Dominum" – turn now towards the Lord. This meant in the first place that they would turn towards the East, towards the rising sun, the sign of Christ returning, whom we go to meet when we celebrate the Eucharist. Where this was not possible, for some reason, they would at least turn towards the image of Christ in the apse, or towards the Cross, so as to orient themselves inwardly towards the Lord. Fundamentally, this involved an interior event; conversion, the turning of our soul towards Jesus Christ and thus towards the living God, towards the true light. Linked with this, then, was the other exclamation that still today, before the Eucharistic Prayer, is addressed to the community of the faithful: "Sursum corda" – "Lift up your hearts", high above the tangled web of our concerns, desires, anxieties and thoughtlessness – "Lift up your hearts, your inner selves!" In both exclamations we are summoned, as it were, to a renewal of our Baptism: Conversi ad Dominum – we must distance ourselves ever anew from taking false paths, onto which we stray so often in our thoughts and actions. We must turn ever anew towards him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. We must be converted ever anew, turning with our whole life towards the Lord. And ever anew we must allow our hearts to be withdrawn from the force of gravity, which pulls them down, and inwardly we must raise them high: in truth and love. At this hour, let us thank the Lord, because through the power of his word and of the holy Sacraments, he points us in the right direction and draws our heart upwards. Let us pray to him in these words: Yes, Lord, make us Easter people, men and women of light, filled with the fire of your love. Amen."

Lord, Make Me Patient. Preferably Now.

This is the last of 3 posts on Lenten reflections based on concepts of virtues brought to mind by various people during this Lent.  The first two are Lord, Make Me Faithful and Lord,  Make Me Grace-ful.

This last post of the three is about patience.  That Lenten goal was raised for me by an e-mail I received early this month from Sandi Dolbee, the award-winning religious news reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune.  She had seen the blog and wanted to interview me for a story on patience. 

That article, titled "Patience Is a Virtue . . . so why is it so hard to wait?", was published in today's newspaper.  Her reference to me is only a short part of the story.  She also interviewed a clinical psychologist, a Buddhist nun, a theology professor, a rabbi and two Protestant ministers.  It is quite a good article for Holy Saturday, and I recommend it to you.

I will add only a thought from St. Teresa of Avila about learning patience, from The Way of Perfection (my emphasis added):

"Sometimes it seems not to matter in the least if people complain or speak ill of me, and, when the test comes, I still feel like this—indeed, I even get pleasure from it. And then there come days when a single word distresses me and I long to leave the world altogether, for everything in it seems to weary me. And I am not the only person to be like this, for I have noticed the same thing in many people better than myself, so I know it can happen.

That being so, who can say that he possesses any virtue, or that he is rich, if at the time when he most needs this virtue he finds himself devoid of it? No, sisters: let us rather think of ourselves as lacking it and not run into debt without having the means of repayment. Our treasure must come from elsewhere and we never know when God will leave us in this prison of our misery without giving us any. If others, thinking we are good, bestow favours and honours upon us, both they and we shall look foolish when, as I say, it becomes clear that our virtues are only lent us. The truth is that, if we serve the Lord with humility, He will sooner or later succour us in our needs. But, if we are not strong in this virtue, the Lord will leave us to ourselves, as they say, at every step. This is a great favour on His part, for it helps us to realize fully that we have nothing which has not been given us.

And now you must take note of this other piece of advice. The devil makes us believe that we have some virtue—patience, let us say—because we have determination and make continual resolutions to suffer a great deal for God’s sake. We really and truly believe that we would suffer all this, and the devil encourages us in the belief, and so we are very pleased. I advise you to place no reliance on these virtues: we ought not to think that we know anything about them beyond their names, or to imagine that the Lord has given them to us, until we come to the test. For it may be that at the first annoying word which people say to you your patience will fall to the ground. Whenever you have frequently to suffer, praise God for beginning to teach you this virtue, and force yourself to suffer patiently, for this is a sign that He wants you to repay Him for the virtue which He is giving you, and you must think of it only as a deposit, as has already been said."

 

Video: The Passion, with Psalm 51

psalm 51 ' Miserere mei.Deus' -Psaume 51
Uploaded by Catholique_Apostilic

Lord, Make Me Grace-ful

This is the second of three posts on my reflections on virtuous topics suggested to me by other people this Lent.  The first was Lord, Make Me Faithful.

The word "graceful" is defined by Merriam-Webster online as "displaying grace in form or action : pleasing or attractive in line, proportion, or movement." The linked definition for "grace" offers several meanings, and the first of them is "a: unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification b: a virtue coming from God c: a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace."  Then, even as the dictionary defines the word, "graceful" could mean displaying in form or action God's divine assistance, virtue, and sanctification.

To distinguish the word here from other meanings of "graceful," such as "attractive in line or proportion," I hyphenated the word into "grace-ful," meaning full of grace.

The meanings of the Greek word translated as "grace" in the New Testament, as shown in Strong's online, include that which affords joy, sweetness, loveliness; good will, loving-kindness, favour (including God's merciful kindness by which He turns souls to Christ and strengthens them in faith and the exercise of virtues); and the spiritual condition of someone who is governed by the power of divine grace.

St. John of the Cross wrote of grace as one of the means of God's presence, mentioned in a post a few weeks ago titled Nature, Contemplation and the Beauty of God:

In The Spiritual Canticle, 11:3, St. John of the Cross described three forms of God’s presence:

(1)    Presence by essence is God’s presence in all creatures.  “With this presence he gives them life and being.  Should this essential presence be lacking to them, they would all be annihilated.”

(2)    Presence by grace is God’s presence indwelling the faithful who do not fall into mortal sin.

(3)    Presence by love is God’s presence to devout souls in ways that refresh, delight and gladden them.

That earlier post talked about God's presence by essence, as He is omnipotent, omnipresent, and by Him all things hold together.  This post talks about God's presence as He indwells us by grace.  In it, according to St. John of the Cross, God "abides in the soul, pleased and satisfied with it."

Holy Week turns our thoughts of grace to Easter.  The price of God's grace was the Crucifixion.  It is in taking up our crosses and following Him that we become more like Him, acting in grace toward others: "displaying grace in form or action," to apply the Merriam-Webster definition of "graceful."  We reflect upon that Trinitarian grace that indwells us, and ponder the love of Christ who went to the cross to give us that grace.

St. Teresa of Avila also wrote about God's indwelling us by grace in Interior Castle, and St. Edith Stein drew from both St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila in her chapter on the presence of God in The Science of the Cross.  Applying what they wrote, St. Edith Stein said, "The indwelling by grace is possible only in personal-spiritual beings, for it requires the free acceptance of sanctifying grace by the recipient."  We can be grace-ful only by the free acceptance of sanctifying grace.  This is seen in the baptism of infants, where the parents freely accept God's grace for their child, and the child later ratifies that free acceptance by a life of faith.  The "life of grace and virtue," she says, is an effect of God's life within us. 

The entire Trinity indwells us in grace, according to those three saints. The love within the Trinity, as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit love each other in eternity, thus exists within our souls.

We might think of that indwelling by grace particularly as it relates to the union with God in prayer.  However, we should think too of how that indwelling works in our "lives of grace and virtue," as St. Edith Stein put it.  We live grace-ful lives in relationship with others when we freely accept God's sanctifying grace toward us and then, in turn, show grace freely offered to those around us.

Jesus showed grace to the thief on the cross.  He showed grace by dying for us while we were sinners.  He showed grace by appearing to His disciples in the Resurrection, even to Thomas who doubted, and to Peter who had denied Him.  Grace shows kindness to those who have not shown kindness to us.

St. John of the Cross' life and letters provide an example of how that grace can be lived out in our lives with those around us.  During his suffering later in life, he wrote to a Carmelite nun that she should not let what was happening to him cause her grief, for it did not cause any for him (Letter 26).  "Think nothing else but that God ordains all, and where there is no love, put love, and you will draw out love," he wrote to her.  The love that we can be sure to draw out is God's love.  He did not mean to suggest that we would get other people to like us better if we try to treat them well -- that may happen, or it may not, and it was not his point.  For love given in grace is not given in neediness for something in return from the one loved. 

St. John gave love where there was no love, and was thus the source of the light of Christ in the lives of others in their, and his, dark nights of the soul.  He was Christ's grace for them, full of grace, in that he gave love drawing from God's presence indwelling him in grace.  He sought thereby to gain a fuller indwelling of God's grace and to draw out more of God's love within himself. 

We too are grace-ful when we live toward others in grace, following Christ's example of love, where there is or is not love among people, where other people do or do not love us, knowing that the love of the Trinity is within the innermost part of our being, and that we will draw out love from the Trinity as we live grace-ful lives.

Abbot Joseph on the Days Before the Celebration of the Passion

From Word Incarnate:

"He would like to spend some quiet time with us as we prepare to enter into his Passion and Resurrection. Let us go to Ephraim with Him and stay there for a while, and let us profess our love for Him.  For soon the betrayer will be at hand…"

- Abbot Joseph, "An Interlude in Ephraim" about the days before celebrating the Passion of Our Lord.  Read all.

The Colosseum Way of the Cross for 2008

The Vatican's web page on The Way of the Cross has added the Presentation, Meditations, and list of people who will carry the cross for this year's Way of the Cross at the Colosseum.  They are presently posted only in Italian.  I will add a link to the English when available.

The Way of the Cross will be televised on Good Friday on EWTN at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time.  The Holy Father will present the meditations written by Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-Kiun, S.D.B., Archbishop of Hong Kong.

Lord, Make Me Faithful

Three different people have brought virtuous goals to my attention during this Lent, which is now drawing to conclusion.  They were proposed to me in three different contexts.  This post is a reflection on one of those three goals.  Reflections on the others will follow later this week, probably with the last one on Holy Saturday. 

They are: (1) Lord, make me faithful; (2) Lord, make me grace-ful; and (3) Lord, make me patient.

There is a difference, I was reminded a few weeks ago, between “perfection” and “faithfulness.”  I have thought about how to characterize that difference, and I think it has to do with the inherently inter-personal nature of faithfulness.  We are faithful to God, and we are faithful to a spouse, an employer, a client, a friend, our families.  Perfection may exist almost in a vacuum, except that then it truly can be sounding brass and clanging cymbals.  Perfection might be sought in a medieval anchorage alone, but faithfulness could be found there only in the company of God.

Faithfulness also entails being “full of faith.”  Faith is always faith in God, or faith in someone.  Such “faith” is associated with hope in Spe Salvi.  Faith entails that part of love that “hopes all things” concerning another person, as love is described in I Corinthians.  Our faithfulness toward God and toward others shows our hope in our future with them.

St. Edith Stein wrote of such faithfulness in one of her essays published in English translation in Knowledge and Faith, referring to the writers of Scripture.  “Now when we call the sacred authors themselves “faithful,” here, we mean that they led a life of faith before their extraordinary calling and after their calling they did not stop living from their faith.”  The momentary experience of light that they had in writing Scripture had lasting effects on them.

In our own lives too, being faithful implies living a life of faith in response to God’s calling (Rom. 8:28-30), and not merely living a life of moral perfection.

Pope/St. Gregory the Great wrote about the qualities of a faithful servant of God in leadership in his book Pastoral Care.  “Indeed, a servant is guilty of adulterous thought, if he craves to please the eyes of the bride when the bridegroom sends gifts to her by him,” he wrote, comparing those of his priests who would compromise the truth in order to win their parishioners’ favor, to an unfaithful servant of the Bridegroom who seeks to use the gift to win the bride’s heart for himself (Pastoral Care, Part II, Ch. 8).  Faithfulness to God and to others often means working to win their hearts for God and not for self, sometimes even at the cost of losing their favor for oneself.

Faithfulness implies service to the One whose glory we want more than we want our own.  It implies even giving up having a reputation for perfection in the eyes of other people in order to live a life of faith in response to God.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s story of her own quiet sacrifice for the good of another sister is an example of this.  One year in December, she was asked to come and help a gardener bring in the Christmas tree.  Recognizing that another Carmelite sister wanted to go, she purposefully dallied in untying her apron, giving the other nun a chance to quickly get ready and go to bring in the tree.  When someone complained that Thérèse was in no hurry to help, Thérèse said nothing.  As the community thought less of her, misjudging her motivation, she said, “Since that day, I have never again dared to judge anyone.”  She allowed other people to think less of herself as the best means of faithfulness to God and to her neighbor, and it changed her way of looking at other people’s actions in turn.  She learned from those who misjudged her to avoid judging other people in the same way.

Setting “perfection” as our goal may draw our attention to ourselves and our actions as they measure against the standard of perfection that we set for ourselves, or the standard of perfection that we understand God to set for us.  Setting “faithfulness” as our goal draws our attention more clearly to the person of God and the hope we have in Him and in others around us day by day.

That is not to say that I, or others, meet either of those goals entirely in this life – we do not.  Nor is it to say that perfection is not a worthy goal, when perfection is viewed in the Gospel sense of "holiness" (Matt. 5:48, Lev. 11:45).  Instead, we may seek, during Lent and throughout the year, to become a little more holy, a little more perfect, a little more faithful, with God’s help as we seek to imitate Christ and to become a little more like Him.

Through part of this particular Lent, one of the thoughts on which I have meditated has been faithfulness and what it means to become more faithful in living.  This post is a product of that reflection.

Online Resources for Ash Wednesday and Lent

This post originally included online resources for Ash Wednesday, including a few resources for the rest of Lent.  I have added more resources for Lent and moved it to the top.  I am planning to add more links later.

EWTN:

EWTN's upcoming specials include the Ash Wednesday solemn mass, blessing and imposition of ashes from Pope Benedict XVI at the Basilica Santa Sabina, Rome.  The live broadcast will be at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time. The show will be rebroadcast at 6:30 p.m. Eastern.  (Those broadcast times are 7:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Pacific. 4:30 p.m. is the time for the live broadcast in Europe.)

EWTN will also broadcast the Wednesday weekly audience, which will be at 4:30 a.m. Eastern (1:30 a.m. Pacific).

EWTN is available live online with English or Spanish commentary.

Documents on Ash Wednesday online.

Fr. Benedict Groeschel's Daily Podcasts for Lent

Vatican Radio:

The Ash Wednesday General Audience and Mass (mentioned above for EWTN television broadcast online) can also be accessed by Vatican Radio online here.  These broadcasts are in Italian.

USCCB

Readings for Mass

Lenten Resources

Committee on Divine Worship Resource for Lent and Easter

Aid to the Church in Central and Eastern Europe (collection in most U.S. parishes on Ash Wednesday or the first Sunday of Lent)

Vatican

Pope Benedict XVI's Message for Lent

Page on Lent 2008   

Catholic Encyclopedia

Ash Wednesday

Lent

National Catholic Register

Guide for Lent

Against the Grain

Lent 2008

Ignatius Insight

Lent: Why the Christian Must Deny Himself by Austin G. Murphy, O.S.B.

Please, Don't Tempt Me!: A Lenten Reflection by Carl E. Olson

Supernatural Will Power: A Lenten Reflection by Carl E. Olson

Pastoral Liturgy

The Role of Silence in Lenten Liturgies

Liturgy and the Way of the Cross

What It Means to Be "Entering Lent"

In his reflection before praying the Angelus today, the Holy Father said that entering Lent means "starting a time of particular commitment to spiritual combat  against evil in the world, in each of us and around us" in which we must "recognize our own responsibilities and consciously take appropriate charge."

He spoke of this year's 150th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady at Lourdes, and of tomorrow's celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes as well as the World Day of Prayer for the Sick.

He also mentioned that he will begin his annual Lenten spiritual exercises this evening, and thanked those who will remember him in prayer.

An article is available from Asia News.  Full translations are available at Zenit and Papa Ratzinger Forum.