The Easter Itinerancy

(An old post updated)

Every year on this holy night I reflect on the grace of itinerancy that the Holy Spirit has given me; only twice in my whole baptism have I been in the same place for the Easter Vigil for more than two years in a row. When I think about all the places I've been for the Vigil, it puts me in awe of God and in a state of gratitude for my journey.

Here's my Easter Vigil history:

• 2026: Sacred Heart, Yonkers, NY (concelebrant)
• 2025: Sacred Heart, Yonkers, NY (celebrant)
• 2024: Sacred Heart, Yonkers, NY (concelebrant; first time in charge of RCIA)
• 2023: Annunciation, Crestwood, Yonkers, NY (concelebrant)
• 2022: Our Lady of Sorrows, White Plains, NY
• 2021: Our Lady of Sorrows, White Plains, NY
  
  
• 2020: (COVID-19 pandemic, prayed what is provided in the Liturgy of the Hours for qui sollemni Vigilæ paschali non interfuerunt)
• 2019: Basilica of St. Teresa of Ávila, Rome
• 2018: Basilica of St. Camillo de Lellis, Rome
• 2017: Basilica of St. Camillo de Lellis, Rome (in the 25th year of my baptism)
• 2016: Capuchin General Curia, Rome (concelebrant)
  
  
  

Venerable Gaetano Tantalo

Some weeks ago I visited an older parishioner in her home. As were were chatting, I noticed pictures of two priests displayed in the room.

The priest on the right I recognized, of course, as our own Padre Pio. But who was the priest on the left?

"Oh, that's Fr. Gaetano Tantalo. He was our parish priest when I was growing up in Italy. He was a very holy priest and he's going to be a saint."

And so I learned about Don Gaetano Tantalo, how he had made friends with Jewish families in his youth, shielded people from deportation, and even looked to the religious needs of the Jews under his protection.

Pope St. John Paul II declared him venerable in 1995, and the cause for beatification remains open. Fr. Tantalo is also a Righteous Among the Nations.

For the article about Fr. Tantalo on Italian Wikipedia, click here.

For the Yad Vashem article, click here.

RIP: Fr. Raphael Iannone, OFM Cap.

Homily for the funeral Mass of +Fr. Raphael Iannone, OFM Cap.

This is a humbling task. Certainly there are many of you, friars and otherwise, who knew Fr. Raphael better than I did. I mostly knew him as our postulant director at St. Michael’s, and as I reflected on what to say today, three memories of Fr. Raphael came to mind from that time.

First, let me tell you how I hit it off with Fr. Raphael at the beginning of the postulant year. Before this, when we were candidates, we had many of our discernment weekends at the old St. Francis friary in Garrison. Taking it all in on those stays, I noticed, among many other things, the images of the Capuchin saints in the hallways of the place. Often they had a crucifix. That’s easy, I said to myself, I have a crucifix. But they also often had, on a desk or somewhere around, a skull as a memento mori. That I didn’t have. So before entering the postulancy program, I looked in a science teacher supply catalog and ordered myself a realistic-looking plastic skull.

Then, when I was moving into St. Michael’s, Fr. Raphael saw the skull on my desk and asked me about it.

I replied, “I saw the skulls in the pictures of the Capuchin saints and I thought you needed one.” He looked at me, I looked at him, he looked at me, and then he just burst out laughing. I felt accepted right away. Fr. Raphael had the gift of making you feel that, accepted.

Here’s the second memory. Early on in the postulancy year my mother came to visit the friary. Now my family isn’t Catholic, so this whole friar thing that I’ve done with my life was a curious unknown to them. But this has never been a concern; the friars have always been friendly and hospitable, regular people. (This in itself taught me something about this group, about its generosity and openness.)

So my mother came down to St. Michael’s to see the place and have supper with us postulants and the friars. A few days later I called her to check in about it. How did she find the visit?

“Oh,” she said, “it was delightful. Everyone was so nice, they gave me a glass of wine, and both Fr. Bill (the other postulant director) and Fr. Raphael gave me a kiss. But I think Fr. Raphael meant it more.”

You can see it, right? Fr. Raphael just had that classic, Franciscan, earthy goodness.

My third memory is from closer to the end of the postulant year. I was walking by Raphael’s room, which was a sight in itself–the huge desk in the middle of the room, placed at a curious angle to the rest of the space, what he called his ‘rock collection’ over in a corner, and the World Wrestling Federation throw rug adorning the floor.

But that day there was an unusual sight: Fr. Raphael sitting behind the desk, looking uncharacteristically subdued and pensive. Was he ok? Should I ask? Maybe that’s not my place. He’s the director and I’m a postulant. He’s the guardian and I’m not even a friar yet. Maybe I should get one of the friars to see if he’s ok?

By God’s grace, the courage came, and I went in and asked Fr. Raphael if he was ok. For his part, he just opened up. He was upset because he had to tell one of the postulants to go home.

See, Fr. Raphael loved us, postulants in his charge, he really loved us. And it gave him great pain to have to tell one of us it was time to depart from the formation program.

As I’ve reflected from time to time over the years on this brief encounter between me and Fr. Raphael, I’ve come to realize that it was an important moment in my initial formation, in my learning about our Capuchin charism of evangelical fraternity, gospel brotherhood.

Because at that moment it was less a meeting between a guardian and a brother in the house, between a director and a postulant, and more just an encounter between two disciples of Jesus Christ, one who was bearing the cross of that day–that is to say the intersection of love and suffering in his own consecrated life–and this is also important, willing and vulnerable, like the Lord himself in the gospel we heard, to be seen in that intersection of agony and love–and another disciple given the grace to witness and give reverence to that embrace of the cross.

In this I learned that part of our charism, our mission as lesser brothers, is just that, to encounter, witness, and revere the intersections of love and suffering among ourselves and in the people and places we live in and serve, for this is to encounter and revere the Cross of Jesus Christ, the Cross which is the Sacrifice that saves the world.

Thank you, Fr. Raphael.

For the obituary, click here.

RIP: Fr. Stanley Marrow, SJ

(Original post from 2012)

Today there was news of the death of one of our favorite teachers, Fr. Stanley Marrow, SJ. A seemingly cantankerous but really very gracious old Iraqi, every student he ever had is full of his sayings.

The last time I saw Stanley, on a visit to the old Jesuit home, he showed me a manuscript that he had just completed. A commentary on 1 Corinthians, I think it was. He remarked how nobody would publish it. Not the conservative presses, he said, because his exegesis proved the non-existence of the sacrament of penance, and not the liberal ones, because he insisted on calling God 'Father.' In this, as in everything else, he was the consummate iconoclast. He was very insistent on the God the Father thing. When he thought our more progressively-styled school Masses were ashamed of it, he declined to attend, saying that he worshiped a different God. I remember once when he did come to a school Mass, he remarked that the music sounded like "something from a Moroccan whorehouse."

During the same visit that I mentioned above, Stanley told me that he was praying for death. But, he said, the answer to his prayers thus far had only been, "Please stay on the line; your business is important to us." 

Underneath all the humor, though, was a very serious scholar of the Scriptures, and that's something we younger folks sometimes forget. You don't just get to be an iconoclast. You have to work for the privilege, and work long and hard.

When I was a new priest, Stanley sent me one of the most beautiful and encouraging notes I have ever received:

Before all else, congratulations! One of my fellow-ordinands, a man of extreme emotional reserve, remarked after the ceremony, "Now I know what Rahner means when he speaks of the 'physical redundancy' of grace." I shall offer my Mass for you some day this week, and ask the "author of our calling" to make your priestly ministry the unfailing source of your peace and joy. God has blessed you with an abundance of gifts, and the great beneficiary of that abundance will be those he entrusts to your pastoral solicitude. May you find in your selfless service of them the infinite satisfaction of saying, "We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty."

The quotes could go on and on. But I always respected how he responded when he was asked how he saw his work as a professor of Sacred Scripture: he said that it was his mission to minimize the damage his students were going to do to God's people.

Requiescat in pace.

2025 UPDATE: I missed this until now, but the manuscript mentioned above was published. In the foreword, Fr. Thomas Stegman, SJ (may he also rest in peace), alludes to the difficulties.

Paul for Today's Church: A Commentary on First Corinthians

How to go to Confession

What follows is an excerpt from the book, Happiness in Holiness: A little guide to holiness of life for members of the Third order of Saint Francis and for other devout souls, edited by Rev. Apollinaris Baumgartner, O.M. Cap.* (who was later the first bishop of the diocese of Agaña, Guam), published in 1930, which purports to be an adaptation of Conduite intérieure pour toutes les actions de la journée, by Very Rev. Joseph of Dreux, O.M. Cap,* first published in 1667.

The following is attributed to St. Bonaventure, though without citation.

"Confess with simplicity as if you were speaking to an angel who knew all your secrets. Do not draw the veil of excuse over your actions and do not seek to diminish the gravity of your faults. Specify your sins but do not give the history of them. Do not enter into superfluous details and do not tell the sins of others. Acknowledge briefly and directly the faults you remember to have have committed since your last confession: but do not make a long series of of general statements such as: 'I have not loved God sufficiently well, etc.' 'I have not fervor enough, etc. ...' You may accuse yourself of such faults to God in prayer. In a word, let your confession be sincere, humble, and brief."

The book goes on:

"Listen with humility and gratitude to the admonitions of your confessor, being careful not to interrupt him repeatedly by saying, 'Yes, Father.' When the confessor imposes a penance upon you excite yourself to humility at the thought that it is in order to condescend to your weakness that he places such a slight burden on you.

"When you receive absolution, place yourself in spirit at the foot of the Cross of Christ and recite more with your heart than your lips, the act of contrition. The Precious Blood of our Lord is poured forth on your soul because its merits are applied to you when the priest pronounces the words of absolution.

"Leave the confessional giving thanks to God, and imploring Him to confirm in heaven, in accordance with the promise of Jesus Christ, the absolution which the priest has pronounced over you. Renew your resolve to amend your life, and make one practical resolution to which you will attend particularly until your next confession. Carry it out promptly and respond to the grace you have just received. Say your penance with devotion and ask God to accept it favorably, even though it is so small and inadequate. Offer some little sacrifice or some penance which you will perform that day in order to make up for what is wanting in your sacramental penance.

"Leave the church with the firm purpose of never again committing what you have confessed, lest falling back into the same faults you may become unworthy of God's mercy: 'Behold thou art made whole: sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee.' (John v. 14.)"

*O.M. Cap. is an older postnominal for the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, now O.F.M. Cap.

An Alternate Conversion Story

As I've mentioned various times on this tired old blog, the telling of my conversion story, whether to myself or others, has been a fascinating part of the journey. What I mean is that the story changes; it deepens and develops as time passes and I gain perspective, make new connections, and come to name broader economies of grace.

Recently I've been reflecting on an entirely different account of how I came to be a Christian and a Catholic. I'm fairly certain there's some truth to it.

A few years before my parents were married, my father converted to Judaism. The only religious affiliation I know of before that was with the Unitarians where he grew up. My mother says that the conversion was for a woman he had hoped to marry at the time, and I don't doubt that this is true, but it must have been something more than just that, for when I was a child my father had some Jewish practice about him, if not much. He lit the menorah at Hanukkah and said the prayers. I also remember him looking out the front window and saying prayers of some sort around Passover. But these seemed to be private things; he didn't invite anyone to participate and didn't seem interested in explaining or sharing what he was doing. As I grew up, these practices faded away.

Years later, after I had grown up and been baptized in the Catholic Church, my mother showed me a document my father had signed before a rabbinical tribunal at the time of his conversion. Among other things, the document indicated a promise. If God were to give my father a son, he would bring him into the covenant and raise him as a proper Jew.

A few years I was born and God had given my father that son.

I find it rather surprising that my father, who was a loyal person and someone who very much believed that people ought to do what they said they would, made little to no effort to be faithful to this promise in my regard, to which he had affixed his signature in the presence of those rabbis. Yes, he took me to Hebrew school a couple of times when I was little, but I think he didn't approve of the program himself, so that didn't last. There was no sabbath nor temple or synagogue, and certainly no bar mitzvah in my childhood.

On the contrary, growing up I had a very clear sense that I was a 'none.' Other people seemed to belong to this or that religion, but not me. I did find this curious as a child, and remember asking my parents about it. They said that they believed this was an adult decision someone should make for themselves when they grew up, though I don't think they expected this to actually happen.

All of this leads me to a new account of my own conversion. Our Heavenly Father, seeing my earthly father's negligence with regard to his religious promise concerning me, had pity on me and gave me the grace of an invitation to become that curious sort of eschatological Jew we call a Christian, such that I would be baptized into Jesus Christ and thus made an heir, in Him, of the covenants and a member of the Israel of God. (Galatians 6:16)

RIP: Joe Zepf

The other day I happened to see that Joseph R. Zepf had passed away at the age of ninety-nine. He was the best spiritual director I have ever had. He was wise, practical, and funny.

For his obituary, click here. I had no idea he had led such a rich life.

I connected with Mr. Zepf at some point in the later 1990s, during the period in between my times in religious life. In those days the Archdiocese of New York had a very neat spiritual direction matchmaking service. You went somewhere in Rye, New York and met with this sister. She asked you about your prayer life, its forms and rhythms and so on. She asked about your favorite saints and what spiritual books had most influenced you. Then she said, well, give me some time to pray and reflect on this. In my case she called a couple of weeks later, said that she was confident she had discerned the right director for me, and sent me to Mr. Zepf.

I met with him at a parish office in Port Chester, New York. I don't remember what parish it was. It was a bit of a drive from West Haven, Connecticut where I was living at the time, but very much worth it.

Those soon became the days when I was thinking about applying to the Capuchins. I had left the novitiate of the OFM at Christmas 1995 and though I continued to desire Franciscan religious life, the difficulties and confusions surrounding that experience had left me skittish about trying again.

One time I asked Mr. Zepf directly, did he think I should join the Capuchins?

"How should I know? If it's going to help you get closer to Jesus, then do it."

I entered the Capuchin postulancy in the summer of 2000. From where we were in East New York, Brooklyn, I was about the same distance to Port Chester as I had been in West Haven. Unfortunately, however, my Capuchin formators wouldn't let me keep Mr. Zepf. In their estimation, he didn't have the right credentials in spiritual direction. This annoys me a little bit to this day.

Lux æterna luceat ei.

Greccio at 800

(This is a reflection I prepared for our quarterly magazine, The Capuchin Journey)

One of St. Francis of Assisi’s early biographers, Brother Thomas of Celano, relates how St. Francis, three years before his passing from this life, planned and celebrated Christmas in the little hill town of Greccio, located about halfway between Rome and Assisi. Three years before his death would make that the Christmas of 1223, of which we mark and celebrate the eighth centenary this year.

St. Francis enlisted the help of local friend, a certain nobleman named John, to help gather everything that was necessary for his idea of putting together a living nativity scene. St. Francis exclaimed,

“I wish to enact the memory of the babe who was born in Bethlehem: to see as much as possible with my own bodily eyes the discomfort of his infant needs, how he lay in a manger, and how, with an ox and an ass standing by, he rested on hay.” (1)

This desire, to know and to feel the love and suffering of Jesus, to follow in his footprint, was Francis’s particular devotion to Christ and his vocation in him. This desire was most perfectly realized in Francis’s experience of the stigmata, which, as St. Bonaventure writes, transformed the lover, Francis, into the image of the Beloved, Christ. (2)

When that Christmas Eve arrived, everything was prepared according to St. Francis’s expressed wish. The ox and the ass were led to the spot, the local faithful approached with lamps and torches for light, and the holy Mass of the vigil of Christmas was celebrated over a manger filled with hay. St. Francis himself sang the gospel of that holy night, and preached with remarkable devotion and sweetness on the King born poor, the ‘babe of Bethlehem’ whom Francis loved and desired with all his heart. It is said that contact with the hay from the manger subsequently restored many animals to good health, and even some people as well.

A curious and yet beautiful vision came to pass during the celebration. One of those present and at prayer, perhaps John of Greccio himself, (3) the friend who had helped St. Francis prepare for that night, saw a baby, apparently lifeless in the manger. St. Francis approached the vision, touched the baby, and awakened him from a deep sleep. St. Bonaventure writes that St. Francis even picked up the baby to embrace him. (4)

The early Franciscan writers note that this vision of St. Francis awakening the child suited the Christmas moment because of Francis’s mission to awaken the presence of Christ in the hearts of many, to stir up in their souls the love of God and devotion to the newborn Christ of Bethlehem. This invitation remains for us today—an invitation, as we approach Christmas ourselves and the eighth centenary of the celebration at Greccio—to allow the example and devotion of Francis of Assisi to stir up to new life the presence of Christ in our hearts.

As we set up our own nativity scenes in our homes, or as we pray before them in our churches, let us ask the Holy Spirit for some small share of St. Francis’s own desire to see with his own bodily eyes the hiddenness and poverty of the Lord born in Bethlehem, and even the ‘discomfort of his infant needs’, born away from home and in a place where there was no room for him or his parents at the inn. And may we also find the answer to this prayer in a renewed vision of the suffering Christ in the poor of our neighborhoods and our country as well as in the fear and terror of those in places, much in our thoughts these days, that are suffering the horror of war.

We need not fear our hearts breaking as we contemplate these sufferings of Christ in the peoples of this world, for if we allow our hearts to break open, we also have hope, and indeed a saving hope. For open hearts are ready to receive the Holy Spirit. And just as at Christmas the Holy Spirit conceives the Word of God as the human life of Jesus of Nazareth, anointing him as Lord and Savior of the world, so the same Spirit, in the same way, can conceive the presence of God in us, making of us Christians, anointed members of Christ after Christ’s own Heart, awakening in us the presence of Jesus.

Opening ourselves to the Holy Spirit in this way as we approach another Christmas, we can let the Spirit make of our own hearts a living nativity scene, a little ‘Greccio’. And if we fear that our hearts might not be fit for God because they can sometimes harbor darkness or even be a little cold at times, let us rejoice, for the good news of Bethlehem is that it is precisely in such places that God wills—indeed desires—to born among us. In this awareness of the littleness and the poverty of our inner self, where Christ wishes to be born and abide—in order to make us a dwelling place for God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:22)—we can marvel with St. Francis at the humility and poverty of the God who empties himself into the poverty of our little hearts, so that by his poverty, you might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9) in blessing and grace.

Then, having celebrated Christmas within, having prepared a little ‘Greccio’ in our hearts where God hides and makes himself little in order to glorify our littleness and poverty from the inside, let us let that love of God out, into the outside, where the ‘infant needs’ of Christ are heard in the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. In this way, the Love of God, made incarnate for us at Christmas, may continue to take flesh in the gentleness and charity we reflect out toward a suffering world.

_____

1. Francis of Assisi: Early Documents. Vol. I: The Saint. Eds. Regis J. Armstrong, O.F.M. Cap., J. A. Wayne Hellman, O.F.M. Conv., and William J. Short, O.F.M. (New York: New City Press, 1999), 255. (Hereafter FA:ED.)

2. FA:ED, vol. II: The Founder, 710

3. FA:ED, vol. I: The Saint, 256, footnote c.

4. FA:ED, vol. II: The Founder, 610.

Retreat Report

Last week I was at St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts for my annual retreat. I've been there for retreat many times, but had not been for twelve years (living in Italy, Covid, and so on). It was a very good week with lots of time for prayer, reading, and reflection.

The monks made some improvements to the retreat house over its Covid closure, including an expansion of the retreatants' dining room, which used to be a little cramped when there was a full house. They also cleaned up the inner courtyard, which, if I remember correctly, was rather overgrown before. It's lovely now and you can sit out there on a nice day.

I had one of the rooms on the west side of the retreat house that have a little tiny enclosed backyard, I guess so you can pretend you're a Carthusian. The weather was good all week so I was able to leave my back door open at night (there's a screen door) and enjoy the cool air and the sounds of nature.

The back door to my room from my little backyard

It was good to see the monks again, and I recognized a few of them from past visits, though I don't know their names for the most part. They had aged, as I suppose I have as well. One monk introduced himself to me when we were cleaning up after lunch one day, and explained how he had followed his brother, a TOR Franciscan, into religious life. He said that he had been in the monastery for fourteen years, which means he may have been a novice the last time I was on retreat there. He then explained how he had only recently been ordained a priest, within the last year. I thought of asking him for his blessing, but I was worried about the other retreatants getting the idea and it becoming a scene. But maybe I should have done it. As old Fr. John Proppe, may he rest in peace, once told me, "The blessing of a new priest is worth wearing out two horses."

I saw that there was a novice. Novices stick out in choir with the white scapular. On Thursday there also appeared in choir a tall young man in secular clothes, with a beard that would make a Capuchin novice proud. Maybe he's discerning. One time when I was walking into church I saw the novice helping him find his place in the book, and that gave me delight. Let's pray for the two of them and thank God for their vocations.

The meals were in silence, of course. On my past retreats we have listened to an audio book, but this time it was music. On one day we started listening to N.T. Wright's Paul: A Biography, but after that it was back to music. There was no explanation for this. I was a little disappointed because I had found the beginning of the book entertaining. Then I thought I would buy the book and finish it myself when I got home, but I haven't done it yet. I have to decide if I'm curious enough for $15.95 (Kindle edition). Maybe the monks and the publisher are in cahoots. They get you hooked on a book, and so forth.

There were two special events during the week. The first was the solemnity of the dedication of the abbey church on the first full day of the retreat.

At the first vespers of this observance, which was the first evening of the retreat, we retreatants were pretty confused about where we were in the psalter, but we seemed to have figured it out by lauds in the morning. I overheard someone saying that there were certain candles around the church that are only lit on this day each year.

The second special event was the resumption of communion under both kinds, presumably post-Covid. While the priest monks were vesting for Mass on the last morning of the retreat, a monk approached us retreatant-concelebrants in the corner of the sacristy where the albs and stoles are set up for retreatants. (When you register for a retreat, you are asked your height so that an appropriate alb can be set out for you.) The monk instructed us that, starting on that day, we would not receive by intinction, but should consume the host and then drink from the chalice. This went fine for us concelebrants when the time came, but something seemed to go wrong with the logistics of the communion of the other monks and the people in the visitors' galleries. I saw the abbot gesturing to the various priest monks who were ministering Holy Communion as if to redirect them to certain places. He also seemed to be trying to get the attention of the principal celebrant as he descended to the monks and retreatants who were lined up, but in vain. At this the abbot let out what seemed like a sigh of resignation. So it's not just friars, I thought. At that moment I recalled a previous conversation with the monk who was the principal celebrant, in which he exclaimed, "I am a free dancer." It seemed like an odd thing for a Trappist to say. That story is back in this post. 

There was a full house of eleven retreatants. Five of us were priests, or at least five concelebrated at Mass. Of the other six I gathered that two or three were permanent deacons. There seemed to be a couple of groups of two or three on retreat together. Retreatants there together always means more talking, unfortunately, and we were admonished about this in the middle of the week. It was far, however, from the worst group in this regard I have been with on retreat at the abbey. That's another story. I seemed to remember that at previous last breakfasts before departure we were allowed or instructed to talk so one could meet the others he had been praying with (and hopefully for) all week, but in any case it didn't happen this time. It was the usual music, so I finished the retreat without getting to know any of the other retreatants. I prayed for them, though, during the week, for their openness to and discernment of the graces God desired for them during our time at the abbey.

Bl. Giacinto Longhin on the Universal Call to Holiness

Today we have something of an embarrassment of riches in the Capuchin calendar, with two optional memorials of Capuchin blesseds. There's Blessed James of Ghazir (1875-1954), who was called 'the Lebanese St. Vincent de Paul', as well as Blessed Giacinto Longhin (1863-1936) who was bishop of Treviso, Italy.

Just for fun, I decided to translate Blessed Giacinto's reading for the Office of Readings today. (You see, here in the anglosphere, our superiors don't love us enough to provide officially updated Capuchin liturgical propers. It's one area, anyway, in which the Italians are ahead of us.)

Holiness in the Christian and religious life is an obligation. Our ignorance and acedia makes us believe that holiness isn’t possible for us, because we imagine ourselves in ecstasy, as if to be saints we need to have the gift of raptures or of visions or of prophecy or of miracles; we imagine ourselves on the cross, as if it were necessary to make great fasts or perform austerities and penances with the discipline unto blood, with hair shirts, and so on. It’s a trick.

Holiness consists in simpler things that are within everyone’s reach. It is not said to anyone: whip yourself, fast, go into ecstasy … no, this is asked of no one. It is said only that you love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and that you love your neighbor as yourself. It is in this that all the perfection and true holiness of the Christian life is found. 

Who in the world can say that they can’t love the Lord? To please him by doing his will shown to us in the commandments of the Decalogue, by the holy Church, and by our legitimate superiors? Who can say, I am not able to avoid deliberate venial sin and failures in charity, humility and obedience?

St. Thomas, to a sister who asked how she could become a saint, said: If you wish! Do you understand, my dear Maria? If you will to become a saint, it’s done. Grace will not be lacking for you and with grace we are all-powerful.

Moments of Grace

Update to this old post below. As part of my World Day of Prayer for Vocations homily this weekend, I used the story of the kid in the library. Just for fun, I looked him up to see if I could find out what he is up to thirty years later. I found his LinkedIn page. He's an employment counselor. How fitting!

Old post:

The other day there was a program on TV about St. Maria Goretti. At one point it showed a picture of the priest who gave Maria her first Holy Communion. He looked like a regular, unremarkable priest. I was thinking about him a little. In all of the joys and struggles of his life, whatever they were, in all of the highs and lows of his vocation, that particular moment, when he ministered first Holy Communion to Maria Goretti, was probably one of the most important moments of his life. What I mean is that it was so from God's perspective, from the point of view of the larger economies of grace.

I think that we're often unaware of the way God wishes to make instruments of us in particular moments with one another. God knows that it works better this way, without the interior tangles of pious self-awareness. In the economies by which God pours out his own sanctity in the world, we never know how God is making use of us.

Here's an example from my own life. When I was a senior in college I was considering religious life. There was another kid among the philosophy majors who had been a seminarian. I didn't really know him. One night we ran into each other in the library. He asked me if it was true, that I was thinking of entering religious life. I said that it was. "Good luck with your vocation," he said.

For him it was surely an offhand comment, but for me it made a big difference. Your vocation. It made the whole business real. I had been considering religious life, for sure, but as my idea. The idea of being a Franciscan friar attracted me, and so I was thinking of trying it out. I remember standing there after the guy walked away, jarred by the idea of having a vocation, a call from God. He had named something for me with a clarity that I hadn't known. God used him to accomplish an important grace for me at that moment, probably without his having any idea.

This is why it's good to pray that God guide our speech and interaction with others, and that we work whatever spiritual practices we need to stay open and attentive when we are with one another. Nevertheless, we may not be aware of the graces God works through us, and mercifully so. God keeps us ignorant of these movements a lot of the time, saving us not only from temptations to vanity but also keeping us from messing up the plainness of grace with the clumsiness of self-conscious piety. So we may get to heaven and find out that the most graced moments of our lives were things we hadn't even thought about. In fact, we may as well presume that this will be the case; it will help us to be humble on this pilgrimage and keep us from taking what we know of ourselves as graced before God, which is very little, too seriously.

Advent Ramble

Advent brings a new year of grace with its promise of a new beginning for each of us. May we enter into this privileged season that the Church calls a time of "devout and expectant delight." (Universal Norms for the Liturgical Year)

In my early experience of religious life it was beat into us that Advent wasn't a penitential season. Like a lot of what I was taught early on, this needs more nuance. Certainly Advent is a time for metanoia, for turning our attention toward the One who is our deepest delight, to a stance of devout expectation for the God who is arriving fresh in each moment. As John the Baptist will cry out on the Second Sunday of Advent, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

At hand. The Kingdom is perpetually about to be. This is the patient and humble God who awaits the friendship of those who will surrender to his kingship in their hearts in whatever the next moment is for them, whether it be prayer or work or rest, or especially a moment of encounter with another soul.

This attentiveness to the God who is arriving, this adventitious God, is the spiritual work of those of us who live in this graced and blessed time in between the first and second comings of Christ. Advent invites us to a contemplative attentiveness in this in-betweenness, as we look back with joy to the humility of the incarnation and forward to the glory of the final fulfillment of everything in Christ.

This attentiveness in quiet prayer is what makes a space for God to be born anew in our own hearts. And if our hearts are sometimes dark or cold, let us rejoice all the more, for that is just the sort of place God wills to be born.

As one of my Capuchin formation directors told us at the beginning of Advent, "Let us begin again for the first time."

Preparing the Way of the Lord

“John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (Luke 3:3)

John the Baptist is one of the central characters of Advent; he is the Forerunner who prepares the way of the Lord. By repentance and the forgiveness of sins we too prepare ourselves as a place for the Lord to be born anew. By repentance, because when we let go of sin and attachment we make room in our minds and hearts, preparing a space for God within. By receiving forgiveness, because it is by experiencing God’s mercy that we are able to mirror that mercy to others; knowing God’s mercy in our own lives, we become ourselves the way that the Lord prepares for divine mercy to come into the world.

(reflection prepared for our vocation office's social media)

Life After Traditionis Custodes

The other day I received a request: would I be willing, at some point in the near future, to celebrate a Mass in the Extraordinary Form?

First of all, I presume what was meant was would I celebrate a Mass according to the 1962 Missal, what was called the 'Extraordinary Form' before Traditionis custodes.

As I started to consider the request I came to realize that the motu proprio doesn't seem to address my situation. The letter gives direction to two kinds of priests:

Art. 4. Priests ordained after the publication of the present Motu Proprio, who wish to celebrate using the Missale Romanum of 1962, should submit a formal request to the diocesan Bishop who shall consult the Apostolic See before granting this authorization.

Art. 5. Priests who already celebrate according to the Missale Romanum of 1962 should request from the diocesan Bishop the authorization to continue to enjoy this faculty.

I take the sense of Article 5 as celebrating in this way regularly or habitually. I have never celebrated Mass in the Extraordinary Form publicly. Ordained right around the time of Summorum pontificum, I learned the older form, curious as I was about this new faculty granted by Pope Benedict, practiced, and celebrated privately a few times. But I haven't done so since leaving the parish assignment in 2010 (I had access to a number of fitting altars there). I also tried to learn the Breviarium Romanum and prayed some of my hours from the Breviarium Romano-Seraphicum sometimes, especially for the little hours, until on my reading of Universae Ecclesiae I decided that such mixing and matching wasn't really allowed.

In the end I'm glad for these inspirations because I learned a lot about the Mass and even got free chant lessons at one of the Extraordinary Form groups in Boston during my period in the doctoral program at Boston College. And perhaps the "mutual enrichment" that Benedict hoped for in Summorum pontificum has thus been accomplished in my priesthood. Given the closeness I feel to the Pope Emeritus, to know that would give me encouragement and comfort.

So where does Traditionis custodes leave a priest found already ordained upon its publication but not celebrating according to what was, until that day, called the Extraordinary Form? I'm honestly not sure. Am I like a new priest, needing the permission of the bishop confirmed by the Holy See in order to celebrate with the 1962 Missal, or am I like a priest who was celebrating this way upon the publication of the letter, needing only the authorization of the bishop? Or am I, as I suspect on my reading of the spirit of Traditionis custodes, neither of these things, but simply someone who has lost the faculty to celebrate in the older form, period, and without any justification for seeking to have it back.

Comments welcome.

Easter Sunday

(Reflection prepared for our vocation department's social media)

Today we wake up to a new world, a new creation that is risen within us by virtue of what happened last night at the great Vigil in the Holy Night: we were either baptized or renewed the promises of our baptism. This new life rising within us cries out and shakes us awake with the great Easter slogan: If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above! (Colossians 3:1)

The Resurrection of the Lord and our baptism into the new creation it inaugurates are the deepest of mysteries; this is why Mother Church gives us the longest of her privileged seasons—the fifty days of Easter—to journey into them.

Today on Easter Sunday there is just the announcement—Christ is risen! Over these fifty days the Easter mystery will unfold into how the Risen Lord is present to us—the Good Shepherd, the Bread of Life, and so on—until we arrive at the great day of Pentecost and the celebration of the Risen Lord’s abiding and animating presence in his Church, the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Temple, Priest, and Sacrifice

 (Reflection prepared for our vocation department's social media)

3rd Sunday of Lent

“Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” (John 2:19) So replies Jesus to those who protest his cleansing of the Temple. But they don’t realize “he was speaking about the temple of his body.” (2:21)

What is a temple? In the most general terms, it is a place or structure where sacrifice is offered, typically by priests, who are persons appointed to offer such sacrifices. Jesus Christ is all of these things at once: “the priest through whom we are reconciled, the sacrifice by which we are reconciled, the temple where we are reconciled, and the God to whom we are reconciled.” (St. Fulgentius of Ruspe, Office of Readings for Friday of the 5th week of Lent)

By our baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ and our communion with him in the Eucharist, we enter into the Temple of his Body and his priesthood enters into us, enabling us to be “built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:5) This is the priesthood shared by all the baptized. As we continue the journey of Lent, may we enter anew the Temple of the Lord’s Body that his priesthood and his Sacrifice may find a home in us.

What Kind Of Sinner?

 (Reflection prepared for our vocation department's social media)

Wednesday of the 1st week of Lent

The people of Nineveh were said to be wicked enough to have their wickedness rise up before God (Jonah 1:2) and yet Jesus offers them as an example of repentance. (Luke 11:32) And their conversion was indeed thorough; even the animals had to fast and wear sackcloth! (Jonah 3:7-8)

This can serve to remind us—notwithstanding our often sloppy speech about spiritual things—that saint is not the opposite of sinner. A saint is just a sinner who has refused to let the experience of sin—the boredom, frustration, and unhappiness of its ‘empty promises’—harden and close his heart, but instead has allowed this pain to break his heart open, open to God and to his fellow sinners in their suffering.

On this our Lenten journey toward either baptism or renewal of our baptismal promises at Easter, let us make up our mind to be that kind of sinner.

Dwelling Richly

(Reflection prepared for our vocation department's social media)

In the first reading for the Mass of Christmas Eve morning we hear how God takes the opportunity of David’s plans to build the house of God, the Temple, to turn the discernment around: it is God, rather, who will establish a house for David. (2 Samuel 7:11)

At Christmas we see this prophecy begin to come to its final fulfillment. Mary, in bearing the Lord in her womb, becomes the first tabernacle and the exemplar of the Church to come. She is, as St. Francis of Assisi puts it, the Virgin made Church. (A Salutation of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

Jesus Christ, who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, invites us into Holy Communion with him, that we, as the Church, might become a dwelling place for God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:22) In this way, the great feast of Pentecost, at which we recall and celebrate the Spirit as the abiding presence of Christ in his Church, peeks out even now at Christmas. Indeed, Pentecost is the fulfillment of the prophecy given to David; God builds for us a house in which he himself will dwell among us, our home and mother the Church.

As Blessed Isaac of Stella writes: “Christ dwelt for nine months in the tabernacle of Mary’s womb. He dwells until the end of the ages in the tabernacle of the Church’s faith. He will dwell for ever in the knowledge and love of each faithful soul.” (Office of Readings for Saturday of the 2nd week of Advent)

When you, faithful soul, discover the unique and unrepeatable way that Christ desires to dwell in you richly (Colossians 3:16), you have discerned your vocation.

Heralds of the Great King

(Reflection prepared for our vocation department's social media)

Each year the 2nd Sunday of Advent recalls the preaching of St. John the Baptist, the Forerunner of the Lord, sent to prepare his way and announce his coming. In this way John is one of the principal characters of the Advent season, which has the “twofold character” of a time to “prepare for Christmas when Christ's first coming to us is remembered [and] as a season when that remembrance directs the mind and heart to await Christ's Second Coming at the end of time.” (General Norms for the Liturgical Year)

Between the first and final comings of the Lord there is a third—his quiet and hidden arrival in the hearts and lives of those who find the willingness to surrender to grace. This “middle coming is like a road that leads from the first coming to the last.” (St. Bernard, Office of Readings for Wednesday of the 1st Week of Advent). This is where we are in the Advent season, recalling with joy the Nativity of the Lord, looking forward with devout expectation to his final advent at the end of time, and witnessing to his desire to be born anew, here and now, in our own lives.

Francis of Assisi, while still experimenting and figuring out his own vocation, once fell prey to bandits in the woods. While attacking him they asked who he was. He answered, “‘I am the herald of the great King!’” (Thomas of Celano, First Life of St. Francis, chapter 7) Considering not his own misfortune, he saw in his attackers the suffering of being trapped by evil and sin, and announced to them the good news of God’s Kingdom. Like John the Baptist, Francis found his vocation in announcing the God who desires to arrive in our lives anew in each moment.

How am I being called to witness to God’s desire to come and dwell in the hearts of the men and women of our time? How will I be a forerunner of the Lord and a herald of the great King?

New Assignment

The provincial minister, with the consent of his council, shall appoint a provincial secretary from among the brothers in perpetual vows ... The provincial secretary is accountable only to the provincial minister.

(Constitutions of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, 135, 1-2)

Not much of a job description, but here we go. A little less than a year later, I'm a secretary again.