Don't Blame Me

Today at church they were giving out nice holy cards of the 'Miraculous crucifix that is venerated in parish basilica of St. Teresa on Corso d'Italia in Rome':

I've spent plenty of time in the basilica in the five years I've lived in this neighborhood, but I had not known that this crucifix was said to be miraculous. At first I noted the non-italiano standard spelling crocefisso. I checked with the Accademia della Crusca online and they say it's fine. But what struck me especially was the curious message on the back of the card:

I am the light, and you don't see me.
I am the way, and you don't follow me.
I am the truth, and you don't believe me.
I am the life, and you don't seek me.
I am the teacher, and you don't listen to me.
I am the boss, and you don't obey me.
I am your God, and you don't pray to me.
I am your great friend, and you don't love me. 

[So] if you are unhappy, don't blame it on me!

If anyone knows the origin, please share!

Whit Monday and Tuesday

Every year at this time there are the usual lamentations about the loss of the Pentecost Octave and the renewal of certain legends thereon.

For myself, I remain without a strong opinion. On the one hand, I think an octave is a good, solid, traditional practice that could put Pentecost (rightly) up there with Easter and Christmas. On the other hand, Pentecost is preceded by a novena, the original and primal novena even, and maybe this holds that function and should be privileged as such.

In any case, somewhat à propos of the question, there's an interesting note in my Italian ordo:

In the places where, according to custom, the faithful participate in the Mass on the Monday and Tuesday after Pentecost, the readings of Pentecost Sunday are used again, or those proposed in the Rite of Confirmation are proclaimed.

(Without prejudice, of course, to the Monday now being the obligatory memorial (with the power to displace any other obligatory memorial) of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church.)

Personally, I don't have any experience of the Pentecost Monday and Tuesday that the Italian ordo mentions. Maybe folks who do can share about them in a comment.

The Brown Scapular Dubium

Years ago, during the period in between my two times in religious life, I was enrolled in the Brown Scapular at some kind of youth event. If memory serves, it was animated by the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate and at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Hamden, Connecticut. Given certain Carmelite tendencies, such as my gratefulness for John of the Cross and Edith Stein, I was always happy to have this special association with Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and the Carmelite family.

The Many Patron Saints of Europe

One of the things you notice living the liturgy here in Europe is that they have a lot of patron saints. Six, in fact. And so their feast days come around with some regularity:

• Cyril, monk, and Methodius, bishop, February 14
• Catherine of Siena, virgin and doctor, April 29
• Benedict, abbot, July 11
• Bridget of Sweden, founder (and mother of a saint, Catherine of Sweden), July 23
• Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, virgin and martyr (Edith Stein), August 9

Seeing that tomorrow is one of these feast days, I did a little looking around and discovered that all of this heavenly patronage is of fairly recent articulation.

All Things To All

"I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some" said St. Paul. (1 Cor 9:22) And so the saints who followed.

In that spirit, Mother Teresa now available in happy, pensive, disapproving, motherly, frozen in carbonite, and mermaid.

(click to enlarge)

Resting Like A Bundle of Myrrh

Back on the feast of All Franciscan Saints, long-time internet friend and sometime fellow American in Rome Fr. Daren J. Zehnle tweeted this lovely image of some of said saints from St. Francis of Assisi church in Teutopolis, Illinois:

(It looks like a nice parish by the way. See their website here.)

That's St. Bonaventure, of course, to Our Lady's left. You can tell because of his red cardinal's hat, which he has rightly doffed in such heavenly company and deposited on his little cloud. So right away I wanted to know what his book says. You couldn't quite make it out in the photo, though you can tell that it says something. So I asked Fr. Daren to find out, and now he has come back with a closer photo, in which you can see that it says crucifixus.

Now I was intrigued. Certainly St. Bonaventure speaks often enough of the crucified, but usually--at least in my memory--in a declined form. I couldn't remember any instance of it in the nominative, as in the book in the picture.

But sure enough a little searching surfaced what must be the page of the book Bonaventure is holding open. It's from chapter nine of the Major Legend of St. Francis, on Francis's "ardor of charity and desire for martyrdom."

Christus Iesus crucifixus intra suae mentis ubera ut myrrhae fasciculus iugiter morabatur in quem optabat per excessivi amoris incendium totaliter transformari.

"Jesus Christ crucified always rested like a bundle of myrrh in the bosom of [St. Francis's] soul, into Whom he longed to be totally transformed through an enkindling of ecstatic love."

(FA:ED II: 597, cf. Song of Songs 1:13)

Catholicity

The feast of All Saints today and the commemoration of All Souls tomorrow are perfect opportunities to recall to ourselves the catholicity of the Church. We are members of the Catholic Church, practitioners of Catholic Christianity. Catholic is a Greek word that simply means general or universal. The Church is ‘universal’ or ‘general’ in many ways. In one sense the Church is universal because it extends over the whole earth. There’s even a Catholic chapel in Antarctica; it’s dedicated to St. Francis by the way. The moon, it’s already been decided, is part of the diocese of Rome, in case you were thinking of making a visit and were wondering who your bishop might be. The Church is also universal because it extends until the end of time. But most of all, the Church is universal and catholic because it passes beyond the boundaries of time and space to include both heaven and earth.

This teaching on the catholicity of the church comes to us in the classic language of the Church Triumphant, the Church Militant, and the Church Suffering or Expectant. The Church Triumphant is the Church we honor today on All Saints’ Day: those Christians who have completed their journey and enjoy the vision of God in heaven. We who make up the Church on earth are classically called the Church Militant; “militant” in the sense that we are in the midst of the struggle with sin and the work of ushering in the fullness of the Kingdom of God.

All Seraphic Saints Friary

Religious houses are usually named for some heavenly patronage, either a saint or some mystery of the faith. For example, the first friary I ever lived in was the former Holy Cross Friary on Soundview Ave. in the Bronx. Right now I'm taking some vacation while staying at St. Francis of Assisi Friary, the second house to bear that title during my time in my Province of the Capuchins.

Somewhat strangely, the house where I am assigned now, in which resides the fraternity of the Capuchin General Curia, did not seem to have such a patron. It was just 'the General Curia' or, in the habit of religious to call places by their earthly location rather than by their heavenly patron, 'Via Piemonte.'

Well today we have received a letter from the General Minister in which he decrees a remedy for this situation. The house is to be dedicated to All Seraphic Saints, with the corresponding titular feast day of November 29.

Venerable Update

Among many noteworthy happenings back when I was parochial vicar in Yonkers, one day in 2008 an Italian friar showed up and announced that he was the archbishop emeritus of Izmir (i.e. Smyrna) and that he was making a pilgrimage to one of the earthly assignments of our own Venerable Solanus Casey. (Original post here.) Among other things he related that he was working on the cause for canonization of his parents, Sergio Bernardini and Domenica née Bedonni. Read about them here.

Well today at lunch I found myself sitting next to the same Archbishop Giuseppe. I reminded him that we had met once before and I asked how his parents were moving along. He was happy to say that they were now venerable, another step toward blessed and perhaps saint.

Archbishop Giuseppe is not the only priest I have ever met who was trying to canonize his parents. There's also Fr. Raffaele of the Carmelites, whose parents Ulisse and Lelia are Servants of God. You can read about them in Italian here.

You can find Fr. Raffaele giving daily inspiration on Twitter

10 novembre (martedì) Lc 17,7-10 Non ci crediamo giusti perché facciamo ciò che dobbiamo fare, almeno lo facessimo con amore...

— raffaele amendolagin (@raffaeleamendo) November 10, 2015

or in the back corner of Santa Maria della Vittoria (which is also Cardinal O'Malley's Roman church) saying his rosary and receiving local penitents like me.

Ash Sunday

Now far be it from me to be a liturgical innovator, but yesterday I celebrated the Mass of a liturgical day previously unknown in the tradition of the Roman Rite, the Mass of Ash Sunday.

Here's how it happened.

It was my turn to go and celebrate at the chapel of a certain group of sisters. I am very grateful for my turns when they come around. The folks who come to the Mass there are of a certain age, and it reminds me a little bit of when I used to go for Mass at Monastery Manor and Finian Sullivan Tower back in Yonkers.

While I was setting up for Mass, Sr. Sacristan asked me if I would be willing to impose ashes for anyone who had missed out on Ash Wednesday. Sister had saved a little bowl of ashes just for this possibility. Now back in the parish I would probably have said no to such irregularity, but at this place I'm a guest, I can see that some of the people (being of a certain age, as I said) have mobility issues, and I know how big a deal it can be for people to 'get their ashes.'

So I imagined that at the end of the Mass I would make an announcement, inviting anyone who had not received their ashes on Ash Wednesday to stick around a moment, whereupon I would go to the sacristy and put aside the chasuble so as to mark this extraordinary ash imposition as something apart from the Mass of the First Sunday of Lent.

It didn't happen that way.

As soon as the Liturgy of the Word was completed with the presidential prayer at the end of the Universal Prayer, Sr. Sacristan came up the aisle with the ashes in order to remind me of what I had agreed to do. So there it was. I turned to the assembly and said that if there was anyone who had not received ashes on Ash Wednesday, I could impose them now. One person got up, then a few more, and after another moment the whole assembly was in line for ashes (except for the two or three sisters.)

When I concluded the imposition of Ashes for Ash Sunday, I went to the sacristy and washed my hands (which is much easier with the dry ashes they use in Italy, as opposed to the ash and water paste commonly used in the States) and then went to the altar to continue with the offertory of what had been the First Sunday of Lent.

The Crown Sister Ida Gave Me

My departure from the novitiate of the Order of Friars Minor, Holy Name Province (New York), on Christmas Day 1995, quickly became one of the most significant events in my spiritual journey. The prayer and spiritual attitudes that came out of it served me well then and have continued to serve and form me as a Christian and as a religious. I am more grateful to God for few things, and remain grateful to my novice master for having the courage to let me go when it was the right thing for my vocation.

Liturgy Craft Time: Ribbon Toasting

So here I am on vacation, home in the USA. I brought my Italian Liturgy of the Hours to use so I wouldn't forget the little bit of the language I've learned over there. But for those of the Hours that I pray with the brothers, I went and dug out of storage my old Roman-Franciscan Christian Prayer, which was given to me for my use when I arrived as a postulant with the OFM way back on July 17, 1994. (The day is easy to remember because it was the final match of the World Cup (Brazil vs. Italy, 0-0, 3-2 (penalities))).

However, when I found my old friend, I saw that it had no ribbons. A breviary with no ribbons? What kind of Catholic do you think I am?

Unchained, Not Going To Ostia

Perhaps others with experience of religious life will feel some resonance when I say that one of the ordinary and persistent trials of religious life is finding out that one's expectations of it and presumptions about it are unfounded and erroneous, respectively.

My originary and archetypal experience in this regard came a few days into my first postulancy, when, in my innocence, I asked of one of the directors when I would be told which of the priests was to be my confessor. For better or for worse, the sort of lives of the saints that had formed my idea of religious life had made me think, among other things, that being assigned a confessor would be one of the important first moments of my religious life. Instead, I was informed that it was the policy of the formation program that whatever had been the individual postulant's use (or lack thereof) of the sacrament of Reconciliation prior to entering, he ought to continue it quietly.

At the time, this left me not only scandalized but also with the nagging feeling that religious life was not going to provide me, as I had presumed it would, with the structures and resources for living what seemed to me to be a religious life.

Now, almost twenty years later I have had the latest experience of this sort. I discovered that, to the best of my knowledge and inquiry, there is no longer any such person as the Cardinal Protector of the Franciscan Order, despite the concluding words of the Rule that all of us friars of the First Order have professed:

In addition to these points, I command the ministers through obedience to petition from our Lord the Pope for one of the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, who would be the governor, protector, and corrector of this fraternity, so that, being always submissive and subject at the feet of the same Holy Church and steadfast in the Catholic faith, we may observe poverty, humility, and the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ as we have firmly promised. (Later Rule, XII: 3-4, FA: ED I, 106)

Why should I be concerned about this? Well, it has to do with another word we have from St. Francis, in his Testament. The question of the legislative weight of the Testament is an ancient and abiding one in Franciscan history. The problem derives from St. Francis himself, who says in the document itself that it is not 'another Rule' but at the same time seems to make commands by obedience. The Capuchin branch of the Friars Minor, of which I find myself a member at this stage of my Franciscan journey, has always maintained as one of its characteristics the tradition of holding up some of the alleged precepts of the Testament and cherishing it as the primary gloss on the Rule.

Quick and dirty excursus into Franciscan history done, here is the section of the Testament I have in mind:

And if some [brothers] might have been found who are not reciting the Office according to the Rule and want to change it in some way, or who are not Catholics, let all the brothers, wherever they may have found one of them, be bound through obedience to bring him before the custodian of that place nearest to where they found him. And let the custodian be strictly bound through obedience to keep him securely day and night as a man in chains, so that he cannot be taken from his hands until he can personally deliver him into the hands of his minister. And let the minister be bound through obedience to send him with such brothers who would guard him as a prisoner until they deliver him to the Lord of Ostia, who is the Lord, the Protector and the Corrector of this fraternity. (St. Francis, Testament, 31-33, FA: ED I, 126-127)

The Lord of Ostia mentioned here is, of course, that famous character of early Franciscan history, Cardinal Ugolino dei Conti di Segni, Cardinal Protector of the Order and the future Pope Gregory IX.

Therefore, one of the comforts I had always felt as a Capuchin, in this branch of the Order said to hold the precepts of the Testament dear, was that if it happened that I abandoned the Divine Office or somehow began to deviate from the Catholic faith, my ministers would put me in chains and deliver me to the Cardinal Protector of the Order for correction and, I imagined, some kind of remedy. But if there is no longer any such person, I now realize that my comfort was in vain.

If however, one wanted to do his best nonetheless and deliver me to the Lord of Ostia, that wouldn't be so simple either. Depending on how one wanted to read the intervening history of the Roman Church and her suburbicarian sees, it might mean delivering me either to Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Dean of the College of Cardinals, or to Bishop Vincenzo Apicella, the latter being, incidentally, the bishop of our blogging colleague Fr. Z. But I leave that discernment up to my superiors, may God forbid that it ever be necessary.

Rosary Ramble

It's almost twenty-two years since I first tried to pray the rosary. Since then I've had a lot of them; some break, some get given away, others go missing. Still others that seem extra special for some reason or other get hidden away before they break. I tend to identify them with where they came from, who gave them to me, or who blessed them.

Benedict XVI Has Left The Building

As I've mentioned, one of the tasks I've been charged with recently is the setting of the tables for the friars' meals. In the refectory, como Dios manda, are displayed four images: a crucifix, an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and a portrait each of the Pope and the Minister General of the Order.

Back on February 28, I wondered if I ought to take Pope Benedict XVI down when I prepared the refectory for supper. After all, by the time the food was blessed and the brethren were getting their soup, his pontificate would be over.

Black Smoke Rant

Maybe it's a random thing to rant about, but I was disappointed with the first black smoke of the Conclave last night. Not that I expected it to be anything but black, but it just seemed to be a little over the top in its volume and blackness, billowing away long after everyone had gotten the point.

Of Bridesmaids and Tabernacles

Making the rounds on Facebook today was a picture of a group of bridesmaids. Wearing strapless dresses and photographed from behind while sitting in a pew in church, the viewer might easily imagine that the poor things were wearing nothing at all. Of course I was amused; many times I have endured the jarring experience of observing a group of bridesmaids while presiding at a wedding, unable to recognize the anxious creatures as continuous with the group of pretty young women I had met in the same role two evenings before at the wedding rehearsal, so transformed they were by unflattering dresses, fussy hairdos, and too much makeup.

Gentle Advice From The Italian Ordo

The new Ordo that comes ahead of the new liturgical year is like the ecclesiastical equivalent of the new box of crayons on the first day of school.

Finding an Ordo for the year of grace 2013 in my mailbox yesterday, I noted right away that the Italian version (or at least the version of the Capuchin provinces of the middle part of Italy) is somewhat bigger and more beautiful than what we have in the States:

It also has a heap of information presented by way of preface, some of it useful, like the faculties granted to priests of the Order to absolve from certain censures and excommunications, as well as the faculty to commute private vows. (I remember reading about that last one when I was first ordained and thinking that I would never have the chance to exercise such a thing. On the contrary, I have had a couple of occasions to use it.) Other parts seem somewhat random, like Universae Ecclesiae in between the sections of pastoral considerations for Celiac disease and the Eastern Orthodox, respectively.

However, one section caught my eye especially, on how to improve celebrations of the Liturgy of the Hours. Most of the points are pretty standard, e.g. sing, don't pretend things are optional when they aren't, etc. A couple of the points, though, are fun:

"In the recitation of the Offices a 'spoken' style is used, thus avoiding those emotional emphases that disturb praying in common."

Anyone who has been in religious life knows what that's about. So much for Franciscan prayer being 'affective.'

"If a minister makes an error with an antiphon or something else, avoid brusque and immediate corrections, which are ill-suited to the climate of prayer."

There's one some religious could pray over.

On Fanta and Modernism

I wouldn't presume to say that I have much in common with our holy father the Pope, Benedict XVI gloriously reigning. Nevertheless, we are both Catholic priests, foreigners living here in Italy, fans of St. Bonaventure, and native speakers of Germanic languages. And as I begin to live here in Italy, I am noticing ways in which I have come to understand Benedict a little better.

First, Fanta. There was some amusement when it was reported some years back in the secular press that Benedict likes Fanta. Fine. It is a little funny to imagine the dignified old professor-pope enjoying a sweet, bright orange soda. But here's the thing, at least for you Americans: here in Italy it's quite a different substance, this Fanta, and much superior to what we have at home. So I get it. Yum.

Second, the so-called 'Benedictine Altar Arrangement.' To some, the Pope's apparent preference for six candles and a crucifix arranged on the altar itself is a welcome symbol of his 'hermeneutic of continuity.' To others, it is further sign that Benedict is a crypto-traddy making every effort to roll back the reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council. Living here in Italy, as the Pope has for many years, has helped me to better understand his preference. You see, there seems to be a very common style for arranging altars here, and it goes like this: you take all the candles, whether these be one, two, or even four (that's the most I've seen, and at the lower basilica of St. Francis no less) and put them all the way on one side of the altar. On the other side, you put a flower or plant or even a whole floral arrangement.

In this practice I perceive the drive towards modernist unbalance that smolders away in the Churches, and the rotten and relativist fruit of which we all know so well. So as I see more and more of these unbalanced altars, I understand more and more why a thoughtful priest like Benedict XVI might want to restore some classical proportion to the setting of the Sacrifice.

Liturgical Kludgery: The Utility of Paper Clips

Paper clips are very versatile. Since they can can be had in different colors, they are eminently useful for liturgical kludges.

Here a rubric red (apologies for the redundancy) paper clip affixes the rarely heard nuptial hanc igitur to the Roman Canon:

For a portable photocopy of the Exsultet, a paper clip of Easter white:

And when the zipper pull on my everyday alb broke after six years of dutiful service, the same baptismal paper clip stepped in to keep things running. Dealba me, Domine.