God Is Love

I remember once back in Yonkers I was caught off guard in need of a Sunday homily. A missionary priest was coming to make an appeal and was to preach at all the Masses for this purpose, so I hadn't prepared anything that week. His flight, however, was delayed, and he didn't make it in time for the Saturday vigil Mass.

So at the time of the homily I explained to the assembly how I was stuck. On the one hand, I was not willing to take them and my duties as a priest so lightly as to preach without having prepared. On the other hand, it was a Sunday Mass, and therefore the faithful had a right to a homily.

My solution: I brought and read a little passage of St. Augustine's comment on the gospel for that Sunday.

Veronica Giuliani

This year the feast of St. Veronica Giuliani, Capuchin Poor Clare abbess and one of the great characters of our Capuchin tradition, is suppressed by the XV Sunday of Ordinary Time tomorrow.

This past week, however, was my turn taking the morning Mass at the General Curia of the Capuchin Sisters of Mother Rubatto, and the sisters asked me if I would celebrate St. Veronica's Mass today, on Saturday. It seemed a little irregular to me, but no other celebration in particular obliged today, and since I'm more flexible when I'm a guest (cf. how I once celebrated the previously unknown liturgical day of Ash Sunday) I said fine, nice idea.

(Left to my own devices I probably would have taken either the optional memorial of Nicholas Pieck and companions, the Franciscans among the Martyrs of Gorkum, or the regular memorial of Our Lady on Saturday.)

Never having read St. Veronica and feeling thus inadequate to preach about her, I brought a selection from another priest's words on her:

In particular, Veronica proved a courageous witness of the beauty and power of Divine Love which attracted her, pervaded her and inflamed her. Crucified Love was impressed within her flesh as it was in that of St Francis of Assisi, with Jesus’ stigmata. “‘My Bride’, the Crucified Christ whispers to me, ‘the penance you do for those who suffer my disgrace is dear to me’.... Then detaching one of his arms from the Cross he made a sign to me to draw near to his side... and I found myself in the arms of the Crucified One. What I felt at that point I cannot describe: I should have liked to remain for ever in his most holy side” (ibid., I, 37). This is also an image of her spiritual journey, of her interior life: to be in the embrace of the Crucified One and thus to remain in Christ's love for others.

(Pope Benedict XVI, general audience of December 15, 2010)

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?

On Being Without St. Patrick's Day

I woke up this morning and the first thing I noticed was how much daylight there was. Spring is coming, I suppose, but it's also that on Sundays I can sleep in until almost six. I know, right? Scandalous. My second thought was, 'Passiontide!'

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.

Vel Congruat Festo

I'm famous for not having the Christmas spirit, at least as the world conceives it. But today was an exception. After Mass I was to offer the traditional blessing of throats associated with St. Blaise. In thinking ahead about how I wanted to do this, I thought that after the final blessing I would put aside the green chasuble and stole and put on the red stole appropriate for Blaise, bishop and martyr.

Only after doing this did I realize that I ended up wearing a red stole with the festive green cincture I use for Sundays in Ordinary Time. So I felt very Christmas-y for once.

For the rubrical reference made in the title see the praenotanda of the De benedictionibus (Book of Blessings) number 37.

Ironing the Tabernacle

Many complaints can be made against religious life, but you can't say you don't get to do a lot of different things. You may recall how last month our vigil lamp decided to end it all. In the course of its demise, it left an unsightly mess of wax on top of the tabernacle. Cleaning it up has been one of many little things I've been wanting to do in these days, and today I finally got to it.

It's well known in sacristy lore that you can get candle wax out of fabric by ironing the wax into a brown paper bag. If it works with vestments, I thought, maybe I can do the same thing with the tabernacle.

So here's the mess:

And here's the procedure:

And here it is all clean:

Be assured that I removed and reposed the Blessed Sacrament elsewhere for the duration of this undignified procedure.

A Kludge for Passiontide

"In the dioceses of the United States, crosses in the church may be covered from the conclusion of the Mass for the Saturday of the fourth week of Lent until the end of the Celebration of the Lord's Passion on Good Friday."

In this devout spirit, I veiled the crucifix in my room with my violet maniple.

A Kludge for the Holy Souls

Good luck finding a real candle around these parts, much less an unbleached beeswax one. (We use the kind--oh horror!--you unscrew and fill up.) For my own use in my room I've been working on a case of paraffin votives that I blessed all the way back on Candlemas 2008.

But today for my day off I was doing some errands when I decided to stop and pray at a local Orthodox chapel. You can trust the Orthodox to do candles right, so as I put my beeswax taper into the candelabrum around the Blessed Mother, to be lit during the next prayer or Divine Liturgy, I began to think. During this month of November, wouldn't it be nice to have such unbleached beeswax goodness to offer before my own little shrine to the departed? I presume that when you make an offering for a candle in church, you don't have to burn the candle on site, but are free to take it with you. And that's just what I did, making another offering and taking two more candles home with me.

Trouble is, how do you get this



Into one of these?



Well, borrowing a few of the pellets we use to surround charcoals in our incense brazier, I stood the taper up in the votive candle stand:



And here it is: my kludged up shrine to the deceased friars, complete with unbleached beeswax candle for the rest of November:



Perhaps I should start a Catholic version of one of my favorite non-religious blogs, There, I Fixed It.

Praecinge me, Domine

When I took the psychological tests as part of my application to the Capuchin Franciscan Order, the doctor, a religious himself, told me that I had a "feature" of obsessive compulsive disorder.

"What's a 'feature'?," I asked.

"It's the lowest level of diagnosable pathology," he responded. "Don't worry; it's actually an asset in religious life."

Later today I am to offer Mass for a high school student retreat. Have alb, cincture, stole, and chasuble, will travel:

UPDATE: Happy now, CUA?