Pilgrimage to St. Benedict Joseph Labre

Guessing that it was probably the last day of Christmas quiet here in the Curia, I decided that yesterday was the right moment for a little pilgrimage I had been hoping to make.

I first happened upon a devotion to St. Benedict Joseph Labre in the days after my departure from the novitiate of the OFM. I had entered their formation program right after college. It was a very rich of time, full of formative experiences, things learned, and friendships made for which I have become increasingly grateful over the years. In the end, though, it didn't work out. I found myself marking my third anniversary of baptism already a novice religious; I had a lot of zeal, but not a lot of roots. I was also very innocent in a lot of ways; most of my expectations of religious life had been formed from reading the lives of the saints and from the movies. Having found something different and not a few things that were hard for me to understand or interpret, life got confusing. On the advice of my directors, I left half-way through the novitiate, on Christmas morning.

It was a strange time, difficult and confusing.  But it also got to be a very blessed time, a moment when I began to learn for myself--somewhat ironically--what Franciscan poverty really meant for me. I had to seek in prayer what I was supposed to do, not in some abstract sense of 'what should I do with my life', but in the immediate and concrete sense of what I was supposed to do the very next day.

At some point in this moment of my journey I discovered Benedict Joseph Labre. I don't remember if I read somewhere that he was the patron saint of people dismissed from religious life or if I decided it myself. If he's not, he should be. Having decided that he wanted to become a Trappist, he applied to La Trappe and was rejected. After that he tried to be a Carthusian, but was sent home after a few months. After that he was admitted to another monastery of Trappists, but that didn't work out either. In each of these cases, one immediately suspects something that what we would call mental illness or at least instability. What he had taken to be a vocation to religious life not having materialized, Benedict Joseph became a kind of homeless pilgrim, a 'fool for Christ', visiting and praying at the shrines of Europe. He died during Holy Week of 1783, at the age of 35, on a street in the neighborhood of S. Maria ai Monti in Rome, where he attended Mass each morning.

What I hadn't known before moving here to Rome is that Benedict Joseph Labre is also buried in that same church; the people of the area already thought him a saint at his death. When I realized this, I knew I had to make a pilgrimage.

Hic Jacet Corpus S. B. J. Labre

If you know Rome at all, S. Maria ai Monti is close to the Cavour stop on Metro B, so it's also not far from the Colosseum. St. Benedict Joseph's altar is the first one to the left of the sanctuary.

After praying for everyone I could think of, I spent some time just sitting by Benedict Joseph's altar. I got to thinking about how many times, on the way back and forth to Italian school, I had rode by on the subway not so far from there, totally unaware of my passing the remains of this saint given to me as an important devotion in my own story. I thought that perhaps he had been praying for me all that time. Some of those summer days weren't so easy, in fact, especially during the second half of August as Rome went dead and the heat seemed like it would never end, and there I was, still living the grind of language school. Probably Benedict Joseph Labre is praying for everyone who passes by on Metro B, especially those in any kind of struggle.

One time I went to confession and the priest recommended to me as a penance to pray for everybody who was praying for me. A lot of people pray for priests and religious, he said, and it was a good thing to remember and remain grateful for their charity. I think there's a lot of courage in that, to remember that we are being prayed for not only in ways that we are aware of, but also by people and in in ways that are hidden from our awareness. Indeed, in the largest sense, this is one of the great encouragements of being a Catholic. When we say that we are members of the 'Catholic' Church, we don't mean this primarily as a historical or geographical category, but as an acclamation of a communion that embraces at once the Church on earth, the Church in heaven, and the Church in purgatory. To pray in Christ is to embrace the catholicity of this communion, to confess and take courage that the Church in Heaven is praying with us and for us.

St. Benedict Joseph Labre, pray for us.

Pilgrimage to Providence

Yesterday I made a pilgrimage of sorts, to the place where I first took the Franciscan habit. Here it is:

When I lived there it was called St. Francis Chapel & City Ministry Center. Now it's a Hampton Inn & Suites. Where I once prayed before the Blessed Sacrament, which was exposed each weekday afternoon, folks now sit in a lobby with newspapers and coffee. So pass the glories of this world, even the pious ones.

I prayed None outside, and I prayed for my vocation.

In his Testament St. Francis said simply that when what had bitter was changed into "sweetness of soul and body" after his time with the lepers, he paused for a moment and then "left the world." But here's the thing about leaving the world: pious vainglory tells you that you can leave the world in a big, dramatic, single step. The truth is, the world still lives inside. It will fight to get you back at every step. The world is a possessive, unchaste, jealous lover. And the world would rather have you dead than let you belong to someone else.

Leaving the world means doing so anew each day.

Visiting the Dominicans

I'm visiting with my parents today, so for Mass I went to my "home" parish, St. Mary's in New Haven, which is served by the Order of Preachers.

A young deacon assisted at Mass and gave the homily. He must be a transitional deacon on summer assignment, and looking forward to priestly ordination either in the fall or spring. I was so impressed with the homily that I had to write him a note. Here's what I wrote:

Dear Brother,

May the Lord give you peace!

I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciated your homily at the noon Mass today.

It's not everywhere that you can go to church on a Monday in Ordinary Time and hear about the capacity of natural reason according to the teaching of [the dogmatic constitution] Dei Filius, and the doctrine of God's mercy according to St. Thérèse.

Through the intercession of our holy fathers Dominic and Francis, may God flourish your religious life and your priesthood in every way.

Moving the Lord in First

I've crossed the line in my packing; my room now looks like I'm moving out. The shelves are empty and an obelisk of Corona and Brooklyn Brewery IPA boxes dominates the middle the room. Everything is off the walls except for the crucifix, because I shall need it to move.

See, I have some little rituals that go along with moving, and one of them is that I try to move the Lord into a space before anything else. I walk in with the crucifix and put it somewhere before I move in anything else. This particular crucifix is dear to me; it's a simple one of olive wood that I bought in Jerusalem in 1994. Because I was so picky about the plainness I was looking for, I got into a big conversation with the shopkeeper and ended up having to look at a photo album of his relatives in the States while we shared some bread and water.

I carried my new crucifix when we made the Stations of the Cross, and I have had it in my room ever since. That's a lot of places; since going away to college twenty years ago, I have lived at twelve different addresses, not counting summers. Throw summer assignments in there, and I have lived at seventeen addresses in five states and four countries.

My habit of 'moving the Lord in first' once helped me hit it off with a building superintendent and his assistant. One of them said, "Wow, a cool tenant." I consider that to be one of the greatest compliments I have ever received. To be fair, since they were still finishing up some painting, I took a break from moving to go across the street to get a sandwich from the deli, and I offered to get them something. So even if it was the sandwiches that made me seem cool, I like to think some of it was moving the Lord in first.

Pilgrimage to the Bronx

This morning I attended a funeral for one of the first friars I ever lived with in community. By his request, the funeral was celebrated at the church attached to that same friary.

I arrived early so that I could visit the old house. I can't believe it has only been fifteen years since I lived there as a postulant to the OFM; so much has happened in between: out of religious life and then back in again, four years of working at the group home and living the solitary, single life, re-investiture, temporary vows, two summers in Central America, perpetual vows, five years of theology, diaconate, priesthood, taking up the parish priest trade.

It was so good to set foot back in my first home in the Franciscan world. The place has a simplicity and spiritual cleanliness about it that everybody feels right away. I went to the chapel right away and remembered so much grace. I walked up to what was my room and remembered some of the excitements and doubts, and many conversations. I went to the community room and remembered a lot of faith sharing, parties, and laughs.

I have always found such personal pilgrimages to be helpful and encouraging, and so I try to make them when I can; to return prayerfully to a place where the Holy Spirit was once working hard on me. Wherever we find ourselves in life and work at some particular moment of life, it's easy to let it become the whole world. We can let the universe shrink down to our immediate surroundings. This is such a recipe for unhappiness, however, because it makes little things and passing troubles seem like everything. For me, to return to the places I have been in the past, and to remember the grace of God that I had there (whether it be happy or difficult or--more likely--both) helps me to remember that even the little world I inhabit in this life is much bigger than anything difficult I face in my current circumstance.

St. Maximilian

Two years ago today was one of the last days of our perpetual profession pilgrimage. We had just returned to Rome from San Giovanni Rotondo, and were given a free day before flying home. As it is today, it was the feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe. I decided to start my day by walking over to St. Peter's Basilica for Mass. When St. Peter's opens in the morning, all the various groups of pilgrims are deposited at various altars by the businesslike altar boys. So there's this wonderful period early in the morning, before the crowds of tourists show up, when Masses are being offered left and right in every language you can think of. Since it was the feast of St. Maximilian, I thought I would go to Mass in Polish. I knelt, saying my rosary by the door to the side sacristy, until I heard a group of Polish pilgrims emerge, and then followed them to their side altar and joined them for Mass.

This morning I'm just grateful for my Franciscan brother St. Maximilian, not only in his generous martyrdom, but also in his strenuous ministry of fostering devotion to Our Lady. It was an important moment in my own life as a Christian and a minister of Christianity, when I realized that the primary purpose of ministry is not social progress or individual psychological health, but the glory of God, from which the flourishing of both society and individuals flows.

It's a Small (Capuchin) World

It's a small world. Today I and fellow Capuchin blogger Br. Tom realized that we had met each other in person on the Feast of the Portiuncula, August 2, 2007 in Assisi. I just found my journal from the trip and confirmed it.

I also found in the notebook a hilarious post-it note, a little artifact of the trip. It reads, in fine blue sharpie:


Assisi Free Day Things to Do/Shopping List

Tau Crosses for John
Rosaries
Medals (?)
Stationery
Check email

Furta Sacra for the Feast of St. Bonaventure

One of the perks of making it through the Capuchin formation program is a pilgrimage to Assisi, Rome, and various other Franciscan holy places. Taking place around the time of perpetual vows, the trip is meant to encourage and inflame the hearts of the brothers as they prepare for or begin to live their permanent gift of self to the fraternity.

When I went two summers ago, one of the places we visited was the Franciscan hermitage at Monte Casale. There we were shown a little cell where St. Bonaventure had stayed when he was doing some writing. Later on I returned to the cell by myself to pray for the intercession of the Seraphic Doctor and for the courage to follow his example. In a little act of sacra furta--I think forgivable--I took a little splinter of St. Bonaventure's cell as a relic for my own devotion. I brought it home and put it in a little reliquary with the label, ex cella S. Bonaventurae Montis Casalis.


My little relic of St. Bonaventure sits at the center of the images of the Lord and his saints I have in my "cell":




Clockwise from the top: Christ crucified (from my trip to the holy land in 1994), the Virgin of the Sign (from a retreat at Graymoor in 1995), John of the Cross, Paschal Baylon (gift of a confrere), Francis (gift from a ministry supervisor), the Transfiguration (gift from academic adviser).

Pilgrimage: San Giovanni Rotondo

This place is a madhouse. At Pio’s tomb you can hardly pray because of the racket of people firing coins at the sarcophagus.

Just walking around I think I’ve blessed more stuff in this afternoon than in the rest of my whole previous clerical career. Rosaries, pictures, bracelets, and even an infant of Prague big enough to be a toddler—in French, as best I could—for a couple from Lille.

The new church is very “modern.” The lower level is like a circular maze in which everyone is lost looking for the confessionals or the Blessed Sacrament. I’m as lost as they are, so I’m more than useless when everyone asks me for directions. Just put on a Capuchin habit, and not only will everyone think you know your way around, but that you speak their own proper language, whether it be Italian, French, German, or Polish.

But, with all of the noise and confusion of this place, I remember how Jesus told us that a tree is known by its fruits. And what fruits can be seen here? Everywhere there are people praying and streaming to confession, all in shadow of the hospitals that carry on Pio’s works of mercy.

Pilgrimage: Basilica of St. Francis

Today we had our official tour of the basilica of St. Francis, though most of us had already explored it on our own. It was good to have a solid introduction, though, so we could know what to look for.

Afterwards, having heard from some the brothers that there is a friendly, English speaking confessor, I try to go to confession. Of course, I don’t get him. I get the impatient Italian who insists that I don’t wait for someone else. He doesn’t speak Spanish or English, and I don’t speak Italian. Nevertheless, he prods me to get going. Not knowing what do to, I confess in a combination of Latin and Spanish. The priest gets a little annoyed. Nevertheless, I’m grateful. It’s a chance to believe in the presence of grace in even the most awkward human moments, given our right hope and good intention.

Pilgrimage: Capuchin Friary at Camerino

We arrived here late this afternoon for a one-day, two-night moment of recollection. Sitting here after supper it feels like the first moment of peace and quiet since the beginning of the trip.

Here in the original house of our Capuchin reform, it’s like the religious life of the movies. It’s a stone building with a gravel road, tiny cells, and a little church with a cloistered choir on the side. At supper, jolly, bearded friars—ourselves, the frati Americani, included—sit around the perimeter of the refectory while novices run around frantically in their effort to bring us wine, cheese, salami, fruit, and grappa, all of it homemade.

In my mind I keep comparing this place to the novitiate in Honduras. They are similar in a lot of ways. The horarium is almost exactly the same. The novices are a lot chattier, though. And fatter. They are always blabbing amongst themselves, and occasionally even break into song—all spiritual, though, or at least as far as I heard.

This morning I couldn’t bring myself to shave. Somehow it felt like it would be sacrilegious for a Capuchin to shave in Camerino.

Pilgrimage: Capuchin Church of the Immaculate Conception, Rome

Cardinal Barberini’s tomb is front and center in the floor. It reads, “hic iacet pulvis, cinis, et nihil.”

To write, “here lies nothing.” It’s so ironic—to say that something you are looking at is nothing. But this is one of central ironies of the Christian life: to be alive, but baptized into the death of Christ, and to be dead in sin, but alive in Christ.

St. Justin Martyr’s relics are here. Pray for us St. Justin, especially for Capuchin students.

We have Mass here on the altar of St. Felix of Cantalice. What a grace to make the connection between the body of Christ offered in the Mass—and which we receive and become—and the resting body of our own St. Felix. The body of Christ, past, present, and to come. At the same time, buses full of the curious come to see our famous bone yard, remarking on one expression of our belief in the Resurrection that has now become quaint and macabre by the world’s standards.


Update: This post gets a lot of search engine traffic, so I'm adding this link to the friars' own site about the crypt chapels.

Pilgrimage Journal

I kept a journal while we were away on pilgrimage, and I thought I would start to share some it here. So here's the beginning:

Pelagius lived at Kardanoel
And he taught a doctrine there
How whether you went to heaven or hell
It was your own affair.
It had nothing to do with the Church, my boy
But was your own affair.
--Hilaire Belloc, The Pelagian Drinking Song

But to really believe this, individualists that we are, that God teaches and saves and sanctifies through community, fraternity, through a people of God—that’s the challenge.

I’ve been on pilgrimage before, and I’ve even been a pilgrim in a group. But to go on pilgrimage as a group, as brothers—that’s the grace of this opportunity.

The brothers are all here. Some I know well, others only a little. Two of them I have never met before.

Francis and Clare Medals

Thanks be to God I'm safely back from pilgrimage! It was really a wonderful time--good brothers, good directors, places of such grace.

One of my special finds was the religious articles wholesaler in Assisi, where I bought (among other things) a bunch of Francis and Clare medals. They're small, round medals, about 3/4 inch in diameter, with Francis on one side and Clare on the other. I blessed them in prayer before the San Damiano crucifix, which famously spoke to Francis and which remained in Clare's monastery throughout her life.

If you would like one, send me an email.

Pilgrimage: Camerino

I write today from the original Capuchin friary in the little town of Camerino. It is like the religious life of the movies. An old stone cloister with a public church attached surrounded gravel roads and gardens. At supper last night all the bearded local friars--and we Frati Americani too--sat around the perimeter of the refectory while the novices came around bringing us wine and fruit, salami and cheese.

I have been very grateful to God on this pilgrimage. Yesterday we had Mass at the crypt of the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome, right in front of the tomb of the apostle. It had been fifteen years since I had been in that spot, and I was just thinking over and over about how much God had done for me during that time--Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, an invitation to a life of prayer--not that I really accepted it!--and a religious vocation through which I have received so much grace and opportunity.

So thanks to the prayers of many things are going well, and you can be assured of mine too.

Away on Pilgrimage

I'm leaving for pilgrimage soon, so I'll be (gratefully!) off the grid for a while. If I get a chance to post, I will. Otherwise, I'll be back around the middle of August.

I'm going to Assisi, Rome, San Giovanni Rotondo, and some other places of Capuchin significance.

Pray for me and my brother pilgrims!

Finds

A lot of religious poo-poo life in a big, institutional style monastery. It has its advantages, though. For one thing, they are great repositories of random stuff, some of which you might need.

For example, in a couple of days I'm leaving for a pilgrimage to Assisi, Rome, San Giovanni Rotondo, and a few other sites of Franciscan and Capuchin interest. This morning I was thinking about what I might still need for the trip, and I thought of four things:

1. A small, new notebook to write a travelogue for our communications office
2. A portable Italian dictionary
3. Travel-size laundry detergent
4. A copy of the Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos volume of St. Francis. It's several times smaller and lighter than its English language counterparts and thus better for travel.

I found all of them without even leaving the house. So thank God for big, old, institutional religious houses.