Padre Pio's Daughters

A conversation at lunch.

[Friar mentions a prayer group of friars' mothers in his home province called 'The Daughters of Padre Pio.']

Friar 1: That's very interesting. Being the mother of a friar makes you become a daughter of Padre Pio.

Friar 2: Well, the other day Cardinal O'Malley reiterated that a friar who has a child has to leave to be a father and fulfill his obligations to the child and mother. [So what of Padre Pio and his daughters?]

Friar 1: Well Padre Pio already left the Order.

Friar 2: ?

Friar 1: Well in the friar database [which is kept here in the General Curia] one of the fields is 'way of leaving.' [modo di uscita] And one of the choices [for filling the field] is death.

Twenty-Four Years of Brothers and Sisters

[an old post, updated]

Today is my twenty-fourth anniversary of baptism. I don't think I had any idea what I was getting into that Saturday midday when I walked up out of the basement of Freeman Hall at Connecticut College, made my way out the Williams St. gate and went down to Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Quaker Hill. Perhaps it's part of the mercy of God that I had little idea. In any case, the Holy Spirit knew what he was doing and that's what matters.

As always, this anniversary reminds me to thank God and pray for all the people he has given me along the way, those who have been bearers of the graces God has willed in his generosity towards a lukewarm disciple like myself.

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.

Praying for the Big Meeting

Who can keep up with our good Pope Francis? Today there is another interview, this time with La Repubblica. This morning on Twitter I saw some exasperated soul wish out loud that Pope Francis would 'switch to decaf.'

And today begins the first official meeting of Francis's council of Cardinals, including, of course, our own Seán Patrick O'Malley, from whose prayer and hands I am a priest of Jesus Christ and a presbyter of the Roman Church, though I bear both poorly and awkwardly.

I find their meeting coming into my prayer. I pray for them, for their courage, their wisdom, their humility, their willingness. I keep thinking about how often you open the breviary to the feast of some bishop or other and it says that he was a reformer of his diocese, the clergy, etc. Perhaps it takes saints for true reform, and so we should pray for saints and serve each other's holiness. But I think reform itself--in the struggles and energy released in the work of reforming--also makes saints.

So I want to pray in thanksgiving for the holiness of our Holy Father and his council of Cardinals as they begin to meet today, that their discernment and effort may serve the holiness of the Universal Church, at once the bride of Christ and his Body, born in poverty, working to heal and reconcile, suffering, crucified, and Risen.

cosa tan ruin

The other day I went to the library of this friary where I have been staying to look for something light to read (and light to carry) for when I take the subway. For this purpose I was delighted to find the Cistercian Studies edition of Jean Leclercq's Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercian Spirit, which I think I may have read before but I can't remember. In any case it's a lovely little book. But I also took it to be a work of Providence that I came across an old paperback edition of St. Teresa of Ávila's The Way of Perfection, which I am now going through for the first time in years.

I thought the find perhaps providential because I have been seeking Teresa's example and intercession from time to time lately. Why?

Sede Vacante 2013, Day 1

Here in Rome, of course, the pope is our local bishop, so as of suppertime last night we have neither.

That's a new situation for me as a Catholic. There's only been one other papal interregnum since my baptism, that of April 2005. In those days I was living in Boston and we were very happy with our local bishop, the still only recently arrived and not yet Cardinal Seán Patrick O'Malley.

Fortunately, by divine or human design (or some mysterious combination thereof; oh, the mystery of Christianity!) the friar to whom it fell to be first concelebrant for Eucharistic Prayer II this morning was not only a real Italian (though a Milanese, not a Roman) but also someone who seems pretty careful about liturgy.

And so went the beginning of the intercessions:

Ricordati, Padre, della tua Chiesa diffusa su tutta la terra:
rendila perfetta nell’amore
in unione con il nostro Papa N.,
il nostro Vescovo N., e tutto l’ordine sacerdotale.

Which, in English, would go...

Remember, Lord, your Church, spread throughout the world, 
and bring her to the fullness of charity, 
together with N. our Pope and N. our Bishop and all the clergy.

Liberal Length

The Pope spoke sweetly at his last Wednesday Audience this morning. Of course we all watched and listened attentively. At lunch all the brothers remarked on how beautiful and personal were his words and on the humility he radiated in various ways.

Sunday Ramble

I really appreciate Sundays in my current assignment. It seems like we make an effort to put work on hold for a day and just take some quiet. After Mauds*, four empty hours of morning stretch out wonderfully before dinner. I tend to use the time to read, to clean out my inbox by answering those emails that are a little more personal or for whatever reason were more suited to a quieter moment, and to write real letters. Today I came to the end of all that with some time still remaining before dinner, so I went to the chapel to say Midday Prayer (which we don't have in common on Sundays) and to pray a little.

I was praying about how my moods and emotional states still have too much of an effect on my discernment and where I imagine myself to be with God. Whether I feel good or lousy on the emotional level, either way, interferes with the clarity of my prayer. I can even start to mistake these states for my spiritual condition. I prayed for a greater sense of faith, as something that I stand upon, or that grounds, or is behind or above--pick whichever metaphor works for you--all of that.

What came to mind was a set of events in my life: my baptism, my religious profession, my priestly ordination, and how, in God, these moments held within themselves everything that came after them for me, much of which I never would of imagined. On that tired old Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1992, when Deacon Ron poured water on my head and invoked the Blessed Trinity, everything that has come of my Christianity was contained in that brief moment of water and word: the twists and turns the journey has taken me on, the fellowship, the loneliness, the sensations of being lost and then found, or found and then lost, the joys and regrets, the friendships made and the friends lost. There were present all the prayers I would ever say, and the few of them that have been truly prayerful. Even all the sins I have committed since that moment were present in my baptism in a certain way. For, as I'll never forget, I once asked a spiritual director where God was when I was sinning. And he looked at me like I was the sad, ignorant case that I am and said, "He's on the Cross, suffering with you."

In the double-moment of my religious profession, first on a Saturday Morning in Yonkers, New York, and then, four years later, on another one in Middletown, Connecticut, my whole life as a Capuchin friar was present, my joy at receiving the mercy of this vocation and the salvation God has worked for me through it, my struggles to know how to observe the Rule I have promised, the burning desire for obedience, poverty, and chastity God has put in me set against the shallowness of my efforts to put them into practice. In that moment were all the joys and consolation I have had from brothers who have been true brother to me, as well as the injuries I bear from those who have hurt me. And there are all of my meager attempts to be brother to the brothers the Lord has given me, and all my failures to live up that simple title. And there is so much more, all of it every way that my whole experiment of finding myself in this journey of Christianity has come to be inextricably woven together with the example and words of St. Francis of Assisi.

In my ordination to the priesthood, in that moment when Seán O'Malley laid his hands on my head, anointed my hands, and prayed over me the prayer of consecration, everything my priesthood has been was present. There were the infinite graces of each Mass I have ever offered, there was whatever truth and encouragement the Holy Spirit was ever able to give to God's people through my small efforts at being a diligent preacher, there was the privilege of hearing every confession I've ever heard, as well as the awesome, saving healing of every absolution I have ever given, the forgiveness of God--stronger than sin and death--given from Jesus Christ to St. Peter and then passed down through the hands of so many and finally into the unworthy, dingy vessel of my voice.

I realize that I stand on those moments, and that whatever else should become of me as a Christian, as a religious, and as a priest, from right now, on this rainy Sunday afternoon until I should die, sooner or later, flows from them and, in a sense, is those moments. And I think this is what we mean when we talk about things as sacraments.

I arrived at such a confession through recalling a reflection on faith I used to have from time to time when I was working in the parish. A certain collection of circumstances led me to have, during the middle set of my three springs and summers as a parish priest, a lot of weddings. I think there was a spell of fourteen weeks, if I remember rightly, during which I had at least one every weekend. So that meant a weekly rhythm of rehearsals and wedding liturgies themselves, not to mention many last-minute phone calls from anxious brides and a few near-misses with paperwork arriving from other dioceses. So during this time, as a result of reflecting on what I could say for wedding homilies, shtick for rehearsals, and little catecheses for meetings, I had a lot of opportunity to reflect on what marriage might mean as an act of worship and faith. And it was just this that began to strike me, that a marriage was an expression of faith. In giving themselves to each other precisely as sacrament, what the couple were proclaiming to the Church and to the world was their faith that what they had found in each other was going to be stronger, more important, and more durable than a future that they didn't and couldn't know. It was to say that the goodness of the Creator had come to be reflected in their union, that they had found in each other the original blessing--a blessing not forfeited by original sin nor washed away by the flood, as one of the nuptial blessings puts it--that was the gaze of God upon his creation when he knew it to be good. God is love, and so to be in love always touches upon God and his eternity, which is why lovers always say, 'forever',whether they know what they are saying or not. The experience itself demands the closest imitation we have of God's eternity, our total self-giving, our unqualified 'forever.'

So in my own reflection for myself today, I find something similar. If I really believe in sacrament and it what the Church means by public vows, I too have to know that there was more faithfulness present in my baptism, religious profession, and ordination than a 'faith' that I could have been aware of in my own subjective desire or fervor or relative lack thereof at those moments. This is because our 'faith' isn't about how we feel or even how we think, in the sense of the depth of our intellectual assent to the articles of the faith, but about our willingness to let the faithfulness of Jesus Christ make a home within us, both for our own salvation and for that of others as it may please the Holy Spirit to work it through us.

May you attain full knowledge of God's will through perfect wisdom and spiritual insight. Then you will lead a life worthy of the Lord and pleasing to him in every way. You will multiply good works of every sort and grow in the knowledge of God. By the might of his glory you will be endowed with the strength needed to stand fast, even to endure joyfully whatever may come. (Colossians 1:9b-11, reading for Evening Prayer, Monday of Week I)

*"Mauds" is the name I give to the liturgy that results from combining Morning Prayer with Mass, as a portmanteau of 'Mass' and 'Lauds.' For more information see my post, "On the Various Forms of Prass."

(Our) Holy Father

At the Mass for the perpetual profession of friars, the litany of the saints is sung as the candidates pray prostrate. At this year's perpetual profession the setting of the litany by John Becker was used. I have a vivid memory of the first time I heard this setting; it was (I think) September 17, 1994 and I was at St. Francis of Assisi on 31st St. in Manhattan for another perpetual profession. I was a postulant to the OFM at the time. I also remember that it was the first time I ever heard the responsorial psalm sung at Mass, which just goes to show how shallow my Catholic experience was at the time. Anyway, on that day I remember being caught up in the moment and thinking that the Becker litany was the most beautiful thing ever. Over the years I've grown rather sick of it, but I don't mind singing it once in a while.

As in various litanies of the saints, Francis and Dominic are paired in one invocation. Of course they are counterparts in various senses. From this a conversation arose at table about Franciscan veneration of St. Dominic. I had long remarked that Dominic has a certain solemnity in the Franciscan calendar: his day is a feast for us, raised slightly from the obligatory memorial he is in the general Roman calendar. (In the Extraordinary Form the distinction is between a ii and iii class feast.) I have always presumed that this is mirrored in the Dominican calendar such that Francis is raised to a feast, but I have never checked this. Anybody know?

In our conversation, a venerable and devout friar pointed something out that I had never noticed before: in the Franciscan calendar both Francis and Dominic are given the title 'holy father,' but only Francis is called 'our holy father.' So this morning I went to check on this, and found it just as he said. In the current Roman-Franciscan Liturgy of the Hours, the solemnity of St. Francis is titled, "Our Holy Father Francis, Deacon, Founder of the Three Orders," while the feast of St. Dominic is simply titled, "Holy Father Dominic, Priest, Founder of the Order of Preachers." I presume that this is the same in the Roman-Franciscan Sacramentary, but I can't check because we don't have one at the friary where I live. The same pattern is found in the 1962 Missale Romano-Seraphicum and Breviarium Romano-Seraphicum: the i class feast of St. Francis is titled, "In Solemnitate S. Patris Nostri Francisci Conf. Fundatoris Trium Ordinum," while the ii class feast of St. Dominic is simply, "Sancti Patris Dominici Confessoris."

Interestingly, in the most recent Franciscan rite of religious profession (which, as far as I know, has not been approved by the Holy See) Francis and Dominic do not appear together. Both appear in a little section of the litany that seems to be dedicated to religious founders: St. Basil, St. Augustine, St. Anthony, St. Benedict, St. Dominic, St. Ignatius and St. Alphonsus, Our Holy Father St. Francis, Holy Mother St. Clare. Francis is still styled 'our holy father,' but Dominic has lost his 'holy father.' A little rupture in the tradition, no?

Holy Father Dominic, pray for us.
Our Holy Father Francis, pray for us.

Baby Priests

One of my colleagues at school was ordained priest last weekend. I've been praying for him. He's a baby priest. That's what they call you. I've always experienced it as a term of endearment; the baby priest is innocent, unruined, full of possibility and promise, and inspires care-giving.

The baby priest also has certain special 'powers.' Asking for his 'first blessing' is a venerable tradition, and the blessing itself is said to contain great graces. As one of the old friars said to me around the time of my own priestly ordination, getting the blessing of a new priest "is worth wearing out two horses." I was ordained by Cardinal Sean O'Malley, whose practice it is to conclude the Mass by kneeling down and asking for himself the blessing of the newly ordained. I'll never forget that moment, as I tried to remember what I had practiced saying about his ministry as teacher and shepherd, and how he kissed my chrismated hands.

Today I visited a parish to give a pro-life talk. I was there a little early, and I ran into one of the parish priests. As we were introducing ourselves, he asked me what I was doing in Boston. I explained that after three years as a parish priest after ordination, I had been asked to return to studies. "Oh," he said, "a baby priest." I was a little surprised to hear it, as I've been a priest for over three years. Besides, he looked pretty young himself. Nevertheless, you never know, for reasons that require further study, certain sorts of priests go through life very well preserved.

So, the question arises: at one point does a priest cease to be a baby priest? I don't know. Given that this language is obviously meant to be analogous to babyhood in human life, I hardly know how to make an assertion, because I don't know when people stop being babies and turn into something else. It would also seem somewhat culturally bound; I have remarked many times that among some ethnic groups, children are still called babies when they would have long been considered something else in another group.

So, when does someone stop being a baby priest?

Superangelic Evangelization

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, our bishop himself is preaching at Masses all over the archdiocese of Boston to kick off the Catholics Come Home outreach.

Facing the back of the television from my versus populum presidential chair (and with my sense of liturgical decorum keeping me from abandoning it) and without the best sound system in the world, I didn't catch everything in the Spanish version of the homily. So after Mass I was delighted to notice that not only were all the videos online, but that the initiative had its own website, which I linked above. Here is Cardinal Seán's homily in English, Spanish, and Portuguese:

2011 Catholics Come Home, Boston - ENGLISH from bostoncatholic on Vimeo.

2011 Catholics Come Home, Boston - SPANISH from bostoncatholic on Vimeofrom bostoncatholic on Vimeo..

2011 Catholics Come Home, Boston - PORTUGUESE

While the video was playing during Mass, the thought of the Cardinal preaching in various churches not only simultaneously but in various languages reminded me of this part of a talk from Marshall McLuhan:



Let us pray for Cardinal Seán and the success of Catholics Come Home in Boston!

Cardinal O'Malley's Ordination Homily

On Saturday our newest priest was ordained by our Capuchin brother Cardinal Sean O'Malley, archbishop of Boston. The homiletic instruction he gave to the ordinandus (and by extension to all priests present) was quite inspiring, and I wanted to share two points that I can recall. The first is on spiritual fatherhood and the second on pronouncing the words of consecration.

As a spiritual father to the people to whom he is given in service, as well as one called to beget new and renewed children in Christ, the priest should take as his example the self-sacrificial attitude of the earthly fathers he meets. Fathers make great sacrifices for their children, and go to great lengths for their good and advancement, and so it needs to be for those who are called to fatherhood in the spiritual order.

To pronounce the words of consecration--or better, to have them spoken by the Lord through us--is the center of each day for the priest. To do so with sacramental validity (that is to say to do so according to the rubrics and to mean to consecrate as the Church understands it) is only the beginning. The words of consecration only come to their full meaning for the priest when he includes himself in them. When he says, "this is my body, which will be given up for you," the priest is also conscious that is offering his own life and body to be broken and given up for the sake of the people of God. He speaks these words in persona Christi, but this also means that he offers his own life on the altar, uniting himself each day to the one sacrifice of Christ.

The picture below is blurry, but not so blurry as to leave any doubt that it is me who is laying hands on the new priest. I have found this particular act and moment to be one of the greatest joys of the spiritual fatherhood of the priesthood. Our new priest, who is to be my successor here at the parish, was the fifth for whom I had this privilege.

Seventeen Years of Brothers and Sisters

Tomorrow is my anniversary of baptism; I will be seventeen years old. By Providence I have a liturgical day free of obligation for public Mass, so I intend to get up early and offer a Mass for those whom the Lord has given me along the way:

First, for my first priest, Fr. Larry, and for the friars and parishioners of St. Mary's in New Haven, whose reverence and piety first attracted me to prayer.

Second, for Deacon Ron, who baptized me, and for his family; for Fr. Leo Sutula, requeiscat in pace, who gave me my first Holy Communion and who also heard my first confession; for Bishop Dan Reilly, who confirmed me; for Fr. Dan, OFM, who invested me in the Franciscan habit; for Fr. Michael, OFM Cap., who received my profession of both temporary and perpetual vows; for Bishop Francis X. Irwin, who ordained me deacon; and for Cardinal Sean O'Malley, OFM Cap. who ordained me priest.

Third, for my spiritual directors, from whom I have profited so much: Fr. Charles, Sr. Joyce, Fr. Confer, Mr. Zepf, Sr. Vivienne, Sr. Pat, priests of the Discalced Carmelites and Oblates of the Virgin Mary whose names I have forgotten, and Fr. Karl.

Fourth, for my formation directors: Vincent and Fr. Aubrey, Fr. Andrew and Br. Richard, Fr. Bill and Fr. Raphael, Br. John and Ken, Fr. Marty, Fr. Tom, and Fr. Jack.

Fifth, for my classmates in religious life: Phil, Hank, Brian, Mike, Ken, John, Steve, Robert, Sam, Tom, James, Arlen, Justin, Drew, Jim, Bart, Louis, and Marvin.

Sixth, for the teachers who have been so encouraging to me: Fr. Dominic and Br. Bill of the OFM, Carlos ('the real teacher'), Antonio, ('el Loco'), Khaled, Sr. Meg, Cathy, Fr. John of the Sulpicians, and Frs. John, Randy, Peter, Dan, and Stanley of the Society of Jesus.

This is going to be one long memento for the living!

Breviary Adjustment Service

I was reminded of this today on Whispers. I think it's too funny.

as he exhorted his priests to stay faithful to the "Divine Office" in his most recent Chrism Mass homily Boston's Cardinal Sean O'Malley OFM Cap. made a crack about the "breviary adjustment service."

"For a very reasonable fee of $25," O'Malley said that "the service provides that within hours after your death someone will go to your rectory and place the ribbons in your breviary in the proper corresponding places," adding that "there is a special supplementary service offered for Bishops.

"If the Bishop expires while reading the minutes of the presbyteral council they will come and put the Imitation of Christ in his hands," he said.

"It is what the Irish call cleaning up the obituary."

Benedict Arrives

I have just finished watching the arrival of His Holiness, Benedict XVI in Washington. His cassock looked a little bit in need of an iron, but that's how you always feel after flying across the Atlantic. Some of the assembled folks sang happy birthday a day early.

I'm really excited about the visit, and especially for the chance to concelebrate with Benedict on Saturday. It makes me so grateful to God for my baptism and my vocation. I know I'm a geek about this stuff, but I was just looking to see how far back I would have to go in the apostolic lineage of my ordination to find a common ancestor with Benedict.

The answer: to Clement XIII. Benedict was ordained bishop by Josef Stangl of Würzburg, from whom it is 15 steps back to Clement. Cardinal Seán O'Malley of Boston, who ordained me priest, was ordained bishop by Edward John Harper, C. Ss. R., from whom it is 12 steps back to Clement.

Communion of Saints

The day of my ordination, my formation director gave me this advice: "Just keep the communion of saints in mind; it's the only way this makes sense."

So I've tried. It comes to me especially when I am speaking the Lord's words over the chalice:

Take this, all of you, and drink from it.
This is the cup of my blood.
the blood of the new and everlasting covenant.
It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven.
Do this in memory of me.

I think of Jesus himself, knowing he was to die so horribly the next day, and how he wanted to help his disciples understand what it meant, his death, "according to the Scriptures."

Then I think of all the martyrs who shed their blood for the truth, consecrating it into the blood of the body of Christ. And I don't just think of the martyrs we remember in the calendar, but of everyone who gives themselves for others.

Finally I think of the priests in the line of the laying on of hands that ended with me, especially Cardinal O'Malley, Pius X, Clement XIII, and Benedicts XIV and XIII.

Apostolic Succession

One of my classmates in the Order calls me a "church nerd." So I guess it was in that spirit that this morning, when I woke up as a priest for the first time, I looked up the episcopal lineage of my ordination.

And I was pleased to discover that, from my ordination, it was only seven steps back to Pope St. Pius X.

Turkey

The Holy Father's visit to Turkey this week is truly a big deal. Cardinal Sean has a prayer posted for him and his trip.

Franciscan Blogosphere

One of the Franciscan members of the hierarchy here in the USA, Cardinal O'Malley, is blogging his current visit to Rome. Check it out here.