301 Years Under Immaculate Mary

A little post for the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary today, which is also the feast day of my province of the Order. On the 7-language grid of the circumscriptions of the Order, to which I'm always referring in my current work, we are along the line Provincia Neoeboracensis et Nov. Angliae. So happy feast day to all the brothers at home.

In his forthcoming circular letter for the Year of Faith, our General Minister refers to an event of which I had never heard. In 1712, he says, the Capuchin Order was placed under the patronage and protection of Mary Immaculate.

The Ambiguous Fate of the Fat

This morning I thought to practice the readings for the solemnity of the Sacred Heart tomorrow, knowing that I would be asked to proclaim one or another of them.

I soon found myself in an eschatological dubium.

Boasting in the Lord

Not to scandalize anyone, but I can't say that in my experience of religious life I have been edified overwhelmingly by the influence of Sacred Scripture in the discernment and planning of everyday tasks and administration. Today, however, was an exception.

A brother was at work preparing a request to certain ministers of the brothers, that they might compile certain informations regarding the maintenance of buildings, the condition of temporal goods, that sort of thing.

Another brother issued a warning, reminding the first brother that it had been Satan who had incited David to "number" Israel, and that the end result had been a divine judgment that left seventy thousand dead and Jerusalem just missing being destroyed. (Cf. 1 Chronicles 21)

The first brother responded that David had been punished because he tried to make an accounting of his strengths (which intimated failure to have faith in the Mighty One of Israel), but that the Order (according to the salutary spiritual advice of the Apostle) was endeavoring to render an account of its weaknesses.

Kittehs

I guess a Catholic blog is supposed to be an enterprise of the New Evangelization, using new means to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to a world once-evangelized but grown confused and forgetful. But one can't be in the world and totally not of it, as it were, and one can't be online and not be, at least to some degree, bedazzled and rendered subject to the internet's beguilings. So, after, seven years of blogging I surrender to the internets, and present to you a post of kitten pictures.

aliquantulum quiescit

There are about thirty friars assigned to the house where I live. Most of them are priests. Many of them live itinerant lives in their service to the Order, so at any given moment two-thirds or so of the group might be at home. This means that as a priest one gets to be principal celebrant only once or twice a month. I really look forward to it, especially for the particular circumstances of Holy Communion.

After the Behold the Lamb of God...(the phrasing of which is curiously inverted in Italian, i.e. it goes, first, Blessed are...and then Behold...) the concelebrants begin to approach the front of the altar, where the acolyte has already placed the paten and chalices for them. Given that this procession of the concelebrants takes a few minutes, the principal celebrant is left with all the time he could want in receiving Holy Communion. I really appreciate it. One can even observe the brief period of meditation prescribed in the Extraordinary Form after receiving the Host and before receiving the Precious Blood. Tridentine accretion or 'mutual enrichment'? I don't know...but the great thing is that nobody else is paying you any mind such that he might render an opinion.

I just love the stress-free nature of the moment, the chance to receive Holy Communion in total peace. No worried temptation to look out of the corner of your eye to make sure the full complement of EMsoHC has assembled, no anxiety over whether you will soon find out that you will be expected to engage in some bizarre 'local custom' or illicit Communion Rite procedure.

As I received Holy Communion today, the gospel came back to me. (Luke 9:11b-17) I knew myself as one of those tired faces in the crowd, finding myself in the 'deserted place' of this world--and is if that weren't bad enough, finding myself as the 'deserted place' of my own soul, my own prayer and devotion having been made a desert by my negligence and sin. But it was precisely for me and all my brother and sister miserable sinners that Jesus Christ gave himself as bread to the Twelve, that they might give him to us. And it is in just this way that the bread that was more than enough for the hungry crowd, passed on by the apostolic Churches down to today, comes even to me.

Now For The Real Fire

At supper tonight we got to talking about Capuchin beards, their growth, meaning, value, etc. Among items confessed was my abiding shame at being, apparently, incapable of growing a proper, traditional Capuchin beard. It's my Pauline thorn, I suppose.

Cut

Over the years some of those who have had the misfortune of being my pastoral caregivers have suggested that I might be afflicted with scrupulosity. I've never really accepted the diagnosis; in any case they can't be all bad, the sort of things that get pointed out, because I learn things from them.

For example, at times I have had a hard time getting myself to genuflect to the Blessed Sacrament. At such moments it seemed like it could be hypocritical for such a person, so far from submission to God in mind and so far from a pure intention of pleasing God in the heart, to make such a strong, public gesture of adoration. But in trying to reflect upon and pray through my hesitation I came to realize that a gesture like a genuflection to the Blessed Sacrament is less a proclamation, 'this is the sort of person that I am,' than a confession, 'this is the sort of person I would like to become.'

Perhaps a spoken prayer like the Act of Contrition is an easier starting point to elaborate the same point. I couldn't even guess how many times I have said one version or another of this prayer since my first one at my first confession, a week and two hours after my baptism. Nevertheless, sometimes I have had trouble getting myself to say it. How could I dare to speak such a prayer, proclaiming myself genuinely contrite when I knew all too well that I wasn't? Would it not be at best a lie and at worst a sin against the commandment, taking God's name in vain?

But again, trying to reflect upon and pray through this hesitation, I came to understand better the nature of the  prayer. An Act of Contrition is not a proclamation, saying 'I am this sort of person,' but a confession that God has put into my heart a desire to be the sort of person who might be able to say such a prayer honestly, and thus, precisely as a prayer, it contains the supplication that God would help me surrender to the grace of becoming one.