With Open Hands


Dear Friends and family:

Happy New Year!  I trust that everyone is reaping in the graces of the Christmas season.  It’s hard to believe that we just celebrated Christmas and New Year’s.  In my mind, it’s still summer.  I guess that’s what happens when you live in South Florida, there are no seasons.

Once more we must appeal to our friends for financial help.  We have a number of bills to pay and we’re short.  We have tuition due, rent, medical insurance premium, telephone and electric, as well as lots of medications.

We’re trying to help a few families of immigrants who have very low income and at least one person who is sick and disabled.  We do the best we can to get enough money together each month to help them.  When one family no longer needs us, we find another.  Part of our mission is to help the immigrant poor who do not have access to public funds.  This places them among the voiceless in our society.

Won’t you help us with whatever you can afford?  You can go to our website  http://franciscansoflife.org .

Thank you for being there for us and the voiceless whom we serve.

Brother Jay, Superior

Published in: on January 4, 2017 at 2:10 AM  Leave a Comment  

They came from the east, west, north and south


Happy New Year to all our relatives, friends and benefactors.

2017_01_bros_virginiaChristmas week was a very active one for us.  On December 23rd, Brother Jay and Brother Bernardo flew into Virginia to spend Christmas with Katherine Marie Therese, Brother Jay’s brand new granddaughter.  It was her first Christmas.  But there was much more to it.  We’ll get to that shortly.

December 24th family came in from Pensacola, FL, Pembroke Pines, FL, and Bloomington, IL.  The house was filled with joy, conversation, a lot of picture taking and a fantastic dinner.

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Daniel, Brother Jay’s son-in-law, cooked the main course, a roast pork shoulder.  No one knew Daniel was such a great cook.  Our waistlines, the next day, proved that Daniel cooks very well. Let’s put it this way, on the trip home, Brother jay could not move once he opened the tray-table in front of him on the airplane.

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Anonymous well-rounded brother

To be perfectly transparent, if one can be transparent with such girth, the airline industry is determined to influence relationships between people who don’t know each other.  The seats are so close to each other that no one with a waist over 40” can get to the window seat.  There is no way to squeeze in between the three seats in your row and those in front of you, unless you breath and hold it as you navigate in a tight space.  If you try to do this after eating several holiday meals, you can forget it.  You may as well pay a little extra for a seat in the bulkhead section, preferably a loveseat.  But let’s get back to Christmas Eve.

Unfortunately, we were unable to attend Midnight Mass, because the local parish did not have one this year.  The closest Midnight Mass was about thirty minutes away, which is a rough trip for a two-month old little girl, in the middle of a cold December night.  Since we couldn’t travel that far, we sat around and talked, teased each other and I believe that one or two of us may have dozed off for a few minutes, after such a large and delicious meal.

cartujoEarlier that day, Daniel’s mother and Brother Jay engaged in a conversation about a liquor that the Carthusian hermits have been making for hundreds of years.  The more they talked about it, the more enthusiastic they became about finding it.  Thank God for Google.  The first problem was identifying the name of the liquor.  Brother Jay is a “master googler”.  We found the name of the liquor, Chartreux, named after the Charterhouse where the hermits have lived for about 1,000 years.

The next step was to find out where we could purchase a bottle of it to go with the Christmas meal.  Once again, Google came to the rescue and the liquor was found and purchased.  Did I mention that it smells and tastes like cou2016_01_24_quest.jpggh medicine?  Originally, the Carthusian hermits made this liquor for medicinal purposes.  It’s no surprise that it smells like cough medicine without the artificial cherry flavor.   Let’s put it this way.  The stuff smells and tastes so awful that an ounce is about all you can drink in one evening.  I don’t mean one sitting.  I mean a full evening.  The positive here is that you’re literally indulging in Catholic spirits that have been around for about 800 years.  If you’re looking to make contact with your Catholic roots and traditions, here is a drink that you can use as an aperitif or as a cure for any disease imaginable.

Opening the gifts under the Christmas tree was a beautiful experience.  You have picture some 15 people in a small living room with room for a sofa, a chair and a Christmas tree.  There is no more floor space.  The little floor space that used to be available is now occupied 2016_01_24_collage.jpgby baby Katherine’s play mat, chair and some other contraptions.  If you’re not careful, you can trip on a piece of infant equipment and find yourself sitting in an infant carrier.

In any case the gifts were distributed and opened.  The beauty of the event was that there were no “over the top” gifts, no electronic gadgets (other than a book light for Brother Jay) and there were many books given as gifts.  Each gift was purchased with the intention of enriching the life of the next person, as the infant in the manger enriched the lives of the shepherds and peasants in the surrounding pastures.

These are true Christmas gifts.  It’s not a show of opulence; nor is it an attempt to impress the recipient with one’s FANTASTIC present.  It was a sharing of gifts that have meaning that we share and that enrich the life of the recipient, because the giver has been enriched by it first.  You’re not just sharing a thing, you passing on a positive experience in your life.

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On December 25th, everyone met up at the local parish for Christmas Day mass.   It was a great experience.  We were all filled with the same awe as the shepherds in Bethlehem the morning of Our Lord’s birth. That’s one of the wonderful things that happens when you have a family where everyone is a practicing Catholic and well catechized.  The mystery of the Eucharist, especially on a solemnity such as Christmas, moves you as an individual and as a family.  In this way, the entire family travels down the path to redemption following Mary, the star that leads to Incarnate Son of the Father.2016_25_Christmas_mass.jpg

Then came December 27th.  This was the day that Baby Katherine was to be baptized, her godparents being her paternal uncle and auntie.  This time, family members came not only from the cities that we mentioned above, but more family arrived.  Some drove all the way from Miami.  Others took a five-hour bus ride to be there.  There were cousins who live in New York and other relatives from Virginia, and there were the brothers, the Franciscans of Life.  There were also childhood friends who are now married and parents themselves.  They took the time off from work to participate in the baptism.

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Three generations of family from her father’s side and three from her mother’s side, plus long-term friends, were present to welcome Katherine into the Church and to formally name her, Katherine Marie Therese.   She is now a Catholic along with her family and friends.  For this we are grateful to God.  Passing down the faith to the next generation is always a memorable event when those present are more than spectators.  They are men and women of faith opening the door for a loved one to enter into a deeper communion with the family and with Christ, through the waters of Baptism.2016_27_Baptism.jpg

It was finally time to go home.  But Brother Bernardo couldn’t find his wristwatch.  He decided to take a look behind the sleeper sofa, not knowing that the sofa is alive.  The bed started to close and swallow him up.

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Thankfully, the sofa spit him out and the brothers returned to the Motherhouse, exhausted, elated, enriched and in one piece.  It’s going to be a great year.  The best part is that it’s not an election year.  NO MORE CAMPAIGNS!!!!!  YEY!!!!!

Dancing Friar

Published in: on January 3, 2017 at 12:12 AM  Comments (2)  

Christmas in a Galaxy Not So Far Away


Earlier, one of our younger brothers asked me if I had an article to publish for the blog, because he noticed that I wrote several articles this week.  I told him that none of my current articles were Christmas material, to which the young brother asked me for permission to read my articles and determine for himself if any were good Christmas material.  Just a few minutes ago, he approached me and said, “You’re right, none of these articles is Christmas material.”

I was very touched by his interest in publishing a Christmas article written by me, given the fact that he is a much better writer than I am and a lot smarter, he can probably write a better article.

Suddenly, the thought hit me, “There is a dimension of Christmas that is rarely mentioned.”  During the Christmas season, we write beautiful cards and letters wishing our loved ones a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, whatever the custom in your family may be.  We inject adrenaline into the household with shopping, travel plans or preparations to welcome friends and loved ones for the holidays.

When we go to Church, be it Midnight Mass or on Christmas Day, we hear beautiful sermons about the birth of Jesus, God’s love for humanity and how Christmas sets the stage for the Cross.  Let’s not forget that Jesus was a child born with a price on his head.  The Holy Family did not travel to Egypt to visit the great pyramids.  The Egyptians and the Canaanites were not the best of neighbors.

Mary and Joseph pick up and go to Egypt out of love for their son.  They wanted to protect him from Herod’s insecurities, which would have concluded in murdering the child along with the rest of the innocents at the time.

The more that I thought about these points and the fact that the young brother was so interested in publishing one of my articles, rather than using a piece of his own exemplary writing, spoke to me about the undercurrent of Christmas.  It is the undercurrent of Christmas that truly counts.  That undercurrent is love.

Just as an undercurrent draws in everything that gets close, so too does the love that is born at Christmas.   Brother wanted to publish one of my articles, not because I’m the best writer in the world.  We all know that’s not true.  He wanted to publish one of my articles because of love.  He loves his superior and his brother.  He rejoices when others learn from his superior’s writings and when they praise what they read.

In a simple request, Brother taught me that the Christmas spirit is truly the Love of God breaking into human history and radiating through every century, every culture and every human being to this day.  Christmas is not simply a happy holiday, it’s a celebration of generous love.  We keep Christmas alive not only when we give gifts, welcome guests or visit others.  Those are just starters.  Once the gifts are unwrapped and the greetings are over, what’s there besides food?

There is the love of God that has broken into our lives and is here to stay.  God’s love is not a feeling, but a living being whom the Father calls “Son.”  The Son of God wants to show all men that they are loved, not just give them a warm Christmas hug and a gift.  He wants to gaze into the eyes of our neighbor, through our eyes and say, “There is something special about you that I believe must be shared with the rest of the world.”

This faith in the giftedness of the brother is the highest expression of love on this side of Heaven.  It makes the birth of Christ closer to home, not as a story of long long ago in another galaxy far far away, as they say in Star Wars.  No, the birth of Christ is God saying to man, “You are special and I will prove it, by sharing in your humanity and lifting you up to my divinity.”

Brother’s request for an article was a subtle message that told me, “You’re special to me.”  This is the true message that the eternal Word of God says to mankind on Christmas morning.

Br. Jay

advent2016d

Published in: on December 21, 2016 at 12:23 PM  Comments (1)  

Is A Peaceful Christmas Possible This Year?


st joseph

Peace begins in the family

Normally, I prefer not to comment on the politics around me.  I’m not indifferent to right and wrong.  I’m indifferent to people who like to argue instead of engaging in a dialogue that arrives at some constructive conclusion.  I’m afraid that this Christmas is being marred by so much hatred that it would be irresponsible for any Franciscan not to say something and continue to refer to himself as a man of peace.

On the national front, we have hate speech, conspiracy theories and a great deal of anger concerning the results of the elections.  The fact is that no matter who won the election, there is no way that we would not be facing an uphill battle against sin and oppression of the voiceless, be they the preborn person or the immigrant and many others.  We do not achieve peace by exacerbating conflict, by throwing fuel into the fire.

We achieve peace first and foremost through prayer.  A man or woman who prays cultivates interior silence.  He who cultivates interior silence opens an interior space where he can hear his brothers and sisters.  The soul has many chambers.  There is also another chamber where we find true Wisdom.  In there, as well, one must be silent to hear the Word.  It is the living Word that gives us the peace that the world cannot give, but that we can share with the world.

This is discernment through contemplation.  It leads to answers that are appropriate for today’s concerns.  Without proper discernment and contemplation, we run the risk of providing our own answers to the problems of today.  So far, our answers have not taken us very far along the road to peace, interior and social peace.

There are Catholics who believe that they must provoke the Pope and the bishops until they bend or explode.  Whether the Pope and the bishops bend to a certain point of view or they lash out in anger and frustration, the fact remains that the Church does not win.  I’m not referring to the Mystical Body.  The Mystical Body is holy.  The Bride of Christ cannot be seduced to compromise with culture or to erupt in anger after being insulted and pushed around.

Those of us who make up the Body of Christ have not risen above our mortal nature.  Shouting insults at the pope and bishops, calling the pope a heretic and a Communist leaves greater scars in the minds and hearts of the faithful who read the blogosphere and listen to the podcasterium of our time.  Others who are not Catholic are looking at us and wondering, why in the world would they believe that we have the fullness of Truth, when we fail to give witness to charity, respect and humility.  Where is the prize to be won by such aggressive behavior?

There are many serious questions on the table that we pray the Holy Father will address, for the sake of clarity.  I believe that he is not a heretic and that it is not his intention to mislead the faithful and distort the faith.  We hope and pray that he shed some light on the questions on the table.

It is equally important that the faithful: lay, clergy and religious, not take it upon ourselves to speak out as if we were a newly instituted magisterium.  That’s giving in to the devil’s temptation to sow the seeds that divide rather than unite.

With terrorism surrounding us and taking innocent lives, is it necessary for Catholics and Americans to raise the level of anxiety with so much rhetoric that solves nothing and provokes every sin against virtue?

Published in: on December 16, 2016 at 2:46 AM  Leave a Comment  

“In God We Trust” Really?


I’ve been trying to keep up with news and thoughts by and about Catholics on Facebook.  However, I’m starting to feel somewhat disappointed.  It is naive to believe
St_Setonthat one is going to find much that is worthwhile on Facebook; but occasionally one runs into another person who thinks with clarity and shares his or her thoughts in such a way that encourages us to rise to higher moral ground and to a more intense life of virtue and prayer.

Having said this, I must confess that it has been a great disappointment to find the many priests and consecrated religious who post on Facebook talk about every social and civil ill, encourage people to rise in protest, at times denounce those who do evil, but something is obviously lacking from their posts.  God, Jesus, the Immaculate, prayer, the perfection of charity and atonement for one’s sins and those who don’t do penance.  These are never mentioned.

A good example of this gap in “Catholic” posts is found in discussions on discrimination and racism.  Since the US elections several Catholic bloggers have taken to the Internet to denounce racial discrimination and other forms of discrimination, be due to religion, sex, sexual orientation or gender-dysphoria.   They have denounced politicians, Church hierarchy, business men and women, and other members of society for behaviors that are often cruel and unnecessary, or at times for failing to speak up for the voiceless.

Another important area of life in which we find protesting, finger pointing and even name calling is in religion.  We have politicized religion to such an extent that we now speak of fellow believers using popular political jargon:  liberals and conservatives or novus ordo and traditionalists.

Here too, the language is very often offensive.  At times, it offends because it is vulgar and sometimes it offends because words are used to assassinate someone’s character.  They don’t simply describe an immoral behavior or a statement that contradicts absolute truth.  These are words that encourage hatred.

It is important for all of us to be aware of injustices, abuses and disregard for God and man.  When priests and consecrated religious brothers or sisters write only about the evils and don’t mention what the Scriptures, Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium have to say about these things, we fail our people.  People have a right to expect clergy and religious to refer to faith to enlighten human life.  We don’t become priests or religious to be social workers or activists.  Ordination and consecrated life are not essential to the work of an activist.  Conviction is what matters.

I encourage clergy and religious who post on Facebook and in blogs to remember that faith enlightens reason.  Reason enlightened by faith strengthens convictions.  Christ did not come into the world to lead men into a godless revolution.  His followers were to be guided by their faith.  Their faith shed light on the rightness and wrongness around them.  Then they denounced what was wrong and defended what was right.  But they always proclaimed the faith that enlightened them.  Many were martyred for doing so, but there were more converts than martyrs.

Let us look at the world, including the Church, through the eyes of faith.  Let faith help us see what is good and what is evil.  Let faith supply the courage to fight for good and against evil.  Most importantly, never forget to share the faith that drives us, lest others see us as simple social activists or worse.

We who are priests or consecrated men and women have committed our lives to living according to the faith.  The Church has charged us with the duty to proclaim the perfection of charity and the Kingdom of God.  The first step in serving God is to find Him.  The search for God is the search for truth.  We must begin by discerning what God has called each of us to do and how God wants us to go about it.  For priests and religious, the call is not a call to godless social work or godless political activism.

We must never give up and never surrender our awareness of God’s presence in human affairs.  Going into battle for purely human reasons or as some say, for the sake of justice alone, is not the Gospel.  Christ exemplifies true justice.  The exercise of evangelical justice leads man back to the Father.  Christian justice and renewal is built on faith and preached with courage.  There is nothing courageous in insulting another person or group of people.  There is no hope when God is not part of the discussion for justice.

Published in: on December 5, 2016 at 3:55 AM  Comments (2)  

Remember Us: Thanksgiving and Christmas


LOGOHello everyone:

We’re sorry to bother our friends and family again.  However, we’re running low on funds.  We helped a family with December’s rent, which is over $1000.00 and we paid Brother Bernardo’s tuition for this semester.

We’re asking everyone who reads this to be generous and to go to PayPal on this page or our website and make a small tax deductible donation to the Franciscans of Life.  www.franciscansoflife.org

Thank you for your assistance.  Have a blessed and safe Thanksgiving Day and weekend.

Always your brother,

Brother Jay, FFV

Superior

Published in: on November 21, 2016 at 5:22 PM  Leave a Comment  

Llamado a la comunidad hispana


spain-653008_640Los Franciscanos por la Vida saludan a la comunidad hispana.  Durante estos días después de las elecciones, hemos visto muchas protestas en el noticiero y muchos comentarios de parte de personas hispanas y de otros grupos minoritarios.  Todo se debe al temor que aumente la discriminación contra los grupos minoritarios y otras personas indefensas.

Los hermanos comprendemos la preocupación que sienten muchas personas ya que el tenor de esta última campaña para la presidencia de EEUU fue un escándalo debido a palabras y gestos que ofendieron a muchas personas y otras palabras que le niegan la protección de la ley a un niño en el vientre, pero protege la redefinición de “matrimonio” para acomodar uniones de personas del mismo sexo.  También se propuso utilizar dinero del pueblo para subsidiar al movimiento más abortivo y cruel de nuestra época, Planned Parenthood.

Al final de cuentas, ganara quien ganara las elecciones, personas inocentes corren el riesgo do ser ignorados y oprimidos.  Otros corren el riesgo de que se le niegue el derecho a nacer y las parejas casadas se encuentran con el  oprobio que les dice que su matrimonio y el de dos personas del mismo sexo, son la misma cosa.

La pregunta es ¿Cómo deben responder los hispanos al resultado de las elecciones, ya que se ve, desde un avión, que ganara quien ganara, la moral y los inocentes serían atacados?

Creemos tener algunos consejos que pueden ayudar a proteger al pueblo y animar a gobierno que cumpla con la constitución.

  1. Protestar por las calles no va a cambiar el resultado de las elecciones. Al contrario, la ira solo sirve para fertilizar el odio.  Por lo tanto, muchas de las protestas que se ven en las calles refuerzan el desprecio pecaminoso que poseen ciertas personas sin conciencia moral.
  1. Es importante identificar, con mucha especificad, lo que el pueblo espera de la nueva administración. Pero no basta con hacer una lista de avideces. Es necesario vivir activamente como ciudadano del entorno promoviendo lo bueno y rechazando lo malo.
  1. Si solo mencionamos lo malo y nunca mencionamos lo bueno, se corre el riesgo que las autoridades ignoren lo bueno ya que la ciudadanía ha dado la impresión que aquellos ideales y leyes que responden a la dignidad del hombre según la voluntad de Dios, no son de gran importancia para los constituyentes de esta sociedad.   Hay que identificar lo bueno poner el oído a la tierra y la mirada hacia arriba para asegurarnos que se cumpla con el bien, sobre todo con la ley moral.
  1. Hacer comentarios candentes en el Internet, sobre todo en Facebook, no lleva a nada bueno. Quizás usted siente alivio porque se descarga, pero la persona que lee sus comentarios solo siente miedo, fastidio, y muchas veces ira que no sentía antes.  El ser humano es como la esponja.  La esponja absorbe agua, pero también recoge desperdicio y basura dentro de una olla o sobre una mesa.  De la misma manera, la mente humana absorbe lo negativo con mucha más facilidad que lo positivo.
  1. Por último, después de tener un listado concreto del bien que queremos que nuestro gobierno logre y los males que debe intentar de resolver, animemos a nuestros hermanos hispanos a propagar el mensaje hasta que todo ciudadano hispano norteamericano oiga y comprenda la misión que se le debe encargar al gobierno, no obstante el partido o el candidato. Lo bueno es bueno aquí y en el Japón.  Lo malos es malo en Miami y en el infierno.  Las demostraciones y el ruido por las calles, sin un temario concreto, son restos de la vida que muchos hispanos dejaron atrás cuando salieron de Latinoamérica donde las revoluciones y demostraciones sin especificad solo expulsan un gobierno malo y lo reemplazan con otro igual o peor.
  1. Por último, no olvidar que para Dios nada es imposible. El poder de la oración es inmensurable.  El Espíritu Santo puede convertir un corazón de piedra en un corazón de amor.  También puede dar fuerzas y resistencia para sobrevivir cualquier noche oscura.  Si no comprende lo que digo con la noche oscura, lea la vida de cualquier santo.  Le recomiendo Santa Rita, San Juan Bosco, San Felipe Neri, y Santa Gianna Molla.

Mantengamos la paz interior para promover la paz en nuestro entorno familiar y nacional.  Tengamos siempre presente que el pecado no puede contra Dios, es un estorbo y a veces un reto, pero nunca triunfa sobre la caridad hacia Dios y hacia el prójimo.  Colaboremos con Dios.  No somos un cuerpo sin cabeza.  Que cada gesto y cada palabra que exponemos en público, salga de la cabeza, que es Cristo.christ-kind-and-queen-mother

Published in: on November 21, 2016 at 12:14 AM  Leave a Comment  

To those who are interested


logoNow that the Election Day is over, as superior of the Franciscans of Life, consistent with our mission to bring Christ to the voiceless and to hear the whisper of Christ’s voice coming from those whom the world tries to silence, I exhort everyone to focus on what is truly important.

Gloating, because your candidate won, does nothing for the voiceless Christ, neither does complaining and whining because your candidate did not achieve the necessary votes to win the White House.

But as people of good will, especially those who are people of faith, our focus should never be on partisan triumph.  Our Holy Father St. Francis addressed this issue very clearly in his letter to the Rulers of the People.

“Know that you are beholden to render an account before your Lord God Jesus Christ on the day of Judgment. Let those who keep this writing with them and observe it know that they are blessed by the Lord God.”

In a democratic society, every citizen is part of the machinery that rules the people.  Therefore, every citizen has the moral obligation to uphold moral law and the social teaching of the Gospel, as well the moral obligation to cooperate with fellow citizens so that Christ’s words may be fulfilled.

“That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me,” (Jn 17:21). 

Let us never forget that the sanctity of life begins at conception, but it does not fade at birth.  Every life is sacred in the eyes of God.  Therefore, let us work together for the right to be born, the right to live free of war and terrorism, the right to expect assistance from our human family in times of natural disaster, the right to live free of domestic violence and abuse, and the right to die when God calls us home, not when man decides that the time has come to “checkout.”

The sanctity of human life demands that all of us do whatever is possible to do the best for as many people as we can and never do anything to deliberately violate the respect that is due to another person’s life, because the life that person lives, be he a saint or a demon, remains sacred because it flows from the hand of the Creator.

Political unity was not the sole intention of Jesus’ prayer, but unity of faith.  However, as Maria sings in the Sound of Music, “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.”

Finally, the Franciscans of Life commit to work with all men and women. We commit ourselves to work for the unity that Christ wants.

Published in: on November 9, 2016 at 3:45 PM  Leave a Comment  

We Fail to See the Light


Very often we hear people say, “That’s good for you guys, because you’re in vows; but the rest of us are not.”  This comes from practicing Catholics.  I believe that people who make such a comment do not understand the temporal purpose of the vowed life.

The vowed life is for the benefit of the person who makes the vows, but also for the benefit of the whole body, the Church.  Married couples also make vows.  Imagine what would happen if people of faith adopted the belief that the marriage vows are for the benefit and responsibility of the couple, but have no bearing on the rest of Christ’s Mystical Body.  Marriage would make no sense.

A vowed life, whether one vows to observe chastity, poverty and obedience or one vows to be faithful to one’s spouse until death, in good times and in hard times, is not wp_20150118_016a private relationship between the person who makes the vow, the people in his life and God.  God does not call people into private relationships with him to the exclusion of everyone else.  Even hermits, such as the Carthusians, embrace the cross in silence and solitude for the benefit of the Church as well as their benefit.

The vows of consecrated life (chastity, poverty and obedience) have a transcendent quality to them.  The individual making the vows renounces everything that the world has to offer in order to live more perfectly the vows made at Baptism.  He or she does not promise to do profession-of-vowssomething different from the rest of the baptized.  He promises to do the same, but more perfectly or as close to perfection as is possible for him.  In doing so he becomes a sign of life in the Kingdom of God.

This leads us into the temporal quality of the consecrated life.  God chooses to place consecrated men and women in the middle of His people for the benefit of the Church.  Through their life of prayer, sacrifice, service and love, God’s grace pours into the world.  God is willing to do Julian_Corpus_Christicartwheels to save us.  He gives us the Scriptures.  He gives us Himself through the Incarnation and the Eucharist.  He shares His life with us through the sacraments.  And he places many other sources of grace in the middle of the marketplace for the salvation of his people.

If one assumes that the life and works of the man or woman in vows or the married couple does not affect us or commit us in any way, then one is ignoring and possibly bride-groomrejecting the grace that God wishes to share with us through these states in life.

We need not be married to learn to love without holding anything back.  Everyone is called to love without restrictions on his love. JEANNIE 31 WEEKS PREGNANT

The married couple is God’s sign of such love.  We can’t simply turn away and say, “Love without reservation is for you, because you’re married.”

We need not to vow chastity, poveuntitled-4rty and obedience to learn how to think and act with a pure heart, how to let go of the many things, people and places that redirect our attention away from God and we don’t need to be in vows to be bound to obey God as he reveals His will to us through Sacred Scripture, Jesus Christ and the Church.

This last one is key, obedience.  Obedience to what God asks of us at any given moment is not for a select few.  oratoryThose bound by a vow of obedience are to be the models of submission to the will of God, not the only people bound to submit to God’s will.

Maybe one of the reasons why vocations to the consecrated life are down and the reason that some consecrated persons are lukewarm in the way they live out the vows, is because we have separated the vowed state in life from the secular man and woman. When we separate the Evangelical Counsels from the secular sphere, what counsels are left to guide the secular man and woman to fulfill his or her baptismal promises?  Chastity, poverty and obedience are the yard-lines that lead to the final goal, the perfection of charity.

How does one know how close or how far he is from the goal without the yard-lines?

When the vows of chastity, poverty obedience and hurricane_matthewthe
vows of marriage are lived as they should be lived, they become a torch that is a sign of God’s light in what sometimes seems like a dark and scary world.flame

Published in: on November 3, 2016 at 6:56 PM  Leave a Comment  

SPARE ME THE LITURGICAL GEOMETRY LESSON


People have been trying to impress upon me and others too, that the “new” form of the mass is horizontal whereas the traditional Latin mass is vertical.  I’ve given this a great deal of thought.  From the perspective of language (not Latin, but words) the traditional Latin mass orients the person’s focus toward the transcendent.  There is no mistake about this.

But there is another mistake, which is to say that the current form of the mass fails to orient us toward the transcendent.

There are two ways to “touch” the transcendent.  One can reach up, or that which is transcendent can reach down to man.  Whether man reaches up or God reaches down, the vertical dimension of worship and Catholic spirituality has never been abrogated.  Rather, the action can be uplifting or incarnational.

I think that it would be fair to say that today’s form of the mass, if and when it’s celebrated as per the General Instructions for the Roman Missal (GIRM), has a very dynamic vertical dimension, because it places the focus on God breaking into human history:  the Incarnation.

Everything begins with man reaching out to God asking for forgiveness, during the penitential rite.  This rite is found in both extraordinary and ordinary forms of the Roman rite.  Next, we move to sacred Scripture.  In the ordinary form of the mass, the scriptures are proclaimed in the language of the people.  In the TLM, Latin is usual.  For those who understand Latin or have a missal with the translation, following the proclamation of the scriptures is not a hardship.

Here is where the weakness of both those who love the extraordinary form and those who love the ordinary form of the mass is most visible.  Unfortunately, catechesis in  the Latin Church has been very weak in the area of Sacred Scripture.  To say that many of the religious education books published in the United States could have just as well been produced by Disney Enterprises would not be much of an overstatement.  They fail to convey  the fact that God speaks and we must listen and then respond.

For many Catholics, traditionalists and other, the proclamation of the Sacred Scripture is like story time in elementary school.  Our priests and deacons add to the reduction of the proclamation, because they often fail to mention that what we are about to hear and what we have heard is God’s voice, not the lector’s or the clergyman’s.  Those people are conduits through which God wants to speak to His people.  The vertical quality of the Word of God is obscured by a lack of appreciation on the part of the congregation, poor delivery from those who read it, and very often sermons or homilies that sound more like motivational talks than Divine messages from God to man.

Those who see and hear the voice of God in the proclamation of the Scriptures are definitely praying, because prayer is simply lifting one’s mind and heart to God.  We don’t have to do more.  God does the rest.  During the proclamation of the Scriptures and the homily God calls out to man, as he called out to Adam in the garden, to Abraham, Samuel, and Moses, and to the apostles.  He communicates His love for man and repeats His promise to be save us.

But God also communicates the conditions necessary for salvation.  He reveals to man the moral law that we must observe to be saved.  He offers the means to reconcile, if we violate that law.  He also reveals the consequences for those who violate the moral law and do not repent.

It is during this message that says, “I AM your God and you are my people,” that the soul is intimately tuned in to the voice of God.  But the soul must have a springboard to make the leap from here, into the Word of God.   The springboard for the soul is not an object, but awareness.  We must be aware that it is God who is speaking and that we are commanded to listen carefully.  This is not story time, history class, catechism class or motivational speech to improve your fortune and acquire a younger and better looking wife.  This is the literal voice of God that becomes Incarnate in the Word.  This Word will be offered to the Father in an unbloody sacrifice under the appearance of bread and wine.  Then again, God responds by offering us the Word as spiritual nourishment in Holy Communion.

The horizontal dimension of faith plays an important part in the ordinary form of the mass.  We come to God as a people to fulfill the two Commandments that God gives us, “Love God above all things and love your neighbor as yourself.”   To understand that we relate to each other, not by how we interact at mass, but because of who we ARE, the People of God, and to convert our manners so that everything we do and say reflects God rather than us, adds the horizontal dimension necessary to complete the cross.  This is called ecclesial consciousness.

The ordinary form of the mass provides us with the means to touch and be touched by the Transcendent who speaks directly to us through the Scriptures.  The Word that is proclaimed in the Scripture points our attention to the sacrifice on the altar, which is the life of the Word Himself laid down for our Redemption.  But the Word does not remain in the grave.  It rises and reveals himself to us, glorious and triumphant at every elevation of the sacred host.  He invites us to eat and drink His body and blood under the appearance of bread and wine.  Such great wonder and mystery becomes visible to those who are familiar with the Sacred Scripture, who have an ecclesial consciousness and who attend mass  to present themselves to God, not to fulfill an obligation or to experience the warmth and friendliness of parish life.  Parish life that nurtures the soul is that life which begins with the acknowledgement that the Word has become flesh and is speaking to us.  This is not a replay or a reading of some historical event.  This is reality, more real than the pains of a woman in labor.

 

Br. Jay

Published in: on October 25, 2016 at 10:26 PM  Leave a Comment  
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