6 June 2022, Praying with Pope Francis: families.

In all shapes and sizes.

Usually we publish this monthly post on the first Friday, but Saint Kevin was already occupying his feast day, while next Friday gives us a peep into someone’s diary entry for the day. So, here we are on Whit Monday with Pope Francis’s monthly prayer.

We pray for Christian families around the world; may they embody and experience unconditional love and advance in holiness in their daily lives.

That is one impossible manifesto. I cannot live up to that. But I don’t have to, not on my own, because my calling is to married life and the graces and gifts I need, or think I need, have to give first place to the graces and gifts of my spouse and family.

Unconditional love is an aspiration which we work towards, mostly without saying so. Earning a living, putting a meal on the table, walking little ones to school, drying up the dishes: there are tasks that parents, children, grandchildren can do without moaning, even gladly, to help in our shared daily lives. We can become better people, or in Catholic jargon, ‘advance in holiness’ in our daily lives, through such co-operation and deeds of kindness, through teaching good manners, please and thank you.

We can reflect on our lives, in Catholic jargon ‘examine our consciences’ and develop what is good, set aside what is no longer appropriate; tend wounds, physical, mental, or of the heart; move on as a family or as a family member, right what is wrong.

All this is ‘advancing in holiness’. All this is prayer.

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13 October: Healthy aging is whatever is holy and healthy

I once took a message to a local convent, where the door was answered by a little old sister, walking with two sticks, bent almost double, who had a chat with me before finding the sister I was sent to. ‘You must know about this convent, Will – she’d found out my name as a matter of course – your friend Sister Clare may be a teacher, but most of us look after old people’. I had the impression that she was looking after as much as being looked after. I felt looked after by her in those few minutes’ conversation!

Sister Carol Zinn, the executive director of the American Leadership Conference of Women Religious, says that healthy aging is “whatever is holy and healthy for human beings: to be in relationships, have a meaningful prayer life and a way of being of service to other people. These are a given in religious life, but I really think that they are a given in a happy, holy human life.”

This article from the National Catholic Reporter by Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans explores aging in community and healthy, mature ‘letting go’ of work, property and other things, but not letting go of mission. What is holy and healthy for Will T as he moves deeper into Autumn and deeper into retirement, I wonder? Do read this excellent reflection from the Global Sisters Report.

18 June: Today this is my vocation V, Getting old with good Pope John

Good Pope John XXIII

In March 1945, Archbishop Angelo Roncalli was sent from Istanbul to become the new Papal Nuncio or Ambassador to France, a country on its knees after years of occupation. A heavy and unexpected responsibility. A few years later, on the death of Pius XII, he would be elected as Pope John XXIII. This reflection is from his Spiritual Journal.

I must not disguise from myself the truth: I am definitely approaching old age. My mind resents this and almost rebels, for I still feel so young, eager, agile and alert.But one look in my mirror disillusions me. This is the season of maturity; I must do more and better, reflecting that perhaps the time still granted to me for living is brief, and that I am drawing near to the gates of eternity. This caused Hezekiah to turn to the wall and weep. (2 Kings 20:2) I do not weep.

No, I do not weep, and I do not even desire to live my life over again, so as to do better. I entrust to the Lord’s mercy whatever I have done, badly or less than well, and I look to the future, brief or long as it may be here below, because I want to make it holy and a source of holiness for others.

 John XXIII (1965), Journal of a Soul, London, Geoffrey Chapman, p264

‘Leave it in the hands of the Lord’ is a good motto at any age, so long as you have something to leave there. Maybe the older we get, the more aware we are of our shortcomings and the wilted state of our offerings. We lose the spontaneity of the toddler who gives mother a daisy flower, just picked with no stem but accompanied by a beatific smile. He knows she will accept his gift; the old man can see the imperfection in both gift and giver, yet he gives back to the one who gives all.

5 November. Little Flowers of Saint Francis XXXXII: Two Gentlemen of Bologna, 1.

How Saint Francis converted in Bologna two scholars, who became brothers.

SAINT FRANCIS coming on a time to Bologna, all the people of the city ran together to see him; and so great was the press that scarce with great difficulty could the people reach the square and the square being all full of men and of women and of scholars, Saint Francis stood high up m the midst of them and began to preach whatsoever the Holy Spirit taught him; and preached so marvellously that it seemed rather that an angel was preaching than a man: and his celestial words appeared even as sharp arrows piercing the hearts of them that heard him in such sort, that in that preaching a great multitude of men and women were converted into penitence. Among the which were two students, nobly born, from Ancona;and the one was named Pellegrino and the other Rinieri; the which twain by divine inspiration touched in the heart by the said preaching, came to Saint Francis saying that they wished wholly to abandon the world and be of the number of his brethren.

Samt Francis, knowing by revelation that they were sent of God, and that in the Order they would lead a holy life, and noting their great fervour, received them joyfully, saying:  “Do thou, Pellegrino, live in the Order the life of humility, and thou, Brother Rinieri, serve the brethren”; and even so it was; for Brother Pellegrino wished not to live as a priest but as a lay brother, albeit he was a great scholar and right learned in the canon law; through the which humility he attained unto such great perfection of virtue, that Brother Bernard, the first-born of Saint Francis, said of him that he was one of the most perfect brothers in the world.

And at the last, the said Brother Pellegrino, full of virtue, passed from this miserable life unto the life of the blessed, and wrought many miracles before his death and thereafter. And the said Brother Rinieri devoutly and faithfully served the brethren, dwelling in great sanctity and humility: and he became Saint Francis’ close familiar friend. Being afterwards made minister of the Province of the March of Ancona, he ruled it for a long time with the utmost peace and discretion.

Photograph: Christina Chase

7 August, Traherne V: the Darling of His bosom.

Mary Mother from Hales Place Jesuit Chapel, Canterbury

Love is deeper than at first it can be thought. It never ceaseth but in endless things. It ever multiplies. Its benefits and its designs are always infinite. Were you not Holy, Divine, and Blessed in enjoying the World, I should not care so much to bestow it. But now in this you accomplish the end of your creation, and serve God best, and please Him most: I rejoice in giving it. For to enable you to please GOD, is the highest service a man can do you. It is to make you pleasing to the King of Heaven, that you may be the Darling of His bosom.

This is Meditation 11. To be read slowly and repeated. And the pictures of the Darling of Mary’s bosom seem to fit. They come from the Jesuit Chapel in Canterbury and from the Missionaries of Africa.

February 23: Little Flowers of Saint Francis XII: A sense of humour helps, 1.

It is all too easy to be over solemn when reading about Jesus or his followers. Here Brother Masseo teases Francis, who takes it in good part and points a lesson from it. Another two-part post.

How Brother Masseo, as though mocking, said unto Saint Francis that all the world came after him: and he replied that this was for the confusion of the world and the grace of God.

W HENAS Saint Francis on a time abode in the House of Portiuncula with Brother Masseo of Marignano, a man of much sanctity, discretion and grace in speaking of God, for the which cause Saint Francis loved him much: one day Saint Francis returning from the wood and from his prayers, and being at the entrance to the wood, the said Brother Masseo desired to make proof of his humility, and stood over against him, and as though mocking said : “Why after thee ? why after thee ? why after thee?”

Replied Saint Francis: “What is this thou wouldest say?”

Quoth Brother Masseo, “I say, why doth all the world come after thee? And why is it seen that all men long to see thee, and hear thee, and obey thee? Thou art not a man comely of form, thou art not of much wisdom, thou art not noble of birth: whence comes it then that it is after thee that the whole world doth run?”

January 26: Reflections from the Little Flowers of Saint Francis. IV.

Apologies that we miscalculated where Church Unity Week clashed with The Little Flowers, so that this post got separated; but we conclude this chapter concerning Brother Bernard, Francis’s first follower. More flowers to follow next month.

Of Brother Bernard of Quintavalle, 4.

A certain man whose name was Silvester seeing that Saint Francis gave and let give so much money to the poor, being moved by greed, said to Saint Francis: “Thou hast not paid me in full for the stones thou didst buy of me for to rebuild the church; therefore pay me now that thou hast money.” Therewith Saint Francis, marvelling at his greed and willing not to stir up
strife with him, as a true follower of the holy Gospel, put his hands into the bosom of Bernard; and filled his hands with money, which he put into the bosom of Silvester, saying that if he wished for more, more would he give him.

Silvester being content with these, forthwith was away and gat him to his house: but in the evening bethinking him of what he had done throughout the day, and chiding himself for his
greed, pondering on the fervour of Bernard and the sanctity of Saint Francis, he had from God, on the night following and two other nights, a vision on this wise, that from the mouth of Saint Francis sprang a cross of gold, of which the top reached unto heaven, and the arms
stretched from the East even unto the West. By reason of this vision, he gave away all that he had for the love of God, and became a brother minor, and lived in the Order in such sanctity and grace that he spake with God, as doth one friend with another, whereof Saint Francis ofttimes was witness.

Bernard in like manner had such grace of God that oftentimes in contemplation was he caught up to God: and Saint Francis said of him, that he was worthy of all reverence, and that it was he that had founded this Order; inasmuch as he was the first to leave the world, keeping back naught for himself, but giving all unto the poor of Christ, and, when he took on him the Gospel poverty, offering himself naked in the arms of the Crucified;

Bless we His name,

world without end.

Amen.

Another picture from Christina Chase’s pilgrimage to Ste Anne de Beaupre.

25 December. Five notes: Father Andrew at Christmas, III.

More from Fr Andrew’s Introduction to his book of Carols.

The Mystery of the Incarnate Love has brought to us, first of all, a revelation of simplicity. Theology teaches us that the life of God is a simple act, and, since God is Love, that act must surely be, however expressed, an act of love; and here in the little Babe laid in the midst of the straw of our human poverty is the simple appeal and revelation of the love of God.

The second note is sympathy, and that in the direct meaning of the word – ‘suffering with.’ We cannot understand the mystery of suffering, and really there is no particular reason why we should, since God has suffered with us, and one of the sufferings of God was this very mystery of suffering, for did not He take upon His lips the great classic words of the twenty-second Psalm and cry in His own darkness, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’

The third note is joy. These poems and carols all have in them a note of joy and a note of pain. Laughter and tears are mingled in these Christmas songs.

The fourth is the sacredness of human nature. God joined together flesh and spirit. Sin put these asunder, and by the fall of man the flesh, which was only lower than spirit in condition and degree, became lower also in quality, and by the taint and twist of original sin this human nature of ours was made to seem a bad thing, as though the flesh were, in God’s intention, the enemy of spirit. In the coming of the Holy Child, when the angels sang their Gloria, once more flesh and spirit were united in perfect oblation.

The fifth note, which contains in it all else, is love. Over the cross, over the manger, over the altar, one can write the golden words, ‘God is Love.’

7 June: Year of Mercy: the Divine Mercy, is a GIVEN.

Strasbourg Cathedral: Thomas, Peter, et al.

God is love. The unconditional love of God, the Divine Mercy, is a GIVEN. It is always available. The one unforgivable sin is to think that our sin is too great for the mercy of God. As we see during Holy Week this was the sin of Judas: not that he betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver but that he denied the Divine Mercy. He thought that his sin was too great to be forgiven. He could have been forgiven just as Simon Peter was forgiven.

Mary Magdalene, with her pot of ointment, meets the Lord on Easter Morning. York Minster.

See the lesson in this piece of verse – author unknown [to me].

St. Peter was a liar

St. Dismas was a thief

Mary Magdalene a party girl

and Tom without belief.

 

but there they are in Heaven

smiling down upon us now

as each wears a tilted halo

on a badly battered brow.

 

so the sin of all you sinners

doesn’t definitely damn

for your “wasness” doesn’t matter

if your “isness” really am.

Mercy does not come from the attributes of the God nor from the fruits of philosophical speculation – as the manuals suggested – but solely from the historical self-revelation of God in Jesus. Dogma has difficulty with a compassionate God. As God is total fullness of being – such perfection does not allow for God to suffer! So mercy became pity – God not suffering, but being with his people who do! God has no connection with life as we know it, which is why God has become irrelevant.

The manuals associated mercy with justice – as we know it – you get what you deserve. God rewards the good and punishes the bad – if this wasn’t so how could God be just? The answer often given was God is merciful to those who repent [conditions apply!] – And punishes those who do not. The relationship between justice and mercy divided the Church in the 16th Century. With the dialogue between Catholic and Lutheran in the 20th Century it was realised that God’s justice is God’s mercy. Now, mercy is no longer a Cinderella no way is there a saccharine God, but one who takes wholeness/holiness seriously. Mercy is out of place if it is not social.

 

AMcC.