This past Tuesday, the First Reading for Mass was drawn from Isaiah 40 which speaks poetically about the joyful anticipation of the coming of salvation.  We hear the following words: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!” (Is. 40:3) These are the very words that John the Baptist used in Matthew 3:3 when preaching in the desert to prepare for the coming of Jesus.  It is interesting to note that before quoting this Old Testament passage, John indicates how to prepare the way, using one word: “Repent!” (Mt. 3:2)

Repentance is therefore one of the most necessary things for us to do in order to truly prepare for the coming of Jesus.  The season of Advent is not just about preparing to celebrate the historical event of the birth of our Savior.  There is nothing terribly urgent as it relates to repentance for our celebration of that event.  Advent is also about preparing us for when Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead.  The date and time of that is not known, and since it can be any moment, there is urgency for us to repent from anything that would leave us unprepared for His coming at the end of our lives.  This is the more substantial reason that we are encouraged to make use of the Sacrament of Reconciliation before Christmas.  To some extent this practice of going to Confession during Advent is tied to the fact that Catholics did not receive Holy Communion as frequently as we do now, so in order to receive Holy Communion on Christmas (which is highly encouraged), going to confession was necessary in order to ensure being in the state of grace.  To be sure, this reasoning is still sound, but our awareness of the unknown day and hour of His Second Coming is the grater reason for our repenting by going to confession.

For the past few years, the priests of the Cathedral have offered extended times for confessions in the latter part of Advent so as to give plenty of opportunities for the faithful to “prepare the way for the Lord.”  We will be offering these extra hours this coming Friday, December 20 from Noon until 6:00 pm, then on Saturday, December 21 from 7:00 am until 5:00 pm.  It would fill my heart with great joy if we had a constant line of people waiting to go to confession, eagerly preparing their hearts to welcome Christ.  Not only will it be a gift to the priests who have the privilege of sharing God’s mercy with you, it will be a gift that you will be giving yourself, one far more valuable than anything you will unwrap on Christmas Day.

I know that there are people that are reading this that might be terrified of the thought of going to confession.  With that in mind, I want to issue a challenge to all of us, that when we pray our three daily Hail Mary’s this week, we offer them for the following intentions:

1. The people in our parish who are most afraid of going to confession
2. The people in our parish who are most in need of going to confession
3. Ourselves, that we might have the humility and strength to go to confession

As is often the case, doing something alone can be difficult, so invite somebody to go with you to confession.  It could be a family member, a friend, or a co-worker.  Perhaps all that is holding them back is having somebody join them.  What a gift you can offer to another by accompanying them to experience this great gift of mercy.

Father Alford     

Feast Day: December 15^th 

The year was 1848, and revolution was threatening all over Europe. You probably know of the Irish Potato Famine which was then in its third or fourth year – with a million dead, and two million having fled the country – but various bad harvest led to famines across the continent leaving countless multitudes destitute and starving. This came alongside of a cataclysmic shift in industry from subsistence farming to mechanized factory production. This, mixed with ideas of independence, and national pride, led groups in (ununified) Italy to rise up and demand national unity (which was unsuccessful as the neighboring countries of France and Austria quickly put a stop to anything that could sway their power in the region.) But then a related rebellion began in France with impoverished factory workers rising up against their rich owners, only to be brutally suppressed by soldiers, but not before bitter disunity was born between them and farmers still happily farming out in the countryside. That news made its way to Berlin where different cohorts began their own riots, there arguing for German unification. That country still hopeless split between different princes, the Prussian King actually refused to accept the crown offered him by the pressured German princes, and so the whole thing was eventually put down and all the little princedoms intact for now. Then this tale repeated itself in Poland, with the upper-class in Krakow revolting against their Austrian government, whereas the peasants there refused to join them because Austria was their only way out of basically being serfs under those landowners… and then the peasants revolted against the landowners killing thousands of them. And then it repeated with different particulars in Austria, with 100,000 dead in the aftermath… It was an age when everyone was fighting everyone to increase their slice of the pie.

Just for context, 1848 was also when Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote their famous pamphlet “The Communist Manifesto.” I think you know why.

Communism, of course, would in the end only multiply beyond comprehension the violence and deaths seen from the economic and cultural turmoil of those “hungry forties.” But when the world is crazy, God always provides saints to renew the message of the Gospel, and such was St. Maria Crocifissa di Rosa. 

She was born in an affluent family, one of nine children, and given a wonderful education by sisters in Brescia, Italy up until she was 17. That being the year her mother died, she returned to her home and began to run her family’s household and manage one of her father’s textile mills. Already she was moved by the struggles of the girls who worked there and began caring for them both materially and spiritually, eventually expanding her efforts to house and help other young women, and then the mute or deaf. In 1836, she learned nursing to aid those afflicted by a cholera epidemic, and afterwards turned her newly found nursing skills to the care of the elderly. Notice what the Lord is doing here: As economic unrest, alongside of hunger and disease, begin to build around Europe, here in Italy is a young woman with the education, experience, and empathy to directly confront it. Instead of violence and anger, here is someone addressing suffering with love and compassion and prayer and Christlike love.

And so we get back to 1848. War is ramping up all around her, and her compassion rises to meet it. She argues with those who operated the hospitals to allow her, and her group of followers, to help in the hospitals and makeshift shelters for the wounded and dying. Then her best friend dies, and shortly after also the priest that had helped her all these years to discern and protect her unique vocation. And then on one famous day in 1848, enemy soldiers hammered on the door of that hospital They would break the door down and tear everyone to shreds if need be. 

What would you do? What would a saint do? Sister Paula di Rosa – she would get her name a few years later when her band of followers were officially instituted as the Handmaids of Charity – but perhaps her action this day set the stage for her being named after the crucifix. Because Saint Paula di Rosa calmly opened the door, and stood before the raging mob holding a giant crucifix, flanked by two of her other sisters holding candles. She had once said “”I suffer from seeing suffering”, and so again she had plunged right into the hurt of her world, even if that meant staring down soldiers holding fast to the cross.

But stare she did. And the mob turned around. And she just kept loving the suffering until illness came for her as well. She died on December 15^th, 1855. 

– Fr. Dominic is taking away two truths from St. Maria Crocifissa di Rosa: First, that God can work in each of us, in precisely the way He has raised us up. He gives us our families, our story, our experiences, and our hearts to fit His plan for us perfectly. And secondly, that His plan also fits with the hunger and hurt of our particular time in history as well. We do not face cholera and hunger and mob-rule as did she, but our world has its own hurts, and we are the ones God has given to it to be saints.

For several decades, when the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception (Dec. 8) fell on a Sunday, the feast was transferred to the following day, Monday, December 9.  While the Solemnity was still observed, the obligation to attend Mass on that day was abrogated, or removed.  As it turns out, that practice was actually incorrect.  The Holy See recently clarified that in a case like this, even though the feast day is moved, the obligation still remains, thus having this coming Monday, December 9, be a Holy Day of Obligation.

Before I comment on the importance of this feast day, especially for us here at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, let me give you some specifics on how you might approach fulfilling two Mass obligations – one for the Second Sunday of Advent, and one for the Immaculate Conception:

• Attending any Mass from 4:00 pm on Saturday, December 7, through midnight on Sunday, December 8, fulfills the obligation for the Second Sunday of Advent.
• Attending any Mass from 4:00 pm on Sunday, December 8, through midnight on Monday, December 9, fulfills the obligation for the Immaculate Conception.
• Attending ONLY the 5:00 PM Mass on Sunday, December 8 does NOT fulfill both obligations, it would only fulfill the Sunday obligation, so you would need to attend one of the three Masses on Monday, December 9 (7:00 am, 12:05 pm, or 5:15 pm)

Admittedly, this can be a little confusing, but the main point is we are to go to Mass two times between Saturday evening and Monday evening.  The interesting thing is that at the Sunday 5:00 pm Mass, the prayers and readings will all be for the Second Sunday of Advent, but if you already went to Mass on Saturday evening or on Sunday morning, that 5:00 pm Mass would still count for your Immaculate Conception obligation.  And to anticipate a possible question, it is permissible to receive Holy Communion twice on the same day, so long as the second time is in the context of attending Mass (which this would be).

Since our Cathedral is under the patronage of Mary as the Immaculate Conception, we have an additional blessing available to us.  The Handbook of Indulgences states that a “A plenary indulgence is granted to the faithful who visit, and there devoutly recite and Our Father and the Creed, the cathedral church on the solemnity of its Titular.” (no. 33, pg. 101) Titular is a fancy name for the patronal feast day.  What an opportunity we have!  Not only do we get to receive Our Lord in the Eucharist twice in two days, but we can also gain a plenary indulgence, either for ourselves or for the faithful departed.  The other normal conditions apply for gaining a plenary indulgence, namely, praying for the intentions of the Holy Father (one Our Father and one Hail Mary can suffice), going to confessions within 20 days before or after, and a detachment from sin.

Let us see this not so much with the somewhat negative view that is carried with the word “obligation”, but see it through the positive lens of being an amazing “opportunity” for us to celebrate this feast in honor of Our Blessed Mother who has a special care for us here in the church under her patronage.  Let us ask her to intercede for us that the remainder of our Advent journey will be filled with an eager longing for the celebration of her Son’s birth at Christmas.

Father Alford     

Feast Day: December 8th

I bring you this week not a story of a saint, but words placed in the mouth of St. Bernard by Dante in his Paradiso (here given in Allen Mandelbaum’s 1980 translation). There, at the end of his long journey through Inferno and Purgatorio, Dante finds himself at the heights of heaven, introduced to our mother Mary by none other than the mystical, mellifluus, and Marian doctor of the Church, and then Mary directs his gaze past her into God, “the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.”

Virgin mother, daughter of your Son,
more humble and sublime than any creature,
fixed goal decreed from all eternity,

you are the one who gave to human nature
so much nobility that its Creator
did not disdain His being made its creature.

That love whose warmth allowed this flower to bloom
within the everlasting peace—was love
rekindled in your womb; for us above,

you are the noonday torch of charity,
and there below, on earth, among the mortals,
you are a living spring of hope. Lady,

you are so high, you can so intercede,
that he who would have grace but does not seek
your aid, may long to fly but has no wings.

Your loving-kindness does not only answer
the one who asks, but it is often ready
to answer freely long before the asking.

In you compassion is, in you is pity,
in you is generosity, in you
is every goodness found in any creature.

This man—who from the deepest hollow in
the universe, up to this height, has seen
the lives of spirits, one by one—now pleads

with you, through grace, to grant him so much virtue
that he may lift his vision higher still—
may lift it toward the ultimate salvation.

And I, who never burned for my own vision
more than I burn for his, do offer you
all of my prayers—and pray that they may not

fall short—that, with your prayers, you may disperse
all of the clouds of his mortality
so that the Highest Joy be his to see.

This, too, O Queen, who can do what you would,
I ask of you: that after such a vision,
his sentiments preserve their perseverance.

May your protection curb his mortal passions.
See Beatrice—how many saints with her!
They join my prayers! They clasp their hands to you!”

The eyes that are revered and loved by God,
now fixed upon the supplicant, showed us
how welcome such devotions are to her;

then her eyes turned to the Eternal Light—
there, do not think that any creature’s eye
can find its way as clearly as her sight.

And I, who now was nearing Him who is
the end of all desires, as I ought,
lifted my longing to its ardent limit.

Bernard was signaling—he smiled—to me
to turn my eyes on high; but I, already
was doing what he wanted me to do,

because my sight, becoming pure, was able
to penetrate the ray of Light more deeply—
that Light, sublime, which in Itself is true.

From that point on, what I could see was greater
than speech can show: at such a sight, it fails—
and memory fails when faced with such excess.

As one who sees within a dream, and, later,
the passion that had been imprinted stays,
but nothing of the rest returns to mind,

such am I, for my vision almost fades
completely, yet it still distills within
my heart the sweetness that was born of it.

So is the snow, beneath the sun, unsealed;
and so, on the light leaves, beneath the wind,
the oracles the Sibyl wrote were lost.

O Highest Light, You, raised so far above
the minds of mortals, to my memory
give back something of Your epiphany,

and make my tongue so powerful that I
may leave to people of the future one
gleam of the glory that is Yours, for by

returning somewhat to my memory
and echoing awhile within these lines,
Your victory will be more understood.

The living ray that I endured was so
acute that I believe I should have gone
astray had my eyes turned away from it.

I can recall that I, because of this,
was bolder in sustaining it until
my vision reached the Infinite Goodness.

O grace abounding, through which I presumed
to set my eyes on the Eternal Light
so long that I spent all my sight on it!

In its profundity I saw—ingathered
and bound by love into one single volume—
what, in the universe, seems separate, scattered:

substances, accidents, and dispositions
as if conjoined—in such a way that what
I tell is only rudimentary.

I think I saw the universal shape
which that knot takes; for, speaking this, I feel
a joy that is more ample. That one moment

brings more forgetfulness to me than twenty-
five centuries have brought to the endeavor
that startled Neptune with the Argo’s shadow!

So was my mind—completely rapt, intent,
steadfast, and motionless—gazing; and it
grew ever more enkindled as it watched.

Whoever sees that Light is soon made such
that it would be impossible for him
to set that Light aside for other sight;

because the good, the object of the will,
is fully gathered in that Light; outside
that Light, what there is perfect is defective.

What little I recall is to be told,
from this point on, in words more weak than those
of one whose infant tongue still bathes at the breast.

And not because more than one simple semblance
was in the Living Light at which I gazed—
for It is always what It was before—

but through my sight, which as I gazed grew stronger,
that sole appearance, even as I altered,
seemed to be changing. In the deep and bright

essence of that exalted Light, three circles
appeared to me; they had three different colors,
but all of them were of the same dimension;

one circle seemed reflected by the second,
as rainbow is by rainbow, and the third
seemed fire breathed equally by those two circles.

How incomplete is speech, how weak, when set
against my thought! And this, to what I saw.
is such—to call it little is too much.

Eternal Light, You only dwell within
Yourself, and only You know You; Self-knowing,
Self-known, You love and smile upon Yourself!

That circle—which, begotten so, appeared
in You as light reflected—when my eyes
had watched it with attention for some time,

within itself and colored like itself,
to me seemed painted with our effigy,
so that my sight was set on it completely.

As the geometer intently seeks
to square the circle, but he cannot reach,
through thought on thought, the principle he needs,

so I searched that strange sight: I wished to see
the way in which our human effigy
suited the circle and found place in it—

and my own wings were far too weak for that.
But then my mind was struck by light that flashed
and, with this light, received what it had asked.

Here force failed my high fantasy; but my
desire and will were moved already—like
a wheel revolving uniformly—by

the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.

– Fr. Dominic has nothing to add to that.

As we begin a new liturgical year, we have a great opportunity to do a sort of examination as it relates to our lives as disciples.  January 1 is often a time when people take stock of their lives and set resolutions in all sorts of areas, especially with regards to our physical health.  But I would suggest now is a great time for us to look at our spiritual health and with this new season, to see if there might be something the Lord is inviting us to consider doing to help advance that area of our lives.

One of the most essential habits of those committed to living a life of discipleship is daily prayer.  Many of us will acknowledge the need for this in our lives, but getting started can be a challenge.  Or, perhaps we do have a daily habit of prayer, but are hoping to deepen our commitment.  We might make the resolution to start praying every day, or to pray more, only to begin on day one and think: now what?  How do I pray?  What can I add?  There are many ways to pray, to be sure, and I cannot tell you which way is best for you.  Therefore, if we are new to prayer, or looking to explore some new possibilities, this season of Advent could be a time during which we try a few different things, liking trying on different outfits to see what fits, what feels good, what we seem to connect with.

In that regard, I am pleased to announce a resource that I think you will find extremely helpful in building or strengthening this daily habit of prayer, the Hallow app.  This app has exploded in popularity over the past couple of years and many (myself included) use it as a part of their daily prayer routine.  There are MANY different resources to explore on the app, and our parish has secured a special offer for our parishioners to try out the full set of content from Hallow for 120 days at the very low cost of $1 total!  You will find signup instructions later in the bulletin and in Atrium.

I personally use the Daily Examen prayer to reflect on the previous day, noticing where the Lord was present, where I may have missed Him, and how to follow Him better the next day.  I also regularly use the app for praying the Rosary.  The daily bible reflections from Jeff Cavins are also extremely insightful.  Sometimes, I just poke around the app to see what catches my attention.  Father Daniel McGrath, one of our Parochial Vicars, also uses Hallow regularly.  Here is what he has to say about using this app:

I have had the Hallow app since the middle of the summer. I didn’t use it much at first, but I have begun to enjoy almost daily listening to the music playlists, praying the rosary with it, and especially listening to the scripture readings when going to bed at night. There are so many resources it offers for making the Word of God a more regular part of your life! As St. Paul tells the Colossians, Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.

As we begin this new liturgical year, I pray that all of us will take some time to examine how we are doing with our daily prayer, and ask the Lord what one thing might be that we can add or change.  We do not need to overwhelm ourselves by adding too many things, lest we get overwhelmed and discouraged.  Start small.  Just one thing is something I think we can all manage.  And if the Hallow app helps you in identifying what that one thing is, thanks be to God!

Father Alford  

Feast Day: November 23rd

Continuing from last week, we return to Pope Benedict XVI’s Audience on St. Columbanus. Recall he had spoken on Columban’s early life in Ireland and courageous embarkment on a mission to re-evangelize the European Continent.

___

With another famous work entitled: De poenitentiarum misura taxanda, also written at Luxeuil, Columban introduced Confession and private and frequent penance on the Continent. It was known as “tariffed” penance because of the proportion established between the gravity of the sin and the type of penance imposed by the confessor. These innovations roused the suspicion of local Bishops, a suspicion that became hostile when Columban had the courage to rebuke them openly for the practices of some of them. The controversy over the date of Easter was an opportunity to demonstrate their opposition: Ireland, in fact, followed the Eastern rather than the Roman tradition. The Irish monk was convoked in 603 to account to a Synod at Chalon-sur-Saône for his practices regarding penance and Easter. Instead of presenting himself before the Synod, he sent a letter in which he minimized the issue, inviting the Synod Fathers not only to discuss the problem of the date of Easter, in his opinion a negligible problem, “but also all the necessary canonical norms that – something more serious – are disregarded by many” (cf. Epistula II, 1). At the same time he wrote to Pope Boniface IV – just as several years earlier he had turned to Pope Gregory the Great (cf. Epistula I) – asking him to defend the Irish tradition (cf. Epistula III). 

Intransigent as he was in every moral matter, Columban then came into conflict with the royal house for having harshly reprimanded King Theuderic for his adulterous relations. This created a whole network of personal, religious and political intrigues and manoeuvres which, in 610, culminated in a Decree of expulsion banishing Columban and all the monks of Irish origin from Luxeuil and condemning them to definitive exile. They were escorted to the sea and, at the expense of the court, boarded a ship bound for Ireland. However, not far from shore the ship ran aground and the captain, who saw this as a sign from Heaven, abandoned the voyage and, for fear of being cursed by God, brought the monks back to dry land. Instead of returning to Luxeuil, they decided to begin a new work of evangelization. Thus, they embarked on a Rhine boat and travelled up the river. After a first stop in Tuggen near Lake Zurich they went to the region of Bregenz, near Lake Constance, to evangelize the Alemanni. 

However, soon afterwards, because of political events unfavourable to his work, Columban decided to cross the Alps with the majority of his disciples. Only one monk whose name was Gallus stayed behind; it was from his hermitage that the famous Abbey of St Gall in Switzerland subsequently developed. Having arrived in Italy, Columban met with a warm welcome at the Lombard Royal Court but was immediately faced with considerable difficulties: the life of the Church was torn apart by the Arian heresy, still prevalent among the Lombards, and by a schism which had detached most of the Church in Northern Italy from communion with the Bishop of Rome. Columban entered authoritatively into this context, writing a satirical pamphlet against Arianism and a letter to Boniface IV to convince him to take some decisive steps with a view to re-establishing unity (cf. Epistula V). When, in 612 or 613, the King of the Lombards allocated to him a plot of land in Bobbio, in the Trebbia Valley, Columban founded a new monastery there which was later to become a cultural centre on a par with the famous monastery of Monte Cassino. Here he came to the end of his days: he died on 23 November 615 and to this day is commemorated on this date in the Roman rite. 

St Columban’s message is concentrated in a firm appeal to conversion and detachment from earthly goods, with a view to the eternal inheritance. With his ascetic life and conduct free from compromises when he faced the corruption of the powerful, he is reminiscent of the severe figure of St John the Baptist. His austerity, however, was never an end in itself but merely the means with which to open himself freely to God’s love and to correspond with his whole being to the gifts received from him, thereby restoring in himself the image of God, while at the same time cultivating the earth and renewing human society. I quote from his Instructiones: “If man makes a correct use of those faculties that God has conceded to his soul, he will be likened to God. Let us remember that we must restore to him all those gifts which he deposited in us when we were in our original condition. “He has taught us the way with his Commandments. The first of them tells us to love the Lord with all our heart, because he loved us first, from the beginning of time, even before we came into the light of this world” (cf. Instructiones XI). The Irish Saint truly incarnated these words in his own life. A man of great culture – he also wrote poetry in Latin and a grammar book – he proved rich in gifts of grace. He was a tireless builder of monasteries as well as an intransigent penitential preacher who spent every ounce of his energy on nurturing the Christian roots of Europe which was coming into existence. With his spiritual energy, with his faith, with his love for God and neighbour, he truly became one of the Fathers of Europe. He shows us even today the roots from which our Europe can be reborn.

– Fr. Dominic always enjoys crafting these saint-stories himself, but it is also a gift to just receive them from a great teacher as well. Praise the Lord for those like Pope Benedict with the gift of teaching!