Feast Day: February 25^th 

Fr. Dominic Vahling made the happy connection between last week’s St. Kuriakose, who’s name (derived from the Greek word “Kyrie”) means “of the Lord” and the name “Dominic”, which means the same thing (derived from the Latin word “Dominus”). So, I figured we should keep up that “Lordly” theme, and get to know Blessed Domenico Lentini this week.

Domenico was born on November 20^th, 1770, in the Kingdom of Naples Italy, the youngest of five siblings, the son of a cordwainer (I must clarify that in researching his life I discovered that his father, a shoemaker, would not, technically, be called a cobbler. Cobblers “cobbled” things together, as in they only worked with old shoes: repairing, replacing broken bits, reinforcing, etc. Cordwainers, instead, fashioned new shoes out of leather, the term derived from “cordovan”, a leather from Cordoba, Spain. Needless to say, cordwainers don’t take kindly to being called mere cobblers, though hopefully Macario, Domenico’s dad, wouldn’t take too much affront to it.)

In any case, Domenico, along with his older siblings Dominique, Rosa, Nicholas, and Antoinette, grew up with few material comforts other than good shoes. Famines struck Italy throughout the 1760s, stretching and breaking previous political arrangements, all further upended as revolutions swept through America, then France, and Napoleon began his rampage around Europe. Still, this family lived a simple and faithful life as that hectic 18^th century drew to its close. Dominic’s mother, before she died, consecrated the little Dominic to the Lord, a grace that was evident in his childlike piety, though he was also a very ordinary boy, taking delight in climbing trees, often in pursuit of terrified birds (he did repent of the harm caused them later on). At the age of 14 he received the call to be a priest. Perhaps inspired by an uncle who was already a priest, and a classmate who had entered the seminary just before him, the young man discovered a deeper delight than his boyhood shenanigans in studying to be a priest. That said, his path through seminary was also not without hurdles. The cost of the seminary which he started at was far too high for his family to pay, so he actually did much of his formation in his hometown where he received formation from his local priests. His father the shoemaker actually pawned off their home in order to pay for his schooling, a debt that Dominic would repay after his ordination, but also an indication of how much he was willing to help his son follow God’s call.

In 1793, Domenico was ordained deacon in Mormanno, and on the feast of Pentecost, June 8, 1794, was ordained a priest in the Cathedral of Marsiconuovo. He held fast to priestly holiness in the simplest manner: hearing confessions with generosity, offering the Mass with as much devotion as he could muster, teaching his flock theology and philosophy, preaching with integrity and humility (his parishioners especially recall his moving homilies during Lent), living a frugal and charitable life. He was said to have the gift of prophecy – not so much in predicting the future as helping his hurting or fearful parishioners hold fast to God’s healing Love. And so Fr. Dominic Lentini passed 36 years of priestly ministry, receiving the last sacraments three days before he died from that same priest-friend who had preceded him into seminary, Fr. Joseph Ielpo, one of his closest friends through all those years.

– Fr. Dominic can’t help but notice that Fr. Domenico became a saint by simply doing what a priest is supposed to do. Nothing fancy, no spectacular homilies, no amazing foundations or ministries, no surge of conversions or incredible miracles. He just offered the sacraments as best he could and kept the Love of God alive in his, and others’ souls. THIS ISN’T EASY! One cannot passively “do little things with great love”: our love wanes, our desire for God gets distracted, our zeal gets hijacked by worldly things … we must constantly recommit ourselves to loving the first things first, to prioritizing the pearl of great price, to being faithful to our duties (and not our distractions). Bl. Domenico Lentini challenges all of us to persevere in this, and perhaps Lent is a gift insofar as it always invites us back to receiving and giving God’s Love in the simple ways He asks us to.

Having spent a couple of months focusing on the Eucharistic Prayer, the highpoint of the Mass, we now move to the Communion Rite, which begins with the praying of the Lord’s Prayer, also referred to as the Our Father.

As I wrote early on in this series, our goal is to pray the Mass better, avoiding falling into autopilot with both our words and our gestures.  The Lord’s Prayer is one place in the Mass where we can easily fall into this trap, considering how many times we have prayed this prayer in our lives.  As children, we were taught to memorize prayers so that we could get the words right.  From there, we can reflect more deeply on what we are praying, such that the words are an expression of a trusting child to their Father.  But sadly, we sometimes never get past the memorization phase with these prayers and we miss out on the richness of this beautiful prayer that has come to us directly from the Lord Himself.

One of the ways to avoid just reciting the words of the Our Father is to take time outside of Mass to pray the Lord’s Prayer with greater intentionality.  If we get used to praying this prayer, as opposed to just saying the words, we will find that when this part of the Mass arrives, we will more naturally have this moment be an expression of our close union with the Lord as His beloved sons and daughters.  When we pray the Lord’s Prayer at Mass, in addition to our being conscious of being His children by calling Him “Father”, we also have the opportunity to be conscious of being brothers and sisters to those around us, for we call upon Him as our Father.

This awareness of being united with others who have God as Father when praying the Lord’s Prayer has really helped me to pray this prayer better.  More often than not, I tend to think of the Lord’s Prayer in terms of praying for my needs, for His will to be done in my life, for His daily bread to nourish me.  But when I consider that I am not just praying for myself, but for others, it makes the prayer even more powerful.  I sometimes call to mind those who have drifted away from their faith.  For whatever reason, they may no longer come to Mass, they may not even pray.  Since they are not praying for themselves, my prayer to the Father includes praying for their needs and intentions.  I sometimes call to mind people who find themselves in desperate situations, such as one who may be suffering physically or mentally, or a woman who is facing a difficult decision about her pregnancy.  When I pray the Lord’s Prayer, I am asking the Lord to show them His fatherly compassion and encouragement, so as not to feel alone. 

We have no idea the struggles of those who surround us at each Mass.  Perhaps somebody in the next pew was just diagnosed with cancer.  Perhaps somebody across the aisle has just lost a loved one.  Perhaps somebody in the church has just lost a job.  We may never know, but Father knows, and by praying together this beautiful prayer, we are experiencing a profound unity with Him and with one another, which is preparing us well for us to soon receive the Sacrament of Unity in the Eucharist which will only strengthen that bond.

I had a question last Sunday if I would resume my Lenten challenges this year.  I had honestly not thought about it, but as I write this column, I think I have found my first challenge.  I invite you to take time this week outside of Mass to pray the Lord’s Prayer with greater attention.  I would invite you to pray the Lord’s Prayer three times, nice and slow.  The first is for yourself, focusing on your relationship to the Father, asking Him for your daily needs.  The second is for one person who is on your heart.  It might be somebody who is struggling at this point in their life.  It might be somebody who has a birthday that day.  Just trust the Lord to put somebody on your heart, and pray this prayer slowly and intentionally for them.  The third is for our parish.  Again, we are largely clueless as to the many needs of our brothers and sisters in this parish, but as I said, the Lord knows.  So offer this third prayer with trust in the Father’s goodness to our parish family, that He will give us all what we are most in need of that day according to His holy will. Father Alford    

Feast Day: February 18^th

I would like to describe the life and holiness of Fr. Kuriakose Elias Chavara in three things that he loved all his life.

1. Words

As in human language. From a young age in his village school, Kuriakose loved to study language and dialects. Perhaps he was first intrigued by the twists and turns of history that led that Greek name Kyriakos (“of the Lord”) to find its way into Syriac Aramaic, which had become the language of his Christian community in Kerala, India. Probably the Persian missionaries who brought the Eastern Syriac Rite (and Syriac language, descended from the Aramaic spoken by Jesus!) to India in the 400s and 500s brought the story of the early martyr Quriaqos, a boy killed with his mother in Turkey around AD 304 for being Christian who was now little Kuriakose’s patron.

In any case, as his life unfolds, we see this linguistic interest come back again and again. When a priest for well over a decade, in 1846, Fr. Kuriakose founded an institute for the study of Sanskrit. Now it seems clear enough that his early studies under the Hindu teacher, Asan, may have introduced him to this venerable and sacred language of the Hindu religion, the language of its religious vedas, epics, and hymns. But the priest’s interest in studying this old language was not merely historic or linguistic, rather his goal was to teach it to children, to every child in Kerala. He ordered every church under his leadership (as superior of the third order Carmelites) to build a school alongside their church (even just a simple lean-to, a “pallikoodam”) and convinced the bishop to require all churches to do the same. Thus, and on a massive scale, he was the first person in India to dare to educate the so called untouchables, and he was teaching them the highest and holiest language of India.

This not being enough, he snuck into a government facility to see their printing press, memorized its mechanism, then used a banana stem to make a model of it for a carpenter to replicate (!), and spent 6000 Rupees (probably tens of thousands of dollars today) to build it. And so was able to publish books, prayers, poems, and other tracts of his own composition and also provide free books to the children in his schools. He was the first to print prayer books in East Syrian as well as Malayalam, also being one of the first to write significant works in Malayalam. Later, that same press would publish of the first newspapers in India, a Christian publication to teach and unite the various Christian communities.

2. The Mass

Now, he wouldn’t have referred to the Mass as “the Mass”. Our English word “Mass” comes from the Latin phrase said at the conclusion of Mass, “ite missa est.” Originally, this simply, and literally, just means “go, it is the dismissal.” But notice the similarity between “dismissal” and “mission” or “commission.” This is the Church’s way to remind everyone that goes to Mass, that we are – every time – sent by Christ to carry His Love to the world. Only later in the Church’s history did the liturgy come to be called “the Mass”, and the book that contains its prayers “the Missal.”) Fr. Chavara though would have called the Mass “Qurbānā Qandišā”, “Holy Sacrifice” in his Eastern Syriac language.

We actually know the details of his very first Mass, celebrated at St. Andrew’s Basilica in Arthunkal, during which his intention for that Holy Sacrifice was the realization of a religious institute that he and a few other priests were contemplating establishing. That prayer would grow into his founding a branch of the Carmelite order with a few other priests which he would lead for many years of his later life (and also a female branch as well). His love for the liturgy was also evident in his publishing liturgical texts for families, for priests and religious (the divine office, various blessings, the first liturgical calendar, and orders for the Holy Sacrifice itself), and also in establishing the forty-hours Adoration around his area, retreats for priests, seminaries and formation houses… The common denominator to all these efforts: bring everyone to Christ in the Eucharist.

3. Mangoes

Once again, something that St. Chavara must have loved as a child became a means for him to spread the Gospel. In this case, while he was prior of the Carmelites, he took time to cultivate a certain mango tree and went on to send seedlings to his various monasteries and convents. “Please plant the sapling of this sweet mango, which I name it as ‘Dukran’ (orma = memory) …  this is to make you realize that myself and all men are weak and faltering and don’t have long life even as these mango trees which give sweet fruits.” His flock didn’t keep the name he gave it. As these trees popped up all over Kerala, they just called it “priormavu”, “Prior-Mango”, named after their beloved first prior who gave it to them. Probably his schoolkids learned to love it too because among many other firsts, Fr. Chavara was also the first one to provide lunches to the children in his schools.

– Fr. Dominic, if pressed to think of three childhood loves, would match Fr. Chavara in delighting in the Mass, but would have to probably choose sports and construction-toys as two other lifelong interests, now to just find ways to use that to manifests Christ’s love!

A few years ago, I heard a story of a priest in another diocese who get in some trouble with his bishop because of he was improvising the prayers of the Mass.  There was a lot of pushback from the faithful who felt that the bishop’s treatment of the priest was unfair.  What was the big deal if he was making some adaptations to the Mass?  While I do not pretend to know all of the details of the case, it does bring up an important point, one that I mentioned in last week’s bulletin article.  The prayers of the Mass have been given to us by the Church and all of us – priests and laity, have a responsibility to be faithful to what has been handed down to us.  We are not masters of the liturgy, we are its servants.  It has been passed down to us by Christ Himself through the authority of the Church which He Himself has conferred. 

In that regard, it is important to acknowledge that it is ultimately the responsibility of the bishop of a diocese to ensure that the worship of the Eucharist is observed faithfully, and if there is any abuse of which he is made aware, he has the duty to address it.  The faithful deserve to have the Mass celebrated for them as the Church intends.  And while there may be different elements of the liturgy that may vary, such as music, tone of voice, directionality in prayer, the prayers of the Mass, particularly the Eucharistic Prayer, are to be followed, both as an expression of obedience to the Church and in giving proper glory to God.

 At every celebration of the Mass, the celebrant will mention the names of the Pope and the local bishop.  This is a significant point of the Eucharistic Prayer for both the celebrant and the laity.  For the celebrant, as mentioned above, it is a reminder of the communion he should have with the Church, expressed in a visible way through his relationship with his bishop, on whose behalf he collaborates in ministry in the diocese, and with the Pope, the visible sign of unity of Catholics throughout the world.  It is an opportunity for him to be praying for these two key individuals who are essential to his identity as a priest, as one who is not a lone ranger, but who is united with his brother priests in the diocese and throughout the world.  For the faithful at Mass, the mention of the Pope and local bishop is a similar reminder, that as Catholics, our identity is much broader than the parish to which we belong.  To be sure, we should have a great love and commitment to our local parish, but a parish is never an isolated entity.  It exists in communion with the other parishes of the diocese and throughout the world.  The Pope and the bishops serve as visible reminders of the unity that must always exist.

A key aspect of our being Catholic is having this understanding of being in communion with other Catholics throughout our diocese and throughout our world.  This is an area where I believe we are in need of continual conversion.  Even if we do not always agree with something that Pope or the bishop has said or done, let us not let that be a reason for us to weaken our communion with them, and as a result, with one another.  Jesus says in the Gospel that “a house divided against itself will stand.” (Mt. 12:25)  If we are not praying for unity in the Church on a regular bases, both locally and universally, , now is a time to start.  And there is no better way to do so than when the Pope and local bishop are mentioned in the Eucharistic Prayer at every Mass.  

Father Alford