I was recently confronted by a gentleman who held strong beliefs against the Catholic Church.  At one point, he criticized the Catholic Mass as something unbiblical.  I simply asked him: “Have you ever been to Catholic Mass?”  To which he quickly responded with a firm “No!”  As we parted ways, I could not help but think of the story of Dr. Scott Hahn’s journey to the Catholic faith.  I recall him sharing how he would slip into the back of the chapel for Mass.  Being so familiar with the Scriptures, he saw unfolding before him a liturgy filled with biblical connections.  The Mass is not mere human invention, but it is firmly rooted in the Scriptures.

One of the many places where this is seen in the Mass is as the celebrant, before receiving Holy Communion himself, says: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world.  Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb.”  The first sentence is directly from John 1:29, where St. John the Baptist points out Jesus to his followers.  The second sentence is taken from the Book of Revelation, which reads: “Then the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who have been called to the wedding feast of the Lamb.” (Rev. 19:9)

The response from the faithful is as follows: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”  Anybody who has even a casual familiarity with the Scriptures knows that this also comes from the Bible.  It is almost a direct quote from the Gospel of Matthew where the Centurion appeals to Jesus for Him to heal his servant, saying: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.” (Mt. 8:8)  In a resource that I have referred to in this series one other time, I came across a beautiful explanation of how this brief exchange both demonstrates the Church’s use of the Scriptures in the Mass, as well as how this passage in particular is a helpful final preparation for us as we are about to approach Our Lord in Holy Communion:

These were the words addressed by the Centurion to our Lord, who was coming to heal his servant. Once again let us repeat, Holy Church is ever showing how she possesses the happy secret of choosing the loveliest passages of Sacred Scripture, to place in the Holy Mass; as it were enchasing them there, like priceless diamonds! We likewise say Domine non sum dignus [Lord, I am not worthy]. … In our case, it is not for our servant that we beg a cure; it is our own poor soul craving help for herself, and making use of these words as a last appeal to God. We sorely need to be cured; and the nearer we approach the Lord who alone can cure us, the greater should be our confidence in asking. Assuredly nothing can be so certain and manifest, as our unworthiness; but, on the other hand, who is so powerful as the Lord. There is nothing for us, but to appeal to Him, and crave with true humility: sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea. Yea, say but one word, and my soul shall be healed! 

(Dom Prosper Guéranger, Explanation of Prayers and Ceremonies of Holy Mass, 64)

What a gift the Mass is to us!  The Word of God is spoken directly to us in the Liturgy of the Word, and it continues to speak to us in a variety of ways throughout the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  Even if we are not familiar with all of the passages and references scattered throughout the Mass, their power is evident, for “the Word of God is living and effective.” (Heb 4:12)  It is that effectiveness of the Word of God that prepares our hearts throughout that Mass, so that at this moment, in which we are about to receive the Word made Flesh in the Eucharist, our hunger for Him prompts us to cry out with all humility that we are not worthy of this gift, while at the same time being moved to gratitude that despite that unworthiness, He desires to come to us to feed us and heal us.

Father Alford     

Feast Day: April 21^st 

Automatic doors are the worst.

I mean that somewhat facetiously, though we have had a decisive down-turn in the number of saintly doormen ever since powered-doors started their climb towards ubiquity in the 1950s. It has been 3 years since I wrote about a saint-porter, that is a saint who achieved his holiness from opening the door for people coming to Church, but there are many such remarkable individuals now canonized saints (or blessed): Paschal Baylon, Charles of Sezze, Didacus of Alcalá, Felix of Cantalice, Alphonsus Rodriguez, André Bessette, John Macias, Benito Solana Ruiz, Bonaventure of Barcelona, Solanus Casey, and today’s saint, Conrad of Parzham.

He was baptized with the name John and the patronage of John the Evangelist, the second to last of 12 children (though only 7 survived past infancy). He was known for his devotion and prayerfulness as a child, visiting the church some distance from his home even during inclement weather and walking all the way to a shrine of the Blessed Mother on feast days. He grew up helping on his family’s farm, though when he was still a teenager lost both of his parents a few years apart. A few years later, following a parish mission, he began to seriously consider religious life and entered the OFM-C (Order of Friars Minor, Capuchins) in 1842.

And then he spent 41 years open the friary door. He was widely known for his charity, patience, and generosity towards all who came knocking, and that he would step into an alcove of their chapel for brief moments of prayer whenever he wasn’t engaged with visitors. One line about him that particularly caught my attention says that he was “eager and ready to receive and help strangers.” He died in 1894, a few days after giving the role of porter to another friar.

Now, back to powered-doors.  The problem isn’t the motors and electronics that make the things operate … but neither was it the physical act of opening and closing the door that made Br. Conrad a saint. The thing that made him a saint was loving individuals, and loving the Lord, every time he encountered someone. And power-doors are one of the many places in our lives where we have avoided encountering others … avoided them needing our love … or us giving them our love.

Think of all the places where our modern world allows us to avoid interacting with others: self-checkout, 2 day shipping, movie streaming, google maps, earbuds. I don’t want to be entire down on technology, but in making our lives “easier”, in many ways our lives are less human, less dependent on others, less open to others. When I go for a jog and smile and wave at a stranger they often look up from their own little world, shocked that someone would speak to them, care about them. And, to be honest, I often find myself in my own zone too, wanting to do my thing, keep to my own plans, not really wanting to be bothered, not really wanting to be noticed, not really wanting to need someone else, or them needing me. 

But to live “my own” life, is not really to live a fully human life at all. We are made for community, for communion, for interaction, for self-gift, and when we risk ourselves and open up to someone else, we discover we are far more who we want to be. Our Lord knew this when He said “whoever would save his lifewill lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” [Matthew 16:25] Unfortunately, we live in an age where our lives are not always asked of us, or when they are we are quick to begrudge the request. As Christians we have to look for ways around this buffered, isolated, narrowed way of life and look for ways to push back against the things that keep us disconnected, solitary, “going alone”. 

– Fr. Dominic is not the best at this! Asked before the Boston Marathon “Why do you run?”, I said some things about offering up miles for people, about praying and soaking in the grace and strength that God gives me, but I completely forgot that running is absolutely an opportunity to sacrifice for others, to cheer them on, to get to know them as you share miles of road together. But these are some of the best moments of those races! The kid you high-five on the sidelines, the person who gives you a cup of water at the aid station, the unexpected person who celebrates with you at the finish line, and the guy you cheered on who says it got him through some tough miles. Those, and so many others, are opportunities to love each other. Those are the places where saints are made.

After the Lamb of God is sung or said, we are almost ready for the high point of receiving our Lord in Holy Communion.  The General Instruction of the Roman Missal says the following about what happens next: “The Priest prepares himself by a prayer, said quietly, so that he may fruitfully receive the Body and Blood of Christ. The faithful do the same, praying silently.” (GIRM, 84)

Both the priest and the faithful are invited into silent prayer as a way to prepare for receiving Holy Communion, but for the priest, there is a specific prayer (rather an option of two prayers) that he is to pray, but the faithful are not given any specific prayer.  On the one hand, this gives freedom to the faithful to pray from their heart in words that are unique to them, or simply just to be in silence, but we have to admit that sometimes “we do not know how to pray as we ought.” (Rom 8:26) And so a written prayer from the tradition of the Church can help in this time of preparation.

First of all, there is nothing to prevent the faithful from using one of the prayers that the priest uses for his preparation.  I prefer the first option, which is as follows:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God,
who, by the will of the Father
and the work of the Holy Spirit,
through your Death gave life to the world,
free me by this, your most holy Body and Blood,
from all my sins and from every evil;
keep me always faithful to your commandments,
and never let me be parted from you.

There are other good options as well.  For example, St. Thomas Aquinas has written a beautiful prayer that can be recited before receiving Holy Communion:

Almighty and ever-living God, I approach the sacrament
of Your only-begotten Son Our Lord Jesus Christ, I come sick to the doctor of life, unclean to the fountain of mercy, blind to the radiance of eternal light,
and poor and needy to the Lord of heaven and earth. 

Lord, in your great generosity, heal my sickness, wash away my defilement, 
enlighten my blindness, enrich my poverty, and clothe my nakedness. 

May I receive the bread of angels, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 
with humble reverence, with the purity and faith, the repentance and love, 
and the determined purpose that will help to bring me to salvation. 

May I receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood, 
and its reality and power.

Kind God,  may I receive the Body of Your only-begotten Son, 
our Lord Jesus Christ, born from the womb of the Virgin Mary, 
and so be received into His mystical body and numbered among His members.

Loving Father, as on my earthly pilgrimage I now receive Your beloved Son
under the veil of a sacrament, may I one day see him face to face in glory, 
who lives and reigns with You for ever.  Amen.

So whether you use one of these prayers or one in your own words, or just maintaining a prayerful silence with no words, the important thing to remember is that this short moment of silence is like making those last minute preparations in your house for that long-awaited guest, so that when Jesus arrives, He may find you ready and eager to welcome Him.

Father Alford     

Feast Day: April 14th

We travel to Holland this week, a little town of Schiedam, named after the river it was perched along. Peter was a laborer, and his (even more hardworking) wife, Petronilla, was the mother of their 9 children. Eight were boys, but right in the middle was their only daughter, Lidwina, or Lydia as we’d probably call her. She was born on Palm Sunday, right as the Passion was being chanted at their local church, an easy delivery for Petronilla thank God in the year of Our Lord, 1380.

One wintery day a decade and a half later, Lidwina was out with her friends ice skating and took a bad fall on the ice breaking one of her ribs. It was an injury that changed the course of her whole life. At first it all seemed to be ramifications from the broken rib: an abscess formed in her chest, eventually bursting, further increasing her pain and nausea. With some periods of remission, she grew increasingly disabled over the coming years. By 19, both of her legs were paralyzed, and her vision limited and over the coming four decades, she would lose feeling and eventually grow paralyzed through much of her body, enduring fevers and headaches, bleeding and blindness. For anyone with chronic pain or who has been bedridden, St. Lidwina is your patron.

Scientists say it may have been the first recorded case of multiple sclerosis. The Catholic Church says she was a saint. And it all came down to the way she endured all those crosses. No one expected, at 15, that she would become a saint in that way. She could have been a virtuous wife and mother, she could have entered religious life, or dedicated her life to God in some other way. Her whole life was open before her! But then she had a bad fall, and a disease no one understood began to ravage her body, and she had a choice to make: to embrace Christ, on the cross, or plunge into the sufferings without Him. 

The path of sanctity perhaps sounds heroic and meaningful, and surely it was, but in some ways it actually made it harder for Lidwina. Now people came by, gawking at someone that was said to be a mystic. Poking and prodding, some scoffing at her reputed holiness, some claiming her charity had worked miracles. She risked deeper union with the Lord, remaining with Jesus amidst the daily struggle to stay cheerful, her mind and heart were more and more filled by Jesus’ Love, and inspired by His cross. She prayed constantly, choosing to fast and make sacrifices beyond even what her illness forced upon her.

Her example is a hard one. At first glance, we have to ask: does being a saint mean suffering for most of your life and dying young? Of course, the answer is ‘no’, Jesus says “I came that you may have life, life in abundance.” But then, where is abundant life to be found at Lidwina’s bedside? And here’s where we get to her sanctity: not in the extremity of her sufferings, nor the miracles or mystical prayer, but in the simple choice to hold fast to Jesus in all those circumstances. We don’t know what her relationship with Our Lord was like before her fall (though we know her parents were faithful and pious, so we must assume their home was one of prayer and devotion), but we know that she did choose Jesus, again and again, in the years after. That is something that we can do as well, whether we’re ice skating or just doing a day’s work. whether we’re suffering or currently in fine health, whether we’re given the grace of mystical prayer or just persevering in spending time with Our Lord before Mass. All of us can make the same choice – of relationship with Jesus – and become just as holy, just as saintly, just as inspiring as St. Lidwina.

– Fr. Dominic has ice skated three times in his life. His current skill-level is “unstable”. He can get up to a fine rate of speed but can only decelerate by hitting the boards … or hitting the ice. Meanwhile, figure-skaters are hitting quadruple-axels and speed-skaters are hitting 60mph … and the Lord is waiting for both of us to do life with Him. 

On Easter Sunday, a parishioner asked me if I had ever heard an explanation why people often eat ham on Easter Sunday?  I am sure there may be a reason, but instead of making something up as I am sometimes tempted to do when I am stumped on a theological question, I simply admitted that I did not know.  This interaction was in my mind as I sat down to write this article on the Lamb of God that takes place at Mass just before receiving Holy Communion.

I am aware that lamb is a dish that often finds its way onto the dinner table on Easter Sunday.  In fact, the lamb is a symbol that you will often see associated with Easter.  The lamb is a symbol of Christ Himself, who was sacrificed for our sins on Good Friday.  He is referred to by St. John the Baptist as the Lamb of God.  In the Eucharist, we consume the Lamb of God who has taken away the sins of the world through His Passion, Death, and Resurrection.  Therefore, eating lamb on Easter can serve as a fitting reminder of the gift of the Eucharist that Jesus left us on Holy Thursday before offering Himself in sacrifice on the altar of the Cross the following day.  

It is therefore providential for us to be reflecting on the Lamb of God on this Octave Day of Easter as we continue to rejoice in the glory of the Resurrection.  To help us with our consideration of this prayer, let us return to Venerable Bruno Lanteri and his reflections on praying the Mass, through Father Timothy Gallagher’s book: A Biblical Way of Praying the Mass: The Eucharistic Wisdom of Venerable Bruno Lanteri:

Venerable Bruno writes: “At the Lamb of God, I will seek the sentiments and the heart of one who is guilty and in need of forgiveness.”  Transferred to the spiritual realm, [this] is one who knows that he or she has acted contrary to Jesus’s teaching – through self-centeredness, impatience, lack of charity, anger, or through any of the seven capital sins and their unhappy expressions in act – and brings this awareness to Jesus, the Lamb of God, seeing that wonderful gift of mercy.

(p. 75 of Kindle version of book)

Historically, the triple request for mercy at this point was accompanied by the striking of the breast, as during the during the Confiteor at the beginning of the Mass.  Although the Church no longer calls for this outward gesture of striking the breast, the inner disposition remains the same – humility and contrition before the Lord, whose love and mercy is about to come into our souls.  Let us be particularly mindful of our need for mercy at this point in the Mass, increasing our gratitude for the healing grace the Eucharist is about to bring to us.

Speaking of mercy, the timing for our reflecting on this prayer is doubly providential as it coincides with Divine Mercy Sunday, always celebrated on the 2^nd Sunday of Easter.  Last Sunday, on Easter, we were invited to renew our Baptismal Promises, reminding us of that greatest day of our lives when Christ’s victory was applied to our souls.  On this Octave Day of Easter, we are reminded that, though we may fall out of our weakness after Basptism, God’s mercy is always available to welcome us back and restore us to that place of right relationship with Him.  This grace comes about in a most significant way through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, referred to at times as our “second baptism.”  The ocean of God’s mercy is infinite, and no matter how far we have wandered from the Lord, His Divine Mercy is always available to us to renew and restore us.  Having out sins washed away in the blood of the Lamb (in Baptism and Confession) makes it possible for us to share in the Lamb’s High Feast of the Eucharist where we are nourished and given a foretaste of the glory that awaits us in Heaven.

Father Alford     

Feast Day: April 7^th 

Born in Reims, France, around 1651, he enters the world the eldest son of wealthy parents. As the firstborn, he is set on the path of becoming a priest, and at the age of 11 is named a canon of the Reims Cathedral. Both his parents die when he was about 20, so he left seminary for a time to turn his attention to managing the family estate while his 6 younger siblings grow up, returning to seminary studies to be ordained a priest at 26. Gets his doctorate in theology, spends his first years as a priest serving as chaplain and confessor of a girls school, eventually getting involved in fundraising to build a new school and personally helping to train the new teachers.

So far, a pretty ordinary track for a young priest in 1650s France. But God had plans to make him a saint (turns out, the Lord has those same plans for all of us!)

Amid that oh so ordinary work trying to educate children, Jean-Baptiste is slowly moved by the plight of so many poor families who cannot afford schooling for their children. He has tried natural responses to the problem – fundraising, training, building, teaching – but God’s plans are so much bigger. He considers starting a religious community devoted to teaching and catechizing and after praying and considering and wrestling with the consequences of doing so he finally just goes all in. He leaves his comfortable position as a canon, moves in with a small group of similar-minded teachers, and forms them into the Brothers of the Christian Schools. 

As with any time we take a plunge into God’s plan, the world immediately pushes back. The secular schooling system lambasted his tuition-free schooling model – how impractical, wrong-headed, unworkable; it would throw into havoc the rest of the education system where honest people paid an honest price …  Meanwhile the Church could not see a place for an order merely dedicated to teaching and educating; this ramshackle group of half-trained teachers cannot become a religious congregation; there’s not even any priests in the order!… This his family got involved – How dare you use the family fortune to start this personal project (Jean-Baptiste gave his inheritance to the poor). How dare you bring this gaggle of people into the family home! (Which then got sold, so Jean-Baptiste rented a little place for his fledgling order.) 

At every turn, resistance reared its head, but like so many other saints, Jean-Baptiste wasn’t on a personal mission, and he wasn’t there to prove something, and he didn’t try to look too far down the path. He was simply following God’s will, and even if you don’t know where you’re going, if everything is against you, but God is for you, you just keep going forward. 

I had imagined that the care which I assumed of the schools and the masters would amount only to a marginal involvement committing me to no more than providing for the subsistence of the masters and assuring that they acquitted themselves of their tasks with piety and devotion …[3] Indeed, if I had ever thought that the care I was taking of the schoolmasters out of pure charity would ever have made it my duty to live with them, I would have dropped the whole project. … God, who guides all things with wisdom and serenity, whose way it is not to force the inclinations of persons, willed to commit me entirely to the development of the schools. He did this in an imperceptible way and over a long period of time so that one commitment led to another in a way that I did not foresee in the beginning.

Perhaps a final stamp of the Lord’s approval – besides the eternal fruit born by his efforts – came when La Salle died in 1719, on Good Friday.

– Fr. Dominic when applying for seminary felt entirely uncertain about the path ahead, afraid of the unknowns, overwhelmed by the commitment, the uncertain cost, and the turmoil within … and he received some of the best advice he ever received: just stay on the path that God had you on before the storm struck. He entered seminary, found God was behind Him all that time, and discovered the truth that St. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle exemplifies for us, and a famous fish once said: just keep swimming. At least, if Jesus pointed you that direction. 

Alleluia!  He is Risen!  After completing our 40-day journey through the desert of Lent, and having once again entered into Christ’s Passion during Holy Week, we now rejoice anew in the victory of Christ risen from the dead!

There is a phrase in the liturgy that has caught my attention in a particular way over the past few years that serve as a sort of reference point for the entire Easter Season for me.  The phrase comes from the Easter Prefaces, which you will recall happens after the Offertory and before the Holy, Holy, Holy, leading us into the Eucharistic Prayer.  All of the Easter Prefaces begin their conclusion with the same phrase: “Therefore, overcome with Paschal joy.”

I think it is important to highlight that this joy is not just any joy, but it is Paschal joy.   How is Paschal joy different?  According to a quick search on an online dictionary, joy is generally defined as an emotion of happiness and delight.  Feeling joy is a great thing, and our faith can elicit very positive emotions.  But in the theological sense, joy is more than just an emotion.  Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, according to St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians.  Monsignor Charles Pope, a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, explains Christian joy in this way:

The joy referred to here is more than a passing worldly joy. It is deeper than an emotional experience. It is rooted in God and comes from him. Since it does not have the world for its origin but, rather, comes from God, it is more serene and stable than worldly joy, which is merely emotional and lasts only for a time.

(https://blog.adw.org/2013/01/a-brief-treatise-on-the-fruits-of-the-holy-spirit/) 

So, this helps us understand what joy is, but the Church is pointing out a specific kind of joy, Paschal joy.  Paschal joy comes from the glorious truth that Christ has risen from the dead!  Life is victorious, sin has been defeated!  On the day of our Baptism, we became partakers in this victory, and because of that, we have great hope that will shall share in the Resurrection at the end of our earthly journey.  This means that even if we are suffering, even if we are discouraged with how our life here on earth may be going, even if we feel sad at the circumstances of our lives or the world around us, we raise our eyes to God and see the victory that has already been won, and the hope we have for what lies ahead for us.  Therefore, despite how we might feel, we can and should be overcome with Paschal joy as we celebrate this greatest of all feast days.

In 50 days, we will celebrate Pentecost, the day on which the Holy Spirit descended upon the Church, but we do not need to wait until then to enjoy the fruits of the Holy Spirit.  Remaining in the state of grace, receiving the Eucharist regularly, and keeping up our daily prayer with the Lord will fan the flame of the Holy Spirit within us and we will experience the abundance of those fruits in our lives, including joy.  If we begin to feel down and discouraged with what is happening in us or around us, we can simply cry out: “Come, Holy Spirit”, who will remind us of the victory Christ won for us through His death and Resurrection, and meditating on that, how can we not be overcome with Paschal joy?

On behalf of Bishop Paprocki, Fathers Paul Lesupati, Dominic Rankin, Dominic Vahling, Deacon Larry Smith, and the entire Cathedral Parish staff, we wish you all a very blessed Easter!

Father Alford     

Feast Day: March 31^st 

The Gospels tell us that an entire cohort of Roman Soldiers participated in mocking Jesus before His crucifixion, something like 600 soldiers abusing and jeering at Him. Just the night before, Jesus had reassured His apostles, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” [Matthew 26:53] A legion is ten times the size of a cohort, and Jesus has more than a dozen of them, of angels, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of angels. But Our Lord said that while calling Peter back from his sword wielding, and as the soldiers sneered and struck the King of Kings no angels ever appeared.

Jesus instead chose death, self-sacrifice, giving His life in my place, loving us till the end. 

Now, this kind of love is amazing, and we must pause and let it sink in that Our Lord would have embraced all that suffering for JUST me or JUST you. But I think His choice to NOT defend Himself challenges us on a deeper level. If you or I were faced with a tortuous death, an unfair trial, the absurdity of senseless and unjustified suffering, wouldn’t we look for a way out? 

Jesus could have called upon angels, obliterating those trying to kill Him.

Jesus could have refuted the charges, casting on us the consequences of our sin.

Jesus could have accepted the gall, numbing the excruciating pain of the cross.

Jesus could have asked God for comfort, at least feeling the consolation of His Father’s presence.

But at every turn Jesus instead chose love, the kind of love that hurts, that costs, that accepts suffering and scorn from the one being loved. Jesus did not just suffer, He chose suffering, He accepted it for you and me.

And He asks us if we’d be willing to accept it with Him. 

“So the soldiers did these things,but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” [John 19:24-25] How easy it is to brush past this poignant line: The soldiers doing their thing … Do we allow our minds and hearts to consider the full horror of crucifixion?… and then the brief mention of those standing by the cross. Do we know how hard it was for Mary and John and the other Mary’s to stand there, to watch Jesus die so horribly?! Do we realize how hard it was for Jesus to see His friends suffering with Him?

I gave up many little things for Lent – probably all of us did – and I failed in every one of my sacrifices. I chose YouTube to distract myself from a long todo list. I succumbed to dessert at the end of hard day. I took a hot shower when feeling drained or under the weather. Now none of these things are intrinsically evil, but they are all ways that I avoided suffering, said “no” to the cross, told Jesus I would rather find my own comfort somewhere else than stay with Him on Golgotha. I chose the golden calf. I denied Jesus. I embraced Him, and then abandoned Him, because His way wasn’t the one I signed up for.

And then He rose from the dead.

And when Jesus steps forth alive and glorious after that horrible death, He does not just show us that eternal life is possible, and the cross is not the end, but He comes back to me, and you, and Peter and the rest, and gives us another chance to choose Him, cross and all.

Balbina was the daughter of a Roman Tribune named Quirinus. He would have commanded one of those Roman legions, and was currently holding Pope Alexander I and another Christian named Hermes in prison, pressing both to renounce their faith in Christ. Hermes did not know how to answer Quirinus’s interrogations, and so points the tribune towards Pope Alexander, telling him that the Holy Father had raised Hermes’s son from the dead. Quirinus breaks down. His own daughter Balbina has a crippling and disfiguring goiter. Can the Holy Father heal her? Pope Alexander points Balbina away from his own chains to reverence those that held St. Peter just a few decades before. She finds and kisses the shackles of the first pope and is healed, and she and her father are baptized at the hands of Pope Alexander, eventually themselves becoming saints.

The story is beautiful, but the most amazing thing that happened was not the conversion of Quirinus, or the healing of Balbina, but what happened when they were baptized. Quirinus, baptized, no longer needs to scramble to uphold his position. He is a son of God, His identity is secure. Balbina, baptized, is cured of the far worse crippling and disfiguring of original sin. She is pure and free and beautiful as God always wanted her to be. But baptism also plunged them, and us, into Christ’s death. Of course, our being baptized asks us to continue to fight sin in our lives. And to continue to choose to live from a spirit of adoption (rather than that of an orphan). BUT, we must also continue to embrace the cross with Jesus, and receive the gift of His new life in God’s good time. 

– Fr. Dominic always loves to be wished “Happy Easter”, and nothing is happier than Easter, but Easter is no less real when happiness is harder to find.

As the Church begins our annual observance of Holy Week, permit me to take a short break from our ongoing series of praying with the Mass.  To turn our attention to these most important days of the liturgical year is actually not really a diversion from our reflections on the Mass, for the Mass itself was instituted during this sacred week on Holy Thursday.  Christ’s offering of Himself on the Cross for our sins on Good Friday is the very mystery that we enter into every time we are present at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  Therefore the events of Holy Week are intimately connected with the celebration of the Mass, regardless of when we attend these Sacred Mysteries.  For our reflection as we enter this Holy Week, I would invite us to reflect on how this week was experienced by two of Jesus’s Apostles, Judas and Peter.  

Let us start with Judas.  In the Church’s readings for Mass on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Holy Thursday, and at Good Friday Liturgy, Judas is mentioned in all of them – the only Apostle to claim that distinction.  By keeping Judas before our eyes, the Church is inviting us to see in him the example of what can happen if we fail to keep Jesus at the center of our lives.  Judas was called to be a follower of Christ.  Jesus said to him, as well as the others: “I have called you friends.” (Jn 15:15)  Before the Last Supper, Jesus says to these closest friends: “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” (Lk 22:15). Judas had his feet washed, like the rest.  But sadly, he was so blinded in his own greed that he continued with his plan to betray Jesus.  In the Garden, Judas identifies Jesus to His captors by giving Him a kiss, to which Jesus responds: “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” (Lk 22:48)  Judas eventually went away saddened at his choice to reject Christ’s love.  But his sadness was not true contrition, for had he been contrite, he would have let that gaze of Jesus penetrate his heart and chose the path of repentance, a path that would have led to a much different ending for him.

The story of Peter is not terribly different.  This head of the Apostles was so firm in his commitment to the Lord.  He promised to never deny Him, that He would even die for Him: “Lord, I am prepared to go to prison and to die with you.” (Lk 22:33)  But when the time for witnessing to Jesus came, Peter three times denied knowing Jesus, just as the Lord had predicted.  Right after his third denial, Luke’s Gospel recounts the following reaction of Jesus: “the Lord turned and looked at Peter.” (Lk 22:61). Peter remembered what Jesus had said about his denying Him three times, and Luke writes: “He went out and began to weep bitterly.” (Lk 22:62).  Unlike with Judas, the look of Jesus at Peter after his denial did not lead to despair.  Rather, Peter’s contrition was authentic, sorrowful for having denied the Messiah.  This sorrow would not be the end of his story, for he would be reconciled on the shore of the sea after the Resurrection, when Jesus asks Peter three times: “Do you love me.”  Three times, Peter affirms his love for Jesus, to make up for his three-fold denial.  And we know the rest of his story.

Two friends of Jesus, called to be with Him, called to share in His life, called to receive His Body and Blood at the Last Supper.  Both ended up falling out of their weakness.  Both were looked up with love by Jesus.  One despaired, and one repented.  This Holy Week, I invite us to meditate on that gaze of Jesus as He looks upon us.  No matter how many times we may have denied Him or rejected Him through sin, His gaze is one of love, not one of disappointment.  His gaze is an invitation to not flee and hide out of shame or despair, but to run to Him, to be embraced by Him.  He invites us to stand at the foot of the Cross as He gazes down on you with His arms extended in a gesture as if to say: “This is how much I love you.”  May His gaze fill us with sorrow for our sins, but may we find in Him that gift of mercy that He freely offers to us, a gift that can transform our lives this week if we let Him.  For with His mercy, our sins and failures are not the end of our story, they become the places of His victory in us when we surrender those sins to Him.  If you have not yet let Him win that victory over your sins lately, He will be waiting for you in the confessional to welcome you with His merciful love.

Father Alford     

Feast Day: March 24^th 

If you’re anything like me, you have never heard of St. Aldemar.

He was a monk at the famous Abbey of Monte Casino in Italy. That abbey, one of the first established by St. Benedict, around 529 AD, was where the Rule of Benedict was first lived-out and Benedict’s vision of monastic life first seen for everything it could be. When that monastery was sacked by the Lombards in 580, forcing the monks to evacuate to Rome, that way of life began to spread throughout the Latin Church (Pope St. Gregory the Great spoke highly of it just a few years later) and within a few centuries it was the standard for Western Monasticism).  

Probably you do know the Benedictine motto “ora et labora” / “pray and work”. These certainly are the pillars of the life and structure of Benedictine Monasteries. The monks begin their day well before the sunrise singing the first period of psalms and readings (called “matins” from the latin word for morning, probably at 3 or 4am), then, perhaps after a brief break, “lauds” (this is what we would now simply call “morning prayer”, but it took this traditional name from the repetition of the theme of praise, “laudate”, that resounds through the psalms sung at sunrise, Psalms 148-150. At 6am.) Then the monks would go off to various labors around the monastery and surrounding territory – farming, building, writing, teaching … – but always ready to pause their efforts and return to the monastery for another time of prayer. Throughout the middle of the day you would have terce (third hour of the day, 9am), sext (sixth hour, noon), and none (ninth hour, 3pm). The day would also include time for meals, except for feast-days it would be simple fare, a Mass attended by the entire community and individual Masses offered by any of the monks who were priests (concelebration was only done on specific occasions, usually with a bishop), and the day would conclude with the final hours of prayer, vespers (6pm) and compline (9pm or so).

You can see the discipline and intensity of this life, but also the amazing spiritual and cultural fruit that could come from a place of such stability, sanctity, and seriousness. It is no wonder that monasteries became hubs for medieval towns, precursors to schools and hospitals, and engines of evangelization as they moved hearts towards Christ by their prayer and example.  

But we need to get back to St. Aldemar. He wasn’t born a monk of Monte Cassino. Actually, he didn’t even begin his monastic life there. He was born in Capua, Italy (not far from Monte Cassino, but a bit closer to Naples) and happily became a monk in his hometown. A princess of the region came to like the wise and faithful monk and tapped him to be in charge of a new religious house she was building. Exciting, right?! You’re living your best monastic life and then get noticed by a princess and given a brand-new monastery! … but it wasn’t God’s plan.

Aldemar was reassigned by his Benedictine superiors to move to Monte Cassino, a request he obediently followed. The princess threw a fit, Aldemar had to flee to Boiana still narrowly escaping with his life, and eventually winding up all the way North of Rome in the Abruzzi region, where he founded several other monasteries. 

Here’s what I want us to focus on: deep prayer and dutiful work were important, and they must be the backbone of our life too but they didn’t make Aldemar a saint. What got him to heaven was obedience. Here’s what St. Benedict said about that in chapter 5 of his rule:

The first step of humility is unhesitating obedience, which comes naturally to those who cherish Christ above all. Because of the holy service they have professed, or because of dread of hell and for the glory of everlasting life, they carry out the superior’s order as promptly as if the command came from God himself. The Lord says of men like this: “No sooner did he hear than he obeyed me” (Ps 17[18]:45); again, he tells teachers: “Whoever listens to you, listens to me” (Luke 10:16).

– Fr. Dominic made several different promises at his ordination, so do any of you who are married or in any religious vocation, but the most important thing that we offer to the Lord, whether through our spouse, or through our religious superior is our obedience. 

Jesus was obedient unto death. His obedience saved the world! Our emulation of that obedience will be how He saves us.

Read more of St. Benedict on Obedience here – https://christdesert.org/rule-of-st-benedict/chapter-5-obedience/ – or in the QR code: