Feast Day: September 23^rd | Patronage: Popes, Various Schools and Parishes that have taken him as their saint | Iconography: Papal Tiara or Pallium, Holding Book as Preacher, Balding because even saints grow old.

Linus was the first successor of St. Peter as Bishop of Rome. As early as St. Irenaeus (AD 180), we find him described as entrusted by St. Peter (and St. Paul): “the blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate.” [St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3:3.3.] Eusebius, the bishop and historian in the 300s, follows suit in saying that Linus was “the first to receive the episcopate of the church at Rome, after the martyrdom of Paul and Peter” [Eusebius, Church History 3.2.] and St. Jerome agrees with him. Now, there are a few (later) accounts that claim that it was Clement who actually St. Peter, with Linus and Cletus being something more akin to auxiliary bishops, assisting but not entrusted with the full office of Peter. Still, the weight of evidence tends towards Linus being the first successor of St. Peter, then Cletus, then Clement. He would have been martyred around the year 78 or 80 and was buried, along with many Christians who loved their first Holy Father, near to St. Peter’s grave on the Vatican Hill.

One fascinating insight into this early saint and leader of the Church is actually found in St. Paul’s second letter to Timothy. At the end of that letter, as Paul concludes his words to that beloved coworker of his, he mentions several people to pass his greetings onto, and several that send their greetings with his. One of the latter is Linus!:

Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus. Erastus remained at Corinth, and I left Trophimus, who was ill, at Miletus. Do your best to come before winter. Eubulus sends greetings to you, as do Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brothers. The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you. 

[2 Timothy 4:19-22]

Now, this letter would have been written towards the end of St. Paul’s life, probably when he had already come to Rome for his trial before the emperor and a decade or more after his many adventures with Timothy. I love the fact that here in Rome, under the most unlikely of circumstances, we have the great Apostle to the Gentiles not quite in chains but certainly hampered from his globe-trotting earlier days, happily stranded with St. Peter laying the foundation for the Church’s heart in the Eternal City. And there, somehow mixed into this fledgling Church is a young man named Linus, growing in his faith under the tutelage of the greatest of the Apostles. Here he is, perhaps some years into his work as a priest or bishop with the craziness of revolving emperors and sporadic persecution, and he stands by as St. Paul pens a final letter to his favorite sidekick. We don’t know if Linus ever met Timothy (though Paul certainly hopes that he would come to Rome!), but somehow they seem like kindred spirits. Separated far from one another in shepherding different parts of the Church, both young bishops got a front row seat to the astonishing work of the Holy Spirit in the early Church, and both also were faced by the same overwhelming uncertainties of guiding and guarding those earliest communities of disciples. 

Thing is, the Holy Spirit hasn’t stopped working, nor has the Lord ceased to connect saints-in-the-making to one another to inspire and encourage one another.

– Fr. Dominic was recently with a handful of the priests and seminarians of the diocese down in the Alton deanery for an informal evening with young men considering how to follow the Lord wherever He is calling them. I cannot help but consider the parallels between our brotherhood – often spread from one another, but working in the same vineyard – to those leaders in the early church. Each of us was inspired by others before us, and each of us also passes that torch onto other men to step into the same spiritual fatherhood. It’s daunting, truly, but we also come to realize that Christ is the one who guarantees that the torch won’t go out.

In 2019, Pope Francis declared that the 3^rd Sunday of Ordinary Time each year should be designated as the Sunday of the Word of God.  In his decree announcing this annual celebration, the Holy Father made reference to the importance that the Word of God has in the context of the celebration of the Eucharist, citing the Second Vatican Council:

the Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures as she has venerated the Lord’s body, in that she never ceases, above all in the sacred liturgy, to partake of the bread of life and to offer it to the faithful from the one table of the word of God and the body of Christ.

(Dei Verbum, 21)

Paying attention to how Christ is present to us in the Scriptures proclaimed at Mass is one of the key ways of getting more out of our experience of this greatest of prayers.  It can be a common lament of people that when they pray, they do not hear God speaking to them.  With reverence for the pain that we can feel when it seems as though He is silent, I ask the person when they last heard or read from the Scriptures.  I tell them that when they did so, God was indeed speaking to them, loud and clear!  Again, with all reverence for the struggle of trying to hear God speak to us, it is helpful to acknowledge this truth, that when we encounter the Word of God, we encounter God Himself.  We may not understand what He is saying, or feel as though He is speaking to us, but He is!  What is lacking is never the Word of God.  Being aware that God is really speaking to us here and now in the readings at Mass will only serve to deepen the quality of our prayer at Mass and increase our hunger for Him in the Eucharist.

In my bulletin article from the Sunday of the Word of God in 2021, I shared a powerful quote from Pope Benedict XVI to drive this connection home more explicitly.  I think it is worth repeating here as we begin to consider this section of the Mass:

The sacramentality of the word can thus be understood by analogy with the real presence of Christ under the appearances of the consecrated bread and wine. By approaching the altar and partaking in the Eucharistic banquet we truly share in the body and blood of Christ. The proclamation of God’s word at the celebration entails an acknowledgment that Christ himself is present, that he speaks to us, and that he wishes to be heard. Saint Jerome speaks of the way we ought to approach both the Eucharist and the word of God: “We are reading the sacred Scriptures. For me, the Gospel is the Body of Christ; for me, the holy Scriptures are his teaching. And when he says: whoever does not eat my flesh and drink my blood (Jn 6:53), even though these words can also be understood of the [Eucharistic] Mystery, Christ’s body and blood are really the word of Scripture, God’s teaching. When we approach the [Eucharistic] Mystery, if a crumb falls to the ground we are troubled. Yet when we are listening to the word of God, and God’s Word and Christ’s flesh and blood are being poured into our ears yet we pay no heed, what great peril should we not feel?” Christ, truly present under the species of bread and wine, is analogously present in the word proclaimed in the liturgy. A deeper understanding of the sacramentality of God’s word can thus lead us to a more unified understanding of the mystery of revelation, which takes place through “deeds and words intimately connected”; an appreciation of this can only benefit the spiritual life of the faithful and the Church’s pastoral activity. 

(Verbum Domini, 56)

Feast Day: September 21^st | Patronage: accountants, tax collectors, bankers, and civil servants | Iconography: Bearded, Holding or Writing Book, Inspired by an Angel, sometimes his Call is Depicted with Jesus pointing for him to join the apostles.

One of the oldest fragments we have of St. Matthew’s Gospel is academically called “Papyrus 104”, and is a tattered page containing Matthew 21:34-37 on its front, and Matthew 21:43 and 45 on the back. We only have part of the whole page, hence the missing in-between verses, though verse 44 is missing on a handful of other ancient papyri, so it could be that some copies of Matthew’s Gospel lost it along the way. Now, if you knew ancient Greek, you could determine that this page dates back to between 100 and 200 AD (primarily because of the shape and style of the letters and the types of punctuation that are present). But here’s the amazing thing, among ancient documents, the ones we have for the New Testament are massively closer to the events they describe than almost any other ancient texts. For instance, this page from Matthew’s Gospel comes from less than a century after Matthew wrote his Gospel. Compare this to The Gallic Wars, a famous writing of Julius Caesar which historians wildly accept as a legitimate record of that particular campaign, of which our earliest fragment/copy comes from 750 years after it was written! We have thousands of fragments from all throughout the New Testament that attest that the Gospels and Letters and Acts that we read and believe is the same one written by Paul and Matthew, Mark and John, and many of them date back to within a century or two of when those books of the New Testament were first written. Almost every other ancient text has at most a dozen such fragments, some like The Gallic Wars not until several centuries after the fact. (Another example: Homer’s Odyssey was written 7 or 8 centuries before Christ, and the oldest fragment we have of it is 13 verses, chiseled into a clay tablet from about 300 years after Christ.)

Ok, that’s cool enough, but there’s another amazing part of this story. That fragment you can see of St. Matthew’s Gospel is part of what is called a “codex”, a fancy word for a stack of vellum, papyrus, or metal pages held together in some fashion. In other words, it’s a page out of a book, that you can flip around in, with text printed on both sides of the page. There are a few examples of codex-like objects from before the time of Christ, but the vast majority appear in the first century AD (most of these being the Christian New Testament!), and codices outstrip scrolls in popularity around AD 300. Christians didn’t just want libraries or synagogues to contain the Word of God; they wanted to carry it with them, to see the intricacies of God’s word, to see the connections between Old and New Testament, to tease out Who God reveals Himself to be in its pages. (Plus, it’s a bit easier to hide a small book of Matthew’s Gospel in your pocket than it would be to lug around a few scrolls, especially if the government is out to get you and is looking for such things…) Lastly, codices, besides being more accessible and portable, can also contain a lot more text, even up to the entirety of the New Testament.

And one of the first pages, from one of the first books, is from St. Matthew’s Gospel. How cool is that?!

Here’s the front side of this amazing page. (Bold indicates the letters we have; the others have to be filled in from the other copies that we have of this passage.):

“…he sent his servants to
the vine-growers to collect the harvest
that was his. And the vine-growers took
his servants; indeed,
they beat one and they killed another,
and another they stoned. Again, he sent
other servants, more than
the first: and they did …
unto them likewise. But last of all he sent…”

– Fr. Dominic has always liked reading books but never realized that proclaiming the Gospel was the impetus that made books popular in the first place!

– Fr. Dominic 

As I was composing last week’s bulletin on the Opening Collect, it was my hope that I could explain what I wanted to explain in one article, but there is an additional element about the Collect that I think is worth further reflection.

Recall the explanation of the Collect from the GIRM:

Next the Priest calls upon the people to pray and everybody, together with the Priest, observes a brief silence so that they may become aware of being in God’s presence and may call to mind their intentions. Then the Priest pronounces the prayer usually called the “Collect” and through which the character of the celebration finds expression. (GIRM, §54)

I draw our attention to the final phrase, that the Collect expresses the character of the celebration that will follow.  We see this in a few different ways.  When the Church celebrates a feast day of one of the saints, the Collect has the nature of highlighting something about the saint of the day and asking for their intercession so as better to imitate their fidelity to the Lord.  For example, the saint the Church usually celebrates on September 3 is Pope St. Gregory the Great.  Here is the Collect for that Mass:

O God, who care for your people with gentleness
and rule them in love, through the intercession of Pope Saint Gregory,
endow, we pray, with a spirit of wisdom
those to whom you have given authority to govern,
that the flourishing of a holy flock
may become the eternal joy of the shepherds…

During the special seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter, the Collect will take on the character of that season or that day.  For example, here is the Collect for Easter Sunday:

O God, who on this day,
through your Only Begotten Son,
have conquered death
and unlocked for us the path to eternity,
grant, we pray, that we who keep
the solemnity of the Lord’s Resurrection
may, through the renewal brought by your Spirit,
rise up in the light of life…

During Ordinary Time, the Collects are more general and in keeping with the focus of Ordinary Time as “a time for growth and maturation, a time in which the mystery of Christ is called to penetrate ever more deeply into history until all things are finally caught up in Christ.” (https://www.usccb.org/prayer-worship/liturgical-year/ordinary-time) 

In addition to praying with the readings of the Mass as a good way to prepare for Mass, praying with the Collect can also be very fruitful, so do not overlook these gems that the Church offers to us as sources of rich reflection and meditation.

Feast Day: September 16^th | Patronage: | Iconography: Cornelius: Holding Cruciform Staff and Tiara of a Pope, Carrying Book of one who preaches the Gospel and Horn (from his name, which means “battle horn”); Cyprian: Wearing Vestments of a Bishop, including the Pallium and holding a Crosier, Book of one who preaches the Gospel, and Crown or Palm of martyrdom

St. Cyprian was killed, martyred, for the crime of impiety!  Consider this early account of his martyrdom:

When the bishop appeared the proconsul asked him: ‘Are you Thascius Cyprian?’ The bishop replied: ‘I am.’ ‘And have you acted as leader in a community of impious men?’ ‘I have.’ ‘The sacred emperors have ordered you to sacrifice.’ ‘I will not sacrifice.’ ‘Consider your position.’ ‘Do what is required of you. I have no need to deliberate; the issues are clear.’ Galerius consulted briefly with his advisers and reluctantly pronounced sentence in the following words: ‘You have lived in an irreligious manner for a long time now and have gathered about you a large congregation of criminals and unbelievers. You have shown yourself hostile to the gods of Rome and the rites by which they are worshipped. … Your death will be an example to those whom you have gathered into your criminal conspiracy. Your blood will uphold the law.’

[from the “Proconsular Acts of the martyrdom of St. Cyprian”, 258 AD]

Killed for “impiety” because he didn’t worship the gods of the surrounding culture. He chose to give his highest love, and honor, and fealty to the One True God, no one else. We will suffer, like Christ, and like Cyprian, when we make this same choice! Am I ready for that?

We have a letter that Bp. Cyprian wrote to Pope Cornelius (one of the main reasons we celebrate them both on September 16^th), and it offers us a key way that Cyprian practiced this courageous-faithfulness before called to make the ultimate sacrifice: 

Cyprian sends greetings to his brother Cornelius,

My very dear brother, we have heard of the glorious witness given by your courageous faith. On learning of the honor you had won by your witness, we were filled with such joy that we felt ourselves sharers and companions in your praiseworthy achievements. After all, we have the same Church, the same mind, the same unbroken harmony. Why then should a priest not take pride in the praise given to a fellow priest as though it were given to him? What brotherhood fails to rejoice in the happiness of its brothers wherever they are?

     Words cannot express how great was the exultation and delight here when we heard of your good fortune and brave deeds: how you stood out as a leader of your brothers in their declaration of their faith. You led the way to glory, but you gained many companions in that glory; being foremost in your readiness to bear witness on behalf of all, you prevailed on your people to become a single witness. We cannot decide which we ought to praise, your own ready and unshaken faith or the love of your brothers who would not leave you. While the courage of the bishop who thus led the way has been demonstrated, at the same time the unity of the brotherhood who followed has been manifested. Since you have one heart and one voice, it is the Roman Church as a whole that has thus borne witness….

     Divine providence has now prepared us. God’s merciful design has warned us that the day of our own struggle, our own contest, is at hand. By that shared love which binds us closely together, we are doing all we can to exhort our congregation, to give ourselves unceasingly to fasting, vigils and prayers in common. These are the heavenly weapons which give us the strength to stand firm and endure; they are the spiritual defenses, the God-given armaments that protect us. Let us then remember one another, united in mind and heart. Let us pray without ceasing, you for us, we for you; by the love we share we shall thus relieve the strain of these great trials.

[“Letter by St. Cyprian, bishop and martyr”, Epistle 60,1-2, 5]

Two simple things that St. Cyprian did that prepared him to give witness to Christ: First, recognizing and encouraging others when they choose courageous-faithfulness. Do you and I notice when someone makes a certain choice because they are a Christian? Do we tell them how inspiring their action was, that we want to emulate their faith in that way? And secondly, do we simple expect trials to come our way, or have we imbibed in some way, or just in some area of our lives, a “prosperity gospel” that assumes crosses are for other people, that reacts with dis-belief when God allows our Christianity to cost us?

– Fr. Dominic has been impressed numerous times by the faith, sacrifices, joy, or hope of others. As a priest, he gets to see faith alive in people’s hearts on so many occasions, but I often fail to thank them, or mention that they have inspired me. I hope to learn from St. Cyprian how to do that! One quick story: at World Youth Day, like St. Cyprian, I was moved by the witness of my Holy Father, Pope Francis. It’s so easy to get confused or cynical by something we hear about him, yet when I saw him at WYD I was moved to tremendous gratitude that Christ has entrusted his Church to a Pope, a Papa for all of us. And, his reflections throughout that week were so centered on Christ, on the joy that comes from Christ, on the love He has for us. I am grateful for his witness of those truths again to me!

“Let us pray.”  These are the words that the priest says immediately following the Gloria (when there is one), inviting the faithful to unite with him as he prays what is Opening Prayer, or more technically called the Collect.

There are a few things worth mentioning as we consider the Collect.  The GIRM (remember, when I use that acronym, I am referring to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal) explains that the Collect is one of the “presidential prayers.”  “These prayers are addressed to God by the Priest who presides over the assembly in the person of Christ, in the name of the entire holy people and of all present.” (GIRM, §30) This is an important point that can sometimes go overlooked.  When the priest is reciting prayers at Mass, more often than not, he is doing so in the name of all who are present.  When we hear the Opening Prayer, we can sometimes zone out and not pay much attention, treating it as though we are listening to Father pray.  It’s as though he is saying: “Listen to me pray.”  No, we unite ourselves with the priest who is praying on our behalf, praying for us and with us to God.  “”Let us pray.”  I will develop this point further when we get to the Eucharistic Prayer, but it is important for us to have that understanding of these prayers in general.

But what is the significance of this prayer?  Two sources are helpful in our understanding this prayer.  First, we can look at what the GIRM says:

Next the Priest calls upon the people to pray and everybody, together with the Priest, observes a brief silence so that they may become aware of being in God’s presence and may call to mind their intentions. Then the Priest pronounces the prayer usually called the “Collect” and through which the character of the celebration finds expression. (GIRM, §54)

Another source I sometime refer to when reflecting on the prayers of the Mass is a little booklet I found online called Explanation of Prayers and Ceremonies of Holy Mass, which is a collection of reflections taken from conferences given by Dom Prosper Guéranger, a former Benedictine Abbot of Solesmes.  Though these reflections were written about the Mass celebrated according to the Missal of 1962, many of the elements still apply very well.  Here is what he says about the Collect, that it is:

the Prayer in which he sums up the desires of the Faithful, and presents them under the form of a petition. The word Collect comes from the Latin colligere, which means to bring together things previously existing apart. The importance of the Collect is great. Hence, holy mother Church urges us to listen to it with all respect and devotion.

What both of these explanations offer is that this is a time during which we bring our various intentions to the liturgy to be offered up in one prayer of petition to the Father.  Thus the pause after the priests says: “Let us pray.”  Recall how when describing the Penitential Act, the pause seems hardly adequate to call to mind our sins, so too here.  I think it presumes that we have done a little bit of preparation for this moment, perhaps as we pray before Mass.  In addition to examining ourselves regarding our need for conversion, we can also consider the various intentions we want to bring to this Mass – people to pray for, situations that seem unresolved, gratitude for blessings received, etc.  In that brief moment, we present those intentions we have already thought about to the Lord through the priest who collects the prayers of everybody and offers them up on our behalf in one prayer.

Feast Day: August 24^th | Patronage: Neurological Diseases, Skin Diseases, Butchers, Tanners,  | Iconography: Bearded as an Apostle; Wearing Tunic and Cloak (often red for a martyr); Carrying Book of Scroll because he brought St. Matthew’s Gospel to Mesopotamia, Parthia, Lycaonia, and Ethiopia; Holding Knife or otherwise indication of his being flayed alive.

One quick clarification first of all: Bartholomew and Nathanael have always been considered two names for the same apostle from the earliest ages of the Church. Bartholomew is a family name (“Bar” [“Son of”] “Tolmai”), so it would make sense that he would be called by another name as well, and since St. John’s Gospel closely link Nathanael and Philip (whereas the Synoptic Gospels link Bartholomew and Philip), it is evident these two names are for the same man.

The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) tell us that Bartholomew was one of the Twelve, but tell us little more. St. John’s Gospel gives us a fuller account of his call. Recall that Jesus first called Andrew (one of John the Baptist’s disciples) who then brought to Jesus his brother Simon (Peter). Then Our Lord calls Philip, also from Bethsaida, and it was Philip who convinced Nathanael that he had found the Messiah:

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” [John 1:43-51]

Now, this is a famously cryptic passage! What does it mean that Nathanael was “under the fig tree”, and why does Jesus’ knowledge of this convince him so suddenly to become Christ’s disciple (especially given his unenthusiastic response to Jesus being from Nazareth. Here is a place where we have to know the Old Testament in order to understand the New Testament because the references that hearken back to God’s covenant with Israel are rampant!

Just to focus on three (skipping past all the ways Philip recognized that Jesus fulfilled the writings of Moses and the Prophets): Jesus immediately calls Nathanael “an Israelite … in whom there is no deceit!” Now, this comment refers back to the fact that Israel is the new name given to Jacob in Genesis 32 after he wrestled with God [“Israel” means “he strives with God”], whereas his birth name, “Jacob”, means “he takes by the heel”, which is exactly what he did to his brother Esau when the twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah were born, but it also has the connotation of someone who cheats or backstabs, which was something that Jacob did consistently in stealing the birthright and blessing meant for Esau, as well as in his dealings with Laban, his father in law. Back to Nathanael, who Jesus says is an Israelite without deceit; unlike so many of us, this is a man who does not connive to get his own way, doesn’t fall to mixed motives in his relationships or faith. What a beautiful grace Jesus sees in him!

But, of course, there is more! Nathanael, puzzled at this soul-reading, asks Jesus “How do you know me?”, and Jesus responds with the tremendous line, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” What does this mean?! It refers back to the prophecy of Micah about the age of the Messiah: 

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore; but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. For all the peoples walk each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever. [Micah 4:3-5]

Why do countries, or individuals, strive and scheme against each other? Because we all operate out of fear, I guess deep down a fear that we will not have enough, or be enough. But what if we lived entirely in confidence on our Heavenly Father ? His Love could replace those fears within us with the fruits of His Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control, etc. Notice that this was what the Lord worked to instill in Jacob, and what Jesus recognized in Nathanael, and for this reason, what happened to Jacob in Genesis 28 – when he had a vision of heaven with the angels descending towards him, and back to Heaven – is offered in even greater abundance to Nathanael, and every disciple of Christ. “Truly, truly, I say to you [you all], you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

– Fr. Dominic is still facing catching up on email, articles, visits, and everything else after his trip to World Youth Day. More to come about that pilgrimage, for this week I am praying for those fears to be supplanted by the faithful love of God.

At all of our Sunday Masses, except during the seasons of Advent and Lent, the Church invites us, after having acknowledged our sins, to raise our hearts in praise to God as we sing the Gloria.  That movement strikes me as something that is quite profound.  It is a reminder to us that we, who are weighed down by our sinfulness, have been given the gift of Jesus to save us from our slavery to sin.  This is the very message that the angel of the Lord delivered to the shepherds on the night that Christ was born in Bethlehem: 

Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord.  And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:10-12)

The very next line provides the scriptural foundation for the angels intoning this great hymn that we sing at this point of the Mass: “And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Luke 2:13-14)

I find this transition from sorrow for sin to immediately giving glory to God a helpful reminder to us to not be so down on ourselves when it comes to our sinfulness.  Sure, it is appropriate to have a proper sadness for our lack of correspondence to God’s will.  But thanks be to God for the gift of Jesus and the infinite mercy He offers to us out of His love for us.  The society in which we live would have us fixated on ourselves, how we do not measure up, how we miss the mark.  But the Church, as a loving mother, does not want us to wallow in self-pity, but invites us to raise our hearts to the glory of God, whose “light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5)

In a previous article, I wrote about the importance of joining our hearts and voices to the praise of God during the times of the liturgy when the Church invites us to sing.  This is especially true in the Gloria!  How unfortunate if we choose to remain silent during this great hymn in which we glorify the God who has saved us.  The only reason I can think we do not join in this hymn is that we are stuck in being too focused on ourselves and not on God.  “I can’t sing.”  “I don’t want to sing.”  “I don’t know the music.”  This past Sunday I was talking with a former parishioner from my first assignment as a priest.  She told me that she is not a good singer, but she at least whispers along because she wants to join in the music, limited as her musical ability may be.  I found that to be a beautiful expression!  Even if we do not have a good singing voice, or know how to sing, we can all at the very least whisper as we join the song of the angels in giving glory to God for saving us from our sins.  So at the next Mass you attend where we sing or recite the Gloria, sing, speak, or even whisper.  If we are truly aware of God’s goodness to us and the mercy He offers to us, then we think of the words of that familiar song: “How can I keep from singing?”

Feast Day: August 14^th | Patronage: Families, Prisoners, Amateur Radio Operators, Journalists, Political Prisoners, Pro Life Movement, Recovery from Drug Addiction | Iconography: Gray Beard, Franciscan Habit and Cord, Nazi Concentration Camp Uniform, Holding Crucifix, Rosary or Image of Our Lady, White Crown for Purity, Red Crown for Martyrdom, Palm of Martyrdom, Newsletter of Militia Immacolata.

Last week we reached the critical moment of Fr. Kolbe’s life. 10 prisoners are destined to die. He is not one of them. Yet this was the man who, as a child, had a mystical encounter with Our Lady, who offered him either the crown of purity or the crown of martyrdom, to which he asked for both. He had been assigned to the worst work-details and had barely survived a second bout of tuberculosis in the Invalid’s Block a week before, usually a death sentence. Routinely inviting others into prayer and offering confession to his fellow prisoners, he had suffered patiently a double-dose of the guards hatred. 

Francis Gajowniczek sobs “My wife and my children”, now assigned to starvation and death. But then there is a disturbance in the ranks. A prisoner pushes forward from the back. Rifles are raised. The dogs strain against their leashes. Capos shout for him to stop. Fritsch reaches for his weapon. Fr. Kolbe steps out of line, his face firm, serene. “I want to talk to the commander.” Marvelously he is not shot as he continues forward. He looks Fritzsch straight in the eye, “Herr Kommandant, I wish to make a request, please.” Fritzsch is further stupefied as Kolbe continues “I want to die in place of this prisoner. … I have no wife or children. Besides, I’m old and not good for anything.” “Who are you?” Asks the incredulous German. “A Catholic Priest” replies Prisoner #16770. Silence blankets the parade ground. 

“Request granted.”

Gajowniczek marvels that he is allowed back in line and can only thank Maximilian Kolbe with his eyes, “I, the condemned, am to live and someone else willingly and voluntarily offers his life for me – a stranger.” Br. Ladislaus saw the ten victims marched away. “I saw that Father Kolbe was staggering under the weight of one of the others as he upheld this man who could not walk with his own strength.” Wotjkowski, barely surviving the day himself, is rooted to the spot, “I’ve just seen a saint made.” Mleczko, though unable to witness Fr. Kolbe’s final days directly, recalls that the other prisoners kept a prayer vigil for their ten condemned brothers, walking past the slit through which little could be seen of their undergrown starvation bunker. Others heard the guards coming and going from the cell, checking who had perished, screaming at Kolbe to not watch them with his piercing gaze, troubled by his patience and prayerfulness as death approached. He survived for two weeks and was finally murdered by an injection of carbolic acid. Starvation and dehydration were taking too long and the cell was needed for others. And thus, on the evening of August 14^th, as the Catholic Church began its celebration of Our Lady’s Assumption into Heaven, another saint entered the panoply of those who lived lives with a love like Christ’s.

Gajowniczek would survive the war and return to his wife and two sons. He was present at Fr. Kolbe’s beatification and canonization, and his memory of St. Maximilian Kolbe is a fitting final word, and a reminder to all of us of the simple choices that led this simple priest to an extraordinary final choice: “I observed him [at] evening in the Block praying fervently and inviting others to join him – a very dangerous activity. I participated in prayer sessions he organized, and once was among his listeners at a conference he gave right outside the Block. Another day a bunch of us were shoveling manure out of a pit. Father Kolbe was beaten very cruelly by an SS guard who hit him many times in the face while his attack dog also assaulted Father, biting him seriously. Father Kolbe bore all this not just with patience but with dignity. … I recall that when he was put down for a better work squad – that of washing potatoes in the kitchen – he expressed his happiness openly to us and his gratitude toward God and the intercession of the Virgin Mary.”

– Fr. Dominic has loved St. Maximilian Kolbe ever since reading a child’s biography of the saint on multiple family car-rides. The dramatic eyewitnesses that tell his final hours to us this week (and next) are collected in Patricia Treece’s captivating biography, A Man for Others: Maximilian Kolbe, Saint of Auschwitz, in the Words of Those Who Knew Him.

A couple of years ago, I came across a book that helps the reader to pray the Mass more intentionally.  The title of the book is: A Biblical Way of Praying the Mass: The Eucharistic Wisdom of Venerable Bruno Lanteri, written by Father Timothy Gallagher, O.M.V.  Father Gallagher is best known for his writings on Ignatian spirituality, but he has also done much research and writing on the founder of his community (Oblates of the Virgin Mary), Venerable Bruno Lanteri.  In this book on the Mass, Father Gallagher writes:

For each part of the Mass, Venerable Bruno urges us to “seek the sentiments and the heart” of some biblical figure.  In a later version of this text, he invites us to pray the Mass “with special attention to its principle parts so as to enkindle sentiments in keeping with each,” again presenting these biblical figures. (p. 25 of Kindle version of book)

When Venerable Bruno approaches the Penitential Act, the biblical figure that he invites us to emulate is the tax collector in the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector.  We know the story and the key line of the passage for us is this: “But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’” (Lk 18:13)

We know that earlier in this story, one of the faults of the Pharisee is his focusing more on the faults of the tax collector as opposed to his own.  When we come to Mass, we cannot help but notice those who are around us at Mass.  We might notice how somebody is dressed, or how they may be talking before Mass.  We might see somebody with whom we have had a disagreement.  The temptation can be there to criticize what we perceive to be lacking in our neighbor, which is always easier than acknowledging what is lacking within ourselves.  But if we take on the attitude of the tax collector, we come before the Lord aware of our need for God’s mercy, not where we think our neighbor needs God’s mercy.

As I wrote in a previous article, spending some time before Mass in prayer, doing an examination of conscience, is the best way to actually pray this brief, though important, part of the Mass.  It is when we are aware of our lowliness and our need for God that we will come to the Eucharist with hearts open to conversion.  If we do not foster that spirit of humility and our need for God’s mercy, remaining convinced of our righteousness like the Pharisee, then we set ourselves up for an experience of prayer that will not be of maximum benefit to us, not because the Mass is in any way lacking, but because our hearts are not open to receive the fruits of this great prayer.

In the past year or so, there is a line from Psalm 51 that has been coming to mind more frequently when I think about this part of the Mass.  As a reminder, Psalm 51 was composed by David right after his adulterous affair with Bathsheba.  As David becomes aware of the gravity of his sin, he assumes a posture of humility not unlike that of the tax collector and he writes these words: “A clean heart create for me, God;

renew within me a steadfast spirit.” (Ps 51:12)  So David could be another biblical figure we seek to emulate in our hearts as we acknowledge our sins and so prepare to enter the sacred mysteries that follow.