As many of you are aware, our house at the Cathedral is a house of runners.  While not all of us run every day like Bishop Paprocki, and not all of us run as fast as Father Rankin, we all have been known to “pound the pavement” around town with some regularity.  I have to admit that I do not love running.  Do not get me wrong, it is good exercise and it is something that I do not mind doing.  I just find it difficult to get motivated to get outside and, once I start running, to keep going!  For me, the secret to boosting my motivation is the Rosary.  I always carry a finger rosary with me and I find that praying the Rosary keeps my mind occupied with holy thoughts, distracting me from the discomfort of running.

Several years ago, a priest made suggestion to me about how I might get more out of praying the Rosary.  He invited me to pause at the end of each decade, asking Mary what she wanted me to understand about the mystery that I had just prayed.  This practice has been extremely fruitful, as it helps me from turning the Rosary into a repetitive set of words without much reflection.

October is the Month of the Rosary, so it can be a good time for us to examine the role this devotion plays in our spiritual life.  Maybe you find yourself struggling with not getting much out of the Rosary, feeling that it is too repetitive.  Perhaps you can adopt the practice that was suggested to me, one which I make use of regularly.

As you know, our theme for our Family of Faith catechesis program for this month is our Vocation to Beatitude.  I like to tie this theme of Beatitude to the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary, because these mysteries focus especially on the Resurrection which is the event that makes our sharing in heavenly beatitude possible.  The final two Glorious Mysteries are the Assumption of Mary and the Coronation of Mary.  These two mysteries invite us to reflect on the fact that, at the end of her earthly journey, Jesus welcomed His mother into Heaven, body and soul, to share in this gift of eternal beatitude.  As I stop at the end of these two mysteries, asking Mary for her guidance to understand them, I am always drawn by the image of the joy the she must have in being reunited with her son, knowing that nothing will ever separate them again.  This thought strengthens within me a desire to share in that same gift when I reach the end of my journey.  

Another image that comes to mind when I reflect on these two mysteries is the desire that Mary has for us, her children, to share in this gift as well.  After all, at the foot of the Cross, Jesus gave her to us to be our mother.  The thought of her longing for us to be in Heaven should bring us great peace.  But even more than our awareness of her desire for us to be with her and her son is the fact that she is constantly working on our behalf to have that desire realized.  Each time when we pray the Hail Mary, we ask her: “pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”  She is right next to her son in Heaven, constantly asking Him to help us.  There is no moment in our lives, no matter how difficult, that she is not praying for us and as a result, there is not a single moment when her son is not happily accepting her request for us, sending us the graces we need to persevere and one day join them in Heaven.

During this month of October, perhaps we can ask our Blessed Mother to help us to understand how in each of the mysteries of the Rosary, they reveal God’s love for us and His plan for us to be with Him forever in Heaven.  She can help us to see how through His life, death, and Resurrection, He has each of us in mind, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” (Jn 3:17) 

Father Alford     

Feast Day: October 11^th  

Good Pope John – as Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli would be called after his election to the papacy at the venerable, and supposedly leisurely, old age of 76 – did not die on October 11^th (contrary to the typical feast-day given to any saint, the day they were “born” into heavenly life).  But in the Church’s wisdom, she has chosen a different day on which to recall his saintly life: the day that he opened the Second Vatican Council.

Why another council?  After all, it hadn’t even been a century since Vatican I, and besides, 1962 didn’t seem an age filled with heresies, and couldn’t the Pope just invoke his infallibility and declare what needed declaring?  The gentle pope explained himself on that memorable October 11^th to a packed St. Peter’s Basilica:

What is needed at the present time is a new enthusiasm, a new joy and serenity of mind in the unreserved acceptance by all of the entire Christian faith, without forfeiting that accuracy and precision in its presentation which characterized the proceedings of the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council. What is needed, and what everyone imbued with a truly Christian, Catholic and apostolic spirit craves today, is that this doctrine shall be more widely known, more deeply understood, and more penetrating in its effects on men’s moral lives. What is needed is that this certain and immutable doctrine, to which the faithful owe obedience, be studied afresh and reformulated in contemporary terms. For this deposit of faith, or truths which are contained in our time-honored teaching is one thing; the manner in which these truths are set forth (with their meaning preserved intact) is something else.

– “Gaudet Mater Ecclesia”, Opening Address to the Second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII, October 11, 1962.

His point was clear: this was a council, not to define something that needed defining, but to engage the Catholic world in declaring anew the perennial truth of Jesus Christ.  Several hours later, the exceptional day seemed complete, yet as he began to wind down in the papal apartments, he heard the continued murmur of the excited crowd assembled below in St. Peter’s Square.  They were cheering and praying, carrying torches and lights, and celebrating this tremendous moment in the life of the Church.  They were so happy to be Catholic, so delighted by their faith, and so wanted to see their papa before they went back home.  “I do not want to speak!  I’ve already said everything this morning” he wearily disclosed.

But then, unlike any Pope before him, Good Pope John placed upon his neck the sacred stole, opened the window, and waved down at the delighted crowd.  He held no text, there were no courtiers flanking him, or Swiss guards protecting him.  He dispensed with all formality and just embraced the Catholic world standing below his window.  His most famous speech would come in the simple sentences that followed as he looked upon the souls below.

Dear sons and daughters, I feel your voices! Mine is just one lone voice, but it sums up the voice of the whole world. And here, in fact, all the world is represented here tonight. It could even be said that even the moon hastens close tonight, that from above, it might watch this spectacle that not even St Peter’s Basilica, over its four centuries of history, has ever been able to witness. We ask for a great day of peace. Yes, of peace! ‘Glory to God, and peace to men of goodwill.” If I asked you, if I could ask of each one of you: where are you from? The children of Rome, especially represented here, would respond: ah, we are the closest of children, and you’re our bishop. Well, then, sons and daughters of Rome, always remember that you represent ‘Roma, caput mundi‘ [‘Rome, the capital of the world’] which through the design of Providence it has been called to be across the centuries.  My own person counts for nothing — it’s a brother who speaks to you, become a father by the will of our Lord, but all together, fatherhood and brotherhood and God’s grace, give honor to the impressions of this night, which are always our feelings, which now we express before heaven and earth: faith, hope, love, love of God, love of brother, all aided along the way in the Lord’s holy peace for the work of the good. And so, let us continue to love each other, to look out for each other along the way: to welcome whoever comes close to us, and set aside whatever difficulty it might bring.  When you head home, find your children. Hug and kiss your children and tell them: ‘This is the hug and kiss of the Pope.’ And when you find them with tears to dry, give them a good word. Give anyone who suffers a word of comfort. Tell them ‘The Pope is with us especially in our times of sadness and bitterness.’ And then, all together, may we always come alive — whether to sing, to breathe, or to cry, but always full of trust in Christ, who helps us and hears us, let us continue along our path.

– Pope John XXIII, “Moonlight Speech”, October 11, 1962

As he stepped back inside, he took off the stole, and laughed with his secretary, “I did not know what to say. I turned to my Teresina [my ‘little Therese’]”.  It was the little flower of Lisieux – her understanding of the kindness of God, and the little chances we have every day to choose love – that inspired the Holy Father on that lovely, moonlit, night of 1962, and on that anniversary every year, we are filled with joy as well as he looks down on us from heaven.

– Fr. Rankin, stepping into his historical shoes this week, notes that just 5 days after these words, another Catholic leader also named John, the 35^th president of the United States, announced to a frightened world the presence of USSR nuclear missiles on Cuba.  Thankfully, a final John tells us that “perfect love drives out fear” [1 John 4:18], and that is exactly what happened: the crisis ended; Christ remains.

In our Gospel for this Sunday, we hear Jesus saying the following about entering the Kingdom of Heaven: “Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.” (Mk 10:15)  What does the Lord mean by accepting the Kingdom like a child?  I recently read a commentary on this verse which I find very helpful in understanding this important statement from our Lord:

All are called to be “children” in relation to the kingdom. What is it about children that makes them such apt recipients of the kingdom? Children have no accomplishments with which to earn God’s favor, no status that makes them worthy. In their dependency they exemplify the only disposition that makes entrance into the kingdom possible: simply to receive it as a pure, unmerited gift. 

Mary Healy, The Gospel of Mark, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2008), 199.

As we begin this month of October, our theme for the month is our Vocation to Beatitude.  Put another way, we are called (vocation) to be with God forever in the Kingdom of Heaven (Beatitude).  As we progress through this year of catechesis, we will be hearing how we prepare for this gift by the way we live our lives, conforming them to the Commandments, the Beatitudes, and the teachings of Christ and His Church.  But we must avoid falling into the trap of thinking that Heaven is something that we earn as a result of our good behavior.  As the commentary above mentions, the Kingdom is a gift that is granted to God’s beloved children, and one that we should simply receive with humility and gratitude.

The question may be raised, then: Why do we put so much value on our actions?  After all, if I cannot earn Heaven, why should I care about acting a certain way?  The gift of the Kingdom is given to us already in this life on the day we were baptized, and this gift is meant to be protected so that we do not lose it.  The teachings that our Lord and the Church give to us are directed toward that end, keeping safe the gift that we have, one that we did not earn, that of sharing in the life of Christ through the gift of grace (a word which means gift).  Therefore our actions do matter, for by them, we freely choose to keep safe or reject this gift that the Lord has so generously blessed us with.  Seen this way, our life in Christ is not so much about earning something as it is preserving and protecting something that has been given to us by no merit of our own.

Another aspect of being a child is the unconditional trust that children have in the love of their parents and their greatest fear is losing that love.  Whatever the parents ask, the children heed because they do not doubt that the parents have their best interest at heart.  So too for us with regard to our relationship to God our loving Father, and our holy Mother, the Church.  As children, we are called to assent to their teachings, trusting that doing so is in our best interest, and that following those teachings we will experience true happiness and freedom as we remain in the love of God in this life and forever in the next.  This is how we are called to be childlike in our obedience to the Lord.  But we must always fight the temptation of falling into being childish, being rebellious and demanding our own way.  With the graces the Lord offers to us freely in the sacraments, we can indeed live as the children He has called us to be, and so accept the Kingdom of God that He freely offers to us.

Father Alford     

Feast Day: October 6^th  

In 1984, a German Flimmaker wrote to the original Carthusian monastery, located in a valley of the French alps, miles from the nearest vehicular roads, the Grande Chartreuse – famed for its rigorous prayer and silence, and 500-year-old 130-flavor liquor recipe of the same name – and asked if he could stay at the monastery and unobtrusively film the daily life of the monks.  They wrote back to him 16 years later and gave him permission to come.  The final film is almost three hours long, and is almost entirely silent … because the life of the monks is almost entirely silent.  Their silence had begun almost 1000 years before.

We begin not in Chartreuse, but in Cologne.  Our story begins with a young priest of that diocese, ordained around the year 1055, now tasked with overseeing the schools of the diocese.  Fr. Bruno had been giving a good education and comfortable upbringing, so perhaps he was the right man for the job, in any case he stayed in that position for almost two decades, gradually acquiring a reputation as a philosopher, theologian, and adviser for his pupils and diocese.  20 years into his priesthood, he moved up to being Chancellor for the Archdiocese of Reims.  So far, so ordinary.

But then a violent, power-hungry, man was named the new bishop of Reims.  The clergy of the diocese pushed back against the vicious bishop, who responded by having his mobs tear down their homes and sell their possessions.  Meanwhile, Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor had just declared the election of the Pope Gregory VII invalid and demanded he abdicate.  Gregory excommunicated Henry, who pressured the bishop of Utrecht into excommunicating the pope.  Lightning destroyed the cathedral of Utrecht and the bishop died a month after.  Let’s just say it wasn’t a great time to be the chancellor there in Reims…  

Still, God was at work in the lousy situation, not only in the eventual removal of the bad bishop, but in the movement that he was beginning in Bruno’s heart.  25 years a priest, he had become a canon during the preceding years – living in community with the other priests of the cathedral – and now found himself drawn to deepen that life of focus on the Lord and his brother priests.  Three priests and two laymen, in the middle of their stable and ordinary lives were catapulted into religious life in the midst of the machinations of the distracted and disordered hierarchy of the Church of their day.  They had providentially crossed the path of St. Hugh, the holy bishop of Grenoble, who gave them an isolated piece of property up in the rocky alps in the northern reaches of his diocese.

500 years later, there would be built the spectacular, silent, Monastery of the Grande Chartreuse, built upon the alpine rocks from which it received its name, and the harried, hardworking, humbled chancellor-now-hermit from Cologne who had sought God there.  500 years later, now surviving for almost a millennia, the order remains an inspiration to every Christian of the priority of prayer, and openness to the graces given in crazy times.

“How lovely is your dwelling place” [Psalm 84] is taken to refer not so much to the Jerusalem temple as the heavenly dwelling of God in heaven according to the spiritual sense or meaning of Scripture.  To reach the courts of the house of the Lord, we must climb the steps of virtue and good works.
– St. Bruno, Commentary on Psalms [Ps. 83: Edit. Cartusiae de Pratis, 1891, 376-377]

– Fr. Rankin first saw “Into Great Silence” as a teenager.  Of course, 3 hours of silently watching monks walk and work and worship was not, at first, an exciting prospect.  Yet it was captivating.  There was a profundity and contentment revealed in their simple lives that no amount of activity has ever given me.  One scene sticks in my mind: the weekly spatiamentum when the monks all hike together up in the hills and are allowed to chat with each other.  Beautifully, the silence they cherished was the foundation for the joy they found sledding and joking and being brothers to each other.