The Eucharist as True Body and Blood and True Sacrifice

In an earlier discussion on another forum the question was posed, in light of Hebrews 10:11-22, how can it be asserted that from the beginning the Church has understood the Eucharist to be a true sacrifice? Those who criticize this Catholic dogma would have a valid point if the assertion was that at each Mass a new sacrifice is offered, so that just like the levitical priesthood described as insufficient in Hebrews 10:11, the new priesthood of the cult of Christ was constantly offering sacrifice for the remission of sins. However, a few clarifications hopefully will shed light on why this is not so.

First, the levitical priesthood offered animal sacrifices that had only a temporal quality to them, as that which was being sacrifice existed only in time. But in Jesus, being fully human and fully divine, time and eternity coincide. In his human nature he exists in time; in his divine nature he exists in eternity. When Jesus offered the sacrifice on the Cross, there was only one event that took place, the Passion, crucifixion, and death of Jesus the Christ, Son of God and of Mary. To whom was that sacrifice offered? To God the Father. By whom was it offered? God the Son, true God and true man. Thus just as in Jesus there was a coincidence of time and eternity, so too in the sacrifice offered to the Father, who exists wholly outside of time and space, there was a coincidence of time and eternity.

When Jesus instituted the Last Supper, he was indicating the means then by which the apostolic Church would always have the means of communion with that eternal sacrifice. For by nature of his resurrection Jesus can and does become truly present in the matter of bread and wine, and thus avails to humanity this participation in his Body and Blood, which is eternally offered as sacrifice for our sins - not offered in multiplicity, but offered once and eternally.

As I said in my original comment, the early apostolic Church considered the Eucharist to be of a sacrificial nature, too. (Note: all of the following excerpts come from a wonderful book written by Fr. Dennis Billy, C.Ss.R., titled The Beauty of the Eucharist: Voices from the Church Fathers) St. Ignatius of Antioch in the early second century wrote, "Be careful, then, to observe a single Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and one cup of his blood that makes us one, and one altar, just as there is one bishop along with the presbytery and the deacons, my fellow slaves. In that way, whatever you do is in line with God's will." He writes extensively about the practice of the early Church, where he refers to the bishop and priest as serving the altar of the Lord's sacrifice, administering the cup of Jesus' blood and his Eucharistic body.

Clement of Rome, writing in A.D. 95, in a letter to the Corinthians stresses repeatedly that the Eucharist is indeed of a sacrificial nature, replacing the sacrifice of the Old Covenant. The Didache, that early manual of Christian faith and liturgical worship from somewhere between the first and second century, in Chapter 14 offers that on Sunday the community is to gather together for the Eucharistic meal, and that they must first confess their sins "so that your sacrifice may be pure."

Irenaeus of Lyons in the late second century makes explicit that the Eucharist is a true communion with the sacrifice of Christ's Body and Blood. The latter part of this quote is what is relevant here, but I offer the fuller pericope for some context: "But vain in every respect are they who despise the entire dispensation of God, and disallow the salvation of the flesh, and treat with contempt its regeneration, maintaining that it is not capable of corruption. But if this indeed does not attain salvation, then neither did the Lord redeem us with His blood, nor is the cup of the Eucharist the communion of His blood, nor the bread which we break the communion of His body.

Hippolytus' Apostolic Tradition from the early third century offers us one of the earliest accounts of a full Eucharistic prayer. In that prayer we hear, "Wherefore remembering His death and Resurrection, we offer you the bread and the cup, giving thanks to you because you have accounted us worthy to stand in your presence and serve you." (This prayer is recited today almost verbatim in the Catholic Mass) Again, the bread and the cup are offered, indicating the sacrificial nature of the Mass. The prayer continues in such as away as to further highlight the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist: "And we ask that you send your Holy Spirit upon the oblation of holy church." Again, the Eucharist is referred to as an oblation, a sacrifice offered to God - and again, something only possibly true and effective if it is indeed a communion and participation with the one eternal sacrifice of Christ to the eternal Father.

Athanasius of Alexandria in the early 4th century puts it like this: "So long as the prayers of supplication and entreaties have not been made, there is only bread and wine. But after the great and wonderful prayers have been completed, then the bread has become the Body, and the wine the Blood, of our Lord Jesus…Let us approach the celebration of the mysteries. This bread and this wine, so long as the prayers and supplications have not taken place, remain simply what they are. But after the great prayers and holy supplications have been sent forth, the Word comes down into the bread and wine - and thus is His Body confected."

Cyril of Jerusalem in the mid 4th century again refers to the bread and wine as true Body and Blood, and assures us that by means of this Eucharist we become, according to the words of St. Peter, partakers of the divine nature. At that same time in the early to mid fourth century Hilary of Poitiers wrote: "When we speak of the reality of Christ's nature being in us, we would be speaking foolishly and impiously - had we not learned it from Him. For He Himself says: My Flesh is truly Food, and My Blood truly Drink. He that eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood will remain in Me and I in him. As to the reality of His Flesh and Blood, there is no room for doubt, because, now, both by the declaration of the Lord Himself and by our own faith, it is truly Flesh and it is truly Blood. And these Elements bring it about, when taken and consumed, that we are in Christ and Christ is in us."

In the middle to late fourth century, Amrose of Milan refers to the Eucharist as the Body and Blood of Christ essential to our redemption. He writes: "Before it is consecrated it is breat, but where the words of Christ come in, it is the Body of Christ. Finally, hear Him saying: All of you take and eat of this, for this is My Body. And before the words of Christ the chalice is full of wine and water, but where the words of Christ have been operative it is made the Blood of Christ, which redeems people."

In the late fourth to early fifth century John Chrysostom writes quite powerfully of the reality of sacrifice and true presence: "When you see the Body of Christ lying on the altar, say to yourself, 'Because of this body I am no longer earth and ash, no longer a prisoner, but free. Because of this Body I hope for heaven, and I hope to receive the good things that are in heaven, immortal life, the lot of the angels, familiar conversation with Christ. This body, scourged and crucified, has not been fetched by death…This is that Body which was blood-stained, which was pierced by a lance, and from which gushed forth those saving fountains, one of blood and the other of water, for all the world.' …This is the Body which He gave us, both to hold in reserve and to eat, which was appropriate to intense love; for those whom we kiss with abandon we often even bite with our teeth."

Jerome in the early 5th century refers to the Eucharist as the true Sacrament of Passover, as the very same Body and Blood offered on the Cross at Calvary.

And finally, in conclusion, I leave you with the words of my beloved, St. Augustine, from the early fifth century:

"You ought to know what you have received, what you are about to receive, what you ought to receive every day. That bread which you can see on the altar, sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That cup, or rather what the cup contains, sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ. It was by means of these things that the Lord Christ wished to present to us his body and blood, which he shed for our sake for the forgiveness of sins. If you receive them well, you are yourselves what you receive."

I could go on, and could have offered many more writings from the time spanned in this sampling. The point I was simply trying to make is that from the beginning, and throughout the entire history of the Church, Christ's words have been understood to mean just what he said, that the Eucharist is the offering of his Body and Blood, and that this offering has always been recognized as a sacrificial offering. This is indeed an essential component to apostolic faith.

The Sacramental Sign of Our Familial Anthropology

"What is new is that this kind of self-orientation seems to have become a mass phenomenon. Everyone senses that something has changed. Often this is experienced as loss, break-up. A majority of Americans believe that communities are eroding, families, neighbourhoods, even the polity; they sense that people are less willing to participate, to do their bit; and they are less trusting of others" (Charles Taylor, A Secular World, p. 473).

The above comes from Taylor's description of the Western world's development in the past five decades or so. We now live in a world where radical individualism has become a defining virtue, and with it has come the sudden emphasis on tolerance, a perceived virtue that has recently taken on a quasi-Gospel standard. The latter is a natural extension of the former, because if the world (or at least the Western world) places such priority on individualism, then it becomes necessary that the world learns to tolerate all the various manifestations that this individualism brings forth. This extreme tolerance has led to what Joseph Ratzinger once referred to as the "dictatorship of relativism," for it is nigh on impossible to recognize anything as True or Good while simultaneously perpetuating the myth of individualism.

I say it is a myth because the reality is that the modern era of individualism has radically transformed our understanding of anthropology, and we have defined ourselves in a way that is altogether un-human. To be human necessarily means to be part of an interconnected family – the human family. Throughout history human beings have not only relied on the nuclear family, but on an extended network of relatives and friends, a larger community, and branching outward from there. The individual was defined in relation to where she or he fit within the context of the greater "family tree."

But now we define ourselves not as members of a greater human family, as one of many branches belonging to a great tree, but instead as individual rocks trying our best to co-exist within the same quarry. Whether it is a result or an effect of this, I do not know, but it is interesting to note that coincidental with this shift in our anthropological understanding towards this radical individualism, the community, the neighborhood, the extended family, and now the nuclear family have eroded significantly. Divorce rates are high and birth rates are low. Extended family members tend to be spread across the nation or even the world. Neighbors so often no longer even know each other.

It is also interesting to note that this has all occurred during a time when the Western world has become increasingly secular. Taylor describes the situation of secularization in three ways: the separation of all religious affiliation with the public sphere (the state, etc.); the increasing agnosticism and atheism, or at least the decrease in religious practice, of the people; and the reality that belief has simply become one of many options in the world, rather than a presupposed reality. This seems to have led to a decline of the relevance of the Church in the world. The Church in many ways, especially when we speak of a visible, unified Church, in many ways serves as a sacramental familial presence in the world. Belonging to the Church means belonging to a family – indeed the Christian Scriptures go so far as to call the Church the Body of Christ, where believers are all members of one and the same body. The great visibility of the Church and its prominent place in the world ultimately served as a constant reminder of the anthropology of the human family. Because of its great visibility, this reminder served not only for those who identified as belonging to the Church, but for the whole world she emanated this familial identity.

Perhaps the time will come when the Western world will rediscover the folly of radical individualism. I suggest that if this ever does begin to happen, several questions would be worth observing: 1. Will the Church either effect this transformation, or be affected by it? 2. Will this retraction from individualism also lead to the overthrow of the dictatorship of relativism? 3. If this happens, and if the world once again recognizes that there is such a thing as the True and the Good, what effect, if any, will this have on our consideration of tolerance as a supreme virtue?

Stanley Hauerwas on Reformation Sunday

Stanley Hauerwas is a Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School. In 1995 he delivered the following Sermon on Reformation Sunday, a date where Protestants typically celebrate the Reformation. His was quite a different, and indeed powerful, take on it. I would say that his words should serve as a stinging reality check to all Christians, Protestant and Catholic alike, at how important it is for us to work towards a true, visible unity among Christians:

Taken from Called to Communion:


I must begin by telling you that I do not like to preach on Reformation Sunday. Actually I have to put it more strongly than that. I do not like Reformation Sunday, period. I do not understand why it is part of the church year. Reformation Sunday does not name a happy event for the Church Catholic; on the contrary, it names failure. Of course, the church rightly names failure, or at least horror, as part of our church year. We do, after all, go through crucifixion as part of Holy Week. Certainly if the Reformation is to be narrated rightly, it is to be narrated as part of those dark days.

Reformation names the disunity in which we currently stand. We who remain in the Protestant tradition want to say that Reformation was a success. But when we make Reformation a success, it only ends up killing us. After all, the very name ‘Protestantism’ is meant to denote a reform movement of protest within the Church Catholic. When Protestantism becomes an end in itself, which it certainly has through the mainstream denominations in America, it becomes anathema. If we no longer have broken hearts at the church’s division, then we cannot help but unfaithfully celebrate Reformation Sunday.

For example, note what the Reformation has done for our reading texts like that which we hear from Luke this morning. We Protestants automatically assume that the Pharisees are the Catholics. They are the self-righteous people who have made Christianity a form of legalistic religion, thereby destroying the free grace of the Gospel. We Protestants are the tax collectors, knowing that we are sinners and that our lives depend upon God’s free grace. And therefore we are better than the Catholics because we know they are sinners. What an odd irony that the Reformation made such readings possible. As Protestants we now take pride in the acknowledgment of our sinfulness in order to distinguish ourselves from Catholics who allegedly believe in works-righteousness.

Unfortunately, the Catholics are right. Christian salvation consists in works. To be saved is to be made holy. To be saved requires our being made part of a people separated from the world so that we can be united in spite of — or perhaps better, because of — the world’s fragmentation and divisions. Unity, after all, is what God has given us through Christ’s death and resurrection. For in that death and resurrection we have been made part of God’s salvation for the world so that the world may know it has been freed from the powers that would compel us to kill one another in the name of false loyalties. All that is about the works necessary to save us.

For example, I often point out that at least Catholics have the magisterial office of the Bishop of Rome to remind them that disunity is a sin. You should not overlook the significance that in several important documents of late, John Paul II has confessed the Catholic sin for the Reformation. Where are the Protestants capable of doing likewise? We Protestants feel no sin for the disunity of the Reformation. We would not know how to confess our sin for the continuing disunity of the Reformation. We would not know how to do that because we have no experience of unity.

The magisterial office — we Protestants often forget — is not a matter of constraining or limiting diversity in the name of unity. The office of the Bishop of Rome is to ensure that when Christians move from Durham, North Carolina to Syracuse, New York, they have some confidence when they go to church that they will be worshiping the same God. Because Catholics have an office of unity, they do not need to restrain the gifts of the Spirit. As I oftentimes point out, it is extraordinary that Catholicism is able to keep the Irish and the Italians in the same church. What an achievement! Perhaps equally amazing is their ability to keep within the same church Jesuits, Dominicans, and Franciscans.

I think Catholics are able to do that because they know that their unity does not depend upon everyone agreeing. Indeed, they can celebrate their disagreements because they understand that our unity is founded upon the cross and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth that makes the Eucharist possible. They do not presume, therefore, that unity requires that we all read Scripture the same way.

This creates a quite different attitude among Catholics about their relation to Christian tradition and the wider world. Protestants look over to Christian tradition and say, ‘How much of this do we have to believe in order to remain identifiably Christian?’ That’s the reason why Protestants are always tempted to rationalism: we think that Christianity is to be identified with sets of beliefs more than with the unity of the Spirit occasioned through sacrament.

Moreover, once Christianity becomes reduced to a matter of belief, as it clearly has for Protestants, we cannot resist questions of whether those beliefs are as true or useful as other beliefs we also entertain. Once such questions are raised, it does not matter what the answer turns out in a given case. As James Edwards observes, “Once religious beliefs start to compete with other beliefs, then religious believers are — and will know themselves to be — mongerers of values. They too are denizens of the mall, selling and shopping and buying along with the rest of us.”

In contrast, Catholics do not begin with the question of “How much do we need to believe?” but with the attitude “Look at all the wonderful stuff we get to believe!” Isn’t it wonderful to know that Mary was immaculately conceived in order to be the faithful servant of God’s new creation in Jesus Christ! She therefore becomes the firstborn of God’s new creation, our mother, the first member of God’s new community we call church. Isn’t it wonderful that God continued to act in the world through the appearances of Mary at Guadalupe! Mary must know something because she seems to always appear to peasants and, in particular, to peasant women who have the ability to see her. Most of us would not have the ability to see Mary because we’d be far too embarrassed by our vision.

Therefore Catholics understand the church’s unity as grounded in reality more determinative than our good feelings for one another. The office of Rome matters. For at least that office is a judgment on the church for our disunity. Surely it is the clear indication of the sin of the Reformation that we Protestants have not been able to resist nationalistic identifications. So we become German Lutherans, American Lutherans, Norwegian Lutherans. You are Dutch Calvinist, American Presbyterians, Church of Scotland. I am an American Methodist, which has precious little to do with my sisters and brothers in English Methodism. And so we Protestant Christians go to war killing one another in the name of being American, German, Japanese, and so on.

At least it becomes the sin of Rome when Italian Catholics think they can kill Irish Catholics in the name of being Italian. Such divisions distort the unity of the Gospel found in the Eucharist and, thus, become judgments against the church of Rome. Of course, the Papacy has often been unfaithful and corrupt, but at least Catholics preserved an office God can use to remind us that we have been and may yet prove unfaithful. In contrast, Protestants don’t even know we’re being judged for our disunity.

I realize that this perspective on Reformation Sunday is not the usual perspective. The usual perspective is to tell us what a wonderful thing happened at the Reformation. The Reformation struck a blow for freedom. No longer would we be held in medieval captivity to law and arbitrary authority. The Reformation was the beginning of enlightenment, of progressive civilizations, of democracy, that have come to fruition in this wonderful country called America. What a destructive story.

You can tell the destructive character of that narrative by what it has done to the Jews. The way we Protestants read history, and in particular our Bible, has been nothing but disastrous for the Jews. For we turned the Jews into Catholics by suggesting that the Jews had sunk into legalistic and sacramental religion after the prophets and had therefore become moribund and dead. In order to make Jesus explicable (in order to make Jesus look like Luther — at least the Luther of our democratic projections), we had to make Judaism look like our characterization of Catholicism. Yet Jesus did not free us from Israel; rather, he engrafted us into the promise of Israel so that we might be a people called to the same holiness of the law.

I realize that the suggestion that salvation is to be part of a holy people constituted by the law seems to deny the Reformation principle of justification by faith through grace. I do not believe that to be the case, particularly as Calvin understood that Reformation theme. After all, Calvin (and Luther) assumed that justification by faith through grace is a claim about God’s presence in Jesus of Nazareth. So justification by faith through grace is not some general truth about our need for acceptance; but rather justification by faith through grace is a claim about the salvation wrought by God through Jesus to make us a holy people capable of remembering that God’s salvation comes through the Jews. When the church loses that memory, we lose the source of our unity. For unity is finally a matter of memory, of how we tell the story of the Reformation. How can we tell this story of the church truthfully as Protestants and Catholics so that we might look forward to being in union with one another and thus share a common story of our mutual failure?

We know, after all, that the prophecy of Joel has been fulfilled. The portents of heaven, the blood and fire, the darkness of the sun, the bloody moon have come to pass in the cross of our Savior Jesus Christ. Now all who call on that name will be saved. We believe that we who stand in the Reformation churches are survivors. But to survive we need to recover the unity that God has given us as survivors. So on this Reformation Sunday long for, pray for, our ability to remember the Reformation – not as a celebratory moment, not as a blow for freedom, but as the sin of the church. Pray for God to heal our disunity, not the disunity simply between Protestant and Catholic, but the disunity in our midst between classes, between races, between nations. Pray that on Reformation Sunday we may as tax collectors confess our sin and ask God to make us a new people joined together in one might prayer that the world may be saved from its divisions.

Rigali-Dolan World Series Showdown

I love living in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Even when I was living in South Jersey, I've always identified as a Philadelphian. It's where I was born, it's where all of my family American roots are. I even have a great-great-grandfather, Bill Hallman, who played for the Phillies (he is the only baseball player in major league history to improve his batting average in nine consecutive seasons). Recently, in my years coming back to the faith and with me move back to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, I have developed a tremendous respect for our Archbishop, Justin Cardinal Rigali. A true gentleman who is also a courageous leader of the Catholic faith, an eloquent speaker who has that invaluable Christ-like gift of being simultaneously strong and meek. In this respect the new Archbishop of New York seems very much alike. It's no surprise, then, that the two happen to be dear friends. My respect for both of them just increased greatly, as they both now have pitted themselves in a World Series showdown. I found this over at the excellent blog of Rocco Palma:

Cardinal Justin Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia, and Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, have placed a friendly wager on the outcome of the 2009 World Series.

These two long-time friends spoke on Tuesday evening to settle the terms of the bet. If the Phillies win, Archbishop Dolan will ship a dozen bagels to the City of Brotherly Love; if the Yankees prevail, Cardinal Rigali will send a box of Tastykakes to the Big Apple.

Archbishop Dolan said, “Cardinal Rigali is one of my closest and dearest friends; for several years he even served as my Archbishop so I feel a particular loyalty to him. I know he has exquisite taste in most matters. I just wish he had better taste in baseball teams.”

Cardinal Rigali said, “I have great esteem for Archbishop Dolan. He is a gifted spiritual leader who has been a true friend for many years. That is why I am so sorry he will be disappointed when the Phillies successfully defend their World Championship. We have the cream cheese ready for the bagels that I know will be arriving shortly after the Repeat in the City of Brotherly and Sisterly love.”


Seriously, how awesome is Cardinal Rigali??? Look at him throw the smack talk down! I love my archbishop, almost as much as I love my Phillies! This year, the Empire goes down, and the Phillies repeat all the way! LET'S GO FIGHTINS!!!!!!!

The Ordination of Fr. Michael Scuderi, OSA

This weekend I attended my first ever ordination and Mass of Thanksgiving. What a truly blessed event! The ordination was for one of our Augustinian friars, Michael Scuderi. It took place at St. Rita's in South Philly, a magnificent old church with a truly sublime altar and sanctuary, spectacular stain glassed windows, and brilliant architecture (minus a few small problems due to age, such as exposed pipes on the floor by the pews that were a bit of a tripping hazard). Michael was ordained by the retired auxiliary bishop of Philadelphia, Bishop Louis DeSimone, whose brother is an Augustinian friar himself, which added a great sense of familiarity to the ordination.

Michael's case is truly an extraordinary one because of the tremendous physical struggles he has had to endure to get here. At three years old he was diagnosed with a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis, which has caused him physical developmental problems his whole life, and I imagine great physical pain. He has endured much, psychologically, spiritually and physically as a result, and through it all has come through spiritually stronger. He has learned and developed a profound love and trust in Jesus Christ, a faith that emanates from him, and seeing him ordained was just such an inspiration. There were moments in the liturgy where I was one of the many who found myself unable to hold back tears. The two particular moments were when Michael's parents presented him with his chalice to be used at the altar, and when, after Bishop DeSimone laid hands on him and he was officially ordained, the fifty or so Augustinian friars present then came up and laid hands on him, as well, as we all chanted, "Veni, Sancti Spiritus." It was very emotional.

The ordination also really allowed me to reflect on the beauty of the Catholic priesthood, how we and the Orthodox alone are able to partake in this ministerial priesthood in a way that traces all the way back to the Apostles and to Christ, and thus are able to share in the high priesthood of Jesus Christ, the true priest who works through His humble servants. The historical nature of the priesthood is such a beautiful and profound mystery, and is essential for the authentic celebration of the Sacraments. During this Year for Priests especially it was edifying to witness an actual anointing of this kind.

Today Michael celebrated his Mass of Thanksgiving at Sts. Simon and Jude in West Chester, PA. It was so exciting watching him up there, a little nervous but also very strong, being guided along by Fr. Kevin (our vocations director, who lives in my community), and I found myself overwhelmed in a way I haven't been in a while when Michael instituted the Eucharistic Prayers. For me, that was the most powerful moment, because the fact that he is newly ordained just highlighted the priestly character of the Mass, the fact that through this ordination Christ indeed transforms ordinary bread and wine into His Body and Blood, just as He transforms an ordinary man into a sharer in His High Priesthood. It is sometimes more than the mind can handle.

After the Mass there was a beautiful reception at the Springfield Country Club, with lots of eating and socializing, and dancing for the young kids (by young, I mean eight and younger, as opposed to 32 years young).

Aside from the ordination and Mass of Thanksgiving itself, the best part of this weekend was the amazing experience of community. We had guys come in from all over the country, and both Friday and Saturday night we had great gatherings at the Monastery. Friday night a group of people from Villanova as well as several friars, including our Prior Provincial (the leader of the Augustinians in this Eastern Province), joined us at 6:00 for Mass, after which I cooked dinner for us all, and then after dinner we had a Holy Hour of Adoration for Michael. It was fantastic. Not long after that the house filled up even more, especially with some of our guys from Miami, one friar and then five or six Spanish speaking guys who are living in a formation house there, improving their English before they enter the prenovitiate up here. I think maybe two of them will be living with me in January. There were a few other people here, as well, including one truly wonderful diocesan seminarian from Tyler, TX, who is friendly with the friar from Miami. Saturday night we had another gathering at the house, this one much more informal. It was just so awesome seeing as many as thirty guys joyfully gathering in Augustinian community. It really reaffirms what I already knew - that I am exactly where I belong.

Prayers for Ordination

Please pray for Michael Scudari, an Augustinian friar who on Saturday, October 24, 2009 will be ordained a priest.

Accepting God's Love

It's been a busy few weeks around here. Lots of good things going on. Three weekends ago I got to meet my new nephew for the first time. He is beautiful, and it was great seeing my family for the first time since moving into the monastery. At one point he just slept on my belly for about an hour. My sister is doing really well, though I imagine she's a bit sleep-deprived.

It was on a Saturday that I saw Christopher, and the following day there was a special Mass at my home church for the installation of Fr. Mazz as the pastor of the newly formed Our Lady of Peace parish, which is the result of the merger of my own St. Mary's and nearby St. John Newman. It was a beautiful Mass presided by the Bishop of Camden, Joseph Galante. After the Mass there was a nice reception. It still amazes me to see the reaction of Catholics when they find out that I am in the seminary. They are always so joyful and thankful about a vocation, and it's always so encouraging. I had a nice talk with a husband and wife whose son is considering seminary himself, and so I gave them my information and that of our vocations director, Fr. Kevin.

The next day, Monday, I woke up with a nasty sore throat, that only got worse as the day went on. It got to the point where I couldn't swallow and could barely talk. So I skipped class and went to the health center, and as I suspected, I had a rather nasty case of strep throat. I ended up missing the entire week from school. We had visitors to the monastery on Tuesday, and I was quarantined in my room. I took the opportunity to watch the excellent movie Into Great Silence, a documentary film about the Carthusian monks in Grand Chartreuse in the French Alps. The movie is more like a prayerful meditation than it is a movie, and it was a great way to spend my quarantine.

On Friday I joined my brothers in Ocean City, where the Augustinians have a retreat house. It was just the weekend I needed, lots of rest. I basically spent the entire weekend sitting on the front porch reading The Lord of the Rings. It was lovely, and I was finally beginning to feel much better. My brother was down in Ocean City on Saturday doing some work on his house, so we got to meet up for lunch, which was nice. On Monday, Columbus Day, Fr. Kevin drove me back to my parents house, where he and Stephen met my dad for the first time. Monday night I met with my parish's young adult Bible study group and talked to them about vocations. They are a truly impressive group. There were maybe 25 people there, ages 19 to 22 or so, with an even mix of guys and girls. It was an excellent meeting, and I found myself greatly enriched by meeting them.

The rest of the week I was on Fall break, which again worked out great as I was in great need of the rest and relaxation. I did some work for my mom, did some work around the monastery, and then on Friday I left for Williamsburg, Virginia, for the wedding of two of my friends. The drive down was atrocious, as we were stuck in traffic almost the entire time, and it ended up taking us a good seven and a half hours to get there. But we made it, and it was a fantastic weekend. I got to see friends that I haven't seen in a long time, and met some really great people while I was there. The wedding itself was beautiful, and the bride, Emily, looked absolutely gorgeous. The weather was quite dreadful, but that didn't put a damper on an amazing weekend.

And so now I'm back in the swing of things with school. I can't believe that this semester is already halfway done. It's very exciting. I still can't believe that at 32 years old I am FINALLY going to graduate from college. There was a time that I really never thought this would happen. It's interesting, but maybe because of the fact that my college days are winding down, but lately I've been reflecting a lot on my crazy past, and how long a road it has been just to get here. And it's weird, but I still struggle sometimes with guilt over the many, many, many mistakes that I have made in my life. And sometimes I get really down on myself for the fact that I continue to make the same mistakes that I've been making most of my life. It's very easy for me to get caught up in a sort of self-loathing, thinking that I'm never going to be good enough, or questioning how God can really love a sinner like me. The truth is that I am going to continue to make mistakes, and I'm going to continue to sin, and God is going to continue to forgive me. Yesterday I went to Mass and the reading was one that I desperately needed to hear, from St. Paul's Letter to the Romans. In this particular reading Paul writes, Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more. For those who have faith in Christ, no matter how greatly we sin, the grace of God is always greater, and through that grace we can continue to fight and experience the freedom that is offered to us.

For someone like me, I tend to think that I'll never experience that freedom here on earth. Maybe I won't. But no matter how many times I fail, how greatly I sin, how terribly I struggle, God will never stop loving me. That is sometimes the most difficult thing for us to accept, that God loves us unconditionally. We can never do anything that makes God stop loving us, because God is love, it's His very nature, and we simply don't have the power to change God's nature. In one of my favorite passages, St. Paul writes elsewhere in Romans: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, "For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. That is a powerful thing to consider, that there simply is no power in this universe that can separate us from God's love. We are loved, always, no matter our sin, no matter our doubt, no matter our struggle, no matter our pain, no matter our fear, no matter anything at all - we are always loved by God. That is a reminder that I certainly need from time to time. And it is a reality that, if we ever really consider the magnitude of it, should totally transform how we live our lives. I am loved by God, and so how will I respond? Hopefully, I will accept His love, and allow it to transform me.

The Anglican Vatican News

At the end of this post I will leave several links that provide both official texts and some blogs that provide better analysis than I am capable of offering. But for those who do read the blog and who are interested in what has transpired today with the announcement from the Vatican regarding those Anglicans seeking communion with the Catholic Church, I offer just a few insights:

What has happened basically is this: in recent years there have been several requests to the Vatican from entire communions of the Anglican Church seeking mass conversion to the Catholic faith. Typically, when someone seeks to convert to Catholicism it is done on a case-by-case basis. However, with the most notable case being the Traditional Anglican Communion representing some 400,000 Anglicans worldwide, including several bishops and many priests, there have been some cases of a great mass of people seeking to come back into communion with Rome. So what the Vatican has done with the forthcoming Apostolic Constitution is establish the canonical means by which these groups can achieve this full communion, and whereby their priests (married or not) may be ordained as Catholic priests, and whereby their unmarried bishops may be ordained as Catholic bishops, and whereby these communions of Anglicans may maintain their Anglican patrimony, meaning especially that so far as liturgy is concerned they may retain the vast majority of their liturgical traditions. What is also means is that those Anglicans who take advantage of these means and do come into communion with Rome then also formally submit to all teachings of the Catholic Church, including the Petrine ministry (meaning the validity of the Pope).

I have heard a few questions asking whether this would mean that "ordained" women Anglican priests would then become Catholic priests, or that homosexual couples "blessed" by the Anglican Church would then be recognized by the Catholic Church. The answer is a very easy no. With regards to Holy Orders, this Apostolic Constitution requires any priests or bishops who seek communion with Rome to be ordained by Catholic bishops. Since ordination is not available to women, no women priests would receive such ordination, and thus no women would ever be recognize as priests in the Catholic Church. Regarding same-sex unions, again, the Catholic Church only recognizes marriages between one man and one woman, and thus same-sex unions would never be recognized. To be clear, this is not a statement on how further ecumenical dialogues on matters of disagreement should take place; rather, it is a response to those requests for full communion with the Catholic Church en masse in a manner that previously had no canonical precedent.

The reality is that this is quite a huge announcement by the Vatican, and one recognized by Rowan Williams of the Anglican Church. The scope of this announcement might not be felt for some time, but it is impossible to underestimate the magnitude of this move. On one hand, this will bring significant unity between Anglican and Catholic Churches; on the other hand, in my opinion, it drives one more nail in the coffin of the heretical liberal forms of Anglicanism that have embraced teachings that have absolutely no basis in Christian faith. Furthermore, I strongly believe that this paves the way for union with the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, by establishing a precedent where patrimony and liturgical rites are recognized, and in the case of the Orthodox, where Holy Orders are already recognized as valid.

As a theological point, this forthcoming Apostolic Constitution clears up any confusion that may exist regarding Anglican Orders, which while may appear offensive to some, clearly asserts that Rome does not regard Anglican Orders as valid of themselves, but that they indeed require ordination by Catholic bishops.

The other neat thing is that Anglican seminarians who are affected by this will now study alongside other Catholic seminarians, although they will likely also have special formation to meet the needs of the Anglican patrimony of liturgical rites asserted in this new Constitution.

As promised, here are some links pertinent to this news and with more expert analysis:

• Note from Vatican on Anglicans Wishing to Enter the Catholic Church
  
• Joint Statement from Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols
  
• Statement from Rep of Traditional Anglican Communion, with commentary by Fr. Z
  
• Video of Catholic Archbishop of Westminster explaining the announcement, courtesy of American Papist
  
• Vatican press conference announcing the provisions, courtesy of American Papist
  
• Coverage from Damian Thompson of the Daily Telegraph (London)
  
• Reaction from Fr. Tim Finigan of the Hermeneutic of Continuity, England
  
• Ed Peters, expert in Canon Law, offers his insights
  
• Fr. Z offers analysis of a reaction from an American Anglican
  
• Statement from Cardinal George, representing USCCB
  

Catholic-Anglican News

Keep your eyes peeled early tomorrow for major news regarding Catholic-Anglican relations. I have no idea what it could be, but the American Papist, among others, reports that two press conferences have been called for tomorrow, one from the Vatican with His Eminence Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and His Excellency Mgr Joseph Augustine Di Noia OP, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and a second one, announced by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams of the Anglican Church, with he and the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols. As Thomas Peters from AmP writes, "For both Cardinal Levada (doctrinal issues) and Abp. Di Noia (liturgy and sacraments) to be involved, you know it has to be significant."

Regardless of what is going to be discussed or announced, let us continue to pray for unity among all Christians.

Join Sister Julie and Mirabai Starr in a Live Podcast

For those who will not be watching the most important baseball game (so far) of the year tonight (GO PHILLIES!!!), in honor of the Feast of St. Teresa of Avila join Sister Julie Vieira, IHM from A Nun's Life and author Mirabai Starr in a live podcast. Mirabai has done some truly excellent translations of St. Teresa's works. I have read her translation of The Interior Castle, and more than any other translation I have read of that book (namely, Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez's combined translation, and E. Allison Peers translation, both of which are also excellent), Mirabai Starr truly captures the personality of St. Teresa in her writing, and that is so important. So check them out at 7:00 p.m. Central Time. For details and logistics, see here.

The Feast of St. Teresa of Avila

Today the Church celebrates the feast of one of the most beloved of the saints, St. Teresa of Avila. She holds a place dear to the heart of many Catholics, myself most certainly included. After my return to the Church back in 2006, the first book that I read was St. Augustine's Confessions. The second book I read was St. Teresa's Life, her autobiography, which I immediately followed up with her Interior Castle. Since that time I have turned to her writings and her intercession many, many times. Just after finishing reading her Life, I discovered that in my home parish there was a group that met every Friday to discuss The Interior Castle, and so my dad and I began going there each week. Then this past semester I took my first graduate theology course, taught by Fr. Martin Laird, OSA, an extraordinary confessor for the Carmelites in England and himself a great expert on Carmelite spirituality. His class was on the spiritual writings of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross, her famed contemporary.

St. Teresa was a Carmelite cloistered nun from the 16th century, and she led a reform of the Carmelite order which has led to what are today known as the Discalced Carmelites. Teresa, however, also has a strong Augustinian connection. While she does not go into any real detail, something happened with Teresa when she was a teenager, and somehow she came to be the subject of a scandal. In order to protect her reputation, she was sent to an Augustinian convent in Avila. Teresa had a beautiful experience there, and she spoke very highly of the sisters there. She writes of the Augustinians with whom she lived, "I was delighted to see nuns who were so good. For they were all very good in that convent, most pure and observant and modest in their behavior." The sisters there apparently delighted in Teresa, too, and had hoped that she would profess with them. But she was "bitterly averse to taking the habit," and so it was not to be.

Eventually Teresa did take the habit, with the Carmelites at the Convent of the Incarnation, at the age of 21. This was a very large monastery with a great many sisters living there. In the early years there she suffered from poor health, and at one point was sent home, believed to be on the brink of death. She did recover, though, and after her recovery she led the reform of the Carmelites, desiring to establish a place where sisters would live in much smaller communities (she believed 13 to be the perfect number of nuns in one house), living a strict observance to the rule. One of the problems she had encountered in her early years as a Carmelite was that the sisters who came in seemed to hold on to the status that they held in the world. So if a sister who was noble out in the world became a nun in the cloister, she maintained an air of nobility and was treated as such. If a sister was poor in the world and of low social class, she was treated as such in the convent. Teresa wanted none of that, and thus she focused greatly on the equality that is found in the vow of poverty.

St. Teresa's Augustinian connection did not end with her time at the Augustinian convent. She also became a great devotee of St. Augustine. She writes so beautifully in her Life about the first time she read Confessions. Her experience here very much mirrors my own experience of the first time reading this great book. She writes:

At this time I was given St. Augustine's Confessions, seemingly by the ordainment of the Lord. I did not ask for it myself, nor had I ever seen it. I am most devoted to St. Augustine, because the convent in which I lived before taking my vows was of his Order, and also because he had been a sinner. I derived great comfort from those saints who have sinned and yet whom and yet whom the Lord has drawn to Himself. I thought that I could obtain help from them, and that as the Lord had pardoned them he might pardon me. But one thing that I have already mentioned disturbed me. The Lord had called them only once and they had not sinned again, but my relapses were so many that it distressed me. Yet when I remembered the love He bore me I took fresh courage, for I never doubted His mercy, though I very often doubted myself.

O my Lord, I am amazed that my soul was so stubborn when I received such help from You! It frightens me to think how little I could do by myself and of those attachments that hindered my resolutions to give myself entirely to God. When I began to read the Confessions I seemed to see myself portrayed there, and I began to commend myself frequently to that glorious saint. When I came to the tale of his conversion, and read how he heard the voices in the garden, it seemed exactly as if the Lord had spoken to me. So I felt in my heart.

That second paragraph especially mirrors my own experience reading Confessions the first time, and like Teresa I took great comfort in the fact that Augustine sinned so greatly and yet was never given up on by God, and indeed was redeemed by Him. And while I am quite certain that Teresa exaggerates the extent of her own sinfulness, at the same time I continue to take great comfort in the fact that she struggled as deeply as she did with what she refers to as "relapses." I often think that that word is the theme of my own life, a pattern of restoration by the grace of God, a period of walking with Him, and then turning back to sin, only to start all over again. But I know that God never abandons me, and that, as St. Paul says, nothing can separate us from the love of God.

In her great spiritual writings, especially in The Way of Perfection and The Interior Castle, St. Teresa spends a great deal of time expounding on the virtue of humility. She writes that humility is nothing other than self-knowledge, and that it is through this humble self-knowledge that one comes to know God. Knowledge of self leads to knowledge of God, as it is in the discovery of self that we come to recognize the very ground of our being, that is, God. Humility for Teresa comes from a great willingness to bear the cross and seek to perfectly imitate Christ. She writes in The Way of Perfection:

So it Is with contemplatives: they must keep the flag of humility raised and suffer all the blows they receive without returning any. Their duty is to suffer as Christ did, to hold high the cross, not to let it out of their hand whatever the dangers they are themselves in, nor let any weakness in suffering be seen in them.

This adherence to the cross by the way of humility and self-knowledge is for Teresa the true way of perfection, and the one who walks along this path is prepared then to be drawn into contemplation, and to have their soul perfected in holiness by God.

One last thing about Teresa. Though she herself was a cloister, she recognized that contemplation, that intimate union with Christ in prayer, is not limited to cloistered nuns and monks. Indeed, it is a false dichotomy that presents either the active or the contemplative. This, in fact, is the very heart of the Augustinian charism, that we are called to be active contemplatives. In her Commentary on the Song of Songs, Teresa writes:

Although a person's life will become more active than contemplative…Martha and Mary never fail to work almost together when the soul is in this state. For in the active - and seemingly exterior - work the soul is working interiorly. And when the active works rise from this interior root, they become lovely and very fragrant flowers. For they proceed from this tree of God's love and are done for Him alone, without any self-interest.

That has long been a favorite image of mine, the harmony of Martha and Mary within the same soul. For while Mary may have chosen the better part (contemplation), that does not negate the role of Martha (active works), and indeed, a soul in contemplation is purified and perfected in the love of God, and thus does good works from the living spring of that love. Contemplation allows the soul to travel along the living waters of Christ's love, living waters that become a wellspring of good works, done with pure intentions and thus worthy of great merit.

St. Teresa of Avila is one of those saints who remain always fresh and new, whose wisdom and guidance never loses its appropriateness of timing. She continues to speak to the world today as poignantly as she did 400 years ago. She is a great model of Catholic obedience, fiery Catholic love, deep prayer, she is a wonderful role model for women and herself a great feminist, in the truest sense of the word, and she continues to bless the Church both with her intercession and with her tremendous body of work given to us. She is a saint, a mystic, a Doctor of the Church, a beautiful soul. My prayers go out in a special way today to all the Carmelites throughout the world celebrating this wonderful feast. May the prayers and example of St. Teresa of Avila continue to guide the Church that she so loved to a deepened experience of faith, a devout life of prayer, a true sense of obedience to the Church, and a fiery love of God.

St. Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Brainstorming about a podcast

I've been thinking about beginning a weekly podcast offering, just to give a slightly different media than the written word. If I do begin this, I'd like the podcast to have some sort of focus. So for whoever actually reads this blog, what would you like to hear from me by way of podcast, if anything? Is there any specific theme that would interest you, any focus of topic? I'd love to hear from you. Thanks!

Oh, just a little P.S.: the one thing I don't want to do is a reflection on the Sunday Mass readings. That sounds too much like a homily, and I'd prefer to wait until I'm ordained to do something like that.

The tragedy of abortion

When an issue of any sort takes on a political dimension, when it becomes something debated by politicians, legislators, interest groups, et cetera, no matter how pure the cause fighting for the issue starts out, eventually it seems that everything becomes contaminated. There are many, many great struggles facing those who fight for the cause of innocent life today in opposition to those who support continued legalized abortion, but lately I am thinking that perhaps one of our greatest struggles is the fact that, albeit necessarily, the cause has simply become political. Politics is a dirty business, and as necessary as it may be for the governance of peoples, for whatever reason, the combination of power and money probably chief among them, it is one area of human existence that is so greatly affected by our fallen natures.

With the abortion issue, the pro-life movement has done a remarkable job of from an organizational standpoint of remaining true to our core values, to maintaining something of that sense of purity intrinsic to the cause itself. We fight for the protection of innocent life, we fight for the dignity of humanity, we fight to protect women and men from making tragic mistakes that can and will haunt them forever, and for which in some way they will necessarily be held accountable before the just Judge, to say nothing of the murderous assasins for hire for use their medical training, which is supposed to be used so that they may be healers, to viciously attack life in the womb and destroy, literally rip apart limb by limb, the human being who has committed no crime other than be conceived. May God have mercy on their souls.

Sorry, I've gotten off track. My point is that regardless of the political nature that the issue of abortion has taken on in the decades since its legalization, for those of us who truly care about the human dignity of the unborn, and care compassionately for those who in times of great fear and distress are prone to make such a truly tragic mistake, it is so important that we always maintain in our hearts the sense of the human dimension of this grave affliction on humanity. As the saying goes, it is very easy to lose sight of the trees for the forest. While certainly this issue is universal in scope, it is always an issue of individual human beings, born and unborn, and the tragic circumstances that put all in a position to have to make a decision. Right decisions are hard to make, and often times making the right decision has incredibly challenging consequences. The apparent and eminent consequences of the wrong decision often are much simpler and easier to justify than the deeper and longer-term consequences that go along with it.

My point is simply that when we who are concerned with the issue of abortion and protecting both innocent unborn life and protecting those prone to making the tragic mistake of abortion, when we consider this issue, we must never lose sight of the fact that this is an issue that affects real people, and so we must never let the politics that goes along with the issue to harden our hearts and to turn us cold towards those who need our warmth the most. We are Christians, and so we must be agents of healing, and we must never, ever be seen as casting judgment on anyone, no matter how grave a mistake they have made. We must always pray that our hearts be open in compassion to those who seek help and guidance, to those who need it but seek it not, and to those who did not seek it and went on to make the mistake of abortion and now are in great need of healing.

As a parting thought, I discovered this over at The Deacon's Bench. It's a powerful video from Flipsyde, rapping about the tragedy of his own aborted child. This is powerful stuff. Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us:

The Lord of the Rings

I am almost ashamed to admit, but I have never read Tolkien's classic trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. I have seen the movies countless times and have long considered myself a huge fan, but deep down I've always known that I need to read the books in order to become a true devotee. And so I finally decided to purchase the books. Being the book geek that I am, I like my books, especially of the classic variety such as this, to be aesthetically pleasing, and so I purchased the 50th anniversary leather bound edition of the complete trilogy from Amazon, and it arrived this morning. It is a beautiful edition, and it arrived just in time for Fall Break. I took a few pictures to show it off, so enjoy!

The cover of the book box that holds the book:

From 2009-10-08

The binding of the book, while inside the box:

From 2009-10-08

Back of the box and back of the book:

From 2009-10-08

Gilded pages:

From 2009-10-08

Front of the book (yes, that is the elvish writing that is discovered on the ring when it is cast into fire):

From 2009-10-08

A map from the inside cover, of The West of Middle Earth at the End of the Third Age:

From 2009-10-08

The interior pages (this is page 37, where I am now):

From 2009-10-08

Such lovely eye candy. Yes, I'm a geek, and I'm proud of it :)

Into Great Silence

As I mentioned last night, due to my strep throat and the fact that we had visitors for dinner, I was quarantined to my bedroom for the evening. Since it was the feast of St. Bruno, founder of the Carthusians, I decided that I would celebrate my own forced silence by watching the wonderful film about the Carthusians living in La Grande Chartreuse, the famous monastery in the French Alps. This is my second time seeing this film, and once again it was a truly moving experience.

The beauty of these men is that they do not simply fast from speaking. Rather, they have learned the sacred art of entering prayerfully into silence. This is such a tremendous challenge, yet one whose reward is nothing less than God Himself. This sacred silence, the interior stillness that invites the soul to perfect awareness of self, a self-knowledge that leads to the awareness of the soul's union with God, is much more than an act of meditation, whereby a person decides to sit still for a set amount of time and focus on breath. That sort of meditation is one of the many forms of practice that prepares the soul for this silence, but it is not the silence itself. This silence is a life habit where the soul develops a deep stillness that underlies any exterior noise. It is not thoughtlessness, as if one could ever cease thinking. It is a silence that is deeper than thought, more interior. This silence is the very source of peace, and its privation is the root of all conflict. Thus, in order to be truly a people of peace, we must learn to be a people of interior silence.

How do we do this? Well, I am only just learning myself, so I don't really have the answers. But perhaps along the way I have learned a few of the guidelines, the things that I myself am failing to do and thus preventing my own soul from being drawn into this sacred silence. One of the most neglected tools in developing this silence is that of fasting. St. Paul writes to the Galatians: For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would (Gal 5:17). Our corrupted nature is such that the flesh continues to develop disordered longings – desires that reflect something good, but that become lusts that manifest by way of gluttony, sexual lust, sloth, and so forth. It is important then to subdue the flesh so that it becomes once again properly subjected to the spirit, and one of the most effective ways of doing this is by fasting.

Fasting can take on any number of forms, and it is not necessary that we torture ourselves with mortification. In fact, usually the sort of mortification that is barely discernible from masochism is not spiritually healthy at all. But fasting nonetheless remains an important and effective tool in fostering an environment of silence. There is a helpful little book on Christian fasting by Dag Tessore, simply titled Fasting.

Along with fasting, physical exercise is also very helpful. I personally am fond of yoga, as I find it to be a perfect segue into Christian meditation, especially with its focus on breath, but really any form of physical exercise is beneficial. Running has a very contemplative component to it, and really so does most physical exercise. But it is important to keep the body in good shape, because weakness of body and lack of endurance can frequently cause distractions to our spiritual state, as well.

Obviously, the development of a deep prayer life is fundamental to the preparation for silence. It is extremely important to have balance in one's prayer life. Vocal prayers and liturgical prayers, such as the Divine Office and the Rosary, are wonderful training grounds for prayer. Praying the Psalms teaches the soul how to speak to and of God, and the Rosary focuses the mind on proper Christian meditation. It is also helpful to learn silent meditation. An easy way to do this is to find a comfortable seated position, either on the ground, cross-legged or if you are flexible enough in a half or full lotus position, or simply sit on a chair with your back straight, your butt pushed forward just a bit so that your back does not rest against the back of the chair. From either of these positions, place your hands comfortably on your knees, and take a deep breath in through the nose, then exhale deeply out through the nose. Inhale and count to four, exhale and count to six. Do this for five or six times, and then just breathe naturally. Continue with the eyes closed breathing, and do this for a good 20-30 minutes or so. The mind is naturally going to wander and fixate on all sorts of thoughts – the chatter that is going on constantly in our minds. There are really two great ways of dealing with this (there are many, actually, but two that I think are most effective). The first way is to really focus the mind on the sound of the exhalation. Whenever the mind wanders and begins to entertain different thoughts, notice the thought, and then return the focus back to the exhalation. Over weeks of this practice the chatter will begin to slow, and while the thoughts will never cease entirely, the mind will find itself much more focused and still.

The other way of dealing with this is through what is known as the Jesus Prayer, a tradition that goes back to the earliest days of the Church. This is typically my choice of meditation style, though I do mix it up from time to time. By using the Jesus Prayer, on the inhalation one says silently, "Oh my Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me," and on the long exhalation, "a sinner." Keep this constant rhythm of inhalation and exhalation, connecting word to breath. The mind will still wander, but when it does, return the focus back to the Jesus Prayer. Again, over time, the mind will begin to experience stillness.

This stillness of mind is not the deep stillness of God, but it is an important preparation for it. In the beginning, it is we who seem to be doing all the work, focusing on breath, posture, distractions, et cetera. As the soul becomes more and more attuned to silence, God begins to take over and draw the soul even deeper. Eventually, the meditation and the contemplative practice might lead to true contemplation, where the soul does nothing but God simply does everything, drawing the soul into a deep and profound awareness of His interior presence. This is the true sacred silence, the silence that those Carthusians have, and the great silence that is available to us as well as they. Certainly we face unique challenges because of our living in the secular world, but that does not mean this silence, this contemplation is necessarily denied to us. It is a silence most worth pursuing, and again, the reward is nothing less than God Himself.

There was a time in my life, not that long ago, when I was on this path and beginning to taste those first fruits of that sacred silence. The past two or three years, even as I have continued to pursue my religious vocation, I have lost this focus on interior silence. Would that I might get on that path again. To that end, I am off to pray. Good night, and God bless.

P.S. Brother Charles, happy anniversary of your diaconate ordination. Though a bit later than I expected, I am going to pray the Rosary for you now. Any readers I might have should go give him a visit at A Minor Friar. His blog is wonderful, if you haven't already discovered it.

Quarantined To Great Silence

I have strep throat. A pretty nasty case of it, actually, and unfortunately after four doses of antibiotics it seems to be getting worse. Ah well, I get it every year. So for yesterday and today I am more or less quarantined in my room. We have two guests for dinner tonight, young men who are considering the Order, and so it's especially important that I don't risk infecting them.

Today is the feast of St. Bruno, the founder of the Carthusians. And so in honor of his feast, and to help pass along my quarantine productively and give it a spiritual element, I am watching (for the second time) the magnificent film Into Great Silence, about the Carthusian monks from the Grand Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps. Hopefully if I'm feeling up to it I will post some reflections later on. I'm watching it while lying in bed, so it's quite possible I will fall asleep...

Spinoza in Iambic Pentameter

For my final philosophy course before writing my thesis next semester, I am studying a course called Religion, Politics and Philosophy. We are preparing to write a paper now, and part of that preparation was that we would present our thesis in class and then receive critique from our professor and classmates. Somehow or another I seemed to have accepted a challenge to present my thesis in iambic pentameter. I figured everyone else forgot about it, but I did not. I presented it on Wednesday, and it went over quite well, so I thought I'd share it here, too. When I walked up to present, no one knew that I would be doing this, so the opening line was delivered as if I was actually just apologizing for something. It was on the second line that they realized what I was doing, and it was kind of awesome. Oh, and when you read the final stanza, Charles is a friend from class whom I often refer to as my archnemesis, in a Jerry and Newman sort of way. Also, for those not familiar, Spinoza's first name was Baruch, which in Latin is translated as Benedictus, and which means "blessed," and so that is the source of the little plays on words. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy:

You must excuse the craziness I've shown
But understand the gauntlet has been thrown
So responsibility must I own
In order to ascend the metric throne

Blessed Baruch tells us in his TTP
That knowledge of God's law one cannot see
Through tales that faith presents historically
Regardless of reliability
And yet his words seem contradictory
When one perceives immutability
Intrinsic to Spinoza's deity
Posited through universality.

From fear the reasoned soul must now depart
In order that the law divine impart
Perfect knowledge of God into the heart.
For justice may not be considered part
Of virtue of man whence fear does he start.
Thus by the path of understanding we must chart
The course of understanding lex's art
Unless from joy we wish to be apart.

How to perceive the law, Benedictus?
Can it be through Scripture God has tricked us?
Why with such doubts would good God afflict us?
And with confusion would God inflict us?
Why would this God then choose to prescript us
Ordinances designed to correct us
And allow his word to be with us
If he only planned to derelict us?

You propose God's law is universal
So would the Jews be but a rehearsal?
And from the moment of their dispersal
We assert that God did not immerse all
His nature into the paradisal
Compass given to the chosen people?
What of the words of that blessed epistle
That Scripture reflects God's divine counsel?

If God acts at all as you do believe
Then universal law that we perceive
Must reflect in all that God does achieve.
The historical tales of God we weave
If reliable these tales we conceive
With knowledge of God to us they must leave.
To immutability no reprieve
Unless the laws of logic we upheave

Thus concludes discourse on law divine.
Now Charles don't you let me hear you whine
Just because the metric throne is but mine.
Perhaps for you one day the stars align.

There’s an East, too?

It often comes as a shock to many Catholics here in the West, but Roman Catholic and Catholic are not actually synonymous. Roman Catholic refers only to the Western rite Catholic Church, but our Catholic tradition equally includes the Eastern Catholic rites, as well, including Byzantine, Greek, Antiochan, Chaldean, Armenian, and some other rites, as well. All of these are true Catholic churches in full communion with the Pope, and a Catholic faithful may attend any of these churches whenever we please. These churches are very similar to the Eastern Orthodox Church, except the Orthodox Church is not currently in communion with the Pope (sadly), though hopefully that is soon to change.

I mention all these because one of our Augustinian friars, Fr. Joe Loya, is Eastern Catholic, Byzantine to be precise, and he is what is known as bi-ritual, meaning he is authorized to celebrate Mass in either his own Byzantine Rite or in the Roman Rite. The rite is simply the form of the liturgy, the ritual itself, the prayers that are said, etc. The Eastern churches typically follow what is known as the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, an ancient liturgy that dates back to the fifth century. It is different in many ways from the Mass most familiar to Roman Catholics, though many elements remain the same. This past Sunday, I and my fellow prenovice went to Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church in Philadelphia, as Fr. Joe was presiding and also celebrating his 30^th anniversary of ordination. Let me tell you, the Byzantine liturgy is absolutely beautiful, and includes so many elements to it that once were part of the Roman rite, and indeed still are allowed in the Roman rite but sadly are almost never found. For one, incense is used throughout the rite, at every major point in the Liturgy (the East refers to it as Divine Liturgy as opposed to Mass. Mass comes from the concluding words of the Liturgy in Latin, "Ite, missa est," meaning, "Go, this is the dismissal." From that "missa" eventually the Liturgy came to be known as Mass in the West). Two, much of the Liturgy is chanted, an element that I hope and pray one day is restored in the Roman Mass (while many "Vatican II Catholics" hate to admit this, Second Vatican Council explicitly calls for pride of place of Gregorian chant in Catholic liturgy. Article 116 of Vatican II's Sacrosanctum Concillium states: "The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services." But I digress.).

Aside from this, much as has been my experience at Masses in the Extraordinary Form in the past 18 months or so (the Extraordinary Form is the Mass as it was celebrated regularly prior to Vatican II, and is still a valid form of the Mass that priests are free to celebrate whenever they desire), there was a tremendous sense of reverence and sacred silence at this Liturgy. The people knew they were there to encounter Christ in the Word and in the Eucharist, and did everything they could to maintain and promote a prayerful, silent, and reverent disposition. Anyway, it was just a beautiful Liturgy, and I look forward to going back again someday. It's important to me to embrace the fullness of our Catholic tradition, including our Eastern tradition in all its richness, and I was very happy for the opportunity to experience it.

I do believe that as a priest, Liturgy will be an area where I focus much of my attention. I think it is very easy to forget how important liturgy is in our lives of faith. In this fallen and often broken world, our spirits are so easily drawn in every direction but towards God. We focus on all the things we think are most important, forgetting what is truly most important, which is our worship of Him who created us. Indeed, this is both the nature and effect of sin – sin disorders our soul and directs our desires outward towards the world. Thus Liturgy is given to us to restore the proper order of our soul, to direct our soul back upwards toward God, for the upward directed soul is alone capable of perfect love – love of God and love of neighbor. Liturgy then becomes an essential element of our own salvation, and a primary means of building up the Kingdom of God, because it ensures that the soul is always properly ordered, at least, when liturgy is done correctly.

The demise of the Catholic Church in the past forty years, as seen by decreased Mass attendance (something like 25% of Catholics attend Mass regularly), a crisis in priestly and religious vocations, the destruction of marriages, such that 50% now end in divorce, the number of Catholics rejecting the authentic teachings of the Church, all of this can be attributed to a number of things (the modern trend of moral relativism being a major factor). I truly believe that one of the primary factors, though, has been the grave deterioration of Catholic liturgies. What is so greatly missing from the world today is a true appreciation for beauty. The human soul longs for encounters with beauty, and it is beauty that awakens the soul to a true encounter with God. But many modern Catholic liturgies have become exercises in banality, and beauty is almost nowhere to be found. Often this is the result of a priest who thinks it is his job to create something new in the liturgy (again, Vatican II tells us just the opposite. That same document states elsewhere, in Article 22.3, "Therefore no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority." Unfortunately too many priests prefer to call upon the "spirit" of Vatican II, instead of Vatican II itself), or music directors who decide to institute music that might indeed be very nice, but certainly has no element of sacred beauty to it and is thus not suited for liturgy, and the simple fact that we have dismissed so many ancient traditions of our Church, assuming that Vatican II created some sort of rupture with the past, as if a new Church was created, instead of it reflection a continuation of 2,000 years of Catholic tradition.

The current Holy Father, Pope Benedict, has made liturgy one of the hallmarks of his entire priestly life, and liturgical renewal has been at the heart of his pontificate. There are certainly good signs on the horizon, but there is a lot of work to do, and I am thankful for the opportunity to be part of this new springtime in the Church. I pray that the sense of beauty is awakened once again in the human heart, thus leading us naturally to a greater recognition of the truth and beauty of God.

Everything else has been going very well. Tomorrow I am going home to finally meet my new nephew, Christopher William. School has been going great, although I am getting a bit overwhelmed. Fortunately fall break is upon us soon, and I will finally be able to get caught up again. One of the most encouraging things about this semester has been my Ancient Greek class. The thing with a language like Greek is that one can study and study and study and study and it seems to make no sense at all, but if one perseveres, a moment comes where suddenly everything comes online, so to speak, and it all finally makes sense. I have finally gotten to that point now, where the weeks of frustration so far are finally leading to true understanding. The other benefit of Ancient Greek is that is has made Latin seem easy, and so I'm advancing in Latin far more quickly now than I did when I took beginning Greek. So that's good.

We have a busy upcoming few weeks, the highlight of which is the ordination of our Mike Scuderi on October 24. Mike is a professed friar for about a year now, maybe longer, but has held of ordination until now. He will be ordained at the beautiful St. Rita's Church in South Philly. I've never attended an ordination of any kind before, so I am really looking forward to this. Mike is a wonderful guy and it will truly be a joyous occasion.

Well, that's about all for the latest installment of "This Week in Michael's Religious Life Adventure." Hope everyone is doing well!

Pope Benedict XVI on Freedom and Truth

The final address that I wish to post from the Holy Father's Apostolic Visit to the Czech Republic is that delivered to the civil and political leaders. Marking the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the totalitarian regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, the Holy Father goes on to offer some profound reflections on freedom, and especially how "true freedom presupposes the search for truth – for the true good – and hence finds its fulfillment precisely in knowing and doing what is right and just." The philosopher pope also gives a shout out to Aristotle, which I always enjoy :-)

APOSTOLIC VISIT
OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO THE CZECH REPUBLIC
(SEPTEMBER 26-28, 2009)

MEETING WITH THE CIVIL AND POLITICAL AUTHORITIES 
AND WITH THE MEMBERS OF THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS

ADDRESS BY THE HOLY FATHER

Presidential Palace of Prague
Saturday, 26 September 2009

 
 

Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am grateful for the opportunity to meet, in such a remarkable setting, the political and civil authorities of the Czech Republic and the members of the diplomatic community. I warmly thank President Klaus for his kind words of greeting in your name. I also express my appreciation to the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra for the musical performance which opened our gathering, and which eloquently expressed both the roots of Czech culture and the outstanding contribution which this nation has made to European culture.

My pastoral visit to the Czech Republic coincides with the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the totalitarian regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, and the "Velvet Revolution" which restored democracy to this nation. The euphoria that ensued was expressed in terms of freedom. Two decades after the profound political changes which swept this continent, the process of healing and rebuilding continues, now within the wider context of European unification and an increasingly globalized world. The aspirations of citizens and the expectations placed on governments called for new models of civic life and solidarity between nations and peoples without which the long desired future of justice, peace and prosperity would remain elusive. Such desires continue to evolve. Today, especially among the young, the question again emerges as to the nature of the freedom gained. To what end is freedom exercised? What are its true hallmarks?

Every generation has the task of engaging anew in the arduous search for the right way to order human affairs, seeking to understand the proper use of human freedom (cf. Spe Salvi, 25).  And while the duty to strengthen "structures of freedom" is vital, it is never enough: human aspirations soar beyond the self, beyond what any political or economic authority can provide, towards a radiant hope (cf. ibid., 35) that has its origin beyond ourselves yet is encountered within, as truth and beauty and goodness. Freedom seeks purpose: it requires conviction. True freedom presupposes the search for truth – for the true good – and hence finds its fulfilment precisely in knowing and doing what is right and just. Truth, in other words, is the guiding norm for freedom, and goodness is freedom's perfection. Aristotle defined the good as "that at which all things aim", and went on to suggest that "though it is worthwhile to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or for city-states" (Nicomachean Ethics, 1; cf. Caritas in Veritate, 2). Indeed, the lofty responsibility to awaken receptivity to truth and goodness falls to all leaders – religious, political and cultural, each in his or her own way. Jointly we must engage in the struggle for freedom and the search for truth, which either go together hand in hand or together they perish in misery (cf. Fides et Ratio, 90).

For Christians, truth has a name: God. And goodness has a face: Jesus Christ. The faith of Christians, from the time of Saints Cyril and Methodius and the early missionaries, has in fact played a decisive role in shaping the spiritual and cultural heritage of this country. It must do likewise in the present and into the future. The rich patrimony of spiritual and cultural values, each finding expression in the other, has not only given shape to the nation's identity but has also furnished it with the vision necessary to exercise a role of cohesion at the heart of Europe. For centuries this territory has been a meeting point between various peoples, traditions, and cultures. As we are all aware, it has known painful chapters and carries the scars of tragic events born of misunderstanding, war and persecution. Yet it is also true, that its Christian roots have nourished a remarkable spirit of forgiveness, reconciliation and cooperation which has enabled the people of these lands to find freedom and to usher in a new beginning, a new synthesis, a renewal of hope. Is it not precisely this spirit that contemporary Europe requires?

Europe is more than a continent. It is a home! And freedom finds its deepest meaning in a spiritual homeland. With full respect for the distinction between the political realm and that of religion – which indeed preserves the freedom of citizens to express religious belief and live accordingly – I wish to underline the irreplaceable role of Christianity for the formation of the conscience of each generation and the promotion of a basic ethical consensus that serves every person who calls this continent, "home"! In this spirit, I acknowledge the voice of those who today, across this country and continent, seek to apply their faith respectfully yet decisively in the public arena, in the expectation that social norms and policies be informed by the desire to live by the truth that sets every man and woman free (cf. Caritas in Veritate, 9).

Fidelity to the peoples whom you serve and represent requires fidelity to the truth which alone is the guarantee of freedom and integral human development (cf. ibid., 9). Courage to articulate the truth in fact serves all members of society by shedding light on the path of human progress, indicating its ethical and moral foundations, and ensuring that public policy draws upon the treasury of human wisdom. Sensibility to universal truth should never be eclipsed by particular interests, important though they may be, for such would lead only to new examples of the social fragmentation or discrimination which those very interest or lobby groups purport to overcome. Indeed, far from threatening the tolerance of differences or cultural plurality, the pursuit of truth makes consensus possible, keeps public debate logical, honest and accountable, and ensures the unity which vague notions of integration simply cannot achieve. In the light of the Church's tradition of temporal, intellectual, and spiritual charity, I am confident that members of the Catholic community – together with members of other Churches, ecclesial communities, and religions – will continue to pursue development goals that possess a more humane and humanizing value both in this nation and beyond (cf. ibid., 9).

Dear friends, our presence in this magnificent capital, which is often spoken of as the heart of Europe, prompts us to ask in what that "heart" consists. While there is no simple answer to that question, surely a clue is found in the architectural jewels that adorn this city. The arresting beauty of its churches, castle, squares and bridges cannot but draw our minds to God. Their beauty expresses faith; they are epiphanies of God that rightly leave us pondering the glorious marvels to which we creatures can aspire when we give expression to the aesthetic and the noetic aspects of our innermost being. How tragic it would be if someone were to behold such examples of beauty, yet ignore the transcendent mystery to which they point. The creative encounter of the classical tradition and the Gospel gave birth to a vision of man and society attentive to God's presence among us. In shaping the cultural patrimony of this continent it insisted that reason does not end with what the eye sees but rather is drawn to what lies beyond, that for which we deeply yearn: the Spirit, we might say, of Creation.

At the present crossroads of civilization, so often marked by a disturbing sundering of the unity of goodness, truth and beauty and the consequent difficulty in finding an acceptance of common values, every effort for human progress must draw inspiration from that living heritage. Europe, in fidelity to her Christian roots, has a particular vocation to uphold this transcendent vision in her initiatives to serve the common good of individuals, communities, and nations. Of particular importance is the urgent task to encourage young Europeans with a formation that respects and nurtures their God-given capacity to transcend the very limits which are sometimes presumed to entrap them. In sports, the creative arts and academic pursuit, young people welcome the opportunity to excel. Is it not equally true that when presented with high ideals they will also aspire to moral virtue and a life of compassion and goodness? I warmly encourage parents and community leaders who expect authorities to promote the values which integrate the intellectual, human and spiritual dimensions of a sound education worthy of the aspirations of our young.

"Veritas vincit". This is the motto that the flag of the President of the Czech Republic bears: In the end, truth does conquer, not by force, but by persuasion, by the heroic witness of men and women of firm principle, by sincere dialogue which looks beyond self-interest to the demands of the common good. The thirst for truth, beauty and goodness, implanted in all men and women by the Creator, is meant to draw people together in the quest for justice, freedom and peace. History has amply shown that truth can be betrayed and manipulated in the service of false ideologies, oppression and injustice. But do not the challenges facing the human family call us to look beyond those dangers? For in the end, what is more inhuman, and destructive, than the cynicism which would deny the grandeur of our quest for truth, and the relativism that corrodes the very values which inspire the building of a united and fraternal world? Instead, we must reappropriate a confidence in the nobility and breadth of the human spirit in its capacity to grasp the truth, and let that confidence guide us in the patient work of politics and diplomacy.

Ladies and Gentlemen, with these sentiments I offer prayerful good wishes that your service be inspired and sustained by the light of that truth which is a reflection of the eternal Wisdom of God the Creator. Upon you and your families I cordially invoke an abundance of divine blessings.

 
 

© Copyright 2009 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Pope Benedict XVI to Young People, with an Augustinian Influence

The second address of the Holy Father from his Apostolic Visit to the Czech Republic that I would like to post is his address to young people. I've said this several times before, but Pope Benedict to me is at his best when he addresses young people on the virtue of hope, and this time is no different. Here he also shows us his deep Augustinian influence, which is always good for us to hear. Any young men reading this blog, I encourage you especially to pay attention to the section that I have marked in bold:

APOSTOLIC VISIT
OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO THE CZECH REPUBLIC
(SEPTEMBER 26-28, 2009)

MESSAGE TO YOUNG PEOPLE

ADDRESS BY THE HOLY FATHER

Esplanade on the Way to Melnik, Stará Boleslav
Monday, 28 September 2009

(Video)

Dear Young Friends,

At the conclusion of this celebration I turn to you directly and I greet you warmly. You have come here in great numbers from all over the country and from neighbouring countries; you camped here yesterday evening and you spent the night in tents, sharing an experience of faith and companionship. Thank you for your presence here, which gives me a sense of the enthusiasm and generosity so characteristic of youth. Being with you makes the Pope feel young! I extend a particular word of thanks to your representative for his words and for the wonderful gift.

Dear friends, it is not hard to see that in every young person there is an aspiration towards happiness, sometimes tinged with anxiety: an aspiration that is often exploited, however, by present-day consumerist society in false and alienating ways. Instead, that longing for happiness must be taken seriously, it demands a true and comprehensive response. At your age, the first major choices are made, choices that can set your lives on a particular course, for better or worse. Unfortunately, many of your contemporaries allow themselves to be led astray by illusory visions of spurious happiness, and then they find themselves sad and alone. Yet there are also many young men and women who seek to transform doctrine into action, as your representative said, so as to give the fullness of meaning to their lives. I invite you all to consider the experience of Saint Augustine, who said that the heart of every person is restless until it finds what it truly seeks. And he discovered that Jesus Christ alone is the answer that can satisfy his and every person's desire for a life of happiness, filled with meaning and value (cf. Confessions, I.1.1).

As he did with Augustine, so the Lord comes to meet each one of you. He knocks at the door of your freedom and asks to be welcomed as a friend. He wants to make you happy, to fill you with humanity and dignity. The Christian faith is this: encounter with Christ, the living Person who gives life a new horizon and thereby a definitive direction. And when the heart of a young person opens up to his divine plans, it is not difficult to recognize and follow his voice. The Lord calls each of us by name, and entrusts to us a specific mission in the Church and in society. Dear young people, be aware that by Baptism you have become children of God and members of his Body, the Church. Jesus constantly renews his invitation to you to be his disciples and his witnesses. Many of you he calls to marriage, and the preparation for this Sacrament constitutes a real vocational journey. Consider seriously the divine call to raise a Christian family, and let your youth be the time in which to build your future with a sense of responsibility. Society needs Christian families, saintly families!

And if the Lord is calling you to follow him in the ministerial priesthood or in the consecrated life, do not hesitate to respond to his invitation. In particular, in this Year of Priests, I appeal to you, young men: be attentive and open to Jesus call to offer your lives in the service of God and his people. The Church in every country, including this one, needs many holy priests and also persons fully consecrated to the service of Christ, Hope of the world.

Hope! This word, to which I often return, sits particularly well with youth. You, my dear young people, are the hope of the Church! She expects you to become messengers of hope, as happened last year in Australia, during World Youth Day, that great manifestation of youthful faith that I was able to experience personally, and in which some of you took part. Many more of you will be able to come to Madrid in August 2011. I invite you here and now to participate in this great gathering of young people with Christ in the Church.

Dear friends, thank you again for being here and thank you for your gift: the book of photographs recounting the lives of young people in your dioceses. Thank you also for the sign of your solidarity towards the young people of Africa, which you have presented to me. The Pope asks you to live your faith with joy and enthusiasm; to grow in unity among yourselves and with Christ; to pray and to be diligent in frequenting the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Confession; to take seriously your Christian formation, remaining ever obedient to the teachings of your Pastors. May Saint Wenceslaus guide you along this path through his example and his intercession, and may you always enjoy the protection of the Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus and our Mother. I bless all of you with affection!