Prayer Requests

As many of you know, I am just beginning my novitiate year with the Augustinians. Because this year is so deeply rooted in prayer, I wanted to make this post as a place where anyone can offer me any prayer requests. I will be able to check this from time to time, and any requests I receive I will keep in my daily prayers. If you care to keep your request private (comments here are viewable), you may e-mail me your requests at augustinianheart@gmail.com. You may also simply comment anonymously, and I will pray accordingly, and God will know who you are. If you are comfortable just leaving your first name in the comment or e-mail, while not necessary, it would be helpful for me. But again, completely not necessary.

Because of the nature of this novitiate year, my online interaction will be significantly reduced. As such, I likely will not respond to your request with a comment of my own, but please be assured that I will pray fervently and unceasingly. Grace and peace to all!

Prayer Requests

Hello all! I don't have enough time to write a proper update about the beginning of the novitiate, but I want everyone to know that I have received your prayer requests, whether by comment at the blog or via e-mail, and I am praying for all of you. Please continue to post requests either at the blog or via e-mail throughout the year. I will check my e-mail every Saturday and I am writing down all requests, and I will take them with me daily to chapel and will offer prayers for all of you every day. It strengthens me tremendously to be able to pray for you, and it is a great honor and blessing, so please keep the requests coming. And as time goes on, certainly when you can keep me updated on how these things are progressing. Peace to all!

Michael

The Feast of the Transfiguration

Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration, one of the great and mysterious feasts of the Church, celebrating that event in the life of Christ and the Apostles where Jesus gave a glimmer of his future resurrected glory, and showed to Peter, James and John the reality that Jesus is the true shekinah of God.

For me this liturgical feast has taken on special significance in recent years, as this is the third anniversary of my diagnosis of cancer. I mention this every year, and every year it is worth repeating, but I was particularly graced during my battle with cancer in that every important event occurred on a great liturgical feast of the Church: my original diagnosis was on the Feast of the Transfiguration; my surgery was on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary; my diagnosis of the spread of the cancer into my lymph nodes was on the Feast of the Queenship of Mary. In all of this, God let me know in a particular way that He was with me, that His presence was always within me, and that even though I would have to suffer a bit (and it was not a great suffering by any means), when suffering is united to faith, that suffering itself becomes transfigured. Even the progression of the Feasts was meaningful, for the first reminded me that suffering with Christ leads to transfiguration; the second was a Feast I had already chosen as the date of my consecration to Mary in the manner of St. Louis de Montfort, and the Assumption is nothing other than one more confirmation of the reality of resurrection and glory that awaits all the Christian faithful; and the third was simply a reminder to put my trust in the maternal care, love, protection and prayer of the Holy Mother of God.

In Mass today, Father Patrick began reflecting on how so often Peter was asleep in those moments when Jesus called him, James and John apart with him (though he wasn’t asleep at the Transfiguration, so I wasn’t entirely sure why he mentioned it, but I was glad that he did because it touched me), and he reflected on how often we are spiritually asleep at those opportunities when Christ presents His glory to us. This was so true of me today. I had lost all track of the date, and I was preparing to leave for a trip to visit with some family, having no consciousness of the fact that today was indeed the Feast of the Transfiguration. Our church is directly attached to our friary, so that you walk through one door and you enter into the sacristy. To the side is a small chapel where we pray Lauds each morning, and then through a door to the right is the big church. I had just realized that it was this particular feast, so I was simply walking into the small chapel to pick up my breviary, not even noticing the time, and suddenly I realized that Mass was about to begin. So it was in my own slumber that I was both forgetful of the glory that God was wishing to reveal to me, and yet in that slumber I was led thoughtlessly into the Sacrifice of the Mass. As it was, I ended up having what may have been a truly contemplative experience in that Mass. I, in my sinfulness and my thoughtlessness, was nonetheless blessed with a special awareness of God’s love for me and God’s fidelity even in the face of my infidelity.

One thing that struck me during the reading of the Gospel was the expression of Peter about constructing the tent for Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Jesus, again, is the true shekinah of God, the revelation of God’s glory, which under the Old Covenant at the time of Moses and Aaron came down to the tent which housed the Holy of Holies. That tent is indeed a prefiguration of Mary, the Mother of God who is the true tent, the true Ark of the Covenant, for in her womb was housed the true glory of God. So I continue to pray that the Virgin Mother of God will always unite my heart to hers, drawing me into her Immaculate Heart, so that with her, my heart will always be that perfect dwelling place of God, and that in imitating her faith and her virtue, especially her humility, I might fulfill my own ordained part in God’s plan of revealing the glory of God through Jesus Christ to the world.

A Juridical Right to the Extraordinary Form

As I mentioned in a previous post, I just purchased The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described by Adrian Fortescue. It just arrived today, and the Preface to the 15th Edition is written by Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, (at the time) President of Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei. His opening paragraph highlights one aspect of Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum that must be understood by all clergy today: the Extraordinary Form is not simply a Form of the Roman Rite that is considered acceptable, as if it's just a question of validity. It is a Form of the Rite to which every Catholic has a juridical right, so that priests do not have the right to deny Catholics such a liturgy. Here is the fully first paragraph of Card. Hoyos' Preface:

It is a pleasure for me to present this fifteenth edition of Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described, the first edition to appear since the Motu Proprio of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, Summorum Pontificum, dated 7th July 2007, definitively clarified that the rites according to the liturgical books in use in 1962 were never abrogated and that they truly constitute a treasure that belongs to the entire Catholic Church and should be widely available to all of Christ's faithful. It is now clear that Catholics have a juridical right to the more ancient liturgical rites, and that parish priests and bishops must accept the petitions and the requests of the faithful who ask for it. This is the express will of the Supreme Pontiff, legally established in Summorum Pontificum in a manner that must be respected by ecclesiastical superiors and local ordinaries alike.

I do hope to have the opportunity to learn how to celebrate according to the Extraordinary Form as part of my seminary formation, but certainly if not I will do everything possible to learn it well outside of seminary, because it is a true treasure of the Church, and the faithful have a right to this treasure.

Merton on Marian Devotion

I read this today in The Sign of Jonas, and it so beautifully sums up what it means to come to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The last sentence says it all. This journal entry of his is from March 27, 1949, just after he was ordained a deacon:

Since the diaconate Our Lady has taken possession of my heart. Maybe, after all, she is the big grace of the diaconate. She was given to me with the book of the Gospels which, like her, gives Christ to the world. I wonder what I have been doing all my life not resting in her heart which is the heart of all simplicity. All life, outside her perfect union with God, is too complicated.

Lady, I am your deacon, your own special and personal deacon. What made me want to laugh in the middle of the Gospel this morning was the fact that you were doing the singing and I was just resting and sailing along.

Because you told me that if I gave you my soul, it would become your soul. After all, if I give you a book it becomes your book and if I give you a picture it becomes your picture. So if I give you a soul -my soul - it ceases to be mine and becomes yours and you are the one who uses it and moves it. And believe me, Lady, that is all I want. Because everything that is yours is perfectly united to God in pure simplicity.

Winding Down the Prenovitiate

Well, it’s been a few months since my last confession…er, I mean, update, so I’ll do my best to keep this under 15 pages…I am now just ten days away from the beginning of the rest of my life. The novitiate starts August 13, in Racine, WI. It’s a year about which I know very little, so unfortunately I cannot give details to the many questions that many of you have. I do know that there are three other novices, along with at least three friars, and the formation community (the three friars) is brand new beginning with my class. Our Novice Master, Fr. Jack Flynn, is a really wonderful man, very gentle, very holy, very erudite, and all I know is every time I speak with one of the Augustinians they keep telling me how lucky I am to have Fr. Jack as my Novice Master. So that is very exciting.

I am trying to go into the year with no expectations. In fact, I believe that is part of the reasoning behind telling us so little about it, so that we don’t come in with preconceived notions of what novitiate is and what to expect out of it. It is a year of intensive spiritual formation, and my primary responsibility – my responsibility to my vocation itself – is to entrust myself to the Novice Master with complete faith that God is working through him to form me and to deepen my understanding of my vocation to the Augustinians. It is a non-academic year, with a strong emphasis on prayer, both liturgical/community prayer as well as silent, contemplative prayer. We will learn about the history of the Order, and we will have various conferences designed to deepen our spiritual lives. My job is simply to be open to the experience and any transformation that God seeks to work in me.

The idea of the novitiate is that for one year we are removed from “the world” so that we can grow in self-knowledge and grow in our relationship with Christ, so as to better prepare us to enter back into the world. It has a strong biblical tradition, with the People of Israel being led into the wilderness before being delivered to the Promised Land, or with Elijah going into the desert before encountering God on Mount Horeb and then going among the people, and finally, Christ being driven to the desert before beginning his public ministry. So too do we enter, spiritually, into the wilderness, to confront our demons and to learn to trust in Christ, so that so armed we may enter into the service of the Gospel in the world.

One very practical note: I will not have access to a cell phone, so as of August 13 the number that any of you have for me will no longer be valid. I will still have e-mail, but with restricted access to the internet, though to what extent that restriction will be, I just don’t know. But I am very fond of writing letters (you know, those old-fashioned forms of communication with pen and paper and sent through the post office), and would very much love to have people writing to me. I will certainly have plenty of time to respond. My mailing address at the novitiate will be: Augustinian Novitiate Community, 4339 Douglas Avenue, Racine, WI 53402. So please write!

That’s about all I can say about the novitiate. Other than that, it has been a rather interesting summer. I finally finished my courses at Villanova, as of June 30. It was a very intensive summer session, with three courses crammed into 28 days. As most of you know, adding to the intensity of that was the illness and eventual death of my Grandmom, Big Mama. That was an emotional time for all of us, and I know my parents and my siblings all agree that during those two weeks, it was like all time just stopped. My professors were all so great about my missing classes and such, and for that I am so grateful.

The funeral was beautiful, and I had a lovely time picking up Fr. Pete Harvey, whose brother was married to my Grandmom’s sister, and he concelebrated her funeral and preached the homily. He is a most charming man, and he really provided me with some wonderful insight and encouragement as I take the next step in my own vocational journey. Fr. Joe Farrell, OSA, my prenovice director during this past year, also concelebrated, and that meant so much to me. It was all very beautiful.

It all set up for a very dramatic transition, because with the intensive course load and then all the events with Grandmom, and this following an academic year where each semester was overloaded, suddenly as of June 30 everything just stopped, completely. My cousin Dan was married on July 3, and the wedding was beautiful, and then from there I went to Sea Isle for the week with my family, and had a very, very relaxing time, which set the stage for a super relaxed several weeks since then.

At the end of that week I moved into Old. St. Augustine’s in Old City Philadelphia, where I’ve been ever since, and where I will be until the novitiate begins. It is such a wonderful part of the city, and I have almost zero responsibility here, which means aside from participating in community prayer and going to daily Mass, my days are entirely my own. So I’ve discovered a little café where I go almost every day, and spend several hours there having coffee, maybe lunch, and just reading. It has been just wonderful, so peaceful and relaxed, and absolutely what I needed. And it has been a perfect transition from the high speed, high intensity academic environment to the very quiet rhythm that will be the novitiate.

That is really all that’s going on with me. During these days I’ve had some wonderful time to meet up with friends, spend time with family, and just mentally and emotionally prepare myself, as best as possible, for what’s next. I am so very excited about this next step. I will still do my best to keep up with these updates. I hope everyone is doing well, and be assured of my continued prayers (since, let’s face it, I’ve got nothing else to do!). Pray for me, and especially pray for my community – they have to live with me!

Liturgy and Disorder

One of the interesting things for me this past year or so has been the great diversity of liturgical experience to which I've been exposed. It has opened my eyes to what really goes on throughout the Church when it comes to liturgy, and I've witnessed some things I'd only previously heard about. Last night, for instance, the presider was one who would consider himself extremely "progressive" (though clearly that is a misnomer). At every opportunity when the liturgy would refer to "Father" in reference to God, that would be replaced with "Creator," so that the preface to the Eucharistic prayer, instead of being, "Father, All-Powerful and Ever-Living God..." what was said was, "Creator, All-Powerful..." Similarly, when the Doxology in its Trinitarian formula refers to Christ as "Him," so that the prayer goes, "Through Him, with Him, and in Him..." the presider instead spoke, "Through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ." This was not my first exposure to this priest, though it's jarring every time. What made it particularly jarring this time, though, was that in the congregation was another priest, who is very similar ideologically, and during the public profession of faith, the Nicene Creed, very loudly from this priest we heard, in the part of the Creed referencing the Holy Spirit, "With the Father and the Son She is worshiped and glorified."

One thing I am aware of in my own spiritual life is that I let things like this bother me too much. Don't get me wrong, they are bothersome, and I'll get to that in a moment. But I can tend to worry too much about things, to the point that I ultimately no longer trust that this is God's Church, that Christ Himself and His Blessed Mother are watching over this Church and protecting it, and that even the winds of human error could never cause the slightest movement in the immovable foundation on which this Church is built, for this Church is built on the cornerstone of Jesus Christ. So I need to embrace that, and I need to renew my sense of trust in God, and while being aware of all these heterodoxies (or perhaps heteropraxies) that exist within a fortunately dying element of the Church (for the good Gardner always prunes the dead branches of His healthy vine), my awareness should only serve the means of refocusing my own need for fidelity to my vocation, and my own fidelity to the Magisterium of the Church.

I am aware that to some getting worked up over something as seemingly insignificant as a changed word here or there seems like excessive angst. Perhaps it is, but I believe it's much more significant than many might consider, and here's why. For one, it's important to note that true liturgy is not something that man creates and innovates. Rather, it is something that we receive. Consider two examples that Joseph Ratzinger highlights in his most excellent book, Spirit of the Liturgy. First. the Exodus of the Jews out of Egypt and into the wilderness. When Moses was seeking leave from Pharaoh for the people, at the third request Pharaoh conceded leave for the people, but the livestock and cattle must be left behind. To which Moses responded that even the livestock must go, for they will not know what is required of them until God reveals it. In other words, the people could not choose how to worship God, but rather God was going to reveal how He was to be worshiped.

Second, consider the story of the golden calf. The Jews here had not turned to worship foreign gods. In their creation of the golden calf, at Aaron's leadership, they were indeed seeking to worship the true God, but they were doing so in their own manner, according to their own designs. This was their true apostasy, that they rejected the revealed manner in which God was to be worshiped, and instead sought to bring God down to them according to their own innovation.

It is necessary to keep in mind the function of liturgy. Just as the sabbath is made for man, not man for the sabbath, so too is liturgy made for man. But this must be understood properly. Liturgy is made for man in that liturgy is a primary means by which God restores order to our disordered souls. It anticipates the liturgy of heaven, and it anticipates the redemption of all creation at the second coming of Christ. We receive the liturgy in obedience to the Church and allow the liturgy to work in us, to restore us, rather than forcing ourselves to work the liturgy. As such, the sorts of ideological innovations such as those mentioned above, some bordering on blasphemy, are nothing short of subversive, they are attempts to undermine the Church and to reject Her authoritative teachings. At the very least, they are designed to use the liturgy as a means of asserting that individual men know better than the Church, and thus use the liturgy as an opportunity to show how how things really should be in the Church, in opposition to what the Church actually teaches.

And by this subversiveness, instead of allowing the liturgy to restore order to our disordered souls, this kind of liturgy actually further contributes to our disorder. It is perverse to the core, even if it is well-intentioned. It is nothing other than a replay of the original sin, where man decides that he can be the arbiter of what is good and evil, instead of simply receiving and internalizing what has already been revealed to him.

To be sure, I do get that there are good intentions informing this disordered approach to liturgy. But good intentions do not equal good acts. As Augustine said, in order for an act to be truly good, both its intention and the act itself must be good. In many cases of such liturgical aberration, the intention is good, perhaps as a means of reversing oppression of women, or something along those lines. But insofar as the means chosen to address this consists of a grave distortion of the liturgy, the act itself is inherently disordered, and so it cannot be good. And again, it is particularly troubling when it happens in the liturgy because it is introducing disorder to something whose precise purpose, partially, at least, is to restore right order to the human soul.

This hopefully explains, at least partially, why I think these liturgical abuses are important, and why I do make a big deal out of them, even while admitting that I might make too big a deal. But at this stage of my formation, it's important for me to develop this sort of awareness of what goes on, so that when I encounter, as most seminarians inevitably do, this sort of deviance in an academic setting, I can have the awareness and I can be firmly rooted in the authentic tradition of the Catholic Church to recognize error when I see it, or at least know not to accept something at face value simply because it has been taught. It is sad that these sorts of things should even be a concern, but we must live in reality, and this is the reality of the modern Church.

Along these lines, I just ordered The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described by Adrian Fortescue, which while written with regards to what is now the Extraordinary Form, I believe it will still be greatly beneficial to me in understanding the inner workings of the liturgy (and let's face it, I have every intention of celebrating the Mass in both Forms when I am ordained).

Mater Boni Consilii, ora pro nobis!