On Women Religious
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 30 Apr 2012 | Tagged as: Culture, Miscellaneous
The always thoughtful and accessible Fr. Barron on the Vatican’s assessment of the state of the US’s Leadership Conference of Women Religious.
Celebrate at St. Catherine’s Tonight
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 27 Apr 2012 | Tagged as: Culture
Word to Life – 3rd Sunday Easter (B)
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 21 Apr 2012 | Tagged as: Word to Life
Along with Franciscan Friar of the Renewal, Fr. Luke Fletcher, CFR.
The Acts of the Apostles Are Now
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 19 Apr 2012 | Tagged as: Liturgical Feasts
In our continuing catechesis on Christian prayer, we now turn from the prayer of Mary and the Apostles awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to the “little Pentecost” described in the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. After the arrest and release of Peter and John, the community joined in prayer and “the place where they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness” (v. 31).
This prayer shows the unity of the early community, which asks only to proclaim the word of God fearlessly in the face of persecution. It seeks to discern present events in the light of God’s saving plan and the fulfilment of prophecy in the mystery of Christ.
It also begs God to accompany by his power the preaching of the Gospel. May this prayer of the early Church inspire our own prayer. May we seek to discern God’s loving plan in the light of Christ and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, who bestows the hope which does not disappoint (cf. Rom 5:5).
Freedom From Religion?
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 12 Apr 2012 | Tagged as: Culture
It may be something many of us do not want to admit, but the ostensibly enlightened advance of secularism is so twisting our society’s self-understanding, that the most significant “organized religion” left — the faith of the Catholic Church — is being attacked. If She is eviscerated of her strength, the dogma of “anything goes” can then be peddled by anyone with enough power to promote his own vision of just what precisely should go.
To be sure, the Church’s own have done enough to disembowel Her of moral authority and authenticity. (But thanks be to God that our Church, necessarily hierarchical, is more fundamentally Christological–with Jesus Christ as head, who remains with us who remain in Him until the end of the ages.)
And now, the Church–in a country with puritannical roots–is furthermore (… or appositely…?) being directly attacked where her faithful’s commitment is manifestly the weakest: sexual and family morality.
While audacious, the world and its powers are yet shrewd enough to reduce the Church’s religious and mystical claims to challenges of moral evidence: “How many Catholics actually use birth control?” (One can hear the dark one in the background questioning, “Did God actually say…?”) And of course, if Church teaching is but another ideology or political party and platform supported by an alternative power structure, the worldly power will win–for its very terms are those of seductive rhetoric and coercive power.
Much could be conjectured (as well as reasonably argued to conclusion) about how all this has been allowed to happen, particularly in our country. But for now, the important thing is to see reality as it is confronting us; and for believers, this means two things, rooted in the first testimony of the first Christian community: “They devoted themselves to [1] the teaching of the apostles and the communal life, [2] to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers” (Acts 2.42). We too must be properly informed by the Church’s (2) priestly and (1) prophetic ministries, which She extends through time by virtue of Her Lord’s personal commission–i.e., by virtue of Him whose kingly sovereignty is as Priest and Prophet. Toward the former, the sacramental life must be paramount. The Catholic is nothing if he is not one who finds everything in his concrete sacramental discipline. Toward the latter, the doctrinal life must be paramount. The Catholic is nothing if he is not one who finds the true source of wisdom in the concrete apostolic preaching. To that end, with particular reference to our country’s situation, please consider this statement on religious liberty by our bishops, Our First and Most cherished Liberty.
The New Creation – Our Holy Father’s Easter Homily
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 11 Apr 2012 | Tagged as: Liturgical Feasts
Below is the text from Pope Benedict’s Easter Vigil homily. I’ve marked a few insights in bold that I found particularly arresting (7 April 2012).
Easter is the feast of the new creation. Jesus is risen and dies no more. He has opened the door to a new life, one that no longer knows illness and death. He has taken mankind up into God himself. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”, as Saint Paul says in the First Letter to the Corinthians (15:50). On the subject of Christ’s resurrection and our resurrection, the Church writer Tertullian in the third century was bold enough to write: “Rest assured, flesh and blood, through Christ you have gained your place in heaven and in the Kingdom of God” (CCL II, 994). A new dimension has opened up for mankind. Creation has become greater and broader. Easter Day ushers in a new creation, but that is precisely why the Church starts the liturgy on this day with the old creation, so that we can learn to understand the new one aright. At the beginning of the Liturgy of the Word on Easter night, then, comes the account of the creation of the world. Two things are particularly important here in connection with this liturgy. On the one hand, creation is presented as a whole that includes the phenomenon of time. The seven days are an image of completeness, unfolding in time. They are ordered towards the seventh day, the day of the freedom of all creatures for God and for one another. Creation is therefore directed towards the coming together of God and his creatures; it exists so as to open up a space for the response to God’s great glory, an encounter between love and freedom. On the other hand, what the Church hears on Easter night is above all the first element of the creation account: “God said, ‘let there be light!’” (Gen 1:3). The creation account begins symbolically with the creation of light. The sun and the moon are created only on the fourth day. The creation account calls them lights, set by God in the firmament of heaven. In this way he deliberately takes away the divine character that the great religions had assigned to them. No, they are not gods. They are shining bodies created by the one God. But they are preceded by the light through which God’s glory is reflected in the essence of the created being.
What is the creation account saying here? Light makes life possible. It makes encounter possible. It makes communication possible. It makes knowledge, access to reality and to truth, possible. And insofar as it makes knowledge possible, it makes freedom and progress possible. Evil hides. Light, then, is also an expression of the good that both is and creates brightness. It is daylight, which makes it possible for us to act. To say that God created light means that God created the world as a space for knowledge and truth, as a space for encounter and freedom, as a space for good and for love. Matter is fundamentally good, being itself is good. And evil does not come from God-made being, rather, it comes into existence only through denial. It is a “no”.
At Easter, on the morning of the first day of the week, God said once again: “Let there be light”. The night on the Mount of Olives, the solar eclipse of Jesus’ passion and death, the night of the grave had all passed. Now it is the first day once again – creation is beginning anew. “Let there be light”, says God, “and there was light”: Jesus rises from the grave. Life is stronger than death. Good is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Truth is stronger than lies. The darkness of the previous days is driven away the moment Jesus rises from the grave and himself becomes God’s pure light. But this applies not only to him, not only to the darkness of those days. With the resurrection of Jesus, light itself is created anew. He draws all of us after him into the new light of the resurrection and he conquers all darkness. He is God’s new day, new for all of us.
But how is this to come about? How does all this affect us so that instead of remaining word it becomes a reality that draws us in? Through the sacrament of baptism and the profession of faith, the Lord has built a bridge across to us, through which the new day reaches us. The Lord says to the newly-baptized: Fiat lux – let there be light. God’s new day – the day of indestructible life, comes also to us. Christ takes you by the hand. From now on you are held by him and walk with him into the light, into real life. For this reason the early Church called baptism photismos – illumination.
Why was this? The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil. The darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values is the real threat to our existence and to the world in general. If God and moral values, the difference between good and evil, remain in darkness, then all other “lights”, that put such incredible technical feats within our reach, are not only progress but also dangers that put us and the world at risk. Today we can illuminate our cities so brightly that the stars of the sky are no longer visible. Is this not an image of the problems caused by our version of enlightenment? With regard to material things, our knowledge and our technical accomplishments are legion, but what reaches beyond, the things of God and the question of good, we can no longer identify. Faith, then, which reveals God’s light to us, is the true enlightenment, enabling God’s light to break into our world, opening our eyes to the true light.
Dear friends, as I conclude, I would like to add one more thought about light and illumination. On Easter night, the night of the new creation, the Church presents the mystery of light using a unique and very humble symbol: the Paschal candle. This is a light that lives from sacrifice. The candle shines inasmuch as it is burnt up. It gives light, inasmuch as it gives itself. Thus the Church presents most beautifully the paschal mystery of Christ, who gives himself and so bestows the great light. Secondly, we should remember that the light of the candle is a fire. Fire is the power that shapes the world, the force of transformation. And fire gives warmth. Here too the mystery of Christ is made newly visible. Christ, the light, is fire, flame, burning up evil and so reshaping both the world and ourselves. “Whoever is close to me is close to the fire,” as Jesus is reported by Origen to have said. And this fire is both heat and light: not a cold light, but one through which God’s warmth and goodness reach down to us.
The great hymn of the Exsultet, which the deacon sings at the beginning of the Easter liturgy, points us quite gently towards a further aspect. It reminds us that this object, the candle, has its origin in the work of bees. So the whole of creation plays its part. In the candle, creation becomes a bearer of light. But in the mind of the Fathers, the candle also in some sense contains a silent reference to the Church,. The cooperation of the living community of believers in the Church in some way resembles the activity of bees. It builds up the community of light. So the candle serves as a summons to us to become involved in the community of the Church, whose raison d’être is to let the light of Christ shine upon the world.
Let us pray to the Lord at this time that he may grant us to experience the joy of his light; let us pray that we ourselves may become bearers of his light, and that through the Church, Christ’s radiant face may enter our world (cf. LG 1). Amen.
Seven Last Words, Pt I
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 06 Apr 2012 | Tagged as: Miscellaneous
Reflections from the pastor and selected parishioners on the seven last words of Our Savior.
Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do (Fr. Walter Wagner) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Truly, I say to you, this day you will be with me in paradise (Mr. James Neville) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Woman, behold your son. Then he said to his disciple, Behold your Mother (Mr. David Rust) Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadSeven Last Words, Pt II
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 06 Apr 2012 | Tagged as: Liturgical Feasts, Parish Events
Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit (Miss Amanda Pirih) Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadWell Said Good and Faithful Servant
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 29 Mar 2012 | Tagged as: Culture
The Annunciation: The Freedom of God’s Providential Love
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 26 Mar 2012 | Tagged as: Liturgical Feasts
Salvation to all that will is nigh;
That All, which always is all everywhere,
Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo, faithful virgin, yields Himself to lie
In prison, in thy womb; and though He there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He will wear,
Taken from thence, flesh, which death’s force may try.
Ere by the spheres time was created, thou
Wast in His mind, who is thy Son and Brother;
Whom thou conceivst, conceived; yea thou art now
Thy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother;
Thou hast light in dark, and shutst in little room,
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb. (John Donne, “Annunciation”)
“Salvation to all that will is nigh”. This opening line certainly draws us to consider human freedom, most especially the Virgin’s. She, of course, willed that very salvation God offers to the world through His incarnation: “Let it be done unto me… [Fiat mihi].” Thus, the Virgin’s fiat reprises and renews creation’s divine fiat (“Let there be…”)… even as both historically hang in the balance of the incarnately crossed measure of our existence (the agonized Christ in the garden: “Father if it is not possible… thy will be done” [fiat voluntas tua]).
On the other hand, I think the contemporary poet Denise Levertov is off the mark in her “Annunciation”:
But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
courage.
The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent.
God waited.
She was free
to accept or to refuse, choice
integral to humanness. (from “Annunciation“)
Not due to an ungenerous reading, the poetically rendered pro-choice campaign rings blatantly and bathtetically. The otherwise pretty (if over-simple) poem is debased in these final lines of the poem’s section.
Moreover, the poet gives the lie to her worldly wisdom’s inanity when she extols Our Lady’s courage. For, Our Lady is clearly not “pro-choice.” Indeed, freedom is integral; but not only are all choices not thereby integral; furthermore, to be “integral” doesn’t mean formal or primary. (A baby is clearly a “human,” even if it cannot [in its present state] truly make “choices.”)
Indeed, the object of Mary’s courageous act was not “choice” (which is not the same thing as liberty): Her object was the Word of life, the all of being, the inscrutably outpouring wisdom of God’s loving will.
This returns us to Donne, whose “all” in “all that will” refers principally to the all of God; (it does not primarily serve as a pronoun for human agents, I believe). Whence the second line: “That all, which always is all everywhere.” Donne deftly communicates the absolute transcendence of God and His Providential inescapability through the paradoxes that follow in ll. 3 and 4: “Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear, / Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die”. The paradoxes are then trumped in terms of metaphysical mystery: “Ere by the spheres time was created, thou / Wast in his mind, who is thy Son and Brother.”
This is how we have “light in dark”: by accepting the transcendent primacy of God’s invitation to welcome the truth of His consuming love.
So, perhaps (even if but for a moment), Levertov is correct:
Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.
But even if she is correct, once again, she betrays herself, and her own song is “sullen,” for it does not end with God’s clemency. Because of her existential fundament of human choice, her poem’s final prospect is the darkness of damnation.
Thankfully, Donne has poetically redeemed the secular paean to freedom — by going beyond the “spheres” and “time['s]” first beginning, which comprises the horizon of human freedom– and into the eternal mind of God, which is always thinking of love; and which is therefore always light.
Indeed, salvation is always near to all of His will. God desires all to be saved; and in strict apposition, He desires all to come to the knowledge of the truth: For there is one God and one mediator… who have himself as a ransom for all (see 1 Tim 2.4–6).
As Our Lady is the most nighh unto Him in whom the all of God was pleased to dwell (Col 1.19-20), let us go to her, and through her, ad Jesum.
Life and Liberty
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 20 Mar 2012 | Tagged as: Culture
There’s been much regarding the HHS mandate, and ways that the responsible citizen can oppose its political ideology and legislative potential. Here are two notes of interest: (1) A petition from the voices of marginalized women. (NB: The largest single constituency behind our current President is single women — i.e., both the professional and the poor…); (2) News about nationwide rallies.
Don’t Miss These Next Two Days
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 06 Mar 2012 | Tagged as: Dominican Saints, Lectures, Liturgical Feasts
Update from the Cardinal
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 02 Mar 2012 | Tagged as: Culture
From our Cardinal’s blog, as posted yesterday:
Over the last six months or so, the Catholic Church in the United States has found itself in some tension with the executive branch of the federal government over a very grave issue: religious freedom. Can a government bureau, in this case the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), define for us or any faith community what is ministry and how it can be exercised? Can government also coerce the church to violate its conscience?
I wanted to let you, the great people of the archdiocese, know how we’re doing in this fight. Thank you for your extraordinary unity, support, and encouragement. Throughout all the archdiocese, our people – both as patriotic citizens and committed Catholics — have been very effective in letting government know that we are not at peace at all with this attempt to curtail the freedom of religion and sanctity of conviction we cherish as both Catholics and Americans.
This has not been a fight of our choosing. We’d rather not be in it. We’d prefer to concentrate on the noble tasks of healing the sick, teaching our youth, and helping the poor, all now in jeopardy due to this bureaucratic intrusion into the internal life of the church. And we were doing all of those noble works rather well, I dare say, without these radical new mandates from the government. The Catholic Church in America has a long tradition of partnership with government and the wider community in the service of the sick, our children, our elders, and the poor at home and abroad. We’d sure rather be partnering than punching.
Nor is this a “Catholic” fight alone. As a nurse from Harrison emailed me, “Cardinal, I’m not so much mad about all this as a Catholic, but as an American.” It was a Baptist minister, Governor Mike Huckabee, who observed, “In this matter, we’re all Catholics.”
And it is not just about sterilization, abortifacients, and chemical contraception. Pure and simple, it’s about religious freedom, the sacred right, protected by our constitution, of any Church to define its own teaching and ministry.
When the President announced on January 20th that the choking mandates from HHS would remain — a shock to me, since he had personally assured me that he would do nothing to impede the good work of the Church in health care, education, and charity, and that he considered the protection of conscience a sacred duty — not only you, but men and women of every faith, or none at all, rallied in protest. The worry that we bishops had expressed — that such government control was contrary to our deepest political values — was eloquently articulated by constitutional scholars and leaders of every creed. Even newspaper editorials supported us!
On February 10th, the President announced that the insurance providers would have to pay the bill, not the Church’s schools, hospitals, clinics, or vast network of charitable outreach. He considered this “concession” adequate.
Did this help? We bishops wondered if it would, and announced at first that, while withholding final judgment, we would certainly give it close scrutiny.
Well, we have — and we’re still as worried as ever. For one, there was not even a nod to the deeper concerns about trespassing upon religious freedom, or of modifying the HHS’ attempt to define the how and who of our ministry through the suffocating mandates.
Two, since a big part of our ministries are “self-insured,” how is this going to help us? We’ll still have to pay! And what about individual believers being coerced to pay?
Three, there was still no resolution about the handcuffs placed upon renowned Catholic charitable agencies, both national and international, and their exclusion from contracts just because they will not refer victims of human trafficking, immigrants and refugees, and the hungry of the world, for abortions, sterilization, or contraception.
So, we have given it careful study. Our conclusion: we’re still very worried. There seem far more questions than answers, more confusion than clarity.
Now what to do?
Well, for one, we’ll keep up advocacy and education on the issue. We continue to tap into your concern as citizens and count on your support. Regrettably, the unity of the Catholic community has been tempered a bit by those who think the President has listened to us and now we can quit worrying. You’re sure free to take their advice. But I hope you’ll listen to your pastors who are still very concerned.
Two, we’ll continue to seek a rescinding of the suffocating mandates that require us to violate our moral convictions — or at least a wider latitude to the exemptions so that churches can be free — and of the rigidly narrow definition of church, minister, and ministry that would prevent us from helping those in need, educating children, and healing the sick who are not Catholic.
The President invited us to “work out the wrinkles,” and we have been taking him seriously. Unfortunately, this seems to be going nowhere: the White House Press Secretary, for instance, informed the nation that the mandates are a fait accompli (and, embarrassingly for him, commented that we bishops have always opposed Health Care anyway, a charge that is simply scurrilous and insulting). The White House already notified Congress that the dreaded mandates are now published in the Federal Registry “without change.” The Secretary of HHS is widely quoted as saying, “Religious insurance companies don’t really design the plans they sell based on their own religious tenets,” which doesn’t bode well for a truly acceptable “accommodation.” And a recent meeting between staff of the bishops’ conference and the White House staff ended with the President’s people informing us that the broader concerns of religious freedom — that is, revisiting the straight-jacketing mandates, or broadening the maligned exemption—are all off the table. Instead, they advised the bishops’ conference that we should listen to the “enlightened” voices of accommodation, such as the recent hardly-surprising but terribly unfortunate editorial in America. The White House seems to think we bishops are hopelessly out of touch with our people, and with those whom the White House now has nominated as official Catholic teachers.
So, I don’t know if we’ll get anywhere with the executive branch.
Congress offers more hope, with thoughtful elected officials proposing promising legislation to protect what should be so obvious: religious freedom. As is clear from the current debate in the senate, our opponents are marketing this as a “woman’s health issue.” Of course, it cannot be reduced to that. It’s about religious freedom. (By the way, the Church hardly needs to be lectured about health care for women. Thanks mostly to our Sisters, the Church is the largest private provider of health care for women and their babies in the country. Here in New York State, Fidelis, the Medicare/Medicaid insurance provider, owned by the Church, consistently receives top ratings for its quality of service to women and children.)
And the courts offer the most light. In the recent Hosanna-Tabor ruling, the Supreme Court unanimously and enthusiastically defended the right of a Church to define its own ministry and services, a dramatic rebuff to the administration, but one apparently unheeded by the White House. Thus, our bishops’ conference and many individual religious entities are working with some top-notch law firms who have told us they feel so strongly about this that they will represent us pro-bono.
So, we have to be realistic and prepare for tough times. Some, like America magazine, want us to cave-in and stop fighting, saying this is simply a policy issue; some want us to close everything down rather than comply (In an excellent article, Cardinal Francis George wrote that the administration apparently wants us to “give up for Lent” our schools, hospitals, and charitable ministries); some want us to engage in civil disobedience and be fined; some worry that we’ll have to face a decision between two ethically repugnant choices: subsidizing immoral services or no longer offering insurance coverage, a road none of us wants to travel.
Sorry to go on at such length. You can see how passionately I feel about this. But, from what I sense, you do too. You all have been such an inspiration, and I owe it to you to keep you posted. We need you more than ever! We can’t give up hoping, praying, trying, and working hard.
Hats Off Tonight!
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 29 Feb 2012 | Tagged as: Events in the Archdiocese
A Nun at the Oscars
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 28 Feb 2012 | Tagged as: Culture
Perhaps you watched the Oscar awards, where Mother Dolores Hart’s short documentary, “God is Bigger than Elvis” was a nominee. After having co-starred in a couple of films with the king of rock and roll, she entered a monastery almost fifty years ago to live completely for the King of heaven and earth.
Where Will It End?
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 23 Feb 2012 | Tagged as: Culture
The most recent letter issued by Cardinal Dolan as the President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Also, for a very clearly rendered analogy to the whole HHS kerfuffle, read this by Bishop Lori.
Since we last wrote to you concerning the critical efforts we are undertaking together to protect religious freedom in our beloved country, many of you have requested that we write once more to update you on the situation and to again request the assistance of all the faithful in this important work. We are happy to do so now. Continue Reading »
Ash Wednesday Homilies
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 22 Feb 2012 | Tagged as: Homilies
Fr. Shah’s Homily:
Israel spent 40 years in the desert, wherein she was instructed about God’s unique, elective love for her. Elijah took 40 days to reach the mountaintop, whereupon God’s presence was manifested, not in thunderous gusts or fiery flashes but in the whispering strum of the prophet’s own heart. And before beginning his public ministry, Christ spent 40 days in the desert, feeding solely upon his mission to reconcile all of God with all of man in one incarnate embrace.
With reason, then, Our Holy Father Pope Benedict says Lent is a time of first love. Continue Reading »
Forty Days of Penitence and Grace
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 22 Feb 2012 | Tagged as: Liturgical Feasts
Our Holy Father’s masterful catechesis about the beginning and significance of Lent:
Dear brothers and sisters,
in this Catechesis I would like to dwell briefly on the season of Lent, which begins today with the Liturgy of Ash Wednesday. It is a journey of forty days that will lead us to the Paschal Triduum, memorial of the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord, the heart of the mystery of our salvation. In the early centuries of the Church this was the time when those who had heard and accepted the message of Christ began, step by step, their journey of faith and conversion to receive the sacrament of baptism. It was a drawing close to the living God and an initiation of the faith to be gradually accomplished, through an inner change in the catechumens, that is, those who wished to become Christians and thus be incorporated into Christ and the Church.
Subsequently, penitents, and then all the faithful were invited to experience this journey of spiritual renewal, to conform themselves and their lives to that of Christ. The participation of the whole community in the different steps of the Lenten path emphasizes an important dimension of Christian spirituality: redemption is not available to only a few, but to all, through the death and resurrection of Christ. Therefore, those who follow a journey of faith as catechumens to receive baptism, those who had strayed from God and the community of faith and seek reconciliation and those who lived their faith in full communion with the Church, together knew that the period before Easter is a period of metanoia, that is, of inner change, of repentance, the period that identifies our human life and our entire history as a process of conversion that is set in motion now in order to meet the Lord at the end of time.
In an expression that has become typical in the Liturgy, the Church calls the period in which we are now entering “Quadragesima,” in short a period of forty days and, with a clear reference to Sacred Scripture, it introduces us to a specific spiritual context. Forty is in fact the symbolic number in which salient moments of the experience of faith of the People of God are expressed. A figure that expresses the time of waiting, purification, return to the Lord, the awareness that God is faithful to his promises. This number does not represent an exact chronological time, divided by the sum of the days. Rather it indicates a patient perseverance, a long trial, a sufficient period to see the works of God, a time within which we must make up our minds and to decide to accept our own responsibilities without additional references. It is the time for mature decisions.
The number forty first appears in the story of Noah.
This just man because of the flood spends forty days and forty nights in the ark, along with his family and animals that God had told him to bring. He waits for another forty days, after the flood, before finding land, saved from destruction (Gen 7,4.12, 8.6). Then, the next stop, Moses on Mount Sinai, in the presence of the Lord, for forty days and forty nights to receive the Law. He fasts throughout this period (Exodus 24:18). Forty, the number of years the Jewish people journeyed from Egypt to the Promised Land, the right amount of time for them to experience the faithfulness of God: ” Remember how for these forty years the LORD, your God, has directed all your journeying in the wilderness… The clothing did not fall from you in tatters, nor did your feet swell these forty years, “says Moses in Deuteronomy at the end of the forty years of migration (Dt 8,2.4). The years of peace enjoyed by Israel under the Judges are forty (Judg. 3,11.30), but, once this time ended, forgetfulness of the gifts of God begins and a return to sin.
The prophet Elijah takes forty days to reach Horeb, the mountain where he meets God (1 Kings 19.8). Forty are the days during which the people of Nineveh do penance for the forgiveness of God (Gen 3.4). Forty were also the years of the reign of Saul (Acts 13:21), David (2 Sam 5:4-5) and Solomon (1 Kings 11:41), the first three kings of Israel. Even the biblical Psalms reflect on the meaning of the forty years, such as Psalm 95 for example, of which we heard a passage: “If you would listen to his voice today! ” Oh, that today you would hear his voice: Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day of Massah in the desert. There your ancestors tested me; they tried me though they had seen my works. Forty years I loathed that generation; I said: “This people’s heart goes astray; they do not know my ways”(vv. 7c-10).
In the New Testament Jesus, before beginning of his public life, retires to the desert for forty days without food or drink (Matt. 4.2): he nourishes himself on the Word of God, which he uses as a weapon to conquer the devil. The temptations of Jesus recall those the Jewish people faced in the desert, but could not conquer. Forty are the days during which the risen Jesus instructs his disciples, before ascending to heaven and sending the Holy Spirit (Acts 1.3).
A spiritual context is described by this recurring number forty, one that remains current and valid, and the Church, precisely through the days of Lent, intends to maintain its enduring value and make us aware of its efficacy. The Christian liturgy of Lent is intended to facilitate a journey of spiritual renewal in the light of this long biblical experience and especially to learn how to imitate Jesus, who in the forty days spent in the desert taught how to overcome temptation with the Word of God. The forty years of Israel’s wandering in the desert present us with ambivalent attitudes and situations. On the one hand they are the first season of love between God and his people when He spoke to his heart, continuously indicating the path to follow to them. God had pitched his tent, so to speak, in the midst of Israel, He preceded it in a cloud or a pillar of fire, ensured its daily nourishment showering manna upon them, and bringing forth water from rock. Therefore, the years spent by Israel in the desert can be seen as the time of the special election of God and adherence to Him by the people. The time of first love. On the other hand, the Bible also shows another image of Israel’s wanderings in the desert: it is also the time of the greatest temptations and dangers, when Israel murmured against God and wanted to return to paganism and builds its own idols, as a need to worship a closer and more tangible God. It is also a time of rebellion against the great and invisible God.
This ambivalence, a period of special closeness to God, of first love and of temptation, the attempted return to paganism that characterized Israel in the desert, we find once again in a surprising way even in Jesus’ earthly journey, of course without any compromise with sin. After his baptism of repentance in the Jordan, in which he takes upon himself the destiny of the Servant of Yahweh God who renounces himself and lives for others and places himself among sinners, to take upon himself the sins of the world, Jesus went to stay in the desert for forty days in deep union with the Father, thus repeating the history of Israel and all these rhythms of forty days a year. This dynamic is a constant in the earthly life of Jesus, who always seeks moments of solitude to pray to his Father and remain in close and intimate communion with Him alone, and exclusive communion with Him, and then return among the people. But in these times of “desert” and special encounter with the Father, Jesus is exposed to danger and is assailed by temptation and the seduction of devil, who offers him another messianic way, far from God’s plan, because it passes through power, success, dominion and not through the total gift on the Cross. This is the alternative, messianism of power, of success, not messianism of gift and love of self.
This ambivalence also describes the condition of the pilgrim Church in the “desert” of the world and history. In this “desert” we believers certainly have the opportunity to profoundly experience God, an experience that makes the spirit strong, confirms the faith, nourishes hope, animates charity; an experience that makes us partakers of Christ’s victory over sin and death through the Sacrifice of love on the Cross. But the “desert” is also the negative aspects of the reality that surrounds us: the arid, the poverty of words of life and of values, secularism and the materialist culture, which shut people within a horizon of mundane existence, robbing them of all reference to transcendence. And this is also the environment in which the sky above us is obscured, because covered by the clouds of egoism, misunderstanding and deception. Despite this, even for the Church of today the time of the desert can be transformed into a time of grace, because we have the certainty that even from the hardest rock God can bring forth the living water that refreshes and restores.
Dear brothers and sisters, in these forty days that will lead us to Easter may we find new courage to accept with patience and with faith situations of difficulty, of affliction and trial, knowing that from the darkness the Lord will make a new day dawn. And if we are faithful to Jesus and follow him on the way of the Cross, the bright world of God, the world of light, truth and joy will be gifted to us once more: it will be the new dawn created by God himself. May you all have a good Lenten journey!
Red: The New Favorite Color
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 21 Feb 2012 | Tagged as: Events in the Archdiocese
As you must have read in the NY dailies, if you did not otherwise know, our local shepherd was raised to the special rank of cardinal this past weekend. Here’s His Eminence’s own commentary, published both in the Daily News and the Post. What follows is Our Holy Father’s homily from the Mass. (The feast of the Chair of St. Peter was transferred to this past Sunday in Rome because it falls on a Sunday during Lent):
Dear Cardinals,
Brother Bishops and Priests,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
On this solemnity of the Chair of Saint Peter, we have the joy of gathering around the altar of the Lord together with the new Cardinals whom yesterday I incorporated into the College of Cardinals. It is to them, first of all, that I offer my cordial greetings and I thank Cardinal Fernando Filoni for the gracious words he has addressed to me in the name of all. I extend my greetings to the other Cardinals and all the Bishops present, as well as to the distinguished authorities, ambassadors, priests, religious and all the faithful who have come from different parts of the world for this happy occasion, which is marked by a particular character of universality.
In the second reading that we have just heard, Saint Peter exhorts the “elders” of the Church to be zealous pastors, attentive to the flock of Christ (cf. 1 Pet 5:1-2). These words are addressed in the first instance to you, my dear venerable brothers, who have already shown great merit among the people of God through your wise and generous pastoral ministry in demanding dioceses, or through presiding over the Dicasteries of the Roman Curia, or in your service to the Church through study and teaching. The new dignity that has been conferred upon you is intended to show appreciation for the faithful labour you have carried out in the Lord’s vineyard, to honour the communities and nations from which you come and which you represent so worthily in the Church, to invest you with new and more important ecclesial responsibilities and finally to ask of you an additional readiness to be of service to Christ and to the entire Christian community. This readiness to serve the Gospel is firmly founded upon the certitude of faith. We know that God is faithful to his promises and we await in hope the fulfilment of these words of Saint Peter: “And when the chief shepherd is manifested you will obtain the unfading crown of glory” (1 Pet 5:4).
Today’s Gospel passage presents Peter, under divine inspiration, expressing his own firm faith in Jesus as the Son of God and the promised Messiah. In response to this transparent profession of faith, which Peter makes in the name of the other Apostles as well, Christ reveals to him the mission he intends to entrust to him, namely that of being the “rock”, the visible foundation on which the entire spiritual edifice of the Church is built (cf. Mt 16:16-19). This new name of “rock” is not a reference to Peter’s personal character, but can be understood only on the basis of a deeper aspect, a mystery: through the office that Jesus confers upon him, Simon Peter will become something that, in terms of “flesh and blood”, he is not. The exegete Joachim Jeremias has shown that in the background, the symbolic language of “holy rock” is present. In this regard, it is helpful to consider a rabbinic text which states: “The Lord said, ‘How can I create the world, when these godless men will rise up in revolt against me?’ But when God saw that Abraham was to be born, he said, ‘Look, I have found a rock on which I can build and establish the world.’ Therefore he called Abraham a rock.” The prophet Isaiah makes reference to this when he calls upon the people to “look to the rock from which you were hewn … look to Abraham your father” (51:1-2). On account of his faith, Abraham, the father of believers, is seen as the rock that supports creation. Simon, the first to profess faith in Jesus as the Christ and the first witness of the resurrection, now, on the basis of his renewed faith, becomes the rock that is to prevail against the destructive forces of evil.
Dear brothers and sisters, this Gospel episode that has been proclaimed to us finds a further and more eloquent explanation in one of the most famous artistic treasures of this Vatican Basilica: the altar of the Chair. After passing through the magnificent central nave, and continuing past the transepts, the pilgrim arrives in the apse and sees before him an enormous bronze throne that seems to hover in mid air, but in reality is supported by the four statues of great Fathers of the Church from East and West. And above the throne, surrounded by triumphant angels suspended in the air, the glory of the Holy Spirit shines through the oval window. What does this sculptural composition say to us, this product of Bernini’s genius? It represents a vision of the essence of the Church and the place within the Church of the Petrine Magisterium.
The window of the apse opens the Church towards the outside, towards the whole of creation, while the image of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove shows God as the source of light. But there is also another aspect to point out: the Church herself is like a window, the place where God draws near to us, where he comes towards our world. The Church does not exist for her own sake, she is not the point of arrival, but she has to point upwards, beyond herself, to the realms above. The Church is truly herself to the extent that she allows the Other, with a capital “O”, to shine through her – the One from whom she comes and to whom she leads. The Church is the place where God “reaches” us and where we “set off” towards him: she has the task of opening up, beyond itself, a world which tends to become enclosed within itself, the task of bringing to the world the light that comes from above, without which it would be uninhabitable.
The great bronze throne encloses a wooden chair from the ninth century, which was long thought to be Saint Peter’s own chair and was placed above this monumental altar because of its great symbolic value. It expresses the permanent presence of the Apostle in the Magisterium of his successors. Saint Peter’s chair, we could say, is the throne of truth which takes its origin from Christ’s commission after the confession at Caesarea Philippi. The magisterial chair also reminds us of the words spoken to Peter by the Lord during the Last Supper: “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren” (Lk 22:32).
The chair of Peter evokes another memory: the famous expression from Saint Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Romans, where he says of the Church of Rome that she “presides in charity” (Salutation, PG 5, 801). In truth, presiding in faith is inseparably linked to presiding in love. Faith without love would no longer be an authentic Christian faith. But the words of Saint Ignatius have another much more concrete implication: the word “charity”, in fact, was also used by the early Church to indicate the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the Sacramentum caritatis Christi [the sacrament of the love of Christ] through which Christ continues to draw us all to himself, as he did when raised up on the Cross (cf. Jn 12:32). Therefore, to “preside in charity” is to draw men and women into a eucharistic embrace – the embrace of Christ – which surpasses every barrier and every division, creating communion from all manner of differences. The Petrine ministry is therefore a primacy of love in the eucharistic sense, that is to say solicitude for the universal communion of the Church in Christ. And the Eucharist is the shape and the measure of this communion, a guarantee that it will remain faithful to the criterion of the tradition of the faith.
The great Chair is supported by the Fathers of the Church. The two Eastern masters, Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Athanasius, together with the Latins, Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine, represent the whole of the tradition, and hence the richness of expression of the true faith of the one Church. This aspect of the altar teaches us that love rests upon faith. Love collapses if man no longer trusts in God and disobeys him. Everything in the Church rests upon faith: the sacraments, the liturgy, evangelization, charity. Likewise the law and the Church’s authority rest upon faith. The Church is not self-regulating, she does not determine her own structure but receives it from the word of God, to which she listens in faith as she seeks to understand it and to live it. Within the ecclesial community, the Fathers of the Church fulfil the function of guaranteeing fidelity to sacred Scripture. They ensure that the Church receives reliable and solid exegesis, capable of forming with the Chair of Peter a stable and consistent whole. The sacred Scriptures, authoritatively interpreted by the Magisterium in the light of the Fathers, shed light upon the Church’s journey through time, providing her with a stable foundation amid the vicissitudes of history.
After considering the various elements of the altar of the Chair, let us take a look at it in its entirety. We see that it is characterized by a twofold movement: ascending and descending. This is the reciprocity between faith and love. The Chair is placed in a prominent position in this place, because this is where Saint Peter’s tomb is located, but this too tends towards the love of God. Indeed, faith is oriented towards love. A selfish faith would be an unreal faith. Whoever believes in Jesus Christ and enters into the dynamic of love that finds its source in the Eucharist, discovers true joy and becomes capable in turn of living according to the logic of gift. True faith is illumined by love and leads towards love, leads on high, just as the altar of the Chair points upwards towards the luminous window, the glory of the Holy Spirit, which constitutes the true focus for the pilgrim’s gaze as he crosses the threshold of the Vatican Basilica. That window is given great prominence by the triumphant angels and the great golden rays, with a sense of overflowing fulness that expresses the richness of communion with God. God is not isolation, but glorious and joyful love, spreading outwards and radiant with light.
Dear brothers and sisters, the gift of this love has been entrusted to us, to every Christian. It is a gift to be passed on to others, through the witness of our lives. This is your task in particular, dear brother Cardinals: to bear witness to the joy of Christ’s love. We now entrust your ecclesial service to the Virgin Mary, who was present among the apostolic community as they gathered in prayer, waiting for the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 1:14). May she, Mother of the Incarnate Word, protect the Church’s path, support the work of the pastors by her intercession and take under her mantle the entire College of Cardinals. Amen!
Suffering… Why It Matters
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 15 Feb 2012 | Tagged as: Events in the Archdiocese
Theology on Tap-NYC
Young Adult Ministry for those in their 20s, 30s and early 40s) presents:
“Suffering…Why It Matters”
On March 12, 2012, Fr Jordan Kelly OP, Pastor of our sister parish of St Catherine of Siena , will address Theology on Tap about suffering: why we hate it, why we avoid it, but why we still need it. ToTNYC is located at Klub 45 Room-Connolly’s Bar, 121 West 45th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues.
Event begins at 7:30pm and ends around 9pm. For more info, visit www.totnyc.org
Bl. Jordan of Saxony, OP (1220-1236)
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 13 Feb 2012 | Tagged as: Dominican Saints
Click below to hear prior provincial Fr. Brian Mulcahy’s homily from this morning’s mass. Also, click here to read a bit more about our Holy Father St. Dominic’s successor.
Homily – 6th Sunday (B)
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 12 Feb 2012 | Tagged as: Homilies
We were happy to have Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, OP in town for a few days — have a listen:
The Health and Human Services of Our Savior
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 12 Feb 2012 | Tagged as: Culture
Our Sunday’s first lesson reminds us of man’s inexorable (and fallen) tendency to cast certain people outside of a society’s normal privileges. The Book of Leviticus states that lepers were to be deemed “unclean”–a fact they were themselves bound to declare–and that they were to “dwell apart,” “outside the camp.”
But this levitical instruction is not to be accounted in the mere terms of social history or cultural anthropology. That God became man is the principle by which we recognize God enters human history and culture in order to transform it. Therefore, we ought never interpret the laws and histories of God’s People merely in social or anthropological terms. Divine Revelation demands a theological account that looks for God’s providential design, not merely man’s typical tendencies.
Thus it appear that the lepers have been given a divine role. That they are to be held “unclean” is not to say that they are to be held as sinners, or morally depraved. “Clean” and “unclean” are religious categories that mark up reality in such a way as to orient people toward the overarching sense that reality is radically dependent upon divine wisdom. The role of the lepers, who are themselves taboo, is to manifest the hidden, mysterious, and even terrible presence of the all-transcendent God. They become sacrosanct, in both senses of the word. Thus, they are visible reminders of the way in which reality is utterly beholden to the divine actions of God. As they cry out “unclean,” they are reminders of God’s mysterious claim upon man’s reality.
God alone is able to unify man; God alone is able to heal man in his utter depths, such that the Original Sin by which we tend to cast people out of our social privileges becomes forgiven… even as we still struggle with the proclivity to do so. But God wants to lead us out of this divisive, inimical spirit. This exodus, which Jesus Christ perfectly accomplishes, is anticipated in Moses’ liberation of the Israelites from Egypt. Interestingly, when Moses needed encouragement that he would be an effective emissary, God manifested His aegis in the following way:
The LORD said to Moses, “Put your hand in your bosom.” He put it in his bosom, and when he withdrew it, to his surprise his hand was leprous like snow. The LORD then said, “Now put your hand back in your bosom.” Moses put his hand back in his bosom and when he withdrew it, to his surprise it was again like the rest of his body.” (Ex 4.6-7)
In other words, the proof of Moses’ divine delegation lies in his ability to stretch out his hand in such a way that it bridges the categories of clean and unclean.
Our discussion of Leviticus is especially important for us today. Our Archbishop, Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan delivered a message to all the Catholic faithful of NY–his letter was to be read aloud at all Sunday Masses. It is about the contraception coverage required by the US Dept. of Health and Human services. The pretense of such free coverage for, say, abortion-inducing drugs that would be available free to minors and without parental consent is that it amounts to preventive medical care. That children in the womb, conceived under whatever circumstances, are to be considered as maladies to be prevented in the same way as cancer is abominable. Additionally, that Catholic employers (e.g., schools) would be forced to buy health care plans that would provide this coverage is a direct attack on religious liberty–that is, that very religious liberty that was at the heart of the founding of our nation.
In effect, in the ostensible desire to provide every opportunity for healing, our President’s administration is declaring the Catholic faith “unclean.”
Now, Christ came to heal all divisions, he came to draw all men to himself. And as we hear in the Gospel today, he “does will” that we be made clean, and accomplishes this act of healing restoration. He stretches forth his hand and he both heals and unifies.
But notice the consequences. Christ’s work is such that he is driven outside of the city. Christ himself becomes taboo for the world in order to save it. To use this week’s Pauline language, in giving glory to God through his human existence, Jesus sought “the benefit of the many” on the Cross, as he died outside the city walls. This means that, if we are truly to receive the healing ministry of Christ, we must be willing to follow him… even if it means becoming society’s lepers; for this will be an act of the greatest witness to God’s unavoidable presence.
Refusal to Accommodate
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 11 Feb 2012 | Tagged as: Culture
Friends, in the interest to remain informed:
Today the Obama administration has offered what it has styled as an “accommodation” for religious institutions in the dispute over the HHS mandate for coverage (without cost sharing) of abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception. The administration will now require that all insurance plans cover (“cost free”) these same products and services. Once a religiously-affiliated (or believing individual) employer purchases insurance (as it must, by law), the insurance company will then contact the insured employees to advise them that the terms of the policy include coverage for these objectionable things.
This so-called “accommodation” changes nothing of moral substance and fails to remove the assault on religious liberty and the rights of conscience which gave rise to the controversy. It is certainly no compromise. The reason for the original bipartisan uproar was the administration’s insistence that religious employers, be they institutions or individuals, provide insurance that covered services they regard as gravely immoral and unjust. Under the new rule, the government still coerces religious institutions and individuals to purchase insurance policies that include the very same services.
It is no answer to respond that the religious employers are not “paying” for this aspect of the insurance coverage. For one thing, it is unrealistic to suggest that insurance companies will not pass the costs of these additional services on to the purchasers. More importantly, abortion-drugs, sterilizations, and contraceptives are a necessary feature of the policy purchased by the religious institution or believing individual. They will only be made available to those who are insured under such policy, by virtue of the terms of the policy.
It is morally obtuse for the administration to suggest (as it does) that this is a meaningful accommodation of religious liberty because the insurance company will be the one to inform the employee that she is entitled to the embryo-destroying “five day after pill” pursuant to the insurance contract purchased by the religious employer. It does not matter who explains the terms of the policy purchased by the religiously affiliated or observant employer. What matters is what services the policy covers.
The simple fact is that the Obama administration is compelling religious people and institutions who are employers to purchase a health insurance contract that provides abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization. This is a grave violation of religious freedom and cannot stand. It is an insult to the intelligence of Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other people of faith and conscience to imagine that they will accept as assault on their religious liberty if only it is covered up by a cheap accounting trick.
Finally, it bears noting that by sustaining the original narrow exemptions for churches, auxiliaries, and religious orders, the administration has effectively admitted that the new policy (like the old one) amounts to a grave infringement on religious liberty. The administration still fails to understand that institutions that employ and serve others of different or no faith are still engaged in a religious mission and, as such, enjoy the protections of the First Amendment.
Signed:
John Garvey
President, The Catholic University of America
Mary Ann Glendon
Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University
Robert P. George
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University
O. Carter Snead
Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame
Yuval Levin
Hertog Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center
St. Catherine De Ricci, OP (1522-1590)
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 04 Feb 2012 | Tagged as: Dominican Saints
St. Catherine ecstatically experienced the Passion of our Lord. The deep contemplation of Christ’s Passion was so impressed upon our soul that her body likewise was shaped by the Cross–St. Catherine receiving the stigmata.
Another example of the way in which the Paschal Mystery of the Incarnate Word was so impressed upon her is her “Canticle of the Passion.” In this antiphonal song, a mesmerizing array of biblical passages from the Psalms, Lamentations, the Gospels (and elsewhere) is composed into one song of Christ’s victorious work of love.
Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia’s article on St. Catherine, and below is her canticle, copied from this post by Bro. Peter Martyr, OP of our studium in DC. With Our Lady’s Presentation of the Child in the Temple the other day, the Light of Christmas illumines the Cross of the Passion: Simeon’s eyes see the salvation who is the Light of the Nations, and he declares that a sword shall pierce the Mother’s heart (Lk 2.22-35). With Lent but a few weeks away, St. Catherine’s Canticle of the Passion is a beautiful and hope-filled meditation:
My friends and loved ones * draw near to me and stand aloof
I am shut up and I cannot come forth * mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction
and my sweat became like drops of blood * falling down on the ground
For dogs have compassed me * the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me
I gave my back to the smiters * and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair
I hid not my face from shame * and from those who spit on me
I am feeble and sore broken * I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart
The soldiers platted a crown of thorns * and put it on my head
They pierced my hands and my feet * I may tell all my bones
They gave me poison to eat * and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink
All they that see me laugh me to scorn * they shoot out the lip, they shake the head
They look and stare upon me * they part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture
into your hands I command my spirit * redeem me, Lord, God of truth.
Remember your servant, O Lord. * when you come into your kingdom
Jesus cried with a loud voice * yielded up the ghost
The Mercy of the Lord * I will sing for ever
Surely he hath borne our griefs * and carried our sorrows
He was wounded for our transgressions * he was bruised for our iniquities
All we like sheep gave gone astray * we have turned every one to his own way
And the Lord hath laid on him * the iniquities of us all
Awake, why do you sleep, O Lord? * arise, and do not cast us off for ever
Awake, why do you sleep, O Lord? * arise, and do not cast us off for ever
Behold, God is my Savior * I will trust, and not be afraid
We ask you, come to help your servants * whom you have redeemed by your perilous blood.
V. Have mercy on us, O benign Jesus.
R. Who in Thy clemency didst suffer for us.
Look down, we beseech Thee, O Lord, on this Thy family for which Our Lord Jesus Christ did not hesitate to be delivered into the hands of the wicked, and suffer the torments of the Cross.
HHS & Conscience
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 01 Feb 2012 | Tagged as: Culture
A number of people have been interested to hear more about the mandate excluding a conscience clause for health care provided by religious institutions.
Last week’s Sunday lessons presented Jesus in the synagogue healing a possessed man. To be possessed is to have one’s freedom utterly constricted; it is to be bound by an oppressive force. Despite Our Lord’s miraculous exorcism, the people are astonished more so by the authority with which such a one teaches — no mere scribe, he is the Word of God. He is the one about whom Moses prophesied: God will raise up (read: resurrect) one from amongst our kinsmen, one like Moses, to whom the people would listen. The way in which we hear the authoritative voice of the Good Shepherd — who has been resurrected — is by hearing those to whom he has imparted his authority in a particular way. “Authority” literally (in Greek) means out of one’s being; God alone is the perfect, self-subsistent authority. But by virtue of His Son’s incarnate mission, he is able to impart a particular, ministerial share in his authority to continue audibly and visibly after his resurrection and until he comes again. This he does through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, most particularly according to the rank of bishop. When bishops speak in unison, there is an especially charismatic resonance of the Good Shepherd’s teaching voice — not simply an opinion or commentary, but the Word of Life Himself.
Here is a link to a site where the author, Thomas Peters, collects all the bishops who have formally spoken about the HHS mandate. He has 126 letters. Many of them were required to be read at all Sunday Masses. That is really astounding.
Mark Your Calendars: St. Thomas Aquinas, OP
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 31 Jan 2012 | Tagged as: Dominicans, Liturgical Feasts
Our upcoming events surrounding the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas. Indeed, we just celebrated St. Thomas’s feast on the 28th. But due to the use of the Dominican Rite we can do it again on the old day of our brother’s memorial, 7 March. His Mass will be preceded by Fr. Mansini’s lecture on 6 March.
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 30 Jan 2012 | Tagged as: Events in the Archdiocese
