This is a special, expanded issue for the purpose of
giving an overview of the spiritual life. At times it is profitable for us to
review briefly the various elements which comprise the spiritual life. We hope
this special issue will be helpful for such an exercise, and that it will
speak to the heart as well as to the mind.
WE ARE EXPANDING OUR READERSHIP!
We are expanding our
circulation by explicitly inviting to our readership those who are not
priests, but who are interested in the spiritual life.
The Newsletter will still be
written for priests in a special way. Yet we feel much of the material will
also be of interest to those who are not priests.
To reflect the fact that we
are now expanding our readership to include all interested parties, we think
it is appropriate to offer a new act of consecration which is not worded for
priests only, but one suitable for all.
Chief Shepherd of the Flock
I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd lays down his life for
his sheep. The hired man, since he is not the shepherd and the sheep do not
belong to him, abandons the sheep as soon as he sees a wolf coming, and runs
away, and then the wolf attacks and scatters the sheep; he runs away because he
is only a hired man and has no concern for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I
know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the
Father; and I lay down my life for my sheep. (Jn 10:11-151)
The Good Shepherd gave His life so that we may
have life and have it in abundance. In this issue we offer an overview of the
life Jesus came to give. We begin by presenting a brief sketch of the spiritual
life. This will be followed by content which speaks in a more detailed manner
about the various dimensions of the spiritual life -- our life in Christ.
A Sketch of the Spiritual Life
The Christian life is rooted in the great
event of the Incarnation. We must consequently always focus our gaze upon
Christ, realizing that the Father has spoken to us in the life, death,
resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. It only remains for us, then, to strive to
understand with greater insight the inexhaustible truth of the Word Incarnate
(Heb 1:1-2).
What was the condition of the human race at
the time of Christ’s coming? In some ways, people were much the same as we are
today. There were those just being born into this world of human drama. There
were those who, in death, were leaving it, some of whom had grasped but little
of life’s meaning. There were those who were healthy and vigorous. There were
those who were sick and lame. Some especially felt the burdens, the grief, the
suffering of the human condition. Others were ebullient and desired all the
pleasures life could provide. There was some good being accomplished.
Immorality, however, was rampant. What St. Paul tells us concerning the time
that immediately followed Christ’s existence certainly could also be applied
to the time of His entrance into the world. It is, in short, an ugly picture
that St. Paul depicts for us (Rom 1:22-32).
Into such a depraved condition Jesus entered,
with a full and generous Heart, to lead the human race from the depths of
sinfulness to the vibrant richness of a new life in Himself. Through His
enfleshment, this Christ became the focal point of all history. The authentic
hopes and dreams of the human family, now so overshadowed by the ugliness of
sin, came converging upon this Christ. He would gather them up in Himself, give
them a new luster and brilliance and dynamism, and would lead the human family
back to the Father in the Holy Spirit.
Christ was radically to release us from the
dominion of sin and elevate us to a new level of existence. This life Christ has
given us is not a type of superstructure which is erected atop human existence.
Although nature and grace are distinct, they do not lie side by side as separate
entities. Rather, grace permeates nature. The Christian is one graced person.
The Christian is one who has been raised up, caught up, into a deeper form of
life in Christ Jesus. Nothing that is authentically human in the life of the
Christian has been excluded from this new existence. Whatever is really human in
the life of the Christian is meant to be an expression of the Christ-life. The
simple but deep joys of family life, the wonderment at nature’s beauty, the
warm embrace of a mother for her child, the agony of crucial decision making,
the success or frustration that is experienced in one’s work, the joy of being
well received by others, and the heartache of being misunderstood—all these
experiences are intended to be caught up in Christ and made more deeply human
because of Him.
Jesus has come, then, not to destroy anything
that is authentically human, but to perfect it by leading it to a graced
fulfillment. The more God-like we become through Christ, the more human we
become.
We, through our incorporation into Christ
which occurs at Baptism, are meant to relive the life, death, and resurrection
of Jesus. In doing so, we are not only accomplishing our own salvation, but we
are assisting in the salvation of others also. The Incarnation continues all the
time. Christ, or course, is the one Who fundamentally continues the Incarnation.
But He enlists our help. The world no longer sees Jesus, no longer is able to
reach out and touch Him. We are the ones who now, in some way, make Christ
visible and tangible. In union with the invisible, glorified Christ, and
depending on Him as our source of life, we continue the Incarnation in its
visible and temporal dimensions. This is our great privilege. This is our great
responsibility.
The Christian is initiated into the mystery of
Christ, into his or her role in prolonging the Incarnation, through Baptism (Rom
6:3-4).
It is not sufficient, however, that we be
incorporated into Christ through Baptism. All forms of life require nourishment.
So, too, our life in Christ must be continually nourished. How can we
continually keep in contact with Christ? There are various ways as we live our
life within the Church. We contact Christ in a most special way through the
liturgy, above all in the Eucharistic liturgy. Through our most special and most
personal meeting with Jesus in the Mass, we are more deeply incorporated into
Christ. Also, we should remember that all the sacraments make up part of the
Church’s liturgy.
The reading of Scripture provides another
special opportunity for meeting Jesus. This is true for both Old and New
Testaments. The Old Testament prefigures the New Testament and leads to it. It
is obvious, however, that we meet Christ especially in the pages of the New
Testament. How true it is to say that not to be familiar with Scripture is not
to know Jesus properly. We should resolve to read from Scripture daily.
We also meet Jesus in our interaction with
others. Everyone we meet, everyone we serve, is in the image of Jesus. We have
to take the means to grow in this awareness. If I truly believe that everyone
has been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, how should I treat everyone?
These, then, are some of the ways we keep in
contact with Jesus. Common to the various ways of meeting Jesus is a certain
degree of prayerful reflection. Our contact with Jesus in the liturgy, in
Scripture, and in our interaction with others, and so forth, will not be all
that it should be unless we are persons of prayer. The light and strength of
prayer enables us to keep in contact with Jesus as we should.
We live out our Christ-life in an atmosphere
of love. Indeed, the life Jesus has given us is centered in love. It has its
origins in the mysterious love of God (Jn 3:16).
Our new life in Jesus has arisen out of
God’s fathomless love. Christ, in His descent into human flesh, has
established a milieu of love. The life He came to give can flourish only in the
framework of love. Indeed, we can summarize the meaning of the Christian life by
stating that it is our loving response to God’s love. The pierced Heart of
Jesus, this Heart which shed its last drop of blood in the greatest love for
each one of us, is the symbol of God’s tremendous love for us. Christ’s
Heart also calls us to respond by giving ourselves in love to God and neighbor.
Yes, Jesus invites us to respond to God’s love by giving ourselves in love to
Him in an ever closer union. The more closely we are united to Him, the greater
is our capacity to love God and neighbor. The more closely we are united with
Jesus, the more closely He unites us to the Father in the Holy Spirit, with Mary
our Mother at our side.
The spiritual life, the life of holiness,
begins at Baptism. Archbishop Luis Martinez says:
"When we are born we are endowed by God
with all we need for our human life, a complete organism, and a soul with the
full range of faculties. Of course they are not all developed from birth, but we
have them then as the source of everything we are going to need in life. And
thus it is also in the spiritual order. When someone is baptized, he receives in
all its fullness that supernatural world which the Christian carries within his
soul. He receives grace, which is a participation of the nature of God; the
theological virtues, which put him in immediate contact with the divine; the
moral virtues, which serve to regulate and order all his life; and the gifts of
the Holy Spirit, the divine, mysterious receivers for picking up the Spirit’s
inspirations and movements."2
Another author states: "The Three Divine
Persons inhabit the sanctuary of our soul, taking their delight in enriching it
with supernatural gifts and in communicating to us a Godlike life, similar to
theirs, called the life of grace.
"All life, however, implies a threefold
element: a vital principle that is, so to speak, the source of life
itself; faculties which give the power to elicit vital acts; and lastly,
the acts themselves which are but its development and which minister to its
growth. In the supernatural order, God living within us produces the same
elements. He first communicates to us habitual grace (the life of
sanctifying grace) which plays the part of a vital supernatural principle. This
principle deifies, as it were, the very substance of the soul and makes it
capable, though in a remote way, of enjoying the Beatific Vision and of
performing the acts that lead to it.
"Out of this grace spring the infused
virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit which perfect our faculties
and endow us with the immediate power of performing Godlike, supernatural,
meritorious acts.
"In order to stir these faculties into
action, He give us actual graces which enlighten our mind, strengthen our will,
and aid us both to act supernaturally and to increase the measure of habitual
grace that has been granted to us.
"Although this life of grace is entirely
distinct from our natural life it is not merely superimposed on the latter. It penetrates
it through and through, transforms it and makes it divine. It assimilates
whatever is good in our nature, our education and our habits. It perfects and
supernaturalizes all these various elements, directing them toward the last end,
that is toward the possession of God through the Beatific Vision and its
resultant life." 3
Our being in the state of sanctifying of grace
and the special indwelling of the Persons of the Trinity within us always exist
together. We cannot have the one without the other. Our life of grace, which is
a sharing in Trinitarian life, allows us to know and love Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit in a most intimate fashion. Through grace we are in the image of the
Trinity, and we enjoy special relationships with the Divine Persons.
Again, we listen to the words of Archbishop
Martinez as he speaks about our relationships with the Divine Persons:
"Love, we have said, is the foundation of
devotion to the Holy Spirit, as it is also the foundation of Christian
perfection. But love as a reflection of God, as His own image, is something that
encloses within its simplicity a boundless wealth and a variety of forms. Who
can fathom the depths of love?
"Human love in all its manifestations is
admirably in harmony with the love of charity; it is confident in filial love,
trusting in friendship, sweet and fruitful in the love of husband and wife,
disinterested and tender in the love of a mother. Our love of God must include
all these forms of human love; every fiber of our heart must vibrate when the
harmonious and full canticle of love bursts forth from it. But since God is one
in essence and triune in Persons, our love for Him takes on a particular aspect
accordingly as it is directed to each one of the divine Persons.
"Our love for the Father is tender and
confident like that of children; eager to glorify Him as His only-begotten Son
taught us to do by word and example. Love for the Father is the intense desire
to have His will fulfilled on earth as it is in heaven. Our love for the Son,
who willed to become flesh for us, is characterized by the tendency to union
with Him and transformation into Him; by imitation of His example, participation
in His life, and the sharing of His sufferings and His Cross. The Eucharist,
mystery of love, of sorrow, and of union, reveals the characteristics of this
love.
"Love for the Holy Spirit also has its
special character, which we should study in order completely to understand
devotion to Him. We have explained how the Holy Spirit loves us, how He moves us
like a divine breath that draws us to the bosom of God, like a sacred fire that
transforms us into fire, like a divine artist who forms Jesus in us. Surely,
then, our love for the Holy Spirit should be marked by loving docility, by full
surrender, and by a constant fidelity that permits us to be moved, directed, and
transformed by His sanctifying action.
"Our love for the Father tends to glorify
Him; our love for the Son, to transform ourselves into Him; our love for
the Holy Spirit, to let ourselves be possessed and moved by Him."4
-
The spiritual life centers in Christ. Here
are words from the Jerusalem Catecheses: "When we were baptized into
Christ and clothed ourselves in him, we were transformed into the likeness
of the Son of God. Having destined us to be his adopted sons, God gave us a
likeness to Christ in his glory, and living as we do in communion with
Christ, God’s anointed, we ourselves are rightly called ‘the anointed
ones.’ " 5
-
Msgr. Robert Guste says: "Ideal
Catholics held up to us by the Church are the saints. As you read their
lives, what do you notice? One after the other, they were men and women who
had a deep, personal relationship with Our Lord Jesus Christ. Their hearts
were on fire with love for Him..." 6
-
When we are baptized we are incorporated
into Christ’s paschal mystery of death and resurrection. St. Paul speaks
of this marvelous union with Jesus: You cannot have forgotten that all of
us, when we were baptised into Christ Jesus, were baptised into his death.
So by our baptism into his death we were buried with him, so that as Christ
was raised from the dead by the Father’s glorious power, we too should
begin living a new life. (Rm 6:3-4).
Christ has structured the Christian life by
the way He lived, died, and rose from the dead. It is obvious, then, as Paul
tells us above, that the pattern of death-resurrection must be at the heart of
the Church’s life. Individually and collectively, we continually die with
Christ so that we may continually rise with Him. Thus we pass over in a
process of ongoing religious transition to a greater participation in
Christ’s resurrection. It is true that our participation in Christ’s
resurrection will reach its completion only in eternity. Nevertheless, we
begin the life of resurrection here upon the earth, in the here and now of
human life, in the midst of joy and pain; in the experience of success and
failure, in the sweat of our brow, in the enjoyment of God’s gifts. As
Christians, we should have a sense of dynamic growth concerning our here and
now life of resurrection.
We cannot maintain the life of resurrection
or grow in it without a willingness to suffer. This does not mean that we need
to feel overwhelmed and heavily burdened in our lives. The greater portion of
suffering for most Christians seems to be an accumulation of ordinary
hardships, difficulties, and pains. At times, however, deep suffering, even
suffering of agonizing proportions, can enter into one’s life. Whether the
sufferings one encounters are of either the more ordinary variety or the more
rare and extreme type, Christians must convince themselves that to relate
properly to the cross is to grow in resurrection, and growth in resurrection
means we will also have an increased capacity to help give resurrection to
others.
- The Church invites us to share deeply in the passion of
Christ, in the cross of Christ. She does so that we might share deeply in
His life of resurrection—here and hereafter. The more we die with Christ,
the more we share in His life of resurrection—here and hereafter. Our
ultimate goal here below is not the cross, but resurrection—the newness of
life the cross leads to - here below as well as in eternity.
We are meant to share in all of the mysteries of Christ here
below—we are meant to relive them in our own lives. And all of these
mysteries are directed to the crowning mystery of Jesus, His resurrection:
"As the Church is ever re-enacting, during all the ages, the life story
of her Divine Spouse—undergoing in the Mystical Body what He suffered in His
Natural Body, so it must be too, in some measure, for every individual
Christian that lives in real unity with Christ. It was thus that the saints
understood the life of the Divine Master. They not merely contemplated it,
they lived it. This was the source of the immense sympathy they were
capable of experiencing for Him in His different states. They felt in a
certain measure what He felt, and what is true of Our Lord’s life considered
as a whole must be true in no imperfect or limited manner of that which was
the supreme and crowning mystery in that life—namely, the Resurrection. This
must be, not merely a fact in Christian history, but a phase of Christian
experience …We do not readily perceive that, in God’s plan, not only
the Cross, but the Risen Life that followed it, is meant to be part of our
terrestrial existence. Christ did not pass from the Cross straight to heaven.
The Christian is not meant to do so either. In the case of Jesus the Cross
preceded, prepared and prefaced a risen life on earth. In the case of the
Christian the Cross is meant to play a somewhat similar role—that is, to be
the prelude to a risen life, even here below.
"The Cross cannot be completely
understood except it is viewed in the full light of the Resurrection. It is
the latter, not the former, that is the ultimate mystery for us…The Cross is
a means, not an end; it finds its explanation only in the empty tomb; it is an
entrance into life, not a mode of death. Any death that enters into God’s
plan must necessarily issue forth in life. If He lays upon us the necessity of
dying it is in order that we may live…In order that we may live as we ought,
our rebellious nature must be crucified. Crucifixion always remains the only
mode of salvation.
"God sends trials and crosses simply to
deaden in us the activity of the forces that make for the decay of the
spiritual life, in order that that spiritual life may develop and expand
unimpeded. According as the life of perverse nature ebbs away from us on our
cross united with Christ’s, the Divine Life that God has placed in all whom
He has called begins to make itself more manifest and to display increased
vigour and vitality…It is to that Resurrection, that life in death, that God
directs all the circumstances of our life—it is the object He aims at in His
dealing with us." 7
In his above words, Fr. Edward Leen, C.S.Sp.,
speaks about a special episode of our participation in the resurrection of
Jesus. He speaks of our Christ-life, our life of grace, in the highly
developed state. We should all strive for this state. We must realize,
however, that all those who live in the state of grace are, in an essential
way, living the life of resurrection. They are alive in Christ Jesus.
"I ask you to consider that our Lord
Jesus Christ is your true head and that you are a member of his body. He
belongs to you as the head belongs to the body. All that is his is yours:
breath, heart, body, soul and all his faculties. All of these you must use as
if they belonged to you, so that in serving him you may give him praise, love
and glory. You belong to him as a member belongs to the head. This is why he
earnestly desires you to serve and glorify the Father by using all your
faculties as if they were his.
"He belongs to you, but more than that,
he longs to be in you, living and ruling in you, as the head lives and rules
in the body. He desires that whatever is in him may live and rule in you: his
breath in your breath, his heart in your heart, all the faculties of his soul
in the faculties of your soul...
"You belong to the Son of God, but more
than that, you ought to be in him as the members are in the head. All that is
in you must be incorporated into him. You must receive life from him and be
ruled by him. There will be no true life for you except in him, for he is the
one source of true life. Apart from him you will find only death and
destruction. Let him be the only source of your movements, of the actions and
the strength of your life.
"Finally, you are one with Jesus as the
body is one with the head. You must, then, have one breath with him, one soul,
one life, one will, one mind, one heart. And he must be your breath, heart,
love, life, your all. These great gifts in the follower of Christ originate
from baptism. They are increased and strengthened through confirmation and by
making good use of other graces that are given by God. Through the holy
eucharist they are brought to perfection." 8
-
St. Ignatius of Antioch was deeply
consumed with love for Jesus: "At last I am well on the way to being a
disciple. May nothing, seen or unseen, fascinate me, so that I may happily
make my way to Jesus Christ! Fire, cross, struggles with wild beasts,
wrenching of bones, mangling of limbs, crunching of the whole body, cruel
tortures inflicted by the devil—let them come upon me, provided only I
make my way to Jesus Christ."9
-
Cardinal Newman tells us: "Everyone
who breathes, high and low, educated and ignorant, young and old, man and
woman, has a mission, has a work. We are not born at random... God sees
every one of us; He creates every soul, He lodges it in a body, one by one,
for a purpose. He needs, He deigns to need, every one of us."10
Because of the uniqueness of each
Christian's existence, he or she presents Christ with a unique opportunity.
Each Christian has the vocation to offer Christ his or her humanity so that
Jesus can live in that individual in a special way. This Jesus is Priest,
Prophet and King. To the extent that an individual Christian offers his or her
humanity to Jesus, that person has an unique opportunity to help to continue
the work of the redemption--an opportunity that no one else can fulfill.
Likewise, to the extent that an individual fails to offer his or her humanity
to Christ, Jesus loses the opportunity to continue His redemptive work
according to that person's uniqueness.
-
Concerning the prophetic or teaching
office of Christ, each of us has the ever-present opportunity of witnessing
to the truth of Christ by the way we live. Mother Teresa gives a striking
example of this. She says: "I received a letter from a wealthy
Brazilian man. He assured me that he had lost his faith -- not just his
faith in God but his faith in humanity as well. He was fed up with his
situation and everything around him. He only thought about suicide.
"One day, walking on a busy street
downtown, he saw a television set in a store window. The program was about our
Home for the Dying in Calcutta, and it showed our Sisters taking care of the
sick and the dying.
"The man confessed that when he saw
that, he felt the urge to kneel and pray, after many years of not ever
kneeling or praying.
"From that day on, he recovered his
faith in God and in humanity, and he was convinced that God still loves
him."11
-
St. Paul, one who loved Jesus so deeply,
has left us these words: "But we hold this treasure in pots of
earthenware, so that the immensity of the power is God’s and not our own.
We are subjected to every kind of hardship, but never distressed; we see no
way out but we never despair; we are pursued but never cut off; knocked
down, but still have some life in us; always we carry with us in our body
the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus, too, may be visible in our
body. Indeed, while we are still alive, we are continually being handed over
to death, for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus, too, may be
visible in our mortal flesh." (2 Cor 4:7-11).
You share my burdens,
You take them upon yourself.
You listen to me fondly when I tell you my troubles.
You never fail to lighten them.
I find You at all times and in all places.
You never leave me.
I will always find You wherever I go.
Old age or misfortune will not cause You to
abandon me.
You will never be closer to me than
When all seems to go against me.
No matter how miserable I may be,
You will never cease to be my friend.
You tolerate my faults with admirable
patience.
You are always ready to come to me, if I so desire it.
Jesus, may I die praising you!
May I die loving you!
May I die for the love of you.12
- Pope John Paul II instructs us: "The Church, as a
reconciled and reconciling community, cannot forget that at the source of
her gift and mission of reconciliation is the initiative, full of
compassionate love and mercy, of that God who is love (see 1 John 4:8) and
who out of love created human beings (see Wisdom 11:23-26; Genesis 1:27:
Psalms 8:4-8)…He created them so that they might live in friendship with
Him and in communion with one another.
"God is faithful to His eternal plan
even when man, under the impulse of the evil one (see Wisdom 2:24) and carried
away by his own pride, abuses the freedom given to him in order to love and
generously seek what is good, and (instead) refuses to obey his Lord and
Father. God is faithful even when man, instead of responding with love to
God’s love, opposes Him and treats Him like a rival, deluding himself and
relying on his own power, with the resulting break of relationship with the
One who created him. In spite of this transgression on man’s part, God
remains faithful in love.
"It is certainly true that the story of
the Garden of Eden makes us think about the tragic consequences of rejecting
the Father, which becomes evident in man’s inner disorder and in the
breakdown of harmony between man and woman, brother and brother (see Genesis
3:12 ff; 4:1-16). Also significant is the Gospel parable of the two brothers
(the parable of the ‘prodigal son’; see Luke 15:11-32) who, in different
ways, distance themselves from their father and cause a rift between them.
Refusal of God’s fatherly love and of His loving gifts is always at the root
of humanity’s divisions.
"But we know that God…like the father
in the parable (of the prodigal son), does not close His heart to any of His
children. He waits for them, looks for them, goes to meet them at the place
where the refusal of communion imprisons them in isolation and division. He
calls them to gather about His table in the joy of the feast of forgiveness
and reconciliation.
"This initiative on God’s part is
made concrete and manifest in the redemptive act of Christ, which radiates
through the world by means of the ministry of the Church." 13
-
In the evening of that same day, the
first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples
were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to
them, ‘Peace be with you,’ and, after saying this, he showed them his
hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy at seeing the Lord,
and he said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so
am I sending you.’ (Jn 20:19-21).
The world needs peace. Individual nations
need peace and families need peace. The Church needs peace. Each of us
individually needs peace. We must work for peace through prayer, fasting, and
other Christ-like activities.
And just what do we mean by peace? St.
Augustine says peace is the tranquility of order. God has put order into His
creation and this order must be respected and promoted if peace is to prevail.
To the extent that the human family lives according to God’s will—lives
according to the order or the plan God has established for creation—to that
extent does peace exist in the various segments of human society. To the
extent there are violations of God’s plan, of His will, to that extent peace
is absent.
If we are to be instruments of peace, we
ourselves must be at peace. Our personal peace is that tranquility of order
which results from our doing God’s will. The more we are united through love
with God in the doing of His will, the more we experience peace.
Sometimes the sense of peace we experience
is so strong that we can "feel" it pulsating throughout our being.
These are periods of what we may call the experience of extraordinary peace.
This type of peace usually is not an everyday occurrence.
Most of the time we live immersed in a more
subdued kind of peace which results from our daily attempts to do God’s will
in love. It is that peace which is a welcome and sustaining companion as we
walk the path of everyday life with its usual assortments of joys and
disappointments, successes and failures, laughter and tears.
Occasionally, very deep suffering may enter
our lives. It is during these times that we need special determination to
preserve ourselves in a basic peace of spirit despite the very significant
pain. One may wonder how a person can be at peace amidst the experience of
great suffering. St. Francis de Sales in one of his writings—and I have not
been able to locate the exact place—offers an analogy which I think is very
helpful. He asks us to picture an ocean body of water at the time of a violent
storm. The surface of the water becomes extremely turbulent. Francis asks us,
as we use our imagination, to descend beneath the surface of the water into
its depth. What do we find? The more deeply one descends away from the
turbulent surface, the calmer the water becomes. Likewise, says the saint and
doctor of the Church, should it be with us during times of profound suffering.
Although the surface of the spirit may be very agitated, one can still
maintain basic peace of spirit by going deep down to one’s center where God
is more directly experienced. Here the person experiences a calm, a basic
peace, although the suffering remains.
If we are trying to do God’s will in love,
God intends us to be at peace. The more we conform to God’s will, the more
we are living according to the order He intends for us. In turn, the more our
lives are in harmony with the order established by God, the more we experience
peace—peace being the tranquility of order. The more we ourselves live in
this manner, the more fit instruments we become for promoting God’s order
and consequent peace throughout the various segments of society.
-
St. Dominic was an outstanding witness to
the peace of the Lord: "Dominic possessed such great integrity and was
so strongly motivated by divine love, that without doubt he proved to be a
bearer of honor and grace. He was a man of great equanimity, except when
moved to compassion and mercy. And since a joyful heart animates the face,
he displayed the peaceful composure of a spiritual man in the kindness he
manifested outwardly and by the cheerfulness of his countenance."14
-
Shortly before he was to die from cancer,
Joseph Cardinal Bernardin left us these inspiring words about peace:
"It is the first day of November, and fall is giving way to winter.
Soon the trees will lose the vibrant colors of their leaves and snow will
cover the ground. The earth will shut down, and people will race to and from
their destinations bundled up for warmth. Chicago winters are harsh. It is a
time of dying.
"But we know that spring will soon come
with all its new life and wonder.
"It is quite clear that I will not be
alive in the spring. But I will soon experience new life in a different way…
"What I would like to leave behind is a
simple prayer that each of you may find what I have found—God’s special
gift to us all: the gift of peace. When we are at peace, we find the freedom
to be most fully who we are, even in the worst of times. We let go of what is
non-essential and embrace what is essential. We empty ourselves so that God
may more fully work within us. And we become instruments in the hands of the
Lord."15
"All that the beginner in prayer has to
do -- and you must not forget this, for it is very important -- is to labor
and to be resolute and prepare himself with all possible diligence to bring
his will in conformity with the will of God. As I shall say later, you may be
quite sure that this comprises the very greatest perfection which can be
attained on the spiritual road."16
Again she states: "...love consists ...
in the firmness of our determination to try to please God in everything."
17
The late Archbishop Luis M. Martinez of Mexico
strikingly speaks of the ongoing cooperation of Mary with the Holy Spirit
regarding the reproduction of Jesus within us: "Christian life is the
reproduction of Jesus in souls…
"Now, how will this mystical reproduction
be brought about in souls? In the same way in which Jesus was brought into the
world, for God gives a wonderful mark of unity to all His works. Divine acts
have a wealth of variety because they are the work of omnipotence; nevertheless,
a most perfect unity always shines forth from them because they are the fruit of
wisdom; and this divine contrast of unity and variety stamps the works of God
with sublime and unutterable beauty.
"In His miraculous birth, Jesus was the
fruit of heaven and earth…The Holy Spirit conveyed the divine fruitfulness of
the Father to Mary, and the virginal soil brought forth in an ineffable manner
our most loving Savior, the divine Seed, as the prophets called Him…
"That is the way He is reproduced in
souls. He is always the fruit of heaven and earth.
"Two artisans must concur in the work
that is at once God’s masterpiece and humanity’s supreme product: the Holy
Spirit and the most holy Virgin Mary. Two sanctifiers are necessary to souls,
the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, for they are the only ones who can
reproduce Christ.
"Undoubtedly, the Holy Spirit and the
Virgin Mary sanctify us in different ways. The first is the Sanctifier by
essence; because He is God, who is infinite sanctity; because He is the personal
Love that completes, so to speak, the sanctity of God, consummating His life and
His unity, and it belongs to Him to communicate to souls the mystery of that
sanctity. The Virgin Mary, for her part, is the co-operator, the indispensable
instrument in and by God’s design. From Mary’s maternal relation to the
human body of Christ is derived her relation to His Mystical Body which is being
formed through all the centuries until the end of time, when it will be lifted
up to the heavens, beautiful, splendid, complete, and glorious.
"These two, then, the Holy Spirit and
Mary, are the indispensable artificers of Jesus, the indispensable sanctifiers
of souls. Any saint in heaven can co-operate in the sanctification of a soul,
but his co-operation is not necessary, not profound, not constant: while the
co-operation of these two artisans of Jesus of whom we have just been speaking
is so necessary that without it souls are not sanctified (and this by the actual
design of Providence), and so intimate that it reaches to the very depths of our
soul. For the Holy Spirit pours charity into our heart, makes a habitation of
our soul, and directs our spiritual life by means of His gifts. The Virgin Mary
has the efficacious influence of Mediatrix in the most profound and delicate
operations of grace in our souls. And, finally, the action of the Holy Spirit
and the co-operation of the most holy Virgin Mary are constant; without them,
not one single character of Jesus would be traced on our souls, no virtue grow,
no gift be developed, no grace increased, no bond of union with God be
strengthened in the rich flowering of the spiritual life.
"Such is the place that the Holy Spirit
and the Virgin Mary have in the order of sanctification. Therefore, Christian
piety should put these two artisans of Christ in their true place, making
devotion to them something necessary, profound, and constant." 18
We live out our spiritual lives within the Church. The Church
is a multi-splendored reality. Let us reflect upon some of the key ideas
connected with the Church.
-
Henri de Lubac states: "The Church is
a mysterious extension in time of the Trinity, not only preparing us for the
life of unity but bringing about even now our participation in it. She comes
from and is full of the Trinity. She is for us -- in a favourite phrase of
Bossuet -- ‘Jesus Christ … communicated’. She is ‘the Incarnation
continued.’ She is, as Dietrick Bonhoeffer used to say, ‘the presence of
Christ on earth’ --- she speaks with ‘the authority of Christ living and
present in her.’… St. Paul applies to her this same word ‘mystery’
which he had first used of Christ. She is after all, the spouse of Christ
and his body." 19
-
Fr. Bruno Forte tells us: "The Church
comes from the Trinity, reflects in itself the Trinitarian
communion—oneness in diversity—and journeys toward the Trinity, to the
final handing over of all things to Christ, so that he might hand them over
to the Father and God might be all in all. As ‘a people gathered in the
unity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,’ the Church is
the Church of the Father. In his universal salvific plan, God has willed it
to be a sign and instrument of the unity of people among themselves and with
him. It is the Church of the Son, who through his incarnation and the
paschal mystery has placed it in history as His Body. It is the Church of
the Spirit, who makes the Risen Christ present in human history and
enriching the people of God with charisms and ministries, leads it toward
the promised future goal." 20
-
The fact that the Church is here on earth
a reflection of the Trinitarian Community easily leads us to reflect upon
the Church as the Body of Christ, since this name given to the Church also
emphasizes the communal aspect of the Church. St. Paul tells us: For as
with the human body which is a unity although it has many parts -- all the
parts of the body, though many, still making up one single body -- so it is
with Christ. We were baptised into one body in a single Spirit, Jews as well
as Greeks, slaves as well as free men, and we were all given the same Spirit
to drink. And indeed the body consists not of one member but of many. If the
foot were to say, ‘I am not a hand and so I do not belong to the body’,
it does not belong to the body any the less for that. Or if the ear were to
say, ‘I am not an eye, and so I do not belong to the body’, that would
not stop its belonging to the body. If the whole body were just an eye, how
would there be any hearing? If the whole body were hearing, how would there
be any smelling?
Now Christ’s body is yourselves, each
of you with a part to play in the whole. And those whom God has appointed in
the Church are, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers; after
them, miraculous powers, then gifts of healing, helpful acts, guidance,
various kinds of tongues. Are all of them apostles? Or all prophets? Or all
teachers? Or all miracle-workers? Do all have the gifts of healing? Do all of
them speak in tongues and all interpret them? (1 Cor 12:12-17; 27-30)
-
Some two thousand years ago Christ walked
the earth teaching, healing the sick, forgiving sins, extending His mercy
and kindness. By such a life which culminated in death and resurrection,
Christ redeemed the world. This objective redemption was accomplished by
Christ alone. Through it, He won for people of all time the necessary graces
for their salvation and sanctification.
However, it is necessary that such graces be
distributed to each individual as one plays out his or her part in the drama
of human existence. Such a distribution of grace is the work of subjective
redemption.
Jesus still walks the earth as the work of
redemption continues. However, He now walks the earth according to a different
type of existence. He does not walk the earth in His physical body, but rather
in His Mystical Body, the Church, the People of God. Through the members of
His Church, Christ continues to be present as He teaches, administers the
sacraments, extends His mercy -- all done through the members of His Body, the
Church. This mystical Christ, in turn, derives all supernatural power from
Christ, the Head, who reigns gloriously with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
The Church, therefore, is the earthly
continuation of Christ’s redemptive Incarnation. This mission which the
Church has, although a great responsibility, is also a great privilege. In
proportion as each Christian offers and commits himself or herself to Christ,
the Church in her entirety more and more mirrors forth Christ to the world.
This Christ, whom the Church portrays to the world, is the Christ who is
Prophet, King and Priest.
-
We now reflect upon the Church as Spouse
of Christ. Fr. Joseph Murphy, S.J., tells us: "John Paul II always
quotes the rich doctrinal and patristic traditions of the Church which refer
to Christ as the Spouse of the Church and the Spouse of souls, given to both
in the Eucharistic mystery. For him the key to understanding the
sacramentality of marriage, not to mention the nature of humanity, is the
spousal love of Christ for the Church demonstrated in Ephesians 5. Christ is
the Head of the Church as Savior of His Body. The Church is exactly that
Body which receives from Him all that through which it becomes and is His
Body. As Head and Savior of the Church He is also Bridegroom of His
Bride…" 21
"The Church is my mother because she
brought me forth to a new life. She is my mother because her concern for me
never slackens, any more than do her efforts to deepen that life in me,
however unenthusiastic my cooperation. And though in me this life may be a
fragile and timid growth, I have seen its full flowering in others...
"Happy those who from childhood have
learnt to look on the Church as a mother! Happier still those whose
experience, in whatever walk of life, has confirmed its truth! Happy those who
one day were gripped by (and whose appreciation of it ever grew) the
astonishing newness, richness and depth of the life communicated to them by
this mother!" 22
-
Avery Dulles, S.J., the well-known
theologian who has written much about the Church, observes: "The
Church, as I have already contended, is essentially a mystery of grace, a
wonderful encounter between the divine and the human. Even in its visible
structures, the Church is not a mere organization to be judged on grounds of
efficiency, but a sacrament of God’s saving deed in Jesus Christ. From
this it follows, in my judgment, that the Church’s forms of speech and
life, and indeed its entire corporate existence, must be such as to mediate
a vital communion with Christ the Lord. The Church must be a place of prayer
and worship, praise and witness. Any institutional change in the Church must
be carefully assessed for its effect on the spiritual life of the members.
Does it intensify their faith, their hope, their charity? Does it help them
to center their lives on Christ and to ground their existence in the God who
raised him from the dead?"23
"If you live in the Church and try to
use the power of the Church to increase the life of the Church, then the power
of the Church will make you yourself whole; and in your wholeness you will
help to make your family and make your world. But you will be building for a
more than earthly beatitude because you will be building the city which is
eternal. Here you build in shadow, you build for a future which is invisible,
and so you can only build in hope. And often your plans will be wrecked and
your dreams come crashing about your ears, and you will need the strength of
the Rock which is Christ to give you patience and fortitude...
"And when death has come to you...the
Church will bless you for the life you have added to it, and there will be men
to heed you better than they did when you were here...
"But you, for your part, will be no
longer in the shadow but in the glory of the Light inaccessible; you will be
in the City that is yours because you helped to build it; you will see Him at
last as He is, and be wholly with Him; and you will have no more any mourning
or weeping or any other sorrow, for all these former things will have been
transmuted into happiness and peace, and you will walk with Him--together with
all those you have helped to bring to Him, even until the end of the
world--you will walk with Him in happiness for ever, in the cool of the
eternal evening." 24
The Church’s existence centers in her liturgy. Vatican II
says: "The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is
directed; at the same time it is the fountain from which all her power
flows." 25 The Church’s liturgical life is centered in the
sacraments and, most especially, in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. We will briefly
consider the sacraments in general, and then more extensively develop ideas
about the Mass.
The sacraments are special encounters with
Christ. Jesus unites Himself with the sacramental sign as He offers His grace to
the recipient. In this sense, Christ and His sacraments become one; the
sacrament and its minister are merely instruments that Christ employs to give
Himself anew. The primary sacramental encounter is between Jesus and the
recipient.
Christ offers Himself through the Church and
her sacraments so that we might become ever more united to Him. This
incorporation into Christ begins at baptism, through which the Christian becomes
a member of both Christ and the Church. What is more, this incorporation into
the life of Christ means being incorporated into his paschal mystery.
Death-resurrection was the summary mystery of Christ’s redemptive existence.
Death-resurrection was the central mystery whereby Christ gave us life, and it
is the central mystery that the Christian must relive in Christ.
Each one of the sacraments deepens our
incorporation into Jesus’ death-resurrection; each one achieves this in a
somewhat different manner according to its primary purpose; finally, and very
importantly, each of the sacraments deepens this incorporation within an
ecclesial framework. The sacraments, because they are realities of both Christ
and his Church, intensify the Christian’s relationship not only with Jesus,
but also with the members of the Church and, ultimately, with all others.
-
The death-resurrection of Jesus, which is
encountered in a special way through the sacraments, is most especially
renewed in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Consequently, we can see the logical
connection between the sacraments and the Mass. Indeed, all of the
sacraments point to the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
-
At the Last Supper, on the night He was
betrayed, our Saviour instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Body and
Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross
throughout the centuries until He should come again, and so to entrust to
His beloved spouse, the Church, a memorial of His death and resurrection: a
sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in
which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of
future glory is given to us (Vatican II, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,
No. 17)26
-
The Church, therefore, earnestly
desires that Christ's faithful, when present at this mystery of faith,
should not be there as strangers or silent spectators. On the contrary,
through a proper appreciation of the rites and prayers they should
participate knowingly, devoutly, and actively. They should be instructed by
God’s word and be refreshed at the table of the Lord’s body; they should
give thanks to God; by offering the Immaculate Victim, not only through the
hands of the priest, but also with him, they should learn to offer
themselves too. Through Christ the Mediator, they should be drawn day by day
into ever closer union with God and with each other, so that finally God may
be all in all. (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, No. 48)27
-
Through the Eucharistic Sacrifice
Christ the Lord desired to set before us in a very special way this
remarkable union whereby we are united one with another and with our divine
Head, a union that no word of praise can ever sufficiently express. For in
this sacrifice the sacred ministers act not only as the representative of
our Saviour, but as the representative of the whole Mystical Body and of
each one of the faithful. Again, in this act of sacrifice, the faithful of
Christ, united by the common bond of devotion and prayer, offer to the
eternal Father through the hands of the priest, whose prayer alone has made
it present on the altar, the Immaculate Lamb, the most acceptable victim of
praise and propitiation for the Church’s universal need. Moreover, just as
the divine Redeemer, while dying on the Cross, offered Himself to the
eternal Father as Head of the whole human race, so now, ‘in this clean
oblation’ He not only offers Himself as Head of the Church to His heavenly
Father but in Himself His mystical members as well. He embraces them all,
yes, even the weaker and more ailing members, with the deepest love of His
Heart. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis AAS, XXXV, 232-233)28
-
Pope John Paul II states: "This
worship, given therefore to the Trinity of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit, above all accompanies and permeates the celebration of the
Eucharistic Liturgy. But it must fill our churches also outside the
timetable of Masses. Indeed, since the Eucharistic Mystery was instituted
out of love, and makes Christ sacramentally present, it is worthy of
thanksgiving and worship. And this worship must be prominent in all our
encounters with the Blessed Sacrament, both when we visit our churches and
when the sacred species are taken to the sick and administered to them.
"Adoration of Christ in this sacrament
of love must also find expression in various forms of Eucharistic devotion:
personal prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, Hours of Adoration, periods
of exposition—short, prolonged and annual (Forty Hours) - Eucharistic
benediction, Eucharistic processions, Eucharistic congresses. A particular
mention should be made at this point of the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of
Christ as an act of public worship rendered to Christ present in the
Eucharist, a feast instituted by my predecessor Urban IV in memory of the
institution of this great Mystery.
"All this therefore corresponds to the
general principles and particular norms already long in existence, but newly
formulated during or after the Second Vatican Council.
"…The Church and the world have a
great need of Eucharistic worship. Jesus waits for us in this sacrament of
love. Let us be generous with our time in going to meet Him in adoration and
in contemplation that is full of faith and ready to make reparation for the
great faults and crimes of the world. May our adoration never cease."29
-
The following words of Fr. M. Raymond,
O.C.S.O., emphasize the great importance regarding personal holiness and
one’s participation in the Mass: "Mass, insomuch as it is Christ’s
offering, is not only always acceptable to God, but is of infinite value as
well.
"But, inasmuch as it is your offering
and mine, and that of every other member of the Mystical Body ... we can limit
the effectiveness of God’s great Act of Love; we finite beings can set
bounds to the veritable flood of God-life made possible by the Infinite Son of
the Infinite Father." 30
Yes, the effectiveness of each Mass, which
makes the sacrifice of Calvary sacramentally present, depends in part on the
holiness of the entire Church offering it with Christ to the Father in the
Holy Spirit, including the holiness of the individual priest offering and the
holiness of his participating congregation.
Yes, the effectiveness of each Mass, which
makes the sacrifice of Calvary sacramentally present, depends in part on the
holiness of the entire Church offering it with Christ to the Father in the Holy
Spirit, including the holiness of the individual priest offering and the
holiness of his participating congregation.
-
Fr. Maurice de la Taille, S.J., formerly
professor of theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, and a
universally recognized authority on the Mass, also points out the great
importance of personal holiness in the Church relative to the effectiveness
of the Eucharistic sacrifice: "It is, then, of the greatest importance
that there should be in the Church many holy, many very holy persons. Devout
people, men and women, who should be urged by every means to higher
sanctity, so that through them the value of our Masses may be increased
and the tireless voice of the Blood of Christ, crying from the earth, may
ring with greater clearness and insistence in the ears of God. His Blood
cries on the altars of the Church, but, since it cries through us, it
follows that the warmer the heart, the purer the lips, the more clearly will
its cry be heard at the Throne of God. Would you wish to know why for so
many years after the first Pentecost the Gospel was so marvelously
propagated, why there was so much sanctity amongst the Christian people; why
such purity in heart and mind, such charity, the sum of all perfection? You
will find the answer when you recall that in those times the Mother of God
was still on earth giving her precious aid in all the Masses celebrated by
the Church, and you will cease to wonder that never since has there been
such expansion of Christianity, and such spiritual progress." 31
If all, then, have a responsibility to grow
in holiness in order to render the Mass more efficacious, the priest has a
special duty to do so. His goal must always be to grow in holiness -- to grow
in union with Christ the Priest, this Christ Who leads us to the Father in the
Holy Spirit with Mary at our side.
-
The Sacrifice of Calvary is sacramentally
made present in the Mass. When we pray the Morning Offering Prayer, united
to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we act as intercessors, pleading to God
that great graces be released all day through our prayerful actions as we
act in love according to the Father’s will. Whether we are eating, taking
care of a sick parent, enjoying time spent with a friend, working at our
job, we can help bring down great graces for the world.
When we pray the Morning Offering Prayer we
offer our lives to the Father, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit, with the
prayerful assistance of Mary, our Mother. Let us pray together united in our
hearts in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There follows a Morning Offering
Prayer.
"My dear Father, I offer You this day
all my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings in union with Jesus in the Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass, in the Holy Spirit.
"I unite with our Mother, Mary, all the
angels and saints, and all the souls in purgatory to pray to the Father for
myself, for each member of my family, for my friends, for all the people
throughout the world, for all the souls in purgatory, and for all other
intentions of the Sacred Heart.
"I love You, Jesus, and I give You my
heart. I love you, Mary, and I give you my heart. Amen."
-
Fr. Edward Leen, C.S. Sp., tells us:
"Unless we are pleasing to God we cannot be saved, we cannot realize
the purpose of our divine adoption. We cannot please God unless we resemble
Jesus Christ, and the Blessed Sacrament is instituted for the very object of
perfecting in us this likeness. Bodily food is transformed into the flesh of
him that receives it; this heavenly food, the food of our souls, which is
the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, has the directly opposite effect: it
changes him who receives it into Itself. It must not be forgotten that the
presence in us which follows the reception of Holy Communion is a living
active presence. Our Lord is more present with us than is a person with whom
we are speaking. As He influenced whilst on earth those who allowed
themselves to fall under the charm of His Personality, so He exercises a
profound effect on the soul of the communicant, if that soul wishes to
submit to His action. We cannot be in the society of one who is good without
being incited to goodness; we cannot be with Our Lord—and we are as close
to Him as our desires extend—without receiving the effects of His virtue
and without being stirred to become as he was, without being drawn, in a
mystical sense to become one with Him, to become ‘Christified’."32
-
From a spiritual journal: "Go to the
tabernacle. Jesus will give us our answers. He is waiting for us to come. We
must come and sit in silence and let Him work in our hearts. We must not be
filled with fear, we should be filled with hope and joy. We must pray to the
Holy Spirit to give us His wisdom to know the will of the Father. Mary is
our Mother. She will help us with all our trials and all of our struggles.
We must discipline our thoughts and go to the Heart of Jesus. It is through
the Eucharist that we will be strengthened for our trials.
"This is how I am with Jesus. I am
empty. I want Him to make Himself known to me. I didn’t have much
theological knowledge when I started sitting in front of the tabernacle. I was
looking for love from Jesus. Nobody loved me the way my soul wanted to be
loved. I craved to be with Jesus. I wanted my heart filled. I wanted the
craving I felt inside satisfied. I thirsted for love. I sat with Him present
in the tabernacle and He filled me. He revealed Himself to me. He was the
Bridegroom of my soul and I His bride. As I became more intimately united to
Him, sitting there in silence and going to Him, I cried. I was so filled with
love. I found what I was looking for all my life. He wrote the knowledge of
Himself on my soul. He wrote this knowledge in the intimate moments I spent
with Him at Mass after Communion and before the tabernacle.
"I struggle intently to do His work,
and I am weary from running the race. I am tired, I am truly human, but the
unquenchable love I have for Him in my heart is at the core of my existence.
It is in Him I exist and in Him I love. I love Him so intently and yet I am so
unworthy of His gifts given to me. I long more for the desire to help souls,
and His desires become mine through my deep union with Him especially after
the reception of the Eucharist. On this day (Feast of the Assumption), I felt
the unquenchable purity of the Heart of Mary and the joy of dwelling deeply in
His Heart in her pure love. It was a special gift He gave to me, to be wrapped
in Mary’s Heart despite my faults. He gave Himself so completely to me. I
only long for this, knowing this presence.
-
Mother Teresa of Calcutta shares these
thoughts with us: "I make a holy hour each day in the presence of Jesus
in the Blessed Sacrament. All my sisters of the Missionaries of Charity make
a daily holy hour, as well, because we find that through our daily holy hour
our love for Jesus becomes more intimate, our love for each other more
understanding, and our love for the poor more compassionate. Our holy hour
is our daily family prayer where we get together and pray the Rosary before
the exposed Blessed Sacrament for the first half hour, and the second half
hour we pray in silence. Our adoration has doubled our vocations. In 1963,
we were making a weekly hour together, but it was not until 1973, when we
began our daily holy hour that our community started to grow and
blossom."33
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St. Peter Julian Eymard, founder of the
Blessed Sacrament Fathers, tells us: "The Eucharist, behold the
Christian's treasure, his delight on earth. Since Jesus is in the Eucharist
for him personally, his whole life ought to be drawn to it like a magnet to
its center."34
The above thoughts on the Eucharist easily lead us to thoughts
on the priesthood:
"If the service of the Word is the
foundational element of the priestly ministry, the heart and the vital center
of it is constituted, without a doubt, in the Eucharist, which is, above all,
the real presence in time of the unique and eternal sacrifice of Christ.
"The sacramental memorial of the death
and Resurrection of Christ, the true and efficacious representation of the
singular redemptive Sacrifice, source and apex of Christian life in the whole
of evangelization, the Eucharist is the beginning, means, and end of the
priestly ministry, since ‘all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the
apostolate are bound up with the Eucharist and are directed towards it.’
Consecrated in order to perpetuate the Holy Sacrifice, the priest thus
manifests, in the most evident manner, his identity.
"There exists, in fact, an intimate
rapport between the centrality of the Eucharist, pastoral charity, and the
unity of life of the priest, who finds in this rapport the decisive
indications for the way to the holiness to which he has been specifically
called.
"If the priest lends to Christ, Most
Eternal High Priest, his intelligence, will, voice and hands so as to offer,
through his very ministry, the sacramental sacrifice of redemption to the
Father, he should make his own the dispositions of the Master and, like him,
live those gifts for his brothers in faith. He must therefore learn to unite
himself intimately to the offering, placing his entire life upon the altar of
sacrifice as a revealing sign of the gratuitous and anticipatory love of
God."35
-
Vatican II tells us: "Priestly
holiness itself contributes very greatly to a fruitful fulfillment of the
priestly ministry. True, the grace of God can complete the work of salvation
even through unworthy ministers. Yet ordinarily God desires to manifest His
wonders through those who have been made particularly docile to the impulse
and guidance of the Holy Spirit...
"This most holy Synod desires to
achieve its pastoral goals of renewal within the Church, of the spread of the
gospel throughout the world, and of dialogue with the modern world. Therefore
it fervently exhorts all priests to use the appropriate means endorsed by the
Church as they ever strive for that greater sanctity which will make them
increasingly useful instruments in the service of all of God’s People."
36
What Vatican II puts before seminarians
regarding spiritual formation can also obviously be implemented by priests:
"Spiritual formation should be closely linked with doctrinal and pastoral
training. Especially with the help of the spiritual director, such formation
should help seminarians learn to live in familiar and constant companionship
with the Father, through Jesus Christ His Son, in the Holy Spirit. By sacred
ordination they will be molded in the likeness of Christ the Priest. As
friends they should be used to loyal association with Him through a profound
identification of their whole lives with His. They should live His paschal
mystery in such a way that they know how to initiate into it the people
entrusted to them. They should be taught to look for Christ in many places: in
faithful meditation on God’s word, in active communion with the most holy
mysteries of the Church, especially in the Eucharist and the divine Office, in
the bishop who sends them, and in the people to whom they are sent, especially
the poor, the young, the sick, the sinful and the unbelieving. With the trust
of a son, they should love and honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was given as
a mother to His disciple by Christ Jesus as He hung dying on the cross." 37
What Vatican II puts before seminarians
regarding spiritual formation can also obviously be implemented by priests:
"Spiritual formation should be closely linked with doctrinal and pastoral
training. Especially with the help of the spiritual director, such formation
should help seminarians learn to live in familiar and constant companionship
with the Father, through Jesus Christ His Son, in the Holy Spirit. By sacred
ordination they will be molded in the likeness of Christ the Priest. As friends
they should be used to loyal association with Him through a profound
identification of their whole lives with His. They should live His paschal
mystery in such a way that they know how to initiate into it the people
entrusted to them. They should be taught to look for Christ in many places: in
faithful meditation on God’s word, in active communion with the most holy
mysteries of the Church, especially in the Eucharist and the divine Office, in
the bishop who sends them, and in the people to whom they are sent, especially
the poor, the young, the sick, the sinful and the unbelieving. With the trust of
a son, they should love and honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was given as a
mother to His disciple by Christ Jesus as He hung dying on the cross." 37
-
Pope John Paul II builds upon the teaching
of Vatican II: "There can be no doubt that the exercise of the priestly
ministry, especially in the celebration of the sacraments, receives its
saving effects from the action of Christ himself who becomes present in the
sacraments. But so as to emphasize the gratuitous nature of salvation which
makes a person both ‘saved’ and a ‘savior’ -- always and only in
Christ -- God’s plan has ordained that the efficacy of the exercise of the
ministry is also conditioned by a greater or lesser human receptivity and
participation. In particular, the greater or lesser degree of the holiness
of the minister has a real effect on the proclamation of the word, the
celebration of the sacraments and the leadership of the community in
charity." 38
"If every Christian ought to see
himself in the Apostle John, entrusted to Mary as her son or daughter, how
much more ought priests to recognize themselves as sons of Mary, as the
subject of a ‘double’ entrustment to her. I say ‘double’ because they
are successors of John by a twofold title: as disciples and as priests. This
is beautifully drawn out by our Holy Father in his "Holy Thursday Letter
to Priests" of 1988: ‘If John at the foot of the Cross somehow
represents every man and woman for whom the motherhood of the Mother of God is
spiritually extended, how much more does this concern each of us, who are
sacramentally called to the priestly ministry of the Eucharist in the
Church!’…
"Although Jesus had already entrusted
every priest to his Mother from the height of the Cross and the Pope has done
it even hundreds of times, it is still necessary for the priest to do so
himself if he would truly experience the power and the protection of the
Mother of God in his life as her Divine Son intends it. Priests who have done
so know the difference it makes".39
-
Fr. Jean Galot, S.J. gives us these
insightful words on the priesthood: "Christ requires of the Twelve a
more complete consecration, more like his own. He calls upon them to forsake
everything to follow him and thereby associates them more closely to his own
Incarnation…
"Consecration, too, establishes a
special bond between priests and the redeeming mystery of Christ. Because
Jesus brings his own consecration to fruition through sacrifice, those on whom
he bestows his pastoral power are called upon to realize in themselves the
definition of the good shepherd who gives his life for his sheep. Priests
cannot limit their sacrificial offering to the ritual performance of the
Eucharist. They are called upon to commit themselves completely by making that
total gift of their own selves which the Eucharist implies for their own
personal lives. Their commitment to sacrifice is not just the one required of
every Christian by virtue of the universal priesthood but the one demanded of
them by a consecration that is specifically the priest’s own.
"As to the mission of the priest, it is
entirely an expression of redemptive Incarnation in its pastoral aspect. The
Incarnation is revealed in this mission because the powers bestowed on the
priests to be exercised in the name of Christ are divine powers: the power to
hand down revealed truth authoritatively, the power to offer… Christ’s own
sacrifice in the Eucharist, the power to forgive sins and to mediate
Christ’s holiness, the power to lead the community and to promote the
development of a kingdom which is God’s own. Thus, the priest emerges as the
man of God, the man in whom God acts with a special power.
"The priestly ministry brings
redemption to fruition also because of the indissoluble bond which Christ
establishes between service and sacrifice. The Son of Man has come to serve
and to give his life as a ransom for mankind. Prolonging this service of the
Son of Man and making it available to men in every age and place means
prolonging at the same time the sacrifice that imparts freedom. All the
aspects of the priestly ministry bear the distinctive mark of sacrifice. The
priest cannot impart the truth and the life of Christ, nor live his pastoral
love, without a profound commitment to the way of the cross." 40
And here are further words of Fr. Galot:
"As a mediator, the priest is a shepherd in the name of God, or more
precisely in the name of Christ, and through Christ, in the name of the
Father. In the priest is realized the prophetic oracle of Ezechiel in which
Yahweh promises to be the Shepherd of his people. (Ezek 34).
"Some implications of this principle
must be underlined. The priest does not draw the inspiration for his pastoral
zeal from his own feelings, from his own personal resolve to create a better
world. He is shepherd on the strength of God’s pastoral intention and
represents specifically Christ the shepherd. Consequently he is called upon to
fulfill his pastoral mission not according to ideas of his own and his own
personal ambitions, but in keeping with God’s own dispensation and the
design of salvation devised by the Father and carried out by Christ. Like
Jesus himself, the priest is at the service of the Father."41
-
Pope John Paul II speaks to his brother
priests: "In a certain way prayer is the first and last condition
for conversion, spiritual progress and holiness. Perhaps in the recent
years — at least in certain quarters — there has been too much
discussion about the Priesthood, the priest’s ‘identity’, the value of
his presence in the modern world, etc., and on the other hand there has been
too little praying. There has not been enough enthusiasm for actuating the
Priesthood itself through prayer...in order to confirm the priestly
identity. It is prayer that shows the essential style of the priest; without
prayer this style becomes deformed. Prayer helps us always to find the light
that has led us since the beginning of our priestly vocation, and which
never ceases to lead us, even though it seems at times to disappear in the
darkness. Prayer enables us to be converted continually, to remain in a
state of continuous reaching out to God, which is essential if we wish to
lead others to Him. Prayer helps us to believe, to hope and to love, even
when our human weakness hinders us.
"Prayer likewise enables us continually
to rediscover the dimensions of that kingdom for whose coming we pray every
day, when we repeat the words that Christ taught us. Then we realize what our
place is in the realization of the petition: ‘Thy kingdom come’, and
we see how necessary we are in its realization."
And here are further words of John Paul II
to priests: "Dear brothers: ...you who have put your hand to the plough
and do not turn back, and perhaps even more those of you who are doubtful of
the meaning of your vocation or of the value of your service: think of the
places where people anxiously await a priest, and where for many years,
feeling the lack of such a priest, they do not cease to hope for his presence.
And sometimes it happens that they meet in an abandoned shrine, and place on
the altar a stole which they still keep, and recite all the prayers of the
Eucharistic Liturgy; and then, at the moment that corresponds to the
transubstantiation a deep silence comes down upon them, a silence sometimes
broken by a sob... so ardently do they desire to hear the words that only the
lips of a priest can efficaciously utter... So deeply do they feel the absence
of a priest among them!... Such places are not lacking in the world. So if one
of you doubts the meaning of his Priesthood, if he thinks it is ‘socially’
fruitless or useless, reflect on this! 42
-
Here are words for the priest from Fr.
Nicholas Cachia: "This sense of the belonging of the priest to his
community is essential both for his personal life and for his pastoral work.
He is not a stranger to that community. This is particularly true of
diocesan priests. A group of diocesan priests in South Africa stated in a
document they published on the spirituality of the diocesan priest: ‘By
virtue of his diocesan vocation... the diocesan priest belongs in a primary,
immediate, and undifferentiated sense to the people of the diocese, and to
the parish to which he is sent.’
"This being with others and is
made concrete through service. Jesus presented himself as the Son of Man who
came to serve others (cf. Matt. 20,28; Mark 10,45). John presents Jesus as
laying aside his garments in order to wash the feet of his disciples, asking
them to follow his example (cf. John 13, 4-16)... As the German Bishops say in
a document on the priestly service: ‘in all these and many other New
Testament texts, there is no trace of either hierarchical triumphalism or
authoritarian arrogance. On the contrary, these texts speak of a special
mission of devoted and unity-oriented leadership, and of an assumption of
service for the Gospel’
"The note of service immediately corrects any
misunderstandings which could be connected to the authority aspect which the
priest receives over his community. We have to distinguish between authority
and power. Jesus taught with authority. But his teachings like his actions
were always aimed at the liberation of persons. The same should be true of the
Christian pastor. He receives authority with his priestly ministry, but
‘this is something very different from a license to lord it over those under
his care. Rather his authority always exists for the sake of service. Christ
has given us the example: his ultimate service was the laying down of his life
for his friends’ ."43
- Prayer is a special occasion in which we deepen our
awareness of our relationship with God. In prayer we become especially aware
of God’s loving presence and respond with our pledge of love. Prayer
deepens our desire for God and deepens our determination to carry out His
will. Prayer unites us more intimately with the Father, through Christ, and
in the Holy Spirit.
-
The best way to pray is that method which
at any particular time seems best able to put us in contact with God. For
one person this may be meditative reading— for example, a prayerful
reflection on a selected Scripture passage. As many passages may be prayed
over as seems fruitful for a particular prayer period. For another, the best
method here and now may well be a simple discussion with God concerning the
happenings of one’s life. Another person may choose reflection on the
words of a favorite prayer. Prayer over a scene of Christ’s life is
another popular method. All the above are some of the common methods used in
making meditative prayer. To have a deepened sense of God being present to
us and we to God, and to realize that this occurs in the atmosphere of
love—this is the important thing. The prayer method we use at any
particular time should best serve this purpose.
No matter what prayer method I use, my prayers
should always be Trinitarian and Christocentric. I should always strive to
realize that the Father speaks to me through Christ in the Holy Spirit, and
that I respond to the Father through and with Jesus in the Holy Spirit.
As prayer develops, it usually becomes more
simplified. Beginners in the life of prayer often experience numerous ideas
and images regarding God and the things of God together with various acts of
the will. As prayer develops there usually occurs a simplication process which
is threefold. First, acts of the intellect become fewer, even to the extent
that one idea clearly predominates. The acts of the will also become fewer,
and that of love more and more emerges and, in summary fashion, contains all
other movements of the will. Finally, prayer’s simplication process reaches
out and touches everything in the person’s life. The person sees life
harmoniously unified in Christ, and this simplified vision gives a sense of
concentrated purpose and strength to one’s existence which was previously
not present.
Prayer and its growth process are not void of
all difficulties. The path of prayer, as with the spiritual life in general,
is not always a smooth one. Sometimes we encounter lesser sufferings along the
way; sometimes the pain is more severe. The sufferings, if properly coped
with, are meant to lead to greater union with God. It is once again a question
of living Christ’s paschal mystery of death and resurrection.
One of the common difficulties encountered
in prayer is that of coping with distractions. It is only in higher mystical
prayer, during which God takes special hold of the faculties, that
distractions are completely absent. In the more ordinary stages of prayer, we
will always have to cope with them. The challenge, then, is to strive to
bypass distractions when they do occur. Essential concentration on God and the
things of God is still possible although distractions come and go.
Dryness in prayer is another common
suffering. Often God bestows sweet consolations upon one beginning the life of
prayer in order to help the person become initiated into the rewarding but
arduous life of prayer. Often, as prayer progresses, the periods of
emotionally-felt consolation may become less frequent. A dryness of the
emotions is noticeably present. The person, grounded in the practice of
prayer, is now strong enough to continue in it even though times of
emotionally-felt consolation may be less frequent. One is learning to seek
God, rather than just God’s gifts of consolation. In seeking God, the person
will also receive consolations as God chooses to give them.
Of all the difficulties encountered during
prayer, surely the most painful is to experience God as seeming to be distant.
This is such a penetrating type of suffering because it strikes at the very
heart of prayer—the fact that prayer is a special meeting with God in which
I strive to be aware of God with heightened consciousness.
There are two basic reasons for God seeming
to be distant. God can actually be more distant because the person is at
fault. There is something of considerable significance which the person is
doing and should not be doing, or something which he or she should be doing
and is not. The solution to the difficulty is obvious. Corrective action
should be taken. If, however, upon examination the person honestly cannot
discover any such significant commission or omission, he or she can be
reasonably assured that this is a trial associated with prayer’s growth
process. Passing through this trial successfully, the person will discover
that the relative darkness has turned into a greater light, and a closer love
union with God in Christ is now experienced.
-
We should not be afraid to look at
ourselves in prayerful self-reflection. Prayerful reflection upon myself in
union with Jesus will give me a growing sense of peace and security,
resulting from an increased prayerful awareness of how much Jesus loves me
as this unique companion. If there is pain involved in prayerful
self-reflection, the pain soon fades to the background. In prayer Jesus
shows us how lovable we are. He loved us unto His brutal death. Redeemed by
the love of God, how can we be unlovable? We have been touched by Jesus’
redemptive blood. We are thus beautiful in His sight. His love for us
continues, and the more we surrender to the boundless love of His
magnificent Heart, the more the truth, the goodness, and the beauty of our
persons shine forth.
-
Fr. John Wright, S.J., tells us: "It
is frequently said that the prayer of beginners is more active and that as
time goes on and prayer matures it becomes more passive. But it seems to me
that we must distinguish here our attitudes and awareness from our actual
activities and operations. Initially, our attitude is more active than
passive. We are more conscious of doing and acting than of receiving. We are
more aware of what we do by way of response than of what God does in His
initiative. Gradually this changes, so that we become more and more aware of
His action in us, illuminating, inspiring, strengthening, encouraging, and
so forth. This means, of course, that our attitude becomes more passive. But
our actual activity in operation doesn’t itself become less. There is
indeed a greater dependence on God’s action, and what we do is done more
freely, more simply, more intensively and spontaneously. Our attention,
then, is more upon God than upon ourselves, but we are actually more active
in the real sense. For we see more clearly, believe more deeply, love more
purely, rejoice more unselfishly…"44
-
Thomas Merton speaks to us about the place
of love in prayer: "The instinctive characteristic of religious
meditation is that it is a search for truth which springs from love and
which seeks to pursue the truth not only by knowledge but also by love. It
is, therefore, an intellectual activity which is inseparable from an intense
consecration of spirit and application of the will. The presence of love in
our meditation intensifies our thought by giving it a deeply affective
quality. Our meditation becomes charged with a loving appreciation of the
value hidden in the supreme truth which the intelligence is seeking. The
affective drive of the will…raises the soul above the level of speculation
and makes our quest for truth a prayer full of reverential love and
adoration striving to pierce the dark cloud which stands between us and the
throne of God. We beat against this cloud with supplication, we lament our
poverty, our helplessness, we adore the mercy of God and His supreme
perfections, we dedicate ourselves entirely to this worship."45
A great example of this is seen in the study
of the prayer life of Catherine of Sienna, saint and doctor of the Church. Sr.
Mary O’Driscolll, O.P., tells us:
"Twenty-six of Catherine of Sienna’s
prayers have been preserved for us. With one possible exception, they are not
prayers that she herself wrote or even dictated to others. Rather, they were
transcribed by her followers who were present as she prayed aloud. All of
these prayers belong to the last four years of her life. They impress us by
their simplicity, their intense concentration on God, who is repeatedly
praised and thanked, and their constant desire for the salvation of others…
"As her prayers make evident, Catherine
of Sienna was a great intercessor. In them we find her pleading with God
persistently and urgently for mercy for all the world, the Church, the pope,
her friends and followers, all in need. It is obvious that she does not regard
intercession as merely a passing prayer to God on behalf of one or other
persons in time of crisis, but rather as an expression of her deep, loving,
permanent commitment both to God and to her neighbors. In Catherine’s own
life, the importance and intensity of her intercession increased according as
her union with God and her concern for others increased. This observation
tells us something very significant about the prayer of intercession in the
Christian life, namely, that it is not, as is sometimes thought, a type of
prayer which one passes on the way to the heights of mystical prayer, as
though intercession were for beginners and mysticism for those who are
advanced in the spiritual life, but as a type of prayer which belongs most
particularly to the life of contemplative union with God." 46
-
Pope Paul VI on the rosary: "As a
Gospel prayer, centered in the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation, the
Rosary is therefore a prayer with a clearly Christological orientation—the
Jesus that each Hail Mary recalls is the same Jesus Whom the succession of
the mysteries proposes to us…By its nature the recitation of the Rosary
calls for a quiet rhythm and a lingering pace, helping the individual to
meditate on the mysteries of the Lord’s life as seen through the eyes of
her who was closest to the Lord. In this way the unfathomable riches of
these mysteries are unfolded."47
On May 12, 1982, Pope John Paul II made a
pilgrimage to Fatima. One of his motives for his visit was to offer thanks for
Mary’s intercession in saving his life relative to the assassination attempt
a year earlier.
Some fifteen years later in 1997, the Holy
Father gave us the following words regarding Fatima. Lynne Weil, a newspaper
reporter, gives this account: "Pope John Paul said the series of Marian
apparitions at Fatima, Portugal, rank as one of the most significant events of
this century.
"The string of apparitions that ended
80 years ago was ‘one of the greatest’ signs of the times, ‘also because
it announces in its message many of the signs that followed and it invites
(us) to follow their call’, the pope said in a letter to Bishop Serafim de
Sousa Ferreire Silva of Leiria - Fatima, Portugal. The message, dated October
1, was released at the Vatican October 14 (1997).
"Pope John Paul said the event at
Fatima ‘helps us to see the hand of God’ even in the 20th century, with
its wars and other mass tragedies. And it showed that despite having
‘removed itself from God’, humanity was offered God’s protection, the
pontiff said.
"Pope John Paul recalled that in Gospel
accounts of Jesus’ death, he invoked clemency on his captors even as he was
being crucified and entrusted humanity to the care of his mother, Mary.
"The pope repeated the exhortation
stemming from the Marian apparitions at Fatima that the faithful recite the
rosary every day. He asked pastors to recite the rosary, and to teach others
to recite it, daily. —CNS"
-
Growth in the Christ-life gives us an
increased awareness of our relationships with others. That is to say, the
true Christian is keenly aware that, to a great degree, God intends each of
us to press on toward maturity in the spiritual life through proper
relationships with our fellow human beings. Indeed, the Christian imperative
reminds us that we are to walk life’s path, not in isolation, but hand in
hand with our brothers and sisters of the human family.
To authentically relate to others, we must
be aware of who they really are. We must be able to penetrate beyond surface
appearances, which may or may not be appealing to us, and contact others in
their core existence. When we are truly in touch with others at the core of
their beings, we are aware of their awesome dignity. We are conscious that
these persons are created and redeemed by God in His overwhelming love for
them. Fortified with this proper awareness, we are then in a position to
relate to others as we should.
In order to be in touch with the inner self
of others, we must be aware of or in touch with our own inner or true self.
This awareness, in turn, is also an awareness that our self is in the image of
God, that we have been divinized in Christ, that we are oriented toward love
of God and neighbor. Here, then, we see the profound interaction between the
three awarenesses and loves: awareness and love of God, self and neighbor.
As Christians, consequently, we should have
a maturing sense of how our existence is, in varied ways, profoundly
interlinked with the existence of others. This reality of union with others is
not limited to those we directly meet but includes all members of the human
family.
In rarer moments of heroic reflection, we
perhaps have dreamed of sensational ways through which we may be called to lay
down our lives for our neighbor. For most of us, however, such opportunities
will probably never occur, and this is just as well. Our courage could well be
far less in a real situation than it is in the inflated proportions of
dreamlike musings. Most people perform much better in the less heroic
atmosphere of everyday sameness. Yet each day, so ordinarily similar to both
the one which has preceded and the one which will follow, offers constant
opportunities for the laying down of one’s life for others. If these daily
opportunities are less sensational than the more heroic occasions, they are
much more numerous and therefore much more consistently present as
possibilities for serving others.
Dying daily for others means many things. It
means curbing those persistent, selfish tendencies which, if left unchecked,
gradually narrow our vision so that we hardly think of anyone but ourselves.
Dying daily for others means working at being kind and patient—seemingly
little things, but immensely important in maintaining a spirit of harmony in
the course of human affairs. Dying daily for others means fidelity to our
work, even though this fidelity must be expressed amid temptations such as
discouragement, laziness, and disinterest. Dying daily for our neighbor means
these and many other things, some of which we all share in common, some of
which are peculiar to each person’s uniqueness. One of these common elements
is this: dying for others in daily and varied fashion is an expression of our
present concern while at the same time it increases our capacity for future
love.
Jesus, of course, is our great exemplar
regarding the service of others: But Jesus called them to him and said,
‘You know that among the gentiles the rulers lord it over them, and great
men make their authority felt. Among you this is not to happen. No; anyone who
wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to
be first among you must be your slave, just as the Son of man came not to be
served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mt
20:25-28).
God calls us to share His love for His
creation. Growth in Christ develops our awareness of this truth. The Christian
should have a deeper love for the world than the non-believer. All that is good
and true and beautiful, all that we humans reach out for in hope, all the
possibilities for our true earthly progress, all the worthwhile and enthusiastic
dreams of the human heart for a better world—yes, the Christian should yearn
more deeply for all this than the non-believer. Why? Because the Christian knows
that the world belongs to Christ. The Christian knows that the human race’s
pursuit of the true, the good, and the beautiful is ultimately a pursuit of
Christ. The Christian knows that any authentic step forward that the human
family takes marks a deepening of the Christic evolutionary process whereby
mankind and this world are more fully united to the center and the crown of the
universe—Christ Himself.
Obviously, we do not love and embrace the
world’s sinful dimension. A holy sadness should touch us when we reflect upon
the sinful depravity that defiles the world’s Christic image. We do not refuse
secular involvement, however, because of the world’s sinfulness. We must
behave in a way that is different from the way much of the world thinks and
acts, yet we must be different in a way that does not make us shirk our
responsibility towards the secular. All of us, whether we live within monastery
walls or within the explosiveness of the inner city, have this
responsibility—each in his or her own way.
Growth in the spiritual life entails an ongoing and
progressive purification. This purification enables us to grow in union with God
as it allows God to increasingly possess us through the Christ-life of grace.
The process of purification takes many forms.
It comprises everything which cleanses us more and more of the false self -- the
self which operates outside of God’s will -- and which allows the true self,
the Christ-like self, to increasingly emerge.
One of the forms of purification is what has
traditionally been called asceticism. Asceticism is that active
self-purification aimed at helping the divine image in us to be more manifest
and operative. Asceticism helps us to become more like the persons God wants us
to be.
The Christian must experience an ongoing
conversion away from the non-authentic self to a greater Christ-likeness, to
greater development of the authentic self. Asceticism is the graced control, the
active self-purification, of one’s total being.
Christian asceticism is at the service of
freedom, of life. In aiding us to be more Christ-like, it helps us be more
alive. Far from confining our capacity to live and to enjoy life, asceticism
contributes to the ongoing process of our being persons capable of deeper love,
and, therefore, capable of greater life. One who practices a reasonable
asceticism is not one who is less interested in love and life. Such a person is
rather one who is willing to bear with the hardships involved in a reasonable,
graced control of one’s being with all its various dimensions -- intellect,
will, memory, emotions, and so forth -- so that one may be more alive, more
capable of authentic love.
- Vatican II speaks to us about faith in today’s world, a
world which is to a considerable degree, characterized by unbelief:
"The remedy which must be applied to
atheism, however, is to be sought in a proper presentation of the Church’s
teaching as well as in the integral life of the Church and her members. For it
is the function of the Church, led by the Holy Spirit who renews and purifies
her ceaselessly, to make God the Father and His Incarnate Son present and in a
sense visible.
"The result is achieved chiefly by the
witness of a living and mature faith, namely, one trained to see difficulties
clearly and to master them. Very many martyrs have given luminous witness to
this faith and continue to do so. This faith needs to prove its fruitfulness
by penetrating the believer’s entire life, including its worldly dimensions,
and by activating him toward justice and love, especially regarding the needy.
What does the most to reveal God’s presence, however, is the brotherly
charity of the faithful who are united in spirit as they work together for the
faith of the gospel and who prove themselves a sign of unity." 48
-
As the virtue of infused love assimilates
us to God’s loving activity, and this gives us a special, God-like
capacity for the exercise of love, so the infused virtue of faith, as St.
Thomas Aquinas tells us, assimilates us to the divine knowing (cf. St.
Thomas Aquinas, In Boeth de Trinitate, q. 3, a.1)
Through faith we share in God’s knowing
activity in a special way, and we are able to know God and creation in
relationship to God in a supernatural, God-like fashion.
If we are to properly progress in the
spiritual life, we must allow this vision of faith to more and more penetrate
our activities. Increasingly, we should become contemplatives in action: we
should view reality in a way that is similar to God’s view of reality.
Increasingly, everything we see should remind us of God because everything
that is really good and true and beautiful does reflect God. The beauties of
nature, for example, manifest this beauty; the raging storm at sea reflects
his power; and the goodness, the kindness, and the love that we observe in
others around us tell us that God is infinitely good and kind and loving.
The vision of faith allows us to see the
human family and the world in a manner that differs from the nonbeliever’s
view. As contemplatives in action, we should act upon this vision. Every man,
woman, and child is marked with the blood of Christ. If Jesus loved them so
much--indeed, if he now loves them so much--can we be indifferent to their
needs, both spiritual and material? Can we be indifferent to all the problems
that burden modern men and women? If we are Christians of living faith,
we know that we cannot be indifferent. This vision of faith should inspire us
to action according to our vocation, talents, opportunity, time, and energy.
We should be laboring to make the human family and the world more reflective
of Christ’s image.
The virtue of trust is extremely important for growth in the
spiritual life. Here are words on confidence, on trust, in God from St. Claude
La Colombière, one of the great apostles of devotion to the Heart of Christ.
"My God, I am so convinced that you keep
watch over those who hope in You, and that we can want for nothing when we look
for all from You, that I am resolved in the future to live free from every care,
and to turn all my anxieties over to You…
"Men may deprive me of possessions and of
honor, sickness may strip me of strength and the means of serving you…but I
shall never lose my hope. I shall keep it till the last moment of my life; and
at that moment all the demons in Hell shall strive to tear it from me in vain…
"Others may look for happiness from their
wealth or their talents; others may rest on the innocence of their life, or the
severity of their penance, or the amount of their alms, or the fervor of their
prayers. As for me, Lord, all my confidence is my confidence itself. This
confidence has never deceived anyone. No one, no one has hoped in the Lord and
has been confounded.
I know, alas!, I know only too well, that I am
weak and unstable. I know what temptation can do against the strongest virtue. I
have seen the stars of heaven fall, and the pillars of the firmament; but that
cannot frighten me. So long as I continue to hope, I shall be sheltered from all
misfortune; and I am sure of hoping always, since I hope also for this
unwavering hopefulness.
"Finally, I am sure I cannot hope too
much in You, and that I cannot receive less than I hoped for from You. So I hope
that you will hold me safe on the steepest slopes, that You will sustain me
against the most furious assaults, and that You will make my weakness triumph
over my most fearful enemies. I hope that You will love me always, and that I
too shall love You without ceasing. To carry my hope once for all as far as it
can go, I hope from You to possess You, O my Creator, in time and in eternity.
Amen."49
Humility is a very important virtue given to
us for the spiritual journey.
Humility is both the realization of what we
are as creatures of God and the concrete implementation of this realization in
our Christian lives. Humility, therefore, is not an exercise in
self-depreciation; it is not telling yourself that you are no good, that you
really have nothing of any significance to contribute to the service of God.
Humility is based on truth. It is compatible with the recognition that God has
given a person certain gifts, even great gifts, of nature and grace. If we do
not recognize our God-given gifts, we do not thank God for them as we should,
nor properly develop these gifts according to His will. God wants us not only to
recognize the good that is in us, but also to realize the source of this
goodness. Although we have a responsibility to cooperate with His graces, God is
the One Who is chiefly responsible for what we are. If one person has advanced
to a level in the Christian life that is beyond the level of another, it is
ultimately because God has given that person greater graces.
If humility is based on truth and,
consequently, allows us to properly recognize our gifts, it also necessitates
that we admit to the evil within us, which is also part of the truth and must be
acted upon. Humility not only bids us to admit that there is evil in us, but
also tells us that, as creatures of God, we should conform to His will and work
against this evil side of our persons. In summary, humility allows us to
properly evaluate both the good and evil within ourselves.
Here is a quotation from St. Paul which helps
us to preserve, and grow in, humility: Who made you so important? What have
you got that was not given to you? And if it was given to you, why are you
boasting as though it were your own? (1 Cor 4:7).
And in the Letter of James we read: Humble
yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up. (Jm 4:10)
"and that is why I am glad of
weaknesses, insults, constraints, persecutions and distress for Christ’s sake.
For it is when I am weak that I am strong. (2 Cor 12:10)
According to the wisdom of the world, it is
often thought to be a sign of weakness if one feels a sense of powerlessness and
admits the same. According to the wisdom of Christ, it is of paramount
importance that one admits weakness and powerlessness and builds upon this
realization.
If we do not admit our weakness and our
helplessness, then we are living a lie. Jesus has told us that without Him we
can do nothing. It is a sign of Christian maturity if we not only admit to our
weakness theoretically, but consistently live this realization. It is not a
question of giving in to this weakness, of capitulating to it in an evil way. It
is rather a question of realizing our helplessness and throwing ourselves into
the arms of Christ. Then we become strong with his strength; then his grace more
and more strengthens us and we actually are surprised at the depth of our
Christian existence.
At certain rather rare points along the path
of life, we become overwhelmed, for various reasons, with the burden of life. We
feel adrift upon the turbulent waters of worry and anxiety; fear gradually
strengthens its paralyzing grip. Life temporarily seems to be too much, and we
feel ourselves deluged, barely capable of coping with the harshness of the human
condition. Such episodes, painful as they are, are magnificent opportunities for
Christian growth. If we act as we should at such times -- abandon ourselves anew
to Jesus -- then our Christian life takes on a new depth and vitality; for we
have become so much more closely united to Jesus Who is our nourishment, our
life, our happiness.
Of course, it is not only at times of special
trial and anxiety that, realizing our helplessness, we should turn to Jesus. If
we are spiritually sensitive, we will always be aware of our weakness. But, very
importantly, this realization of our powerlessness is not meant in any sense to
make us feel depressed or discouraged. If we build properly upon the
understanding of our weakness, we will experience deeper peace, and love, and
security -- because Jesus is very near.
I suggest that one of the most difficult acts
of self-discipline in the spiritual journey is to concentrate on the present
moment. We have a very strong tendency to often disregard the importance of the
present moment by focusing in a wrong way on the past or in a wrong way on the
future. When we give in to this tendency we suffer a significant spiritual loss.
There are proper occasions for thinking of the past and the future. For example,
we have to learn from the past and we have to prepare for the future, but our
great emphasis has to be upon the present. There is a Latin axiom which says, age
quod agis, which means: do what you are doing, concentrate on the present.
And, of course, we are familiar with the term in the history of spirituality:
the sacrament of the present moment. Growth in self-discipline should include a
greater determination to get as much as we can out of the present moment. People
with a terminal illness have an opportunity, as they prepare for death, for
increased prayer, contrition, love of God. For those who have this opportunity
of knowing with some certainty the time of their death, I’m sure as they look
back on their lives, they are saddened by the times they did not use time and
opportunities for the service of the Lord properly, and are overjoyed at those
times in which they did use the present opportunity properly. A great means we
have of living in the present properly is a greater focus upon our Lord. For if
I have that awareness of the fact I am united with Jesus here and now, why
should I be concerned so much about the future or the past? Yes, a great help in
living in the present and deriving all the good we can from it for ourselves and
others is an ever greater focus on Jesus, because the more I focus upon Jesus
and the more I live with Him in the present moment, the more I am satisfied with
the present moment. And so let us resolve to grow in that self-discipline which
is required to really live in the present with the fullness of our being as much
as is possible, with the help of God’s grace. To do so is extremely important
for proper growth in the spiritual life.
Now is the time. Now is the time to live and
to love. Now is the time to become more united to Christ, to be more one with
Him. Now is not yesterday; now is not tomorrow; now is today, and today is a
gift from the Lord.
God gives ultimate meaning to our lives. God
reveals to us how the laughter and the tears, the work and the play, the pain
and the joy, all fit together. As we live in God, God gathers up what would
otherwise be the fragmented pieces of our lives, and arranges them into
harmonious unity. This unity emanates from our living according to God’s plan,
a plan embodying a way of existence that leads to an ever greater experience of
the true, the good, and the beautiful.
We can put obstacles in the way of God’s
transforming designs, of God’s plan for us. We can at times say "no"
to God’s initiative. We can refuse to be open to God’s tender, loving touch.
We can engage in a process of self-enclosure. We can determine to map out our
own path to supposed happiness, forgetting that plans for happiness which
exclude God are ultimately plans for experiencing frustration and emptiness.
Briefly, we can act in an obstinate fashion regarding God’s offer of
Self-communication.
At other times, it is not so much stubbornness
which leads us to say "no" to God; it is fear. We realize that the
closer we come to God, the more God will ask of us, gently but firmly. We fear
the white heat of God’s love. Such episodes along the spiritual journey are
crucial. If we keep pulling back from the intensity of God’s love, if we keep
refusing what this love wants to accomplish in us and through us, then we will
live on a rather superficial level.
We must strive to overcome whatever attitude
prevents us from increasingly giving ourselves over to God. We must realize that
progress in the spiritual life is measured by the degree to which we abandon
ourselves to God. We must realize that, if we hope to grow spiritually, we must
increasingly allow God to direct our lives.
Let us pray, then, for an increase in the spirit of
abandonment to God. As we live more according to this attitude, we will
experience in greater measure the warmth and security of God’s love, this God
Who is the ground of our being, the goal of our existence, the source of our
happiness.
-
Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C., astutely
observes: "There is an appalling dearth of thinking in our times even
in the theological domain, where the strangest conclusions are sometimes
drawn from the most tortured syllogisms. However, there is also what may be
simply and accurately described as a lack of heart. When the powers of the
mind have gone as far as they can go and concluded as much of truth as lies
within their possibilities, then those powers must give humble heed to the
heart. Is not, in fact, a humble mind one that has energetically exhausted
all its potential in order to recognize its limitations?
" ‘All that I have written seems to
me as a little straw,’ concluded St. Thomas Aquinas toward the end of his
life. His humble assessment of himself and his works was accurate. For is not
indeed everything that the mind can achieve really only ‘straw’ before the
greatness of God and his incredible designs? He is a God, however, who is
glorified by our gathering all the ‘straw’ we can for his service and the
directing of our own free willed lives, while vigorously routing a temptation
toward torpor of intellect.
"Yes, a mind is for using. Its sound
conclusions call for the most serious pondering. And for the heart to claim
absolute sovereignty whether over life itself or the decisions that make for
life’s unfolding pattern is clearly an unjustified and perilous assumption.
Yet, for the mind to insist on its supreme authority in decision making,
including the decision to disregard the evidence of the heart, is a counter
insistence fraught, if not always with peril, at least with frequent and
sometimes very serious loss to the proprietors of mind and heart. Indeed, it
is the mind that delivers to the will the evidence on which the will
pronounces. Nonetheless, cerebral conclusions need enfleshing with what only
the heart can contribute: the finding of love that can never, if the love is
real and true, be at enmity with the mind but which can sometimes unseat the
mind’s best justified decisions or even topple them.." 50
-
Mother Mary Francis further writes:
"The foundress of the Poor Clare nuns, St. Clare of Assisi, was a woman
who quite noticeably and even notably used her mind. Just the fact of her
being the first woman in history herself to write a Rule of Life for nuns
indicates a mind well occupied with the proper business of a mind. The
complementary fact that she trailed beauty after her, shed loveliness about
her, took ladyhood as a continual manner of living gives evidence that her
heart was in good partnership with her mind. It was the same with...her
mentor, St. Francis of Assisi, whose great mind was enlightened by God and
used by himself to initiate a whole new way of religious life in the Church,
while his heart made of him a poet, a singer, and sometimes a dancer, on
occasion, while delivering his sermons." 51
-
The following words are from a paper
prepared by Fr. Stephen J. Rossetti for the United States National
Conference of Catholic Bishop’s Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry.
This paper was later published in the quarterly Human Development, from
which we quote. Fr. Rossetti is president and chief executive officer of
Saint Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland.
"At our Institute, we recently ran a study that found
that the average intelligence quotient of our priest patients is 122, which is
well above the societal norm of 100. This places our men in the upper 7
percent of their peers. Priests, as a group, are very bright men.
"Also in their education and training, they have
developed their intellectual skills well. Catholic priests are verbal men who
engage regularly in public speaking. They can debate ideas and abstract
concepts easily. Indeed, these qualities are important to the successful
ministry of a priest.
"Nevertheless, having a personal relationship with
Jesus also means praying from the heart, the place within which he dwells. Yet
so many of the men who wither in priesthood cannot find the ‘heart’
because they are stuck in their ‘heads’…
"Developing a personal relationship with God, or anyone
else, involves the important task of moving our prayer and dialogue out of the
head and into the heart. In this case, the term heart, used in a metaphorical
sense, does not refer only to one’s affective life; it primarily indicates
‘the locus of vital forces in a person, to quote from Xavier Leon-Dufour in
the Dictionary of the New Testament. It is one’s most ‘hidden
place’, the place where ‘the spirit of the Son dwells.’ 52
Gustave Thils gives a very good description of some of
the key elements of the mystical life: "It has been said, quite accurately,
that Christianity is basically mystical. As we have explained, to live as a
Christian is to participate in the very life of God and to perform our temporal
task according to the indications of His divine will. Every Christian will
understand, without difficulty, that this participation in the divine life is,
of its very nature, the mystical life in germ. What could be more mystical than
the very life of God? What other foundation for mysticism could we desire? What
other source of mysticism could we expect? And, on the other hand, how could a
Christian say that he is in the state of grace and deny that he is on the way to
the Christian mystical life? Certainly, there is mysticism and mysticism. But
the essential will always be incontestably the participation in the life of God.
Every Christian is, consequently, rich with the very foundation of all
mysticism.
"This divine foundation can be found in a
Christian who is still physically and morally a child. In this case, one cannot
yet speak of Christian mysticism. Mysticism requires, in a general way, the
realization of the ... presence of God. First of all, the mystical life implies
a certain form of consciousness: a realization of presence, an intimate
connection, a deep certitude, an interior evidence, an intuition ... experience,
which are employed with all the nuances and all the precisions given by the
spiritual authors, and the object of this consciousness: the Transcendent Being,
the Lord and Master of the supernatural order, the God Who is love.
"This realization of ... presence
manifests itself in the ... life of faith, hope and charity. Many of the
faithful have been able to live it at certain moments of their existence, in
very brief fashion, but really; some after they have gone to Holy Communion;
others in the course of a visit to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament; others on
the occasion of a liturgical ceremony, an ordination, a consecration; still
others in the solitude of their home, in joy, in suffering, in mourning. If we
must avoid speaking lightly of mysticism, it is also important not to
underestimate certain minor transitory forms of true and authentic mysticism. In
order that one might be able to speak of the mystical life, it is necessary that
this realization of the presence of God become habitual. It must be customary,
easily found again, met within the course of one’s daily existence, taken up
again as soon as the mind is active, and easily enlivened in joy, even during
periods of darkness or of aridity in faith.
"In order that the Christian life reach
the mystical level, this habitual realization of the...presence of God must be predominant
...
"The realization of the ... presence of
God, which is habitual and predominant: this is what we will henceforth call the
mystical level of the Christian life. We dare not say that many Christians are
at this point. But certain persons are at this point ..." 53
Between the occasional realization of God’s
presence and the habitual and predominant realization of His presence there are
all the stages and all the degrees.
The mystical process is one in which God more
and more takes possession of the soul. The person becomes increasingly docile to
the workings of the Holy Spirit. The predominant realization of God’s presence
leads to a deepened desire to do the Father’s will in all things, thorough
Christ, in the Holy Spirit, with the maternal assistance of Mary.
The mystical process is very much Christ-centered. The person
becomes increasingly transformed in Christ. When the mystical experience becomes
consistent and predominant, the person can say with the deepest meaning: I
have been crucified with Christ and yet I am alive; yet it is no longer I, but
Christ living in me. The life that I am now living, subject to the limitation of
human nature, I am living in faith, faith in the Son of God who loved me and
gave himself for me. (Ga 2:19-20)
Pope John Paul II speaks to us movingly
concerning the Heart of Christ: "The Heart of the Redeemer enlivens the
whole Church and draws men who have opened their hearts ‘to the inscrutable
wealth’ of this unique Heart....
"I desire in a special way to join
spiritually with all those who inspire their human hearts from this Divine
Heart. It is a numerous family. Not a few congregations, associations and
communities live and develop in the Church, taking their vital energy in a
programmed way from the Heart of Christ. This spiritual bond always leads to a
great reawakening of apostolic zeal. Adorers of the Divine Heart become people
with sensitive consciences. And when it is given to them to have a relationship
with the Heart of our Lord and Master, the need also reawakens in them to do
reparation for the sins of the world, for the indifference of so many hearts,
for their negligence.
"How necessary these ranks of vigilant
hearts are in the Church, so that the love of the Divine Heart shall not remain
isolated and without response! In these ranks, special mention deserves to be
made of all those who offer up their sufferings as living victims in union with
the Heart of Christ pierced on the cross. Transformed in that way by love, human
suffering becomes a particular leaven of Christ’s saving work in the Church…
"The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus reminds
us, above all, of those moments when this Heart was ‘pierced by the lance,’
and, thereby, opened in a visible manner to man and the world. By reciting the
litany and venerating the Divine Heart in general, we learn the mystery of the
Redemption in all its divine and human profundity."
And the Pope also speaks to us about the heart
of Mary: "The Immaculate Heart of Mary was open to the word, ‘Woman,
there is your son.’ It went to meet spiritually the Heart of the Son opened by
the soldier’s lance. The heart of Mary was opened by the same love for man and
for the world with which Christ loved man and the world, offering up himself on
the cross, even to that lance stroke from the soldier.
"Consecrating the world to the Immaculate
heart of Mary means approaching the same Source of Life, through the Mother’s
Intercession, that life which flowed forth from Golgatha, the source which
gushes out ceaselessly with redemption and grace. Reparation for the sins of the
world is continually being accomplished in it. It is ceaselessly the font of new
life and holiness.
"Consecrating the world to the Immaculate
Heart of the Mother means returning under the Cross of the Son. More: it means
consecration of this world to the pierced Heart of the Savior, by bringing the
world back to the very source of its Redemption. Redemption is always greater
than man’s sin and ‘the sin of the world.’ The power of Redemption
infinitely surpasses the whole range of evil in man and in the world.
"The Heart of the Mother is aware of it,
more than anyone in the whole cosmos, visible and invisible. This is why she
calls. She does not call only to conversion; she also calls upon us to let
ourselves be helped by her, the Mother, to return to the source of the
Redemption."54
A. Boussard gives an extremely fine and
concise sketch of the theology of consecration:
"By the Incarnation, in and of itself,
the Humanity of Jesus is consecrated, so that in becoming Man, Jesus is ipso
facto constituted Savior, Prophet, King, Priest, and Victim of the One Sacrifice
that was to save the world. He is the ‘Anointed’, par excellence, the
‘Christ’ totally belonging to God, His Humanity being that of the Word and
indwelled by the Holy Spirit. When, by a free act of His human will, He accepts
what He is, doing what He was sent to do, He can say that He consecrates
‘Himself’. In Christ, therefore, what might be called His ‘subjective’
consecration is a perfect response to the ‘objective’ consecration produced
in His Humanity through the Incarnation.
"And what Christ does brings with it a
‘consecration’ for His disciples, a very special belonging to God, since He
imparts to them His own life precisely by making them participate in His own
consecration.
"Through Baptism Christians also are
consecrated and ‘anointed’ by the power of the Spirit. They share, in their
measure, in the essential consecration of Christ, in His character of King,
Priest, and Prophet (cf. 1 Peter 2:9; 7 Peter 1:3-4; Rev. 5:9, etc.). With
Christ and through Christ, they are ‘ordered’ to the glory of God and the
salvation of the world. They do not belong to themselves. They belong to Christ
the Lord, who imparts His own life to them…
"The vocation of those who have been
baptized is to ‘live’ this consecration by a voluntary adherence—and one
that is as perfect as possible—to what it has made of them. Living as
‘children of God’, they fulfill subjectively their objective consecration;
like Jesus, they consecrate themselves. This is the deeper meaning of vows and
baptismal promises, together with the actual way of life corresponding to them.
The baptismal consecration is the fundamental one, constitutive of the
Christian. All consecrations which come after it presuppose and are rooted in
it…"55
"Jesus, You show us Your Heart as symbol
of Your life of love in all its aspects, including Your most special love for
each of us as unique individuals. Out of Your great love for us, You died a
brutal death, nailed to the wood of the cross. Out of Your great love for us,
You rose gloriously from the dead.
"From Your pierced Heart the Church with
her life-giving Sacraments was born. In the Eucharist, Crown and Center of the
Church’s life, You continue to give Yourself to us with the deepest, most
tender, most on-fire, most complete love.
"Jesus, since in Your great love You give
Yourself so completely to us, it is only fitting that we make a gift to You in
return. It is entirely fitting that we give ourselves completely to You. Yes, we
consecrate ourselves to Your most loving Heart. Each of us says to You, O Lord,
our Savior and our Friend: ‘Jesus, take me wholly, take me completely to Your
magnificent Heart. Out of love I give myself to You. Live in and through me. In
love You give Yourself completely to me. In love and in a spirit of reparation,
I want to give myself, with the help of Your grace, entirely to You. Take me,
Jesus, to an ever closer union with the Father, in the Holy Spirit, with Mary my
Mother at my side. Pierced, Glorified, Eucharistic Heart of Jesus I place my
trust in You.’ "
"Dear Blessed Virgin Mary, I consecrate myself to your
maternal and Immaculate Heart, this Heart which is symbol of your life of love,
including your most special love for me as this unique individual. You are the
Mother of my Savior. You are also my Mother. In a return of love, I give myself
entirely to your motherly love and protection. You followed Jesus perfectly. You
are His first and perfect disciple. Teach me to imitate you in the putting on of
Christ. Be my motherly intercessor so that, through your Immaculate Heart, I may
be guided to an ever closer union with the Pierced, Glorified, Eucharistic Heart
of Jesus, Chief Shepherd of the flock."
Many of the laity pray for us priests, and
consistently so. Is it not also fitting that we priests pray for all our
brothers in the priesthood, and consistently so? There follows a prayer that can
aid us in this endeavor.
"Lord Jesus, Chief Shepherd of the
Flock, we pray that in the great love and mercy of Your Sacred Heart that You
attend to all the needs of Your priest-shepherds throughout the world. We ask
that You draw back to Your Heart all those priests who have seriously strayed
from Your path, that You rekindle the desire for holiness in the hearts of
those priests who have become lukewarm, and that You continue to give Your
fervent priests the desire for the highest holiness. United with Your Heart
and Mary’s Heart, we ask that You take this petition to Your heavenly Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Amen".
The above prayer is taken from the prayer
manual of Shepherds of Christ Associates, a facet of Shepherds of Christ
Ministries. The associates are members of prayer groups which meet regularly to
pray for all the needs of the entire human family, but most especially for
priests. If you would like a copy, or copies, of this prayer manual, and
further, if you would like information on how to begin a Shepherds of Christ
prayer chapter, contact us at:
Shepherds of Christ
P.O. Box 193
Morrow, Ohio 45152-0193 U.S.A.
Phone (toll free): 1-888-211-3041,
Phone: 1-513-932-4451
Fax: 1-513-932-6791
I have been reading the newsletter book Shepherds
of Christ meditatively since it came. All the articles are deep theology
and spirituality. If only priests read it properly and prayerfully, a change
towards Christ cannot but come. All my Diocesan priests got the book and are
reading it. I have sent a few copies to the seminary rector in South India
whom I know, asking him to read it and also order the newsletter. I am sure
they will profit by it.
Bishop S.A. Aruliah
Cuddapah
India
Gerard Joubert, O.P.
Houston, Texas
Compliments of the Easter Season to you!
After reading your recent newsletter Shepherds of Christ, I found it
very profitable and thought of making a request for subsequent copies as the
one I read was given to me by one of our priests.
I shall, therefore, be very thankful if you
do me the favour of sending me copies of the newsletter in the future. May God
bless your apostolate most abundantly.
In union of prayers in the Lord’s
Vineyard, I remain,
Sincerely yours in the Lord
Rev. Fr. Charles Anemelu
Berkeley Heights, New Jersey
Cathedral of St. Peter in Chains in the little chapel on December 27, 1995. This is the chapel that was partially damaged by fire on June 8, 1999. When the priest began to come up the aisle to say Mass, I was given this prayer. I grabbed my notebook and began to write in a corner on the back of it. I had only room for 2 lines. Jesus kept talking. I went to another corner of the notebook back cover. The back of the notebook was already written on. By the time the prayer was given, which I had tried to write bent over so no one would see me writing, the priest had just arrived at the altar. I had to label the little scribbles I had put on the notebook back until I could write them in sequence. I had at least 4 sections. It was December 27, 1995, I remember the dates. They are profoundly engraved in my soul. I include here the Prayer Before the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass given from our Lord which I scribbled on the back of the notebook.
The Bridegroom Awaits
December 27, 1993 - 4:00a.m.
Copyright © 2002 Shepherds of Christ.