The beauty of a church in Huntingburg, IN

Today I spent a short amount of time in Huntingburg, IN. It's just over a half hour away from St. Meinrad.

There I arrived at a beautiful church, St. Mary's. Adoration was going on.

A beautiful high altar, and even the new altar was nice.

And real confessionals on both sides!

It looked and smelled like a church.

Patron of the Arch. of Indianapolis--St. Francis Xavier

As mentioned in the last post, today is the feast of St. Francis Xavier.

He is one of two patrons of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.

Why is this so? I imagine it is because the Diocese of Vincennes--now the Archdiocese of Indianapolis--at first had the entire state of Indiana in its borders. St. Francis Xavier spent much of his ministry in India. India...Indiana.

I'm not sure what the link is. Obviously, there was a sense of mission involved in the spread of Catholicism in Indiana. And who better a patron than Francis?

But regardless, let's keep our archdiocese in prayer today, especially mindful of Archbishop Buechlein and his intentions.

St. Francis Xavier: Pray for us!

"Grains of sand turned to rock"--St. Francis Xavier

Today Holy Mother Church celebrates the feast of St. Francis Xavier, one patron saint of missionaries.

Francis, born in 1506, was a philosopher by the time he was in his twenties. Br. Thomas preached today and made the point that if you ask a philosopher anything, you never get a simple answer.

And so it was with Francis. He struggled with himself for a long time, trying to discern what kind of life was worth living--a life of pleasure, prestige, etc. or a life of sacrifice, poverty, charity, etc. He was perfectly capable of the former and the latter, but struggled for some time to figure out which was more worthwhile.

I worry that today many don't even struggle with this but merely opt for the former.

But Francis was a man of discernment. His problem wasn't that he had no direction in life; rather, he had too many different directions. His writings indicate just how confused the man was.

Br. Thomas put it this way: His thoughts were as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore.

Yet things changed when Francis sought the direction of St. Ignatius. At first, Francis didn't much care for Ignatius and would mock his lifestyle.

Ignatius would usually reply with Matthew 16:26: "What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?"

The confused Francis learned something from Ignatius' persistent answer and his example. He was brought to conversion and became a follower of Christ by following Ignatius as a Jesuit.

This is precisely what Jesus does for us: he brings us together. When we live for and with and by him, he will help us and make our path straight. Because of him, we can collect ourselves! We can find our way.

You see, Francis, whose thoughts and directions at the beginning were as many as the grains of sand such that he knew not which direction to go, came to a rock solid faith. The grains of sand converged and became one rock--much like the rock we hear about in today's Gospel (Mt 7:21, 24-27).

May our story be the same.

Now with his solid identity as a Catholic, Francis went out and preached the Gospel in India, Japan, and other places, too.

Let's do the same, but follow Mother Teresa's advice and start where we are.

Francis had a beautiful way of approaching his missionary life: he started with the least, not those who were able to flex authority and influence. He would go to towns and ring a bell, which gathered the children to him. There, he would share the faith.

And the children would, in turn, share it with their parents. A good lesson here, too: we must listen to the calls God issues us from those who are "less" than we are--from those below us.

Francis died on his way to China. He was on ship with others, but developed suddenly a severe fever. Those on the boat, seeking to protect themselves, threw him off the boat on an island shore not far from China. In fact, China was in sight from the island. It was there that Francis died.

He died with his goal in sight but not reached. He died alone. He died abandoned.

Yet he died in service to Almighty God, following in the Lord's footsteps.

He died a rock on the sand!

St. Francis Xavier: Pray for us!

Bl. John Ruysbroeck on love

Today Holy Mother Church celebrates the feast of Bl. John Ruysbroeck. He lived from 1293 to 1381, most of the time in Brussels.

More info about him is available here.

Ruysbroeck wrote many pamphlets and treatises confirming the faith in the face of opposition from heretics. I'd like to get my hands on some of his works.

But here I do have a book that houses a few snippets.

Here's part of what he said on love: "Those who follow the way of love are the richest of all men living: They are bold, frank, and fearless. They have neither travail nor care, for the Holy Ghost bears all their burdens. They do not affect singular conduct. They are just like other good men."

An interesting quote...very interesting to be sure. It's good to think about the various ways love manifests itself in the world.

Bl. John Ruysbroeck: pray for us!

The "unwilling goldsmith"--St. Eligius of Noyon

Today is the feast day of St. Eligius of Noyon, one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.

The man died in 660, and had been at that point a priest for 20 years. He had been a goldsmith prior to his ordination, and is sometimes refered to as the "unwilling goldsmith" because he did not want, at first, to serve the Church as a priest.

In some places on this day, horses are blessed--a tradition more common years and years ago, of course.

It came about because Eligius had been riding a particular horse for some time. The bishop at the time saw the horse and liked it so much that he took it.

Sadly, the horse was stabbed shortly after the exchange at the bishop's residence. It was unable to be of use.

Eligius liked his horse so much that he had been praying for its return ever since he had given it to the bishop. And sure enough the bishop, stuck with a now sick and useless horse, gave it back to Eligius. Moments later the horse was back to full health.

So it is that St. Eligius of Noyon is the patron saint of horses--and plenty other modes of transportation.

That's an interesting story, of course, but Eligius is most well remembered as a goldsmith and his devotion to the poor. He was indeed "uncorrupted by luxury", as one book puts it. Few can make that claim.

During the corse of his life, he continually gave of himself for others. His craft had made him very wealthy but he shared most of his wealth with the less fortunate.

One stranger once came to Paris in search of Eligius. He asked someone where to find Eligius' house. The stranger was told to go along a particular street and look for the house with a crowd of poor people on the property. That was his.

St. Eligius: Pray for us, for the wealthy, the poor, and all horses!

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel--and set us free

Fr. Moriarty preached at Compline tonight, and made some good points.

Where in our lives do we need God to come? Where are our places of darkness? What sin, broken relationship, addiction, fear, struggle, unease, pain, haunting, anxiety?

It is into those places where we need to invite our Lord to reign. It is in those places that God will come and set us free!

"Or what's a heaven for?": Why we need hope

I got to thinking about hope yesterday, mostly because we just entered Advent and are told to wait hopeful of what is to come.

Sr. Nicolette Etienne has posted a homily given by Fr. Neuman yesterday. It, too, made me think more about hope. I quote Father:

It’s always good to periodically remember that the whole scope of the Old Testament and the People of Israel is based on the promises of God: Abraham is promised a land and a people; the people are later promised a just shoot of Jesse, who would become a Messiah, as spoken through the prophet Jeremiah in today’s first reading. The people’s response to those promises is to hope in their eventual fulfillment. Those are the dual engines that drive the Old Testament motor: the promises of God and the people’s hope for their fulfillment. That sets the background for the New Testament, which is also built on promises and hope. Jesus promises the Kingdom of God; Jesus’ Resurrection is a promise to us of our own future resurrection. That is what ultimately we hope for.

When you think about it carefully, hope is one of the greatest driving forces in the Christian faith. Advent is the season to focus on hope. We focus through the lens of the Old Testament hope for a Messiah. From there we broaden out into much greater hopes—the hope for salvation, for an intimacy with God, for a love of God and for the other smaller hopes for our lives—for health and friendship and safety for our families.

So we are in a season of hope. And we are in a faith of hope!

Those who have lost hope are perhaps the saddest creatures alive. Mostly, though, they're not really alive at all.

Hope is really the sense, the feeling, that what we don't have now can be had at some point in the future. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, hope is a "future good" that though difficult to attain is possible to attain, but only "by means of the Divine assistance". Aquinas says getting to that future good must take some "stretching".

What is it that we stretch for? That we strive after?

Last year I took a class where we read a lot of Robert Browning poetry. My hope to be done with that class has been fulfilled; but I return to one poem, "Andrea del Sarto". Andrea del Sarto is the name of both the poem itself and of the central character--the painter.

...I could count twenty such ...
Who strive ...
To paint a little thing like that you smeared
Carelessly passing with your robes afloat--
Yet do much less ... --so much less!
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.
There burns a truer light of God in them,
In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,
Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.
Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,
Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me,
Enter and take their place there sure enough,
Though they come back and cannot tell the world.
... Somebody remarks
Morello's outline there is wrongly traced,
His hue mistaken; what of that? or else,
Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?
Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for? ...

This is the source of that phrase, "less is more." The painter is talking to his wife and has just given up a big painting for her. She is an unfaithful woman we learn in the poem, and she is not exactly smart.

But here we see that often even our greatest efforts seem to fail. Less is more because the true value is in the "less" is not lost in the "more."

That last sentence though, is what really gets me. Our reach should exceed our grasp. What in the sam hill?

I think it means that we must always reach for what we know we may never be able to grasp--at least on earth.

We can think about it in terms of paintings; we can put all our best efforts to make some masterpiece all that we want it to be, knowing that many of our intentions will never reach perfection and even if they did, they will be overlooked by the average eyes.

We can think about this in terms of relationships with others; we can strive to be very close even when we can't help but think that the union we desire may never happen to the extent we wish.

We can think about this in terms of holiness; we can strive to be very holy even if we feel that many of the rosaries we offer don't bring us any closer to God.

The point is: our striving, our reach, must be a stretch--as Aquinas says--that involves our muscles flexed as much as possible. Even if that grasp won't really be as tight as we'd like, if we're lucky enough to get there, heaven.

I wonder how many people just "give up" in the course of everyday life. I do. So many consider various "good things" out of reach and simply forfeit. We stop stretching. We abandon our efforts. We leave. We give up.

So that stretch, I think, is the way HOPE is visible in the world. It's easy to see when we're acting with hope, with faith, with love, because we are stretching to get towards our goal.

Today I spent some time in adoration contemplating the second chapter of Sirach, and in doing so I thanked God once again that I'm Catholic since we recognize this book as part of the Bible. In this book I found much talk about hope:

• Verse 1: My son, if you come forward to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for temptation.
  
  
• Verse 6: Trust in him, and he will help you; make your ways straight, and hope in him.
  
  
• Verse 14: Woe to you who have lost your endurance! What will you do when the Lord punishes you?
  
  
• Verse 18: Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, but not into the hands of men; for as his majesty is, so also is his mercy.
  

Verse one says there will always be the temptation, in doing God's will, to not do it. Verse six says all we need to do is trust and hope in God, make our ways straight, and he'll take it from there.

I love verse 14: What will you say when God punishes you for losing that hope!? Greatly put. But verse 18 reminds us of God's mercy for those who fall in the hands of the Lord.

May Almighty God make us strong in hope!

Poets and heroes

"Poets and heroes are of the same race. The latter do what the former conceive."

Alphonse de Lamartine, French Poet

Pope Benedict on Advent

Fr. Z has posted a brief reflection on Pope Benedict’s XVI’s sermon for 1st Vespers in this new liturgical year:

I was struck by something in this sermon. I was caught by the possibility that the Pope is suffering in a human way and in a spiritual way. I was struck by the notion that at this point in his life, with the burdens he bears and the life perhaps he thought he was going to have after the death of the late Holy Father, he is sorting many things out on a personal level even as he gazes at the Church in this modern world, this modern world around our Church.

I can't locate the entirety of this sermon in English at this point. But Fr. Z gives us a pretty good idea of what it was about.

He began by talking about the history of Advent. Then he moved on to talk briefly about our focus and attitude of prayer as we wait in joyful hope, despite the tendency to "do" 24/7 this season:

We all have the experience, in our daily life, of having little time for the Lord and little time even for ourselves. One winds up absorbed by ‘doing’. Isn’t it perhaps true that often it is exactly activity that possesses us, society with its multiple interests that monopolizes our attention? Isn’t it perhaps true that one dedicates lots of time to diversions and amusements of different kinds?....Advent invites us to stand in silence in order to understand a presence. ... How often God causes us to perceive something of His love!

The Pope then talked about waiting, and how waiting must have meaning, and what we have to do while doing it. Here's Fr. Z; the quotes are attributed to the Pope:

There are many different forms of waiting. If time isn’t filled with meaning, waiting is unendurable. "Every breath that passes seems exaggeratedly long." If it is enriched with meaning, then "in every instant we perceive something specific and of value."

"Dear brothers and sisters, let us intense live the present, where the Lord’s gifts are reaching us, let us live it as if we were launched towards the future, a future charged with hope."

Christian Advent helps us to an understanding of waiting. The Messiah waited for centuries and was born into poverty. Coming among us, he offered the gift of His love and salvation. Present among us He speaks in many ways: in Scripture, in the liturgical year, in the saints, in the events of daily life, in all creation. "For our part, let us address Him, let us offer Him the sufferings that afflict us, the impatience, the questions that burst from our hearts. Let us be sure that He is always listening to us!" "If He is present, we can continue to hope even when others cannot any longer assure us of any support, even when the present becomes wearying."

At the end the Holy Father made a comment that gave me pause: "Advent is the time of the presence and waiting for eternity. For just this reason it is, in a special way, the time of joy, of interiorized joy, that no suffering can take away."

A terrific sermon. Can't wait to read the whole thing.

It's no doubt Pope Benedict shoulders a very, very heavy cross. He does so courageously, generously, and successfully--all three because of the grace of God.

Where the seat of Peter is, there is Christ's Church. And Fr. Z is right: the leader of the Church needs our prayers!

Our Holy Father's new ferula

Fr. Z alerts us here that His Holiness Pope Benedict the XVI has a new ferula. (A ferula is a staff.)

Quoting Fr. Z: "Pope Benedict began his pontificate using the staff of the late John Paul II. Then he changed to the more traditional ferula. Now he has his own ferula."

One WDTPRS reader adds this: "The Holy Father’s new ferula has on the four points of the Cross the images of Saint Augustine, Saint Ambrose, Saint Athanasius and Saint John Chrysostom. They are Doctors of the Church who “support” the Chair of St Peter at St Peter’s Basilica."

Look at this!!

And what a beautiful miter imaged with Our Lady!

He makes this look good.

Pray for our Pope!