Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

Matthew 18:15-20

Jesus said to his disciples: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell the Church. If he refuses to listen even to the Church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

Reflection on the gospel reading: God is no respecter of size. There are perhaps 500 billion galaxies in the universe, but to God, all of them are less than a single prick of light. Yet even so, God attends a blade of grass when it bows down after a summer breeze. In the Babylonian Talmud, it is written, “Whoever saves a life saves the world entire.” God’s sense of proportion is entirely different than our own. We may worship in great communities filled with people, and we may worship with just one or two others. But to God, it is all the same. This is why we should ever strive to live lives of quality for quantity does not impress the Lord of the bent blade of grass.

Saint of the day: Born February 28, 1915 at Rees, Germany, Karl Leisner studied theology in Munster and tried to establish Catholic youth groups. However, the Nazis sought control of all work with youth, and he had to take teenagers “camping” in Belgium and the Nederlands in order to freely discuss Catholicism.

He spent six months in compulsory agricultural work during which, despite Nazi opposition, he organized Sunday Mass for his fellow workers. His home was raided by the Gestapo who seized his diaries and papers. These meticulously preserved documents tell how the spiritual young man became a heroic religious leader.

Ordained deacon by Bishop von Galen in 1939, he was imprisoned in Freiburg, Mannheim, and Sachsenhausen for criticizing Hitler. Transferred on December 14, 1941 to Dachau, where he was secretly ordained a priest on December 17, 1944 by French bishop Gabriel Piquet, a fellow prisoner, Leisner was so sick he had to postpone his first Mass for over a week.

Still in the camp when it was liberated on May 4, 1945, he was immediately transferred to tuberculosis sanitarium of Planegg, near Munich for the remaining months of his life. He died August 12, 1945 of tuberculosis.

Spiritual reading: Unfortunately, in seeing ourselves as we truly are, not all that we see is beautiful and attractive. This is undoubtedly part of the reason we flee silence. We do not want to be confronted with our hypocrisy, our phoniness. We see how false and fragile is the false self we project. We have to go through this painful experience to come to our true self. It is a harrowing journey, a death to self—the false self—and no one wants to die. But it is the only path to life, to freedom, to peace, to true love. And it begins with silence. We cannot give ourselves in love if we do not know and possess ourselves. This is the great value of silence. It is the pathway to all we truly want. (Father M. Basil Pennington, OCSO)

Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

Matthew 18:1-5, 10, 12-14

The disciples approached Jesus and said, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?” He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father. What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.”

Reflection on the gospel reading: Children have a wonderful trust and openness. In today’s gospel reading, the Lord draws the little children to himself and tells us that of such as these is the kingdom of God made: people who place themselves in God’s hands with complete trust and allow themselves to be led, people who remain teachable as God whispers things to them in the stillness of their hearts. These are the people who make God’s kingdom. It isn’t so much the innocence of children that appealed to Jesus but the wisdom of children.

Saint of the day: August 11 is the memorial of St. Clare. Clare was born in the late 12th century in Assisi, Italy. She lived at the time of St. Francis. Clare became the foundress of an order of nuns called the “Poor Clares.” When she was 18, she heard St. Francis preach. Her heart burned with a great desire to imitate him. She also wanted to live a poor, humble life for Jesus. So one evening, she ran away from home. In a little chapel outside Assisi, she gave herself to God. St. Francis cut off her hair and offered her a rough brown habit to wear. She stayed with the Benedictine nuns until more nuns would join her. Her parents tried in every way to make her return home, but Clare would not. Soon her 15-year-old sister Agnes joined her. Other young women wanted to join her way of life, too. Before long, a small religious community formed.

St. Clare and her nuns were discalced, that is, they were shoeless. They abstained from meat. They lived in a poor house and kept silent most of the time. As with St. Francis, many pious stories abound about Clare. One legend tells of how an army of rough soldiers came to attack Assisi. They planned to raid the convent first. Although she was very sick, St. Clare asked to be carried to the wall. She had the Blessed Sacrament placed right where the soldiers could see it. Then she knelt and begged God to save the nuns. “O Lord, protect these sisters whom I cannot protect now,” she prayed. And a voice within her seemed to say, “I will keep them always in my care.” At the same time, a sudden fright struck the attackers, and they fled.

St. Clare was abbess of her convent for 40 years. Twenty-nine of those years she was sick. But she said that she was joyful anyway because she was serving the Lord. Some people worried that the nuns were suffering because they were so poor. “They say that we are too poor, but can a heart which possesses the infinite God be truly poor?” St. Clare died on August 11, 1253.

Spiritual reading: There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life in us. We may find this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it. (Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis)

Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

John 12:24-26

Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.”

Reflection on the gospel reading: On this feast of Lawrence, a deacon of Rome martyred for Christ in the second century, we have this passage from the gospel of John. In the passage, Jesus tells us that a grain of wheat must fall to the ground to bring forth a great harvest. Jesus was speaking of his own death and resurrection, that only through his death would the great harvest of his followers become possible.

We live in the pattern of Christ’s life, and the reading of this passage on the feast of one of the Church’s martyrs recalls for us the possibility that our own sacrifices can result in great things for God and the Church. The persecution of the Church and Christians in the first centuries after the death and resurrection of the Lord not only failed to extinguish the Church but became for believers a source of inspiration that allowed the Church to both survive and grow. This fact reminds us that God ever is weaving of out of the threads of our existence a cloth we cannot imagine.

Saint of the day: Lawrence Martyr was a Roman who lived in the third century. He was one of seven deacons who were in charge of giving help to the poor and the needy. When a persecution broke out, Sixtus, bishop of Rome, was condemned to death. As he went to execution, Lawrence followed him weeping. “Father, where are you going without your deacon?” “I am not leaving you, my son,” Sixtus answered. “In three days you will follow me.” Full of joy, Lawrence gave to the poor the rest of the money he had on hand. He even sold expensive church vessels to have more to give away.

The prefect of Rome, a greedy man, thought the Church had a great fortune hidden away. He ordered Lawrence to bring the Church’s treasure to him. The saint said he would, in three days. Then he went through the city and gathered together all the poor and sick people whom the Church supported. He showed them to the prefect and said: “This is the Church’s treasure.” The prefect was furious. In his anger, he condemned Lawrence to a slow, cruel death. The saint was tied on top of an iron grill over a slow fire that roasted him. Lawrence joked to the judge, “Turn me over.” Before he died, he prayed that the city of Rome might be converted to Jesus. He prayed that the holy faith would spread all over the world. Lawrence died on August 10, 158. His feast spread throughout Italy and northern Africa.

Spiritual reading: God is love. We are made to his image and likeness. We are all that we are to be, to the extent that we are love, lovers, sharing in the love of God become man’s in his Son. The greatest act of creation is the greatest act of love in creation, that act whereby the Son offered the Father the greatest thing in creation: his human life. Greater love than this no man has than to lay down his life. All our love has its meaning and fullness only to the extent it participate in his supreme act of love. (A Place Apart by M. Basil Pennington, OCSO)

Church for All People News

It’s been several months since our last blog about news of The Church For All People – Tarrytown, but this is not to say that we haven’t been busy!

On June 13 we hosted a day of prayer in Tarrytown for both of our parish locations: Brooklyn and Tarrytown as well as Church of the Holy Innocents in Halcottsville NY.  It was led by Kathleen Connell,  a priest from the Celtic Catholic Church who introduced us to the Dances of Universal Peace which we then used to pray on the Beatitudes while learning to chant in Aramaic.  It is hard to describe in words what the experience was like; all were very moved and we continue to be so.  Kathleen has been a long time friend of  CACINA and the Church For All People and we are most grateful to her for the many gifts she brings to us.

This past week was our annual silent, directed retreat.  Members of the Church for All People as well as assorted friends and other members of CACINA parishes spent Monday August 3 through Friday August 7 at the beautiful Linwood Spiritual Center on the banks of the Hudson River in Rhinebeck, NY.  We were blessed to have our pastor, Joe Diele, as well as three other directors to guide each of us on our journey into our hearts and souls to encounter our living God.  The other directors were all women and from varied backgrounds and perspectives: a Roman Catholic nun, an Episcopal priest and a professed lay member of the Order of EcumenicalFranciscans.  We also were blessed with gorgeous weather which made the fact that the Center had a pool even more delightful!

On September 5th the Tarrytown community will celebrate their second anniversary with liturgy and a barbecue afterwards.  Our parish continues to grow, slowly but surely….we recently had a young family with two small children attend and expressed a definite desire to continue to be with us.  Since we began our community two years ago, we have doubled in size.  While this means that we have  a mere 8 members, we continue to know that God’s timing is perfect and we are right where we are supposed to be.  Alleluia!

June 10 2009 Day of Prayer - Praying with the Beatitudes in Aramaic

Daily Eucharist at Linwood Retreat

Fr. Ron’s Sunday Homily

19th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME B

Today’s readings are all about food and nutrition. As a nation we are obsessed about these topics. So much money and time is spent on dieting, looking for healthy foods, and in changing the eating habits of a whole generation. Needless to say, food was an important topic in Jesus’ time and earlier as well. As one of our most basic needs it is something that we have to think about each and every day. We can’t survive without it. People who are poor think about food in a very different way than people who are well off. But it still occupies the mind.

So, too, in our first reading, the prophet Elijah had gone a long time without eating because he could find no food. Finally, he realized that he might possibly die and he lay down under a tree and prayed for his death, leaving everything in God’s hands. But God had other plans for Elijah. Suddenly an angel appeared, an angel who brought him food and drink, bread and water. God did not want Elijah to perish. So Elijah ate and drank and went back to rest, but the angel wouldn’t let him rest, but told him to eat more and strengthen himself for the journey. And after Elijah ate, he was granted strength and he was able to continue the trip to God’s mountain, which took him forty days. God had strengthened Elijah’s spirit as well as his body. Once his body was taken care of, he was able to do God’s bidding.

In Psychology and Sociology we learn about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In case you aren’t familiar with it, or as a review, basically Maslow says that in order to function on a higher level – being a moral person, a creative person, an unprejudiced person – certain needs have to be taken care of. Simply put, if a person is starving, he will not be writing poetry. A person’s physiological needs – air, food, water, sleep, etc. are base needs. Without these needs being taken care of, the higher needs of a person cannot be achieved.

Maslow’s theory is much more complex than I am describing and is really quite fascinating to study, but the reason I bringing it up at all, is that Jesus knew at a very base level that we cannot feel safe, we cannot love, we cannot have self-esteem, we cannot be self-actualized until our most basic needs were taken care of. That is why food is so important a topic in the Gospels, and why it is metaphorically so important. We have to feed the body before we can feed the mind and soul. Jesus understood this at a very base level. We have noted in the last number of homilies how in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus always saw to the physical needs of people he had cured, like the little girl whom he raised and then told to get something to eat, or with the needs of his pupils when away from the city, listening to his preaching, he discovered they had no food and so he fed the multitudes so they could hear what he had to say.

This concern about food reaches a much higher level in the Gospel of St. John. This is the Gospel that is so much more poetic and metaphorical than the others. This is the Gospel where Jesus makes all the “I am…” statements. The Gospel today begins with Jesus making an “I am” statement. “I am the bread of life that came down from heaven.” How apt and wonderful a metaphor, though it confounded the people listening to him who knew him merely as a carpenter’s son. Then he says another “I am” statement. “I am the bread of life”, and another: “I am the living bread”. Obviously Jesus is talking metaphorically, but there is so much truth and beauty in the metaphor. At the very base of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is food. And Jesus says that he is that food. With Jesus as food, we are able to climb the hierarchy of needs and become the spiritual, moral people we were meant to be. “The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” And now we move from metaphor to miracle – the very bread that Jesus gives us in the Eucharist, bread made of human hands, crushed wheat – that can sustain our lives, becomes Jesus himself, our God. And now all our spiritual needs can be sustained as well, again allowing us to grow into t he spiritual, self-actualized persons we were meant to be.

I cannot stress too much the importance of this gift of the Eucharist which we hear Jesus talk about today. At this point in John’s story, Jesus has not even instituted the Eucharist. John never tells us about a last supper Eucharist institution- by the time John’s gospel was written, it was probably taken for granted and John spends his time on the washing of the feet, the service aspect. But John places the institution of the Eucharist here as part of his teaching, which of course confounded the listeners. Jesus tries to make it clear by using Jewish references. God fed the people in the desert with manna. They lived long lives but eventually died, many of them before they saw the promised land. Jesus will feed us with a form of manna as well, but this time when we eat the bread, we will not die. It will be a very special bread that gives us an eternal spiritual life through Christ’s death and resurrection.

What I want to stress today is that the Eucharist is so important in our lives. That we be fed each week and nourished by Christ’s body will allow us to reach the higher perfection for which we were created. It is the food for our soul. We must never hunger spiritually. God has given us the means to be the very best we can be. Do we really take the time to meditate on that each week, and realize how it sustains us? We need to.

I want to close today by looking at the passage from Paul to the Ephesians. The second reading is often not linked to the other readings of the day thematically and today’s really isn’t either. It doesn’t talk about food, or Eucharist or manna. But, it does give us the effects of the Eucharist, a higher level of Maslow’s hierarchy. Once we have been fed, we can then start to be, in the words of Paul: kind to one another, compassionate, and forgiving one another. This is really the end result of the Eucharist for our time on earth. We are God’s beloved children and can live in love. All of this is brought about by Jesus’ great gift to us of his own body – both in his own time when he died for us, and today when we will be nourished by the bread, his body. And this is the good news I bring you today.

Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

John 6:41-51

The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven, ” and they said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Stop murmuring among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. It is written in the prophets: They shall all be taught by God. Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

Reflection on the gospel reading: The gospel that the Church gives us on this nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time speaks to who Jesus is and how this identity can change ours. I always have been amazed at what a huge Rorschach test Jesus is. After years of hearing people talk about Jesus, I have come to realize he is like a reflecting pool. People bring all their own personal issues to the Lord, look into him, and see in the image there in the water, all the things that they brought to him in the first place. In some ways, they see the Lord, but when they look into the Lord, they more nearly see themselves. They see only what they are ready to see, but they don’t see the totality of who Jesus really is, who Jesus is in Jesus’ self.

Take for instance, the people at the start of today’s gospel who look at Jesus and believe they know exactly who he is. “This is Joseph and Mary’s kid. He’s a guy from up in Nazareth.” They look into Jesus and see their own lives. He is a guy with parents from a particular town up the road. And as much as they see is true about Jesus, but while they think they know the whole story, they don’t. It is true that this is Joseph and Mary’s kid from Nazareth, but he is telling them that he is a lot more than what they know about him.

Jesus tells us in today’s gospel that he is bread come down from heaven. Bread fills our stomachs and gives us energy to do the things we need to do. When Jesus says he is heavenly bread, he is telling us that he is the food we need to sustain us on our journey. Surely, this passage has Eucharistic overtones, but when Jesus speaks of himself as heavenly food, he is talking about a total package. He has a way of looking at people with kindness, understanding, and mercy. He has a teaching about our relationships with one another and with God. He is a whole way of life that informs every aspect of our own existence. Jesus for us is an attitude, a teaching, a way of being, and the implications of all of those things forever are unfolding as we move moment by moment through our lives.

When we look into Jesus and see whatever it is that we see, we only understand what we are prepared to understand. We filter our experience of Jesus through the various preset aspects of who we are in a given moment, through our character, our beliefs, our thoughts, our experiences up to that given moment. What Jesus calls us to understand in today’s gospel is that he well may be for us those things that we are prepared to understand in this moment, but he also is so much more. This gospel we read and reflect on today calls us to the discipline of seeing Jesus more clearly, loving Jesus more dearly, following Jesus more nearly day by day.

Spiritual reading: God is there in these moments of rest and can give us in a single instant exactly what we need. Then the rest of the day can take its course, under the same effort and strain, perhaps, but in peace. And when night comes, and you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone, and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands and leave it with Him. Then you will be able to rest in Him — really rest — and start the next day as a new life. (St. Edith Stein)

Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

Matthew 17:14-20

A man came up to Jesus, knelt down before him, and said, “Lord, have pity on my son, who is a lunatic and suffers severely; often he falls into fire, and often into water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.” Jesus said in reply, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you? Bring the boy here to me.” Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him, and from that hour the boy was cured. Then the disciples approached Jesus in private and said, “Why could we not drive it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Reflection on the gospel reading: There is a lot going on in the passage of the gospel the Church gives us today. The passage talks about the human condition, God’s nature, and the exchange between God and humanity. We have a boy with a condition that baffled his father and the people around him, quite possibly, epilepsy, something that we now basically understand but something that in Jesus’ time was a mystifying condition. We have a father’s love for his son and his persistence to find a cure. We have Jesus’ disciples, who have left everything for the Lord, apparently rebuked by Jesus for their little faith. And we have God’s willingness to work a cure if only we will take our seat to watch God move mountains.

In the midst of a life full of daunting problems, we have taken on baptismal vows and committed ourselves to a life of discipleship. But often in the midst of our cares, we lose confidence that God is at work, sometimes quickly but sometimes slowly and even imperceptibly. The mustard seed of which our Lord speaks has a program. Given soil, water, and warmth, it cannot do otherwise than become a great tree. This is the program of faith, planted in ourselves, watered with prayer, and fertilized with our trust of God, the destiny of faith is to watch God address the great, and sometimes baffling, problems of our lives and do what God ever seems to do: to take our concepts, fill them up, and explode them into something new and wonderful we never dared to dream.

Saint of the day: Also known as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, Saint Dominic was the founder of the Order of Friars Preachers. He traveled extensively himself, preaching, both before and after the Dominican order was founded. Following Dominic’s ideals, the Dominicans placed an emphasis on scholarship as well as evangelism.

Born in Castile in about 1170, Domingo de Guzmán studied at Palencia before joining the canons regular of Osma in about 1196. He became subprior only a few years later, and in 1203 he accompanied the bishop, Diego, on a royal mission through France. The trip exposed Dominic to the problems the Church faced with the Albigensian heretics, whose caste of the “perfect” led lives of extreme austerity, to the point of starvation and suicide, and who regarded ordinary people as reprobates.

Several years later, on another trip with the bishop, Dominic once again traveled to France. There, preachers who had been failing in their mission to reform the Albigensians discussed their dilemma with Dominic and Diego. Dominic reasoned that Albigensians would only turn back to Catholicism if Catholic preachers led lives of austerity that rivaled their own, traveling the roads barefoot in obvious poverty. This was the seed of Dominic’s “evangelical preaching.”

In 1208, the murder of papal legate Peter de Castelnau triggered a “crusade” called by Pope Innocent III against the Albigensians. Dominic’s work continued throughout the time of this crusade and grew slowly. After the Catholic forces had entered Tolouse, Dominic and his friends were welcomed by bishop Foulques and established as “diocesan preachers.” From this point on, Saint Dominic’s design for an order devoted to preaching grew quickly.

The Augustinian rule was adopted for Dominic’s order, which received formal sanction in December of 1216. He established two principal houses near the universities of Paris and Bologna, determining that each house should form a school of theology. In 1218 Saint Dominic began a great tour of well over 3,000 miles, entirely on foot, which included Rome, Tolouse, Spain, Paris and Milan.

General chapters of the Dominican order were held at Bologna. At the first, in 1220, a system of representative government for the order was devised; at the second, in 1221, the order was divided into provinces.

Tradition in both the Franciscan and the Dominican orders has it that St. Dominic met and became good friends with St. Francis of Assisi. The men may have met in Rome, possibly as early as 1215.

In 1221, after a visit to Vencie, Saint Dominic died at Bologna.

Spiritual reading: There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit. (The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses by C. S. Lewis)

Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

Matthew 16:24-28

Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay each according to his conduct. Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.”

Reflection on the gospel reading: It is a fact of our lives that trials will come. We are not to seek these things out, but they will come: we indeed will encounter obstacles. We will run into things we wish would have passed us by. Jesus asks us to accept the hard things that life presents to us. We certainly can run after transitory pleasures seeking to avoid the crosses that life puts into our arms, but what gain is there in such behavior if we lose our integrity in the process? Jesus calls us to a radical authenticity, one that embraces not just the good things that come our way but also the things that are not easily borne.

Saint of the day: St. Cajetan was the founder of the Theatines. He was born in October 1480 at Vicenza in Venetian territory. He died at Naples in 1547. Under the care of a devout mother, he was a studious and good boy. He took his degree as doctor utriusque juris at Padua in his twenty-fourth year. He founded an association of priests and prelates called the Oratory of Divine Love, which spread to various Italian towns. Though remarkable for his intense love of God, he did not advance to the priesthood till 1516. Recalled to Vicenza at the death of his mother, he founded there a hospital for incurables, thus giving proof of the active charity that filled his whole life. But his zeal was more deeply moved by the spiritual diseases that, in those days of political disorder, infected the clergy of all ranks, and, like St. Augustine in earlier times, he strove to reform them by instituting a body of regular clergy, who should combine the spirit of monasticism with the exercises of the active ministry.

Returning to Rome in 1523 he laid the foundations of his new congregation, which was canonically erected by Clement VII in 1524. One of his four companions was Giovanni Pietro Caraffa, Bishop of Chieti (in Latin Theate), afterwards Paul IV, who was elected first superior, and from whose title arose the name Theatines. The order grew but slowly. During the sack of Rome in 1527 the Theatines, then twelve in number, escaped to Venice after enduring many outrages from the heretic invaders. There Cajetan met St. Hieronymus Æmiliani, whom he assisted in the establishment of his Congregation of Clerks Regular. In 1533 Cajetan founded a house in Naples, where he was able to check the advances of Lutheranism. In 1540 he was again at Venice, whence he extended his work to Verona and Vicenza. He passed the last four years of his life, a sort of seraphic existence, at Naples where he died finally of grief at the discords of the city, suffering in his last moments a kind of mystical crucifixion.

Spiritual reading: May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in. (Mother Teresa)

Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

Mark 9:2-10

Jesus took Peter, James, and his brother John, and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified. Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; from the cloud came a voice, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them.

As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant.

Reflection on the gospel reading: We celebrate today the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. I think there is an insight to be gained into the transfiguration by an understanding of how the feast came about. In the early eastern church, many Christians celebrated the transfiguration in conjunction with the Epiphany, when we celebrate the visit of the Magi to the newborn king.

Epiphany means literally, “appears,” “gives light.” A great variety of narratives influenced the feast in the fourth and early fifth centuries: the transfiguration, the birth of Jesus, the visit of the magi, the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, the water turned into wine at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, and the multiplication of loaves and fishes. All of these narratives, celebrated at Epiphany, had the element of change and surprise, and the theology of Epiphany was the manifestation of God in the world. Only with the passage of time did the Church shake apart the elements of the Epiphany and allow all these narratives about change and surprise to migrate and settle into separate celebrations.

All those varied manifestations of the Lord’s divinity celebrated together by early Christians joined each other into a unity, the panoply of events created an undivided testimony. The day, as conceived in the East indeed did address the revelation of light to the nations signified in the great star that leads the magi to adore the Lord. But the original wealth of the day included so much more. It included the birth of the Savior before Christmas came to exist as a separate feast. Light fans out upon the waters of the Jordan at the baptism of the Lord as the Father and the Holy Spirit reveal Jesus as the Son of God. Epiphany incorporated the sign narratives of the change of water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana and reference to the multiplication of the loaves. And of course, there also was the shimmering event of the transfiguration. We have lost something wonderful in the migration of the transfiguration to August, so far away from all the other pieces that once combined at a place and a time to make the poetry of the Epiphany, and it is worth somehow finding a way back.

Saint of the day: We celebrate today the Feast of the transfiguration. Jesus appeared in shimmering light before Peter, James, and John as the Lord stood talking with Moses and Elijah. In this vision, Moses symbolizes the Law and Elijah symbolizes the prophets. Our faith instructs us that Jesus fulfills both the Law and the prophets. Moses and Elijah have left this life; Peter, James, and John continue it. The transfiguration reveals Christ as Lord of both the living and the dead. By suggesting the Lord’s own resurrected body, the transfiguration foretells the glory of the Lord in his resurrection and, by extension, our glory in our own resurrections.

This feast became widespread in the West in the 11th century and was introduced into the church calendar in 1457 to commemorate the victory over the Turks in Belgrade. Prior to that, the Transfiguration of the Lord was celebrated in the Syrian, Byzantine, and Coptic rites.

During the transfiguration, Jesus, for a short time, appeared in the glorified state that he took permanently after his resurrection on Easter. The translucence of Jesus shone throughout his entire body. Peter, James, and John were stunned by his transfiguration. The transfiguration occurred when Jesus and Peter, James, and John went up to the top of Mount Tabor. When they arrived at the top, Jesus appeared suddenly in beautiful light talking with Moses and Ellijah. The three companions of the Lord were in awe and fell to the ground as Jesus talked about the fulfillment of the purpose of God’s infinite goodness.

The three disciples were not yet capable of understanding all this. They wanted the transfiguration to continue forever. They felt joy and peace. When Jesus returned to his ordinary presence, he instructed Peter, James, and John to rise up and have no fear. He also told them to tell no one about what happened until he rose from the dead.

In our own lives, we may recognize in the transfiguration that not everyday on Earth is going to be filled with happiness. However, as we move through life with God, all in the end will be well.

Spiritual reading: There is a stage in the spiritual life in which we find God in ourselves – this presence is a created effect of His love. It is a gift of His, to us. It remains in us. All the gifts of God are good. But if we rest in them, rather than in Him, they lose their goodness for us. So with this gift also. When the right time comes for us to go on to other things, God withdraws the sense of His presence, in order to strengthen our faith. After that it is useless to seek Him through the medium of any psychological effect. Useless to look for any sense of Him in our hearts. The time has come when we must go out of ourselves and above ourselves and find Him no longer within us but outside us and above us…in service of our brothers. (Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton)

Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

Matthew 15:21-28

At that time Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not say a word in answer to her.

His disciples came and asked him, “Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.” He said in reply, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But the woman came and did him homage, saying, “Lord, help me.” He said in reply, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Then Jesus said to her in reply, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that hour.

Reflection on the gospel reading: I have discovered the secret of life, and I want to share it with you. No matter how I fail, no matter what run of bad luck I encounter, I simply never give up. I fall down; I get dirty; I pick myself up; I dust myself off; and I get on with it. And this is the lesson of today’s gospel. The Canaanite woman had a petition for the Master, who in his turn was disinclined to indulge her request, but she nevertheless persisted. And her persistence despite an initial failure earned her the reward she sought. This woman has much to teach us.

Saint of the day: Today is the feast of Addai and Mari. Among the Eastern Orthodox faithful, Saint Addai is the person who was sent by St. Thomas the Apostle to Edessa in order to heal King Abgar V of Osroene, who had fallen ill. St. Addai stayed to evangelize, and converted Abgar and his people including Saint Aggai and Saint Mari. He is known as one of the great apostles to Syria and Persia. He is considered to have been one of the early Catholicoses of the East, following Saint Thomas the Apostle. Saint Mari is said to have had Saint Aggai as his spiritual director. He is also believed to have done missionary work around Nineveh, Nisibis, and along the Euphrates, and is said to have been one of the great apostles to Syria and Persia. He and Addai are credited with the Divine Liturgy of Addai and Mari. Despite the fact that there is little if any concrete information on Mari, he is still venerated as a saint by the Assyrian Church of the East,Chaldean Catholic Church and the Syro Malabar Catholic Church.

Spiritual reading: When life on earth ends and everything transitory falls away, every soul will see itself ‘as it is perceived’ – as it appears before God. It will see to what purpose God has created it in particular and what it has become in the order of nature and mercy and, most importantly, what it has become through its own voluntary decisions. (Daybook by St. Edith Stein)