Category: Catholic

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Let all corners of the earth be glad

So begins the vigil service on Holy Saturday in most Roman Catholic churches. For most of the last twenty years I have joined dozens of others at Mount Irenaeus for the Easter Vigil service. It is one of my favorite liturgies in the church year. It is full of readings that remind of the creation story. One of those reading is from Genesis.

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth,

the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss,

while a mighty wind swept over the waters.Then God said,

“Let there be light,” and there was light.

God saw how good the light was.

God then separated the light from the darkness.

God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.”

Thus evening came, and morning followed—the first day.

Genesis 1

This year will be different and I’ll miss the liturgy and the fellowship afterward over hot cocoa and lots of other goodies at the House of Peace. There are memories and I am grateful to be in good health in the midst of this pandemic.

Tonight as I finished my walk I turned to take a picture of the setting sun and was rewarded with a beautiful image.

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Internet Easter

This essay by Sister Ilio Delio, OSF resonates for me. We have entered a new age that has been thrust upon us. The cry of various religious leaders to forego social distancing to meet as we once did invites a further spread of the pandemic.  Last night my cousin asked if I had received communion while attending a celebration of the Liturgy of the Lord’s Supper which was broadcast on YouTube Live. Ilia invites us to envision an Internet Easter.

“I think internet religion may be a sign of a new religious consciousness on the horizon. It is not the same as the old religion; it can lack the warmth of the smells and bells and friendly neighbors squeezing their way into the pew. And yet, online I can attend different liturgies around the world, I can explore different religious traditions, I can hear prayers and participate in rituals I would never otherwise venture to discover. ” — Ilia Delio

Source: Internet Easter – Omega Center

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The Liturgy of the Lord’s Supper

This year is very different from any in my memory. For most of the last twenty years I have celebrated the Liturgy of the Lord’s Supper at Mount Irenaeus along with several dozen or more people who came for dinner and stayed for the liturgy. However different tonight’s liturgy was, it is still one of my favorites of the church year. Fr. Peter Schneible, OFM and Dr. Paula Scraba, OFS provided us with the best remote liturgy we could expect during this unusual time of quarantine. I appreciated how the liturgy ended with Tantum Ergo Sacramentum which announces the period of veneration of the Eucharist that follows the Eucharistic celebration on this special night of the church year. Thank you to University Ministries at St. Bonaventure for providing a live stream of the liturgy tonight. You can watch the entire liturgy on their YouTube channel.

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Peanut butter and jelly

Almost everyday for much of my life I’ve had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for my lunch. It’s a taste I acquired in elementary school at St. Pius X in Delevan, New York. Back then the bread was white and the jelly was almost always grape. Later in life while working at Franklinville Central School my coworkers marvelled at the lack of diversity in my lunch choices. While they enjoyed ham and cheese, egg salad and other choices I had PB&J. The choice of bread varied and the brand varied from time to time but my favorite brand since childhood has remained Monks Bread. Abbey of the Genesee in Piffard, New York is about an hour’s drive from where i live and when we are no longer social distancing it will be one of my first visits. The Abbey was established in 1951 and one of the early Trappist brothers was a former US Navy baker. He began making bread for the community and in time they decided to marked the bread to stores in the area. As a boy I remember they had three flavors. White, wheat and cinnamon raisin.

My first visit to the monastery was in January 1979 and I’ve been returning ever since. My last visit was March 9 of this year. Today I ordered three loaves of Monks bread for my lunch meals. My favorite is sunflower but I also like multigrain and wheat. The monks make a number of other flavors and in recent years have begun to make biscotti in a number of different flavors. My favorite biscotti is dark chocolate. Though I cannot go there whenever I open the package of bread for lunch the aroma reminds me of the monastery and its prayerful presence. If you’ve never been there I encourage you to visit when its okay to visit people again. You won’t be disappointed.

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You have quoted Pope Francis

Tomorrow Pope Francis is calling on people everywhere to join him in prayer at 6:00 PM which is 12:00 noon in the Eastern United States. Like his prayer on Wednesday morning of this week the focus is on the Coronavirus pandemic. Wednesday morning I happened to wake up just three minutes before 6:00 AM and was able to join in. One of my friends pointed out that being on time wasn’t as important as bathing the world in prayer.

Today I read that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in her meeting with the Senate Majority Leader and the Treasury Secretary had offered a prayer based on one shared by Pope Francis. The Treasury Secretary is reported to have stated, “you have quoted Pope Francis, I will quote the Markets.” The tone struck me as cold and out of touch with the reality. There are 8 billion people on the earth and approximately three-hundred-thirty million here in the United States. Even if the stock market performs exceptionally well hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions will die of this pandemic.

Giving every American $1200 doesn’t amount to fart in a whirlwind. That’s one or two month’s mortgage or rent. Last week 3 million Americans filed for unemployment. Our hospitals need equipment. Our healthcare system is melting down and the secretary is praying for the markets. There is money in the agreement for hospital funding but with many Americans who have no health care coverage that’s moot. Worshiping the golden calf of the stock market is short sighted.

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Pope Francis asks us to pray for the world

Tomorrow Pope Francis invites us to pray for the world. I’m joining this effort and maybe you will too. There is no hope that without divine intervention millions will perish in this pandemic. Can a mass prayer avert catastrophe? Is it worth trying? I think so. The pope will be praying at noon at the Vatican. That’s 6:00 AM EDT. You can follow the Pope on Twitter.

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Laudate Omnes Gentes

It’s Sunday night and we’ve just finished dinner. The sun is beginning to set in the west. It was a beautiful day despite the pandemic and fear that grips the world around us. I’m listening to Taize. If you’re not familiar Taize is a Christian ecumenical community founded in France in 1940 during the second world war. I never experienced it until I began to attend liturgies at Mount Irenaeus twenty years ago. I came to the Mountain as we call it searching for a deeper experience of God. I found it there and along with it the understanding that I’m a contemplative. From the time I was quite young I was attracted to this quiet experience of the almighty. Traditional church services always left me cold. But at the Mountain I found a community of believers who were drawn to a deeper mystical experience of creation.

One of my favorite Taize prayers is Laudate Dominum which is drawn from the Psalm 117. “Laudate omnes gentes, laudate Dominum.” Translated that is, “Sing praises, all you peoples, sing praises to the Lord.” The Franciscans of Mount Irenaeus found it unnecessary to define what the Lord is for me or for anyone else. They are Roman Catholic friars but realize that each of us senses the spark of the divine differently. That’s very Franciscan.

By God’s power, presence, and essence, God is the One whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. God exists uncircumscribed in everything. God is, therefore, all inclusive. God is the essence of everything. God is most perfect and immense: within all things, but not enclosed; outside all things, but not excluded; above all things, but not aloof; below all things, but not debased. Finally, therefore, this God is all in all…. Consequently, from him, through him and in him, all things exist.”

— St. Bonaventure

As the evening descends on this day may you enjoy the peace that surpasses all understanding while listening to this selection from Taize.

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We were flying to the moon

Reading on the internet tonight led me to Ireland and Sister Maud Murphy, SSL who has written a timely poem about the Coronavirus. She’s hit the nail on the head. It’s a theme I have thought of often this week as I’ve listened to politicians posture about how this virus is the fault of a particular geographic area of our world. The virus comes not from a particular place but from a lifestyle of over consumption. Our failure to live simply so that others could simply live has caught up with us. Now we face a reckoning of our own creation. It’s payback time and as an old friend once said, “payback’s a bitch.”

We were warned by Rachel Carson nearly sixty years ago when she published “Silent Spring.” Al Gore published Inconvenient Truth in 2006 and it was dismissed as too political. Politicians and pundits laughed and said there was no way we could afford to change our ways. It was not economically feasible they said. In 2015 Pope Francis released Laudate Si and again the politicians and pundits dismissed it. It was economically not feasible and some said the pope should tend to matters of the church because the climate and the economy were not his business. Last year Greta Thunberg warned us just as the prophets of old that our time was running out. She was dismissed as all the prophets have always been. They said she was crazy. Some folks said that Greta had anger management issues. The Green New Deal was dismissed out of hand by those who worshipped the golden calf of the stock market and economy.

Now the planet has spoken and she has our attention. Sister Maud Murphy has written a poignant poem that captures the irony of our dilemma. The stock market is plummeting and the economy is tanking. We are forced to keep our distance from neighbors. Businesses are shuttered. Maybe there is a silver lining in Coronavirus. Maybe we’ll emerge transformed. Maybe.

We were flying to the Moon
We were finding life on Mars
We were dropping bombs with drones
We were getting bigger cars.
We were building finer homes
Flying out to warmer lands
We were busy buying clothes
We were brushing up our tans.
We were throwing out good food
While we watched the starving poor
We kept burning fossil fuels
And our air became less pure.
We were warned by our Pope
Need to mind our Common Home
Need to watch our Carbon Footprint
Try to save our world from doom. – Sister Maud Murphy, SSL

Read the entire poem here.