Turk Jesuit

Let me give you a special example because it concerns a Turk. This young man did not find answers to his questions in the Islamic tradition. He went to an imam who ordered him to read the Koran and advised him not to ask too many questions that could lead him astray. 

One day he entered a church during Mass and heard 'Take and eat it, this is my Body'. God who becomes flesh, who becomes a companion on the way of man and who gives him his Body cannot be accepted in the Islamic tradition but at the same time this is something fascinating. Then the young Turk visited a priest and began discussing fundamental questions about life. 

The priest's answers were so convincing that he 'entered the way' leading to conversion to Christianity. When he was baptised he decided to devote his whole life to Christ. Today Antuan Ilgit is in the Jesuit novitiate in Italy and he dreams of returning to Turkey and working with the youth in his own country.

Link (here) to Sunday

The Jesuit Church Of Venice: Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta detta I Gesuiti

SANTA MARIA DEI GESUITI, 
OR, I. GESUITI. 

This church is not more than three or four minutes' walk from Sta. Caterina.

Nothing that spacious design and the use of rich material can do has been spared to make the building imposing. Over the first altar to the left, in the nave, is the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, by Titian. In spite of the darkening of this picture, it enforces a deep impression of irresistible power. St. Lawrence lies on an iron cage, with fire below. The only points of high light come from a basket of burning fuel and from a break in the clouds, through which light from heaven falls on the saint.

Link (here) to the original book entitled Venice by Grant Allan first published in 1898

"Cut Your Cloak According To Your Cloth"

......the mind of Ignatius was most express, and became more fixed from day to day. "Cut your cloak according to your cloth," he said to Oliver Manare, when the latter, on going to establish a college at Loretto, asked how he should distribute his men. Ignatius preferred to refuse Princes and Bishops their requests, excusing himself on the score of limited resources, than compromise the reputation of the Society, by an ill-advised assent. And he said, as Juan de Polanco his secretary tells us, that "if anything ought to make him wish to live a longer time, it was that he might be severe in admitting men into the Order." He did not want to have many members in the Society; still less, too many engagements. Having stated thus briefly the material conditions required by Ignatius, and the animating principles or motives which determined him, we are in a position to discern more distinctly the central object of his attention, that for which the material conditions were provided, that by which the ultimate objects were to be attained.

Link (here)

Jesuit On His Experiences Of The Blessed John Paul II Beatification

The things that struck me most was the way in which millions of people gathered in one place could be so full of a genuine joy and celebration....I have often commented on how well everyone treated everyone else, how genuinely nice people were, but there was a different and even better spirit hovering over this moment.

It was a moment of real jubilation, a moment of real joy, so much so that I saw more than a few tears on the via and walking into the square. 

There was a sense in pride in the great and rich diversity of people that were there from all over the world, each feeling joy in celebrating who they were and where they were from without doing it to the detriment of others......Today, at the beatification it was a time to celebrate..."

Link (here) to read the full and lengthy blog post at The Road to La Storta written by Mr. Michael Rogers, S.J. a scholastic.

Jesuit On The Motu Proprio And The Holy Sacrifice Of The Mass

What is key for Fr. Kieth Pecklers, S.J. however, is that the assembly celebrating the liturgy connects what goes on inside church with the world outside. "You can have the most beautiful liturgy in the world, but if you don't have people on board, it won't matter," he says. His own efforts to make that happen include co-founding Caravita, an international Catholic community that meets in Rome's St. Francis Xavier Caravita Church. Still, 

Pecklers is concerned by the trend toward the liturgical past. While acknowledging that today's liturgy isn't perfect, going back is no solution. "The pre-Vatican II liturgy was as idiosyncratic as the post-Vatican II liturgy, but in different ways. There's no golden age there either." 

We Catholics talk a lot about the centrality of the Eucharist, but do you think everyday Catholics, even priests, really get what Mass is all about? I still am not convinced that 40 years after the second Vatican Council the average Catholic actually grasps what it is that we're being called to when we go to Mass on Sunday. 

Link (here) to full article in the US Catholic

More on the Motu Proprio (here)
"Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei" means "For this is the Chalice of my blood" translation (here)

A Holy Cross Jesuit In Rome And Orvieto

A chilly and rainy Saturday in Rome, untypical for this time of year, has provided the opportunity to relax and reflect–and not to go rushing about in this tempest to add lines to the list of worthwhile things I have seen in Rome. At my age, that would be unseemly. This trip to Rome, aimed at two weeks’ research in the Jesuit Archives, has been a wonderful experience. It started with an overlong flight on Monday night. 

We flew over North Africa in order to avoid the Icelandic ash plume. I was taken by the fact that I was seeing Africa for the first time, albeit from 30,000 feet, the place where my niece spent three happy and generous years in the Peace Corps and the place of origin of so many colleagues, acquaintances, and friends.

The superior of the House of Writers, a genial Californian named Fr. Ernie Martinez, made room for me in the infirmary since the regular guest rooms are full. It has the advantage of a comfortable chair and bed and a private bathroom; and it’s agreeably close to the dining room. What food! I love the fresh-baked rolls and cappucino for breakfast; the main meal at 1, served in four courses; and the informal suppers–leftovers and sandwich makings. Last night, they offered four types of pizza: the sweet onion pizza was fantastic, washed down with a good glass of beer. What company! I have enjoyed re-connecting with Father Jim Pratt (HC ‘76) whom I knew in his student days. 

Jim now works at the Curia in the Istituto Historico and is a font of information and hospitality. Tomorrow, we will travel to Orvieto on a day trip; since his Italian is fluent and his personality is friendly, I’m looking forward to a good outing, even on a meterologically drippy day. The Jesuits in this house are a microcosm of the whole Society. Many of the younger men in the house work at Vatican Radio, and most of them (Southeast Asians, Poles, Chinese, and others) can converse in English. 

Yesterday, when I went to breakfast at my accustomed time, we had a surprise visit from Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, the general of our Society. Since he wasn’t expected, few were present and I had the pleasure of sharing the table with him and one other Jesuit. 

Fr. General has happy memories of New England, where he learned English at the former Jesuit house at Shadowbrook in the Berkshires.

(On it, I highly recommend the Shadowbrook website prepared by Ms. Alice Howe, curator of the N.E. Jesuit Archives.) A great surprise and treat to meet the head of our Society, a genial and unassuming man.

Link (here) to the full post of The College of the Holy Cross  Jesuit,  Fr. Anthony Kuzniewski, S.J. at his blog post is entitled the Eternal City.

Jesuit Astronomer Fr. Angelo Secchi At Rocca Di Papa

This town lies about twenty-five kilometres south-east of Rome. Immediately to the south of the town rises Monte Cavo. Henry, Cardinal Duke of York (later King Henry IX and I) gave 500 scudi to the Passionist Fathers to build a monastery on the slopes of the mountain. On October 15, 1778, he laid the foundation stone and on September 26, 1784, he dedicated the new building. This was formerly the site of the great temple of Jupiter Latiaris, the second most important shrine after the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. While later generations have condemned the destruction of the temple, at the time Henry was extolled for replacing it with a Christian church. In the old refectory there is another inscription which records a visit to the monastery by King Charles Emanuel IV of Sardinia (later King Charles IV) and his wife Queen Marie Clothilde, September 8, 1800.

After the unification of Italy and the confiscation of religious properties by the State, the Passionists left the monastery.

In 1876 the convent became an observatory "Franco Fuligni" founded by the Jesuit astronomer Father Angelo Secchi (1818-1878);

today it is a hotel and restaurant.

On December 3, 1788, Henry Cardinal York consecrated a gold chalice for the parish church of Rocca di Papa (the name Rocca di Papa means Rock Castle of the Pope, as it was named for Pope Eugene III). I do not know if the chalice survives.

Link (here) to A Jacobite Gazetteer

After The Suppresion Of The Jesuits The Jesuit College Of Frascati Was Turned Into A Seminary

Of his many public works carried out at Frascati, of which it is now necessary to speak, by far the most important and useful was the founding of the Seminary that still survives intact as a lasting memorial to the zeal and bounty of Henry Cardinal Stuart, Duke of York.

On the total suppression of the Society of Jesus by Clement XIV in 1769, the Cardinal Duke, who had always shown a special interest in education, applied to the reforming Pope for a grant of the now deserted (Villa Tusclana) Jesuit college at Frascati, with the object of changing it into a seminary for his diocese, the clergy of which he had apparently found anything but cultivated or well-disciplined on the occasion of the Synod of 1763.

The Pope readily gave the desired permission, and by a papal brief—adfuturam rei memoriam—dated February I2th, 1770, the buildings were handed over to the Cardinal Duke, who at once expended the large sum of 12,000 crowns in adapting them to the required purpose and in making various additions of outlying property. This newly-founded Seminary always occupied the first place in his heart, and its management continued for many years a source of loving care and anxiety to him, whilst he spared neither time, trouble, nor money in making his Seminary, from the two standpoints of learning and accommodation, a model establishment of its class. Besides carrying out many structural improvements, he also included two more buildings, one to contain a printing-press and the other a stage, on which were to be performed dramas, both classical and modern, that might appeal to the tastes and improve the minds of his pupils and their professors.

But the chief pride of the Seminary was the great Library, still existing, which was brought together with care and judgment, and arranged in a fine chamber enriched with a ceiling-painting in allegorical designs from the brush of Taddeo Cunnoz, and with a handsome pavement, in which the eminent mathematician Calandrelli had been engaged to fix a meridian.

To Frascati was now removed from Rome practically the whole of the Cardinal Duke's private collection of books, manuscripts and engravings (including not a few valuable works that had formerly belonged to James II of England, to the Chevalier St. George, and to the royal Polish House of Sobieski) in order to form the nucleus of the projected library. Friends and suppliants, both great and small, who were anxious to ingratiate themselves, now began to present volumes from time to time,

so that at the date of the French invasion of the Papal States the library of the Seminary of Frascati had probably become one of the best stocked collections of its kind in Italy. Although the buildings were pillaged by the French troops at the close of the eighteenth century,

and several of the choicest treasures were dispersed or destroyed, this library at Frascati still contains some objects of historical or artistic interest amongst the general mass of theological and classical literature. Two specimens at least survive

Link (here) to the book entitled, The last of the Royal Stuarts: Henry Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York By Herbert Millingchamp Vaughan

Jesuits Bring The Devotion Of Our Lady Of Guadalupe To Northern Italy

The devotion to the Madonna of Guadalupe, to whom the inhabitants of Santo Stefano have erected a statue on the nearby Mount Maggiorasca, has had a great historical and religious relevance for centuries. In 1531 the Virgin appeared at Guadalupe, a small town near the City of Mexico to a religious native, and successive appearances gave the story credibility.

The devotion of the Madonna quickly spread, not only in Mexico and South America, but also in Spain and subsequently in Italy. In 1802, an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was exhibited in the church of S. Pietro, Piacenza by some Jesuit priests. An inhabitant of Santo Stefano, Antonio Domenico Rossi, who was in Piacenza at the time, brought a sacred image of the Virgin back to Val d'Aveto.

The devotion spread to the d'Aveto population and became celebrated among the faithful. In 1811, Cardinal Giuseppe Doria donated the beautiful picture (go here >) (that is still venerated today) to his church and parish of Santo Stefano. The painting depicts the Virgin with dark hair with her face leaning towards her right shoulder, standing with her hands joined in prayer. The King of Spain had donated the icon to Andrea Doria. Before becoming property of the Doria Palace in Genoa, it was said to have been carried aboard a galley during the battle of Lepanto.

Link (here) to the original PDF located on the upper left hand quarter of page 31

Anglicans In Rome Want Some Of That Good Ole Ignatian Prayer Life

The Anglican Centre in Rome has hosted a course on what might be considered a surprising topic in that setting: the spirituality of St Ignatius. In an interview for Vatican Radio, Philippa Hitchen asked the two men behind this course, Rev David Richardson and Fr Gerry Whelan SJ, about how they were hoping to enrich the spiritual lives of the participants by giving them an introduction to the Spiritual Exercises and the work of the Jesuits.

Link (here), Listen to the interview (here) and read the interview transcript (here). Photo is of Fr. Gerry Whelan, S.J..