Easter Monday Of 1859

Notre Dame de Paris

It would be difficult to form an idea of the crowd of men that besiege the houses of the Jesuits toward the end of Lent, and one often wonders how the health of these Fathers, generally so delicate, can withstand the fatigue of hearing so many confessions. When they have been engaged in that occupation during the whole day, one or more will come in after time in the evening, or at night, and still the door is opened, and they find the Father they ask for, receiving them with open arms. For a sinner returning to God, a Jesuit never admits obstacle or delay. "At any hour of the day, at all hours of the night, we are ready to assist you," said Father Felix, at the close of one of his retreats. Father Lefebvre, who consecrates himself especially to the direction of men, was, one day, asked how many he had sent, for his share, to the General Communion at Notre Dame. "About eight hundred," was the answer. 

The Fathers seem never so happy as when, on Easter morning, they are worn out and speechless with fatigue—that is their alleluia !" You abuse your strength," said a friend to one of these indefatigable laborers; "nature can not bear such an excess of work." "After me—another" was the simple and almost careless reply. His Superior, to whom it was remarked, on Easter Monday of 1859, that he must be very much fatigued with the past week's labor, answered: "Ah, we have had great consolations! There have been many conversions; our ministry has been blessed; the confessionals were crowded. The Lord be praised!" 

Of his great fatigue, of his weak health—not a word! The ministry at Paris, during the winter, is overwhelming. When a Jesuit is exhausted, they give him a vacation; they send him to preach a retreat in the provinces. So as to lose no time, he travels by night, and generally ascends the pulpit on the day of his arrival. After the first exercises, he is called to hear confessions, and thenceforth all his time is divided between the pulpit and the confessional; that is what they call vacation. 

Link (here) read the full account of the Parisian Jesuits in the book entitled, The History of the Society of Jesus

Protestant Weddings No Longer Allowed At Chicago Loyola's Madonna Della Strada

Loyola University Chicago changed its guidelines for wedding ceremonies on campus, adopting an official policy ahead of Illinois' equal-marriage law on June 1. The new policy, enacted last December, only allows Catholic weddings in the university's Madonna della Strada Chapel. All other civil or religious weddings, including same-sex unions, are banned from campus facilities.

The decision also comes after a Loyola student launched a Change.org petition last September, urging university administrators to allow same-sex ceremonies on campus. Christine Irvine, a Loyola junior studying visual communication, started the petition after officials denied her request to use university facilities for her upcoming wedding. 

Irvine said there were no problems until officials learned she would marry a woman. To date, the petition has more than 2,900 signatures. In her first interview about Loyola's new policy, Irvine told Windy City Times that the decision doesn't seem bad to anyone who may not know how it came about. She believes the university made the decision to specifically forbid same-sex ceremonies on campus. "It's really disheartening," Irvine said. "It's a sign of the non-acceptance and non-tolerance of the LGBT students on campus ... a sign of disrespect of our love compared to our peers." Before Loyola enacted its official policy last December, the university's standard practice welcomed ceremonies "legally recognized" in Illinois. But despite legal recognition of same-sex civil unions in Illinois, those ceremonies were still forbidden at Loyola venues.

Fr. John Hardon, S.J., " Communion In The Hand—I Wish To Repeat And Make As Plain As I Can—Is A Weakening, A Conscious, Deliberate Weakening Of Faith In The Real Presence"

"We were at concelebrated Mass with the Holy Father, and we were absolutely forbidden to give Communion in the hands. Communion in the hand, Communion in the hand began, in the hand, with the publication of the Dutch Catechism with nobody's permission except the bishops—in effect, in principle separated themselves from the Holy See. One country after another began then to ask for permission, which the Dutch bishops never asked for, permission to receive Communion in the hand. I was asked by the [U.S.] bishops' conference to write a defense of Communion on the tongue, and I can again talk for hours.

"In the very, very early Church, Communion was given in the hands. However, as the faith of the Christians weakened in the Real Presence, by the 5th, 6th centuries Communion on the tongue became mandatory—remained mandatory until the present century. Behind Communion in the hand—I wish to repeat and make as plain as I can—is a weakening, a conscious, deliberate weakening of faith in the Real Presence.

And the American hierarchy took most—three times, those wanting Communion in the hand kept pushing and pushing. Finally, meantime, I was asked by the vice-president of the Catholic Conference of Bishops to defend Communion on the tongue, which I did. To get enough votes to give Communion in the hand, bishops who were retired, bishops who were dying, were solicited to vote to make sure that the vote would be affirmative in favor of Communion in the hand. Whatever you can do to stop Communion in the hand will be blessed by God.”

Link (here) to the quote by Fr. John Hardon, S.J., November 1st, 1997 Call to Holiness Conference
in Detroit, Michigan, panel discussion.

Fr. W. H. Anderson, S.J. "The Delicate And Vigilant Prudence Of A Saintly Temper Of Soul, Jealous For The Divine Honour And The Good Of Others - Is Among The First Qualities For A Confessor."

St. John Vianney

I. - What Confession is Not.

People's mistakes about the Catholic Faith, and the charges of some who ought to know better, take various lines. They "shall say all manner of evil against you, falsely, for My sake." The supremacy of the Pope is popularly denounced as ambition; the Sacramental system, as priestcraft; the science of casuistry, as the art of lying; intentions of Masses, as the greed of wealth. Definitions of dogma? they are said to be bondage to the intellect; spiritual guidance? it is bondage to the will; recommending almsdeeds? it is robbing the widow and orphan; evangelical counsels? rank Manichaeism; repression of error by Catholic powers? old-world intolerance. Such are the opinions about us in the public mind. We are all these things together; or now one, now the other, according to the humour of the moment. The wind shifts and veers, but the bark of Peter steers among many rocks, and is always close on a lee-shore. "The Church of Rome," says someone in a popular serial, "hardens the heart; but, enrevanche, it softens the brain!" ( Of course the very opposite is the truth of the matter!) The charges against the Sacrament of Penance are darker still. Men do not hesitate to accuse those whom Our Lord has consecrated to minister the means of grace to His people of being ministers of evil, of conscious, voluntary, systematic evil. Not only of being unworthy, personally, of their vocation to peculiar holiness - which has been the case (God knows) in the Church's history - but they are supposed to be, in the confessional, agents of evil, instruments of evil, practitioners, teachers, inculcators of evil. Of evil most hateful in the eyes of God, Who is thrice-holy. Men say all this in an easy, off-hand kind of way, which is by no means without its malice. Some of them, it is to be feared, would even feel sorry to be undeceived. Yet a person need not be knowingly malicious, or dishonest, to have some uneasy suspicions of the kind. It is riot hard to imagine a "man of good-will" saying to a Catholic: "Many parts of your system attract me. I feel their beauty, their solemnity and reasonableness, but I do not see my way through the confessional. There is something dark and mysterious there. What goes on in it? What is said and advised? I wonder what is confessed, and under what conditions it is absolved? Confession gives great power to man over his fellows: and man is a poor, frail creature, after all. Power is dangerous to him. Experience, and the poet, tell us that man,

" 'Dressed in a little brief authority,
 Plays such fantastic tricks, before high heaven,
 As make the angels weep.'

Are any such tricks played in that sacred tribunal?"

Now, to answer this man of good-will - not the professed calumniator, who gets his bread by unwashed falsehood - we make three statements.

1. The confessional is not a school of evil.

It is repulsive even to put this in words, speaking, as we are, of one of the Holy Sacraments of Our Lord's Church. Sanctity, as every little child may know, is one of the four great marks of that Church, to create and perpetuate which Jesus suffered on the Cross. [One, Holy, Apostolic, and Catholic.] And the Church is holy, among other reasons, in virtue of the Holy Sacraments which she administers.
They are the channels of grace, and grace is a gift from the All-holy God. But they who do not believe the Sacraments can only look on the outside of things. And what they see is not self-evidently holy, but simply mysterious. It may be holy or unholy for aught they know, for they know nothing, and can know next to nothing. People disappear within the confessional, and come out again. The priest is bound by the Sacramental seal, not so much as to hint, or breathe upon, anything he has heard. The person confessing is also bound to some extent, though not Sacramentally, yet by sacred obligations of trust and confidence. Why? Because the whole transaction is supernatural. It has no relation to any other mode of acknowledgement, or to any other manifestation, or to mere human and friendly counsel. These may be honourable to both parties, and advantageous to the seekers : but they are not Sacramental confession.

So our well-meaning man, having derived no light from what  he sees, and perhaps little from inquiry, has no resource but to go to our books and find out for himself.

He goes, then, to our books - books that need not fear the light, though they were not written for him. They were written for men who are called to be practitioners in the most discriminative and delicate science that can occupy human thought. Such books are not less necessary because they must needs be partly concerned with painful details. Sin itself is a matter of detail; it is not only a general state of soul, but a succession of acts, words, thoughts, omissions. The confessor, like the judge in a court, hears about sins, and enforces rules for amendment, in detail. He must know the individual case of his penitent, and in all needful detail. If he did not, he would be like the falsely charitable man of whom St. James speaks, who says to the needy, "Go in peace, be you warmed and filled," yet gives not those things that are needful - "what shall it profit?"

The priests of God, under the law, had the office of viewing, discerning, and declaring those who came to them, to be either tainted and excommunicated lepers or clean from leprosy. A whole chapter in Leviticus is occupied with the rules that were to guide the priest in this office of discerning. They make up, so to say, a treatise of moral theology on the subject of leprosy, issued by divine command, and in great detail. The leper is to come and manifest himself.    

What would it profit it he came to the priest muffled up, and not (as Our Lord bade the lepers in the Gospel) showing himself to the priest? This would be just like a sinner coming to acknowledge his guilt in general, not detailing it as far as is needed for the priest to Judge of his case. It would be neither more nor less than the "General Confession" in the Protestant prayer-book, which is easier to make than even coming to church. A man who does not believe the Gospel must, of course, disbelieve the power of the priest.

The Jews, disbelieving the Gospel, by logical consequence denied that power in the Person of the Author of Sacraments, the Great High Priest. Their objections, then, were the objections against the confessional now. They said,. "Who is this that speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" "Who is this that forgives sins also?" Perfectly true, if they were right in rejecting Christ. Perfectly false, since He is true. Our Lord can absolve by a word, for He is God, which the Jews did not believe. And, because He is God, they to whom He has given the power can absolve by a word - which most non-Catholics do not believe. 

The unbelief is the same in both cases. Men do not believe that the human is secretly endured with the superhuman power. But does anyone really believe the words, "Receive all of you the Holy Ghost; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them." "I will give to you (Peter) the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven"? Then for that man to suppose it needless that the conscience of the penitent should be examined, and that the priest should be instructed to examine it, is to show a want of good sense that men would be ashamed of in any question of politics, commerce, or social science. It is a pity, they who are so ready to quote, translate, or caricature our books, when it seems to suit their purpose, should not quote and translate other passages in them, quite as easy to find. For on the threshold of treatises on some departments of moral science, none the less needful to divers classes of souls because they are painful and distressing, the student is solemnly warned to study with the fear and thought of God before his eyes; to study them simply for His glory and his neighbour's good; in a spirit, not of curiosity, but of humble prayer. Subjects, without which a treatise on moral science would be as fatally incomplete as an imperfect treatise on physical healing, are entered upon reluctantly, and treated just so far as is demanded by the good of souls. They are to be studied by those for whom alone they are intended. and, therefore, so written as to remove them from popular use. Students for whom these treatises are meant either possess or aspire to the supernatural gift of consecration to the priesthood. They are, by office, obligation, and rule, men of prayer, trained to keep their consciences jealously from every permitted thought of sin. They endeavour, and pray that divine grace may crown their endeavour, to look on the transgressions of their brethren as the sun looks on the foul places of earth, with undefiled eye; they only approach the field of swine that they may bring back from it the repentant prodigal.

Further, ecclesiastical students are warned that, when they enter on their ministry, and receive confessions, they are to be most careful in the questions they put. They are never to push them beyond what is really needful. They are to err on The side of too little rather than of too much; to consult more for the profit of souls than even for the integrity of the Sacrament; to avoid, above all things, suggesting, much more making known, what the penitent may be happily ignorant of.

In a word, prudence - the delicate and vigilant prudence of a saintly temper of soul, jealous for the divine honour and the good of others - is among the first qualities for a confessor. He is a physician of souls, bound to know his science thoroughly, and to apply it with careful, anxious discrimination. A medical man would be poorly furnished who had not read surgical treatises that gave detailed accounts of all manner of diseases and painful operations. Do these things corrupt or harden his heart, when his motive for the study is high and pure? Do people get up public meetings, and go about lecturing against him, because such books are on his shelves and such knowledge is in his head? Who denounces him as unworthy the confidence of the fathers of families, or of the purest of a nation's daughters, because he is a scientific surgeon, and not a mere blundering empiric? What the surgeon is in the physical order, the priest is in the spiritual. Rather, the priest has a science and an office as much more responsible, delicate, and needful than the other's, as the soul is more precious than the body, and the grace of God than bodily health or life.    There is a most true proverb, that the surgeon should have "an eagle's eye, a lion's heart, and a lady's hand." And this, in a higher and better sense, is what the careful, prayerful study of moral theology tends to make the confessor. How far does this common sense view of things enter into the statement regarding us, or even the wish and hope about us, of those who cater for the public attention, and for blind public prejudice, on the subject of confession?

Link (here) to a whole lot more by Fr. W. H. Anderson, S.J. his piece is entitled, Confession to a Priest: What it is Not, What it Does to Society, What to the Individual.

Fr. Frank Brennan, S.J., "We Should Restrict Artificial Reproduction Of Children"

It is high time to draw a distinction between a marriage recognized by civil law and a sacramental marriage. In deciding whether to expand civil marriage to the union of two persons of the same gender, legislators should have regard not just for the well being of same sex couples and the children already part of their family units, but also for the well being of all future children who may be affected, as well as the common good of society in setting appropriate contours for legally recognized relationships. Same sex couples wanting to create their own children may in the foreseeable future be able to use only their own genetic material, precluding the possibility that such children will have a biological father and a biological mother. Whether or not we legislate for same sex marriage, we should restrict artificial reproduction of children such that they will have a biological father and a biological mother, and hopefully able to be known by them.

Link (here) to Eureka Street to read the full piece by Fr. Frank Brennan, S.J.

Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., " Same Sex Unions Are Not In Any Way Equivalent To Marital Unions."

"They are profoundly wrong and wrong-headed decisions," he stated in e-mail correspondence this "And it is deeply depressing that in each decision a Catholic justice was the swing vote." "There is a twofold problem that underlies both decisions," he wrote. "1) That issues of such fundamental significance for society should be decided by a single, unelected person. That’s what happens when there is a 5-4 decision. 2) That the judges of the Supreme Court who ought to be exemplary for their wisdom as well as their technical knowledge of the law can be completely blind to the obvious: this is not an issue of equality at all. Same sex unions are not in any way equivalent to marital unions."

morning.

Link (here) to Kresta in the Afternoon

Fr. Greg Boyle, S.J., "Have You Ever Met Anybody Who Would Agree With That?"

Fr. Greg Boyle, S.J.

In an August  5, 2010 video interview with NonprofitNews Jesuit Fr. Greg Boyle was asked about the overturning of the referendum to ban homosexual ‘marriage’ Proposition 8.  

Fr. Boyle replied:

These things are actually easier than people make them out to be it seems to me. I think it’s always important to kind of say, ‘how does God see sexual orientation.’ Does God feel like that same-sex marriage could happen? I don’t think anybody who has a connection to God and God’s understanding and depth of compassion who’s gonna say no. And this is contrary to the party line.”

Fr. Boyle returned to the question later in the interview, speaking of opposing same-sex ‘marriage’ as “demonizing people.”  He said, “You cannot demonize people [whom] you know. It obliterates that forever. So, that’s important in all these issues, gay marriage, etc. All you need to know is the gay couple who have kids, and that obliterates forever anybody’s inclination to say this is wrong. “ Fr. Boyle also ridiculed the Catholic Church’s refusal to ordain women to the priesthood.  “You know the Vatican just said that the ordination of women is a grave sin,” he said. “Have you ever met anybody who would agree with that, I mean my 85-year-old mother doesn’t…”

Link (here) to Lifesite News

Link (here) to read about the new scientific study of identical twins on the "born this way" topic debunking DNA links to sodomy.

It Was Sad And Disheartening

St. Ignatius of Loyola presiding at Mass at Rome's Jesuit Collegio at the Gesu'.

It was strange and foreign. Even though I was very familiar with the Tridentine Mass from my childhood, it seemed remote and distant. The Mass seemed to focus on the priest whose words for the most part could not be heard (they were in Latin anyway!) and who rarely faced the people. The choir performed well and their singing overrode the priest, who had to wait several times until they finished singing. In my mind I could not but think back to the Second Vatican Council, and all that the Council and subsequent documents tried to bring about – active participation, emphasis on the important things, vernacular, elimination of accretions and repetitions, etc. It was sad and disheartening. What happened? Why would the Catholic faithful seek out and attend this older form of the Mass? Is the Tridentine Mass an aberration? What does it say about the reforms of Vatican II? After the Mass, I was tempted to talk with some of those present. But I decided not to as I feared I would have been negative and perhaps controversial. My feelings were still very raw. One thing I know: I myself will never freely choose to celebrate the Tridentine Mass.

Peter Schineller, S.J.

Link (here) to the April 2012 article at America Magazine

Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J., "In The Book, The Communion Issue Came Up Not In The Context Of Abortion, But Of Injustice."

In On Heaven and Earth, the book he co-authored with Rabbi Abraham Skorka, Cardinal Bergoglio "One could deny communion to a public sinner who has not repented, but it is very difficult to check such things." One should note that he said, "could" not "must." And as an experienced pastor, he stressed the difficulty of checking whether a person is "a public sinner who has not repented." Many American bishops, like Cardinals Francis George and Donald Wuerl, have taken similar positions. At the same time, Bergoglio said it would be wrong for someone to receive Communion who "rather than uniting the people to God, warps the lives of many people." Such a person "cannot receive communion; it would be a complete contradiction."
wrote,

In the book, the Communion issue came up not in the context of abortion, but of injustice. He referred to those "who have not only killed intellectually or physically, but also have killed indirectly through the poor use of resources by paying unjust wages." He called them hypocrites because "in public they may form welfare societies, but they do not pay their employees a wage corresponding to their work or they hire them 'under the table.' "

So if you are paying your employees off the books with no payroll taxes,  Pope Francis would consider you a "pretend" Catholic suffering from spiritual hypocrisy and schizophrenia. He acknowledged that there are many such people "who hide within the Church and do not live according to the justice that God proclaims." If you are such a person, he would want you to ask yourself whether you are ready for Communion. Archbishop Bergoglio was especially suspicious of "pretend" Catholics who were public figures looking for a photo op at the Communion rail. In such circumstances, "I do not give communion myself; I stay back and I let the ministers give it because I do not want those people to come to me for the photo op."

Link (here) to an editorial analysis of the piece by Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J. at Fr. Z's WDTPRS

Fr. Robert Nash, S.J., "Protestants Are Hankering For The Doctrine, Which Was Filched From Them By Unscrupulous Men In The Sixteenth Century."

The Jesuits chapel at Rathfarrnham Castle

When I return tonight to Rathfarnham Castle where I live, I shall go into our chapel there and kneel to pray for a while. I am pretty sure to find other Jesuits there in prayer also. Now here is a group of men, — a mere handful of the more than four hundred million Catholics scattered across the world, [in 2013, there were 1,200 million Catholics in the world] — and they are absolutely convinced of this, that Jesus Christ is really, truly, and substantially present on that altar before them, under the Eucharistic Species. 

They are kneeling at His feet as truly as Mary His Blessed Mother knelt before Him in the crib at Bethlehem; as truly as if they were on their knees by His side when He passed the whole night in prayer on the mountain; as truly as if they were close to Him when He preached from Peter's boat to the crowds drawn up along the shore; as truly as if they were on Calvary itself, on the ground soaked in His Precious Blood. 

We are not asking you necessarily to believe this. All we want to stress is that if the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence were true, it would be extraordinarily comforting and beautiful. It would infuse new life and meaning into the apostle's phrase: "Jesus Christ, yesterday, today and the same forever." A beautiful faith! 

A Protestant once said to a Catholic friend of mine: "If I believed what you Catholics believe about the Blessed Eucharist, I think I'd never be off my knees." Father Peter Gallway, a Jesuit who lived many years in London, was accustomed, even in his very old age, to remain long hours every night before the Blessed Sacrament. 

You would find him at midnight, and far into the small hours of morning kneeling, or seated, there in the darkness, seemingly, like his divine Master, spending the whole night in the prayer of God. A younger priest once made bold to ask him how he occupied himself during all that time. What did he do or say or think? The old man smiled. “I suppose, Father, I may as well tell you very simply. I stay there quite quietly, and occasionally I say just one single word, — `God,' or, sometimes, 'Jesus.'" That was all. The overwhelming truth of that Presence filled and satisfied his hungering soul. 

The beauty of it. The solid consolation of it. The unfailing source of joy it is to the soul that realises. "Hold Him and keep Him for your friend," counsels a Kempis, "who, when all others forsake you, will not abandon you nor suffer you to perish in the end." Is it possible to doubt that the Catholic's conviction that in the Blessed Eucharist he can most literally obey this injunction, must inundate his soul with joy? The beauty of it! But what most of all consolidates his happiness is the unfaltering assurance that it is true. 

It is no wonder that many Protestants are hankering for the doctrine, which was filched from them by unscrupulous men in the sixteenth century. One sees signs of this nostalgia, for instance, in several Anglican Churches, which set up an altar, and keep a lamp always burning, and genuflect, and celebrate "Mass." All this is evidence of their longing, their hunger, for the Real Presence. They are painfully conscious of what the late Monsignor Knox (himself a convert from Anglicanism) described as "The Real Absence" in their Church. Their efforts to fill it are beyond all praise. Catholics are certain that these efforts can be successful when they seek the Real Presence where alone It can be found.

"Would that thy creed were sound, thou Church of Rome!
For thou hast power to soothe the heart, thou Church of Rome!
With thy unwearied watch and varied round
Of service in thy Saviour's holy Home."

 

Link (here) to the full discourse by Fr. Robert Nash, S.J.

The Eucharist and Fr. Mitch Pacwa, S.J. watch the video interview with Doug Keck (here)

Fr. Nicholas Walsh, S.J., "Supernatural And Conducive To Eternal Salvation"

It is a divine truth that Grace, the Grace of God, is the only power or means by which man’s soul is sanctified and saved. With it we can do all things, and without it nothing; nothing, in itself, supernatural and conducive to eternal salvation. It is also the teaching of the Church that Prayer and the Sacraments are the great channels of Grace instituted by Jesus Christ. He says to all:  “Ask and you shall receive.” After His resurrection, He instituted the Sacrament of Penance, or Confession, as it is commonly called, when “He breathed on the Apostles and said: Receive, all you, the Holy Ghost, whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them, and whose sins you shall retain they are retained.” The Apostles, in whom He founded His Church, were a moral body, to last to the end of time, in the exercise of the ordinary powers He gave them, and amongst these was the power of forgiving. Lastly, in the sixth chapter of Saint John, when promising to institute the Blessed Sacrament, 

He said: “Amen, Amen, I say unto you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has everlasting life, and I will raise him upon the Last Day. For My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed. He that eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me and I in him.” 

Prayer, and the Sacraments of Penance (or Reconciliation) and the Eucharist, are the great ordinary channels of grace between God and the soul of adult man. Of these three, however, Prayer and the Sacrament of Penance are more important, for the following reason. The Eucharist, it is true, has in itself the power of producing grace, but the amount of grace it imparts to the soul depends on the dispositions of the soul when receiving it. A soul very perfectly disposed will receive overflowing grace, whilst to a soul, not in mortal sin, but lukewarm, tepid, in a word, poorly disposed, probably but little grace is given; and of such a Communion the best and worst thing which can be said is that it is not a sacrilege. Now, Prayer and Confession are the great means for preparing and disposing a soul for a worthy and fruitful communion; therefore, in this sense, at least, the former are of more importance than the latter. It is true that a person who receives well the Blessed Sacrament is likely to pray devoutly and to make good Confessions, but still it may be safely said that the Eucharist is not the means towards Prayer and Confession being made well, as these are towards a worthy Communion. 

Link (here) to the Catholic Truth Society to read the full piece by Fr. NicholasWalsh, S.J. entitled Prayer Made Easy

A Jesuit's New Work On The Eucharist

Fr. Mitch Pacwa,S.J. offers a new scripture study on the Catholic Church’s ‘source and summit,’ 

The Eucharist: A Bible Study Guide for Catholics (Our Sunday Visitor, 2013).

A timely resource for faith-study as well as Lenten reflection (beginning Wednesday, February 13), Pacwa’s new book clarifies the full meaning of the Eucharist and its critical bond to a healthy faith, its essential connection with Scripture, and explanation on such issues as:

• How does receiving Christ’s Real Presence heal or restore someone?
• How should the faithful really ‘meet’ Jesus in Holy Communion?
• Where are symbols of the Eucharist in the Old Testament?
• How do Old Testament sacrifices prefigure Christ’s – and why?
• What did Jesus mean when he asked his disciples to ‘Do this in remembrance of Me’?
• Why did Christ confect the sacrament of the Eucharist before his death?
• Why is Jesus called the Lamb of God?

“Since Vatican II, the Eucharist has been the touchstone experience of the changes initiated by that Council – changes in language, at least three English translations, and many experiments (both licit and some illicit) on how to celebrate Mass. So there is a need to better understand the Mass,” says Pacwa.  “The Mass, like the rest of our faith, is rooted in God’s revelation. Not only can Catholics gain a better grasp of the Mass through seeing its scriptural roots, but this perspective is crucial for dialogue with other Christians,” he adds. “Finally, a scriptural perspective on the Mass helps balance tensions about the Eucharist that are found even among Catholics.”

Link (here) to RNS for the full piece

Fr. Maurice De La Taille, S. J. Victory Over Death In The Supper

David built the altar small, it was enlarged later by Solomon (II Kings, XXIV, II foll.). Cyril develops the allegory, showing that not only was death destroyed at the moment when our Lord partook of the Supper, but, also, that on the very Eucharistic altar a sacrifice was offered by our Lord whereby death was overcome: for, He says, it was offered on an altar, which later as it were grew, until gradually the Eucharistic celebration was spread throughout the nations. The victory over death in the Supper is found in writers of the Middle Ages. The following is a chant in a prayer Oratio ad communionem (A. H. 51, 297), in an English manuscript prayer book of the eighth or ninth century:

"For thy all-powerful Flesh is food indeed;
And thy Blood, O Jesus, the true drink of the faithful
By this sacred mystery thou didst redeem us from death
That we may live in thee, O Lord, in faith and sobriety.
Deign therefore we beg of thee, that we may be
Partakers of this holy mystery, to the glory of thy name."

But at a much earlier date, we find in the most ancient of our anaphorae, what I believe to be the expression of the same idea; I refer to the passage which introduces the Supper narrative:

"And who when He was given over to His voluntary Passion, in order to overcome death, to break the ties of the devil, to trample hell underfoot, to illuminate the just, to come to the end, and to manifest His Resurrection, taking bread and giving thanks to thee, said: 'Take ye and eat, this is my body which shall be broken for you,'" 

etc. (Latin Verona Fragments, ed. Hauler, 1900, p. 106-107).

That is to say, the ends enumerated, though all reflect the Redemption, seem nevertheless to be referred to the actual consecration of the Eucharist, as the cause of it all. Christ, as it were, willed to celebrate the rite, in order to redeem us from death, from the power of the devil, from the pains of hell, and to restore us to light and life.
Link (here) to the full work by Fr. Maurice De La Taille, S. J. entitled, THE MYSTERY OF FAITH Regarding The Most August Sacrament And Sacrifice Of The Body And Blood Of Christ

Fr. John Baumann, S.J. And Juanita Cordero

Fr. John Baumann, S.J. And woman priestess Juanita Cordero at the February, 2006 retreat of the West Coast Companeros. 

Link (here) to read the full story at A Shepherd's Voice

"Radicalism Of Obedience."

The Roman Catholic Church authorities have remained adamant in their refusal to allow ordination of woman priests. Church authorities say they cannot ordain women because Jesus did not. According to the Catholic Church, Jesus chose only men as his apostles. Church law says only men may be ordained as priests. 

In 1994, Pope John Paul II issued a letter that said the church "has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women." In 2010, the church declared ordination of women a "grave crime," in the same category as the sexual abuse of minors. A "grave crime" is punishable by "defrocking or excommunication," NBC News reports. Earlier this year, Pope Benedict XVI denounced church priests advocating for women's ordination. He accused them of trying to change the church based on their "own preferences and ideas." For such, the pope recommended what he termed the "radicalism of obedience." 

The Daily Mail reports that although women are forbidden by the church to become priests, some groups have ordained women priests who celebrate Mass outside the official church. Sevre-Duszynska's advocacy group, Roman Catholic Womenpriests, is one of such groups. Fr. Bill Brennan, S.J. and Zawada are not the only Catholic priests who has been stripped of their priestly duties for supporting ordination of women. Last month, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, dismissed Roy Bourgeois, 74, from the priesthood after he participated in the ordination of Sevre-Duszynska in 2008, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. 

According to NBC News, Sevre-Duszynska urged other priests of the church to "walk in solidarity with [Brennan], stand up for justice and... make it a new world, make it a new day in our church." She added: "It’s time for the rest of the male priests to find the courage to listen to the workings of the Holy Spirit in their heart and conscience." 

 Although he is prohibited from performing priestly duties, Brennan is still a Jesuit and he may celebrate Mass and hear confessions but he can longer perform his priestly duties publicly. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports Brennan said he understood the risks when he took the decision. He said: "Sometimes in our lives we have to trust our conscience and bring about the consequences. I wasn't trying to show off for the ladies." According to the Daily Mail, Brennan worked as a missionary in Belize and Honduras for 16 years. He returned to the United States as a teacher at Jesuit-run Marquette University High School. He later served as a pastor at St. Patrick Church in Milwaukee. In 2007, he traveled to Cuba in spite of U.S. economic blockade, to deliver humanitarian and medical supplies to the Cuban people.

Link (here) to read more at The Digital Journal

Wisconsin Jesuit Celebrates Mass With Woman His Priestly Faculties Suspended

Fr. Bill Brennan, S.J. and Janice Sevre-Duszynska

A Catholic priest who participated in a eucharistic liturgy with a woman priest last month has been ordered to no longer celebrate the Mass or perform any other priestly duties. Jesuit Fr. Bill Brennan, a 92-year-old Milwaukee-area priest, said the superior of his religious community told him of the restrictions Nov. 29, saying they came at the request of Archbishop Jerome Listecki. Brennan, a retired parish priest and former missionary to Belize, participated in a liturgy Nov. 17 with Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a woman ordained in the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests movement. Brennan said he was hesitant to confirm the news regarding his loss of faculties because he was also ordered not to talk to the press. "I'm risking my existence in the Jesuit order by talking to you," Brennan told NCR. "But if I've committed a serious sin, [the archbishop] is supposed to be responsible for condemning me ... he's supposed to stand up and be responsible for that."

Brennan said the restrictions include:

• Suspension of priestly faculties, prohibiting him from performing any priestly duties in public;
• Refraining from contact with media, "through phone, email, or any other means";
• Not appearing as a Jesuit at any "public gatherings, protests or rallies";
• Not leaving the Milwaukee area "for any reason" without his superior's permission.

Brennan said he hasn't had any formal communication with Listecki. Jeremy Langford, the director of communications for the Jesuits' Chicago-Detroit province, which is merging with the Wisconsin province, said in a statement Monday the order removed Brennan's priestly faculties "after conversation with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee." The Jesuits "did not approve or sanction" the November eucharistic liturgy and "regrets Fr. Brennan's participation in it," read the statement. "The Wisconsin province has no plans to take any further action," 

Langford said in an interview, calling Brennan a "wonderful Jesuit" who has "fought for great causes his whole life."Julie Wolf,  communications director for the Milwaukee archdiocese, said the restrictions on Brennan were a "mutually agreed upon decision" between Listecki and Brennan's Jesuit provincial, Fr. Tom Lawler. 

Brennan likened his support for women's ordination to support for women's suffrage: He remembers that at one time, his mother was not able to vote. "I was born in 1920," Brennan said. "All the while my mother was carrying me and six months after, she could not vote. That's the real initiative in my attitude toward women's ordination." Brennan said he understands arguments that women do not have a right to ordination and said ordination is a "privilege that is granted to men." "Why isn't it granted to both?" the priest asked. "And the fundamental approach that I have is that, after all, women have an eminent role to play in the work of creation of children with men. What about the sanctification process? Don't they have any share in the preaching of the Gospel?"

The Vatican labels the ordination of women in the Catholic church as a grave offense and says participants are excommunicated latae sententiae, or automatically. Pope John Paul II's 1994 letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis effectively forbade discussion of the issue, saying the church's teaching on the matter was to be "definitively held by all the Church's faithful." Before deciding to participate in the November liturgy, Brennan said he discussed the matter with Lawler. 

The invitation to join Sevre-Duszynska at the liturgy was causing him a "real, genuine conscience problem," Brennan said he told Lawler. "I'm not trying to defy the church," Brennan said he told Lawler, adding that he sees women's ordination as a legitimate question. "Why is it that this privilege of celebrating the Mass and preaching, why is that exclusively a male privilege? Where do we get that? Isn't that worth discussing?" Lawler told him not to assist at the liturgy, Brennan said. "At the time, I was still struggling to try to decide what I wanted to do, because obviously I knew I might end up outside the Jesuit order," Brennan said. "But I just felt this was an earthy issue, and you can't cover it over with spiritual or authoritarian dictates."

Link (here) to NCR for the full story.

Jesuit Guitar Masses

Guitar Mass

...we were already experimenting with a new religion curriculum pioneered by a New York Jesuit and introduced by Jesuit Father Frank Stroud, a Prep teacher. Guitar Masses were common and we learned new English hymns, also composed by Jesuit musicians. Jesuit scholastic or seminarian Neil Connolly played the guitar and brought other student musicians into the liturgy. At St. Peter’s College in 1970 there were more than 50 Jesuits in residence as administrators and teachers. Jesuit Father George McCauley by that time had already written his book “Sacraments for Secular Man,” and was teaching the new theology inspired by the various Vatican II documents. 

Link (here) to NJ.com to read the full piece by Fr. Alexander Santora

Jesuit Theologian Cornelius a Lapide On Mormon Heresy

We have a Mormon running for President of the United States and many people are learning more and more the heretical doctrines of the Mormons.

• Mormons are polytheists (they believe in many gods, not one God). 
• Mormons believe that the god of our galaxy (whom they identify with the Father of Scripture) has a wife-goddess
• Mormons believe that this god (whom they identify with the Father) was once a human and that he still has flesh and bones
• Mormons have an invalid baptism since they deny the doctrine of the Holy Trinity
• Mormons have a secret rites
• Mormons have baptisms for the dead

This last error, baptisms for the dead, is derived from Saint Paul's words in 1 Corinthians:

“Otherwise, what shall they do that are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not again at all? Why are they then baptized for them?” (1 Corinthians 15:29, D-R)

Mormons claim that this verse proves that the original Apostles baptized living people on behalf of dead people so that the dead might be redeemed.

How does the Catholic respond to this error?

Cornelius a Lapide, that great Catholic Bible scholar gives a number of opinions:

1. This baptism is metaphorical, the baptism of pain, afflictions, tears, and prayers, which they endure on behalf of the dead, in order to deliver them from the baptism of fire in purgatory. For even those Judaisers are baptized who deny the resurrection, like Cerinthus and others, or, at any rate, their fellow-religionists, the Jews, and this, according to the faith and custom of the Hebrews, who are wont to pray for the dead, as appears from 2 Macc. xii. 43, and from their modern forms of prayer. This meaning best fits in with what follows. Baptism is in other places often used in this sense, (as S. Mark x. 53; S. Luke xii. 50; Ps. xxxii. 6). Throughout Scripture, waters and waves typify tribulations and afflictions.

2. “Baptism” can also be understood of purification before the sacrifices which were offered for the dead. The Jews were in the habit of being purified before sacrifice, prayer, or any Divine service. Cf. S. Mark vii. 9; Heb. vi. 12, and ix. 10.

3. The different interpretations of others are dealt with at length by Bellarmine (de Purgat. lib. i. c. 4) and Suarez (p. 3, qu. 56, disp. 50, sect. 1), and they all are referred to literal baptism. 

(a) S. Thomas explains it to mean baptism for washing away sins, which are dead works.

(b) Theodoret thinks that “for the dead” is “like the dead,” when they rise from death, viz., when they are baptized, and emerge from the waters of baptism as from the tomb, they symbolise the resurrection of the dead.

Epiphanius (Hære. 28) takes “for the dead” to mean when death is close at hand, and they are looked on as already dead. For then those who had deferred baptism wished to be baptized in hope and faith in eternal life and resurrection. Hence those to be baptized used to recite the Creed, in which is the Article, “I believe in the resurrection of the dead.”

(d) Claud Guiliaud, a doctor of Paris, thinks that the phrase refers to the martyrs, who suffer for the faith and the article of the resurrection of the dead. This meaning agrees well with the words that follow. “Why stand we in jeopardy every hour?”

(e) Others refer to a custom which the followers of Marcion afterwards observed, and suppose the meaning to be that some, in mistake and out of superstition, received baptism for the dead who had died without baptism. Cf. Ambrose and Irenæus (Hæres. 28), Tertullian (de Resurr. c. 24) and Chrysostom. {This would be one similar to the Mormon position.}

(f) Chrysostom proffers and prefers another explanation, viz., that S. Paul’s meaning is: Why do all receive baptism in hope of the resurrection of the dead, or to benefit their state when dead, that it may be well with them after death, if the dead do not rise? Surely, then, in vain do they do this. But this is not credible, for the common faith of all the faithful is that they do rise, so much so, that many of them put off their baptism, even to the end of life, and are baptized on their death-bed, in the hope that, being purified by baptism from all pain and guilt, they may fly to heaven, and obtain a joyful resurrection. Hence we get the name “clinical baptism.” Many canons are extant ordering that such baptism be not refused to those who ask for it.

This last meaning seems the simplest of all, and the one most on the surface, and is taken from the literal meaning of “baptized.” Tertullian says that “for the dead” means, “When the sacrament of baptism is performed over the body, the body is consecrated to immortality.”

Link (here) to read the full blog post of  Taylor Marshall at his blog entitled, Canterbury Tales

Sins And Their Malice Are Understood More Intimately

Here is a wonderful talk by Rev. Hugh Thwaites, S.J. on the Sacrament of Confession. He speaks with such love, humility, gentleness and wisdom. While recognizing that God's grace is not limited to the Sacraments, he shows how vital regular confession is for the ordinary sinner, who needs to keep returning to God time and time again.

Section One

Section Two

Section Three

Section Four

Section Five

Link (here) to the blog A Tiny Son of Mary