August Newsletter 2023

Dear Friends,

How easy is it for us to forget or downplay the miraculous aspects of our Faith, especially in our scientific and technological society?

Yet every Mass, we are confronted with a miracle, the miracle of bread and wine becoming the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. For some of us, this means we experience a miracle everyday! But how often do we approach this great Sacrament, which Vatican II described as the “source and summit of the Christian life,” with a sense of amazement?

In this issue of Kansas Monks, we are delighted to feature an interview with Archbishop Naumann about the United States bishops’ initiative of Eucharistic revival. His excellency observes that one of the reasons why we no longer feel that sense of amazement is because the modern world has been so good at making us comfortable and convincing us that all our needs can be taken care of through material prosperity and progress.

This struggle between earthly riches and heavenly treasure lies at the heart of receiving the Eucharist. Do we realize that part of what we are agreeing to when we say “Amen!” before we receive the Eucharist is that we trust the Lord’s provision?

Indeed, if we look at the Sacred Scriptures we see that while God is so good at providing for us, we often doubt or diminish His goodness.

Consider that shortly after God created the world for humankind and blessed them to be His rulers over creation, giving them all the animals and fruits of the bountiful Garden

monks

August 2023

of Eden, they fell away from Him by wanting the one thing they didn’t have. They believed that God hadn’t given them enough and feared His prohibitions were not for our good but were to keep us down.

Recall too that when God liberated the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, they quickly complained, broke the covenant they had just sworn to, and worshipped a false god. Then, after God forgives them and gives them miraculous manna from heaven, they quickly take the miraculous food for granted and go so far to say that they had it better in Egypt.

It is so easy for us to diminish the Eucharist and think about how God hasn’t given us what we want or think we need. But my prayer for you is, to use the words from my confrere Fr. Matthew’s essay, that you “grow in your love and appreciation of the immense gift that God has given to us.”

In Christ.

IN THIS ISSUE

Come Closer

By Fr. Matthew Habiger OSB

God wants to draw closer to us. Our purpose in life is to draw closer to Him, to “search for God.” That is why He created the human race and placed us on this privileged planet for a typical lifespan of 70-80 years. He wants us to come to know, love and serve Him.

How does God draw closer to us? In many ways, but most especially in the Holy Eucharist. He reveals Himself to us through His creation of the material universe. The order and design of the vast universe tells us something about God’s magnificent power.

He reveals Himself in divine revelation, the Word of God, which gives us insights we could never know on our own. God is present to us in what He has revealed of Himself to us through divine revelation.

The Incarnation is God’s greatest revelation of Himself to us. Jesus, the Son of God, took on our human nature. He became one of us. He whom the entire universe cannot contain, chose to come among us as one of us, sharing completely in our human condition, with the exception of sin. Indeed, Jesus is our Savior, because He saves us from the ravages of our sins.

All this tells us much about our human dignity. If God can comes so close to us as to share in our full humanity, then truly God has blessed us with a dignity that can only be God-given. “The glory of God is man alive, and the live of man is the vision of God” (St. Irenaeus).

Jesus came to teach us about God. Only He has seen the Father, and is co-equal with the Holy Spirit. If we have seen Jesus, we have seen the Father. If we carry the words of Jesus, then the Holy spirit will teach us their deeper meaning.

But most of all, Jesus is present to us in the sacrament of the Eucharist. When Jesus ascended into Heaven, He did not leave us orphans. He gave us the Eucharist. He is really and physically present to us, when He transforms bread and wine into His own body

and blood. God created the universe out of nothing. If He chooses, He can transform the substance of bread and wine into the substance of His body and blood. Jesus is still with us in His human nature, in His body and blood.

When Jesus lived on earth for 33 years, He was physically confined to one location, to the Holy Land. Now, in the Eucharist, He is present to us all over the world, all the time. We marvel that large congregations have access to Him, all over the world, at any and all times. And we marvel that Jesus is personally and uniquely present to each of us who come to adore and be nourished by Him. How great are the marvels of God! How profound His love that motivated Him to do this!

Jesus is always on fulltime duty: whenever He is summoned by a priest consecrating the bread and wine, He come. He never takes a break! He always wants to be near us, to allow us to unite the offering of our lives to His self-offering to the Father.

In the Eucharist Jesus is fully present to us. In the tabernacle, or in the monstrance, Jesus is fully present. He seems to be quiet, but it is like the quiet of the universe, which eloquently proclaims the glory of God. He does not force Himself upon us. He greatly respects our freedom, and He wants us to freely interact with Him. He may seem somewhat distant and remote, but in actuality He is closer to us than we are to ourselves.

Jesus brings us to the Father and to the Holy Spirit. He accompanies us on our journey to our true home

with Him in Heaven. He gives us the strength we need to endure any hardship or trial, to face any temptation, and to accomplish the tasks He has set before us. Between two Masses, we can face any challenge that life throws at us.

May we grow in our love and appreciation of the immense gift that God has given to us in the Eucharist. And may we find ways to share this great treasure with others.

St Benedict’s Abbey, Atchison, KS

From Intimacy to Awe

An Interview with Archbishop Naumann about Eucharistic Revival

By James R. A. Merrick

When did the Church start talking about “Eucharistic revival?”

Archbishop (ABP): This has been in the heart of the Church for a long time, going back to St. John Paul II. One of the first things he did in his papacy was reinvigorate the Corpus Christi procession in Rome. So, right from the beginning of his pontificate we saw the importance he was placing on renewing the Church’s love for the Eucharist. His last encyclical was on the Eucharist, which is where he expressed his hope and desire to renew what he called “Eucharistic amazement,” which is this sense of awe that the God of the universe would make Himself present to us in this way.

If this has been a concern of the Church for several decades, why is it just now that we are embarking on this program of “Eucharistic revival?”

ABP: A wake-up call for the bishops of the United States was the Pew study that revealed a high percentage of those who identify as Catholics did not believe in the Real Presence, and even a significant percentage of those who go to Sunday Mass did not believe in the Real Presence. We did a follow-up study because we were not entirely confident in the Pew study, but it only showed slightly better statistics; it was still very troubling.

At the time, Bishop Robert Barron was the chairman of the Committee for Catechesis and Evangelization. He was the first one, I think, to say now is the time to renew our catechesis on the Eucharist. Out of that developed this three-year pastoral initiative of “Eucharistic revival.”

Tell us about this three-year program?

ABP: The first year focused on the dioceses, preparing our leaders, encouraging Eucharistic piety in our clergy and lay staff, and planning. The second year just commenced with the Solemnity of Corpus Christi in June. It is the parish year, which in many ways is the most important year. It is at the parish that the average Catholic lives the Catholic Faith. We encouraged every parish to have a Corpus Christi procession. We are encouraging parishes to undertake the new catechesis program on the Eucharist, which will hopefully come out in September. We have also identified a corps of Eucharistic preachers who will be visiting parishes and hosting events.

The final year will be focused on the national Eucharistic congress where we hope to draw as many as 80,000 people. This will be the first one in a long time. There was a custom of Eucharistic congresses in the United States before World War II. But after the War interrupted everything, they were never really picked up again.

What is the hope for this Eucharistic congress?

The idea for the Eucharistic congress is to bring people together from across the country. There will be Eucharistic processions from the north, south, east, and west of the country. The one from the west, which is the longest pilgrimage, will go through Kansas City and actually through Atchison.

There will be groups of young adults who will be mostly walking on a pilgrimage. A priest will accompany the groups, and as they go through towns and cities, there will be time for adoration and a special Mass. The core team will also do some sort of service work, because Bishop Cozzens has emphasized that the two

primary dimensions of Eucharistic piety are encounter and mission. We go to the Eucharist to encounter Christ who comes to us to nourish and make us living tabernacles and to be sent on His mission. After we receive the Lord, we are to bring Him to our homes, our families, our workplaces, our communities. So the hope is that everyone becomes a Eucharistic missionary.

It seems our culture gives us this idea that in order for there to be intimacy between persons there must be absolute equality and identity. If we apply modern values like democracy, individualism, and equality to our relationship with God, we diminish His dignity, His divinity. I think too of how modern culture rid itself of notions of hereditary privilege and royalty in the name of equality and individuality, resulting in a contempt for traditional gestures that would have been customary in the presence of royalty or a dignitary, gestures that were often used in the liturgy to train us to relate to Christ as our King and the Eucharist as His Body and Blood. How much of our waning Eucharistic faith is due to modern culture?

ABP: Particularly in the United States, this sense of democracy and equality is strong, which is good. But when you are talking about God, we should remember that He created the cosmos; He holds everything in

existence; we do not even exist apart from Him. We are not His equal.

Our material prosperity has also given us the impression that we do not need God. We no longer are confronted with our true poverty. The modern culture tells us that it can provide us with everything we need.

Secularization is another factor. The Blue Laws [which prohibited certain activities on Sunday] went away. Culturally, Sunday has become less sacred. It has become known for football or sports. This is really a heresy. I love football, but it is not as important as the Creator God. We have these idols that we have put in the place of God.

One of the lesser-known documents of St. John Paul II is Dies Domini or the “Day of the Lord,” in which he talks about the significance of Sunday for the Catholic. He said that Sunday should be the center of our week and the Eucharist should be the center of Sunday. So, I hope through this process we can recover that sense of Sunday as the Lord’s Day, a day for family and rest too.

Has the Church’s worship succumbed in some respects to secularization?

ABP: I believe the Second Vatican Council was important and was truly a work of the Holy Spirit. But there were some unintended consequences and misapplications. My interpretation is that after the Council, there was an effort—which was good and right—to recognize that the central miracle of Christianity is the Incarnation and that God desires intimacy and friendship with us. Growing up in the Pre-Vatican II Church, there was a sense of awe of God, but it was almost as if He was seen as so other or distant from us. So Vatican II rightly emphasized the Lord God’s desire for intimacy with us.

But out of that came a familiarity with God that diminished a number of important things. Growing up, when you entered a Catholic Church, it was silent because people were aware that Jesus Christ is present; people were focused on Him. They did not see the Church as a place for casual conversation with each other but for prayer to Christ. Over time, there was a diminishment of that and now people are talking before and after Mass. It is one of the things I hope this

parish year will bring about is a recovery of silence in church. If we really believe that Jesus Christ is present in the Eucharist, then we go to church to speak with Him. We want to foster community in the parish but not at the cost of diminishing the focus on the Lord.

Before the Second Vatican Council, people received Communion kneeling at an altar rail on the tongue. This was a sign of humility and awe. You know, too, the only people who were allowed to touch the hosts were priests. There was a strong sense of the sacredness of the Eucharist. Even after the Council when Communion in the hand became more prevalent, the catechesis was that you should make your hands into a throne for Christ.

When we lost these things, we did not always replace them with other gestures that likewise reminded us of the Real Presence of God in the Eucharist.

It is so important to know that God is close to us, even in those moments that don’t feel divine, and to recognize too that we are called to be His friends. But I hear what you are saying that we may have become to casual. I can understand too how some of those lost customs cultivated that attitude of humility before God and reminded us that what appears to be simple bread and wine is actually the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. So, what do we do now? Is it as simple as restoring the altar rails and enforcing silence in churches?

ABP: It is not so much about recovering these external things, although I think some of them have benefits, and we should not be afraid. We need to celebrate the Eucharist in a way that is relevant to our culture today, but in a way that is also true to the miracle that is taking place. So, there are some of those past customs that can help in that.

But I grew up serving the old rite of the Mass, and it was not always reverent. Just going back to Latin, that is not the silver bullet. Or going back to Communion rails, well, it is true, I think, that having people kneel to receive the Lord—it is just physically placing you in a posture of adoration—but it is ultimately an internal conversion that must happen. Some of the externals can help, but they are not the critical thing. It is more of an internal disposition.

We need to celebrate the Eucharist in a way that is relevant to our culture today, but in a way that is also true to the miracle that is taking place.

Speaking of our disposition, it seems to me that the biggest obstacle to Eucharistic amazement is pride. Modern life is full of things designed to grab and hold our attention, to pamper and entertain us. It treat us like we are the ones who deserve to be impressed, to be entertained, to be served.

But the Mass and the Eucharist do not play that game. They dont’ grab our attention like a TikTok video. They are not on the cutting edge of technology.

But I think that’s the whole point. It seems to me that Christ deliberately comes to us in humble, transcendent ways. In prayer, we typically hear Him in the still, soft voice, not through flashy media or internal fireworks. Similarly, in the Eucharist, He comes through these rather simple, mundane elements—bread and wine.

We need to change, not the liturgy or the Eucharist. We need to come to Christ in humility, accepting His simplicity, not demanding He compete with what the world offers. So, what do you recommend we do devotionally to have that internal conversion you said is so fundamental to Eucharistic amazement and to the helpful externals of the Mass?

ABP: Our culture is great at entertainment. We are constantly experiencing this overstimulation, I would say, but in the end does it really satisfy? This is why the next movie or video game must be even more overthe-top than the one before.

But, as you said, we need that child-like faith and humility. When I was a young man, I had some serious doubts of faith. Fortunately, I went on an eight-day silent retreat. I told my retreat master about my confusion. He told me, “I just want you to go to the chapel and pray before the Eucharist.” He pointed me to the eleventh chapter of Luke’s Gospel where the Apostles asked, “Lord, teach us how to pray.” After that there is the parable about a man who has unexpected visitors and they come to him, banging on his door. The man does not want to get up and help them. But he finally does because of their persistence. And that’s what this retreat master told me to do: go before the Eucharist

and bang on God’s door and ask Him to reveal Himself. Those eight days were pivotal for me; I experienced God’s presence in a powerful way. That is what happens in our adoration chapels.

What I would say to people is do what that retreat master told me. Come to the Lord’s Presence in a chapel or parish. Or, if you cannot go to adoration, spend that time before receiving Communion just asking the Lord, “Make yourself present to me, reveal yourself to me.” The Lord of lords and King of kings wants to be in communion with us.

I think that the time right after Communion is also a very important time. It is a time to thank God and praise Him, but also a time to speak to God from our hearts. God wants to nourish us, but He also wants to listen to us. So we can ask Him, “What do you want me to be doing in this moment in my life, what is your will for me, what is your desire for me?” I think conversing with the Eucharistic Lord like this is so important and when we go in to Church, we need to be focused on conversation with Him.

Pope Benedict XVI said that the world is very good at providing us pleasure but not at giving us joy. We are built to be in communion with God. Jesus came into the world as an embryo in Mary’s womb, He was born in poverty, His crib was a food trough for animals. If we can just humble ourselves to receive Him in His humility, we will be filled with the presence of the One who created us. That is the promise of this Eucharistic revival. 

The Lord of lords and King of kings wants to be in communion with us.

Stabilitas

Part 2

By Br. Angelus Atkinson, OSB

Last month we began considering the uniquely monastic vow of stabilitas (stability), promised for life by every Benedictine monk on the day of his solemn profession. We saw from the earliest witnesses of desert monasticism the spiritual necessity of stabilitas for the monk to “stay in his cell” if he is to grow. In fact, the tradition expresses it even more vehemently: if he is to be saved. And we concluded by asking the question Why? What is the meaning of this stability? How does it function as an expression and vehicle of the monk’s conformity to Christ, especially in light of the fact that Jesus Himself told His disciples that “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20).

Before addressing this theological objection to stability, however, we should begin by acknowledging that this is not, in fact, the first reason stabilitas is a scandal to the world. Stability of any kind is a growing sign of contradiction in our culture, tyrannized as it is by the nervous demand for instant gratification according to our own design. In this habitual reaction to things, which the dominant powers of our times condition us to consider normal, we flee what is before us as soon as it challenges our preconceptions, preferring to change our surroundings and company rather than allow ourselves to be changed. This has given rise to an increasingly ephemeral “world” (or lack thereof) in which time and space are seen as obstacles we are ever bent on eliminating via technological means. Those of us who are Christian are not immune to this way of seeing (or, to be more accurate, of hiding). How easily we can reduce the mysteries of the faith to manipulable outcomes which merely, we think, just need the right system to reproduce them. Instead of asking for that greatest of graces we received at baptism—the very life of God—to become truer, to grow in us within the circumstances given to us, we search for the right schema, the right algorithm to foist onto the circumstances and so escape their challenge.

In the shadow of this way of framing what counts as real and of value (i.e. only what I can manipulate, produce, and replicate according to what I have predetermined is “good”) stability is not only a scandal, but it is incomprehensible as something that could have value. It is not uncommon for visitors to our monastery, who do not blink an eye on learning that the monk has vowed to embrace a life of virginity, poverty, and obedience, to become astonished at the idea that the monk would choose to stay here in this monastery for his entire life. When asked about what stability means, sometimes a monk will reply, pointing north of the monastery, “It means I know where I’m going to be buried.” This “answer” only intensifies the question, highlighting the reason stability poses such a scandal to our sensibilities—its specificity, its limitation. This is not only true of the monastic vocation. What a wonder of stability is promised in marriage- it is to this man or woman, and no other, that I belong to and give my life for, until the ultimate limitation, death. Perhaps we have forgotten the wonder of any promise made—to stand by a word bound in its specificity, spoken into unknown future contingencies of time and space (sickness and health, riches and want).

The real question, therefore, that is provoked in us, is the question of hope. Is this promise only a caprice of the will made on sentimental optimism, which, in any case, comes and goes, or is there an adequate reason for your hope? Is there a foundation sure enough to motivate such a promise? Obviously, predictability of funereal arrangements is not an adequate reason (and if you are satisfied with this answer, your problem is not dying but living!).

Now that we have identified the drama of hope at

the heart of the Benedictine vow of stability, where do we proceed in our search for its reason? Since the substance of the life of the monk (which is to say the life of the Christian taken in its most essential dimension) is the life and person of Jesus Christ, we must go to the origin—Christ Himself. To do this we need to live the experience of His first followers. Recall the first encounter John and Andrew have with Jesus, after John the Baptist points him out- Look! The Lamb of God, the Innocent One, the One whom you and your people have been waiting for to reveal everything. And then, John continues in his gospel, Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come, and you will see.” So they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon. (John 1:38-39)

This event is so seared in John’s memory that, looking back on his life as an old man, he could not forget the time of day when it happened—about 4pm. Whatever happened in staying with Christ, in hearing him speak, in watching him live, it corresponded to their deepest need and promised a hope which defined everything else. In front of this fascinating man whom they called “Teacher,” it is interesting that their first desire which spontaneously erupts is not “What are your teachings?” but “Where are you staying?”—the desire for stability, to stay with Him who illuminates life. And they stayed with him that day. John uses the same verb three times—μένω (menō), which means “to stay,” “to remain,” or “to continue to be present.” It is as if the disciples are saying to Jesus, Continue to be present to us. As long as this is so we can learn everything we need to know, but first, be present! Let us stay in your presence!

John’s Gospel could, without exaggeration, be called the gospel of stability. Menō, this verb of staying, of remaining, is the most prominent in John, showing up 33 times, compared to only 11 times in the other three gospels combined. And here we discover the true meaning of the vow (and why the objection raised at the beginning turns out to be no objection). Jesus uses

menō to describe his relationship with the Father: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father remaining in Me does His works” (John 14:10). And He invites His followers to become part of this relationship of eternal life: “Remain in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me” (John 15:4).

Therefore, the vow of stability is first of all accepting and deciding for the gift of this relationship every day, this relationship that saves everything else for it is what is most enduring—to know the Father: “Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ” (John 17:3). It is a gift from God and the fruit of faith, of bumping into the exceptional presence of Christ through the flesh of the Church, a presence in time and space that carries the eternal within it, that reveals the foundation and substance of everything, even now. This is why in the formula of the vows, the monk promises “stability in this community.” The “locality” of stability is not, first of all, the stones of the monastery but the companionship called together by Christ and unto Christ, and among whom He dwells. The stones of the cloister bear a silent witness to what they symbolize—living stones formed together around the cornerstone of Christ who makes everything new.

This is the meaning of St. Benedict’s famous remark of about the cellarer of the monastery: “He will regard all utensils and goods of the monastery as sacred vessels of the altar” (RB 31:10). What are the sacred vessels except the bearers of the offerings that will be transformed into God’s life among us so that we, in turn, may be transformed? St. Benedict promises us that if we adhere to Christ in the company of the monastery nothing has to be fled but can be embraced within the entreaty of Christ’s presence—Come, Lord Jesus. In light of His presence, and by the fruit of his resurrection and ascension, everything from washing the dishes to weeding the garden to coming face-to-face with my own and my brother’s limitations are revealed to have a dignity beyond imagination, for they contain the possibility of becoming transformed, becoming

the locus of encounter with Christ, of knowing Him more, of becoming more involved in this eternal relationship of love that is stronger than death. For this reason monks stay in one play, not to flee, but to go deeper into the reality of this Love which has called them into being.

If a man is called to remain in the monastery it is because he, wounded though he may be by his own sin and confusion, has had this experience in some form. When the monk prefers the monastery, choosing to stay there, he is preferring Christ, preferring the place where Christ has chosen to prefer him. He has discovered in the surprising gift of the encounter that there is a Word, a Presence, that is much greater than his limitations, that opens the heart with its goodness and power and lifts up the eyes to the mountains of everlasting life. Even the smallest seed of this experience is enough if it is loyally attended, because it will grow, carrying within it a hope that does not disappoint. This is why monastic stability is a gift not only to the monk who is called to embrace it, but to the whole world. The silent witness of the monastery cries out, Yes, I have found the source of life, I have found what makes life worth living- what it is for! I do not have to look anywhere else- what is worth selling everything else for is here, what gives value to everything else is present! What gives value to work, to study, what gives value to marriage, to being a father or a mother! This is why St. Benedict instructs the Abbot and monks to pray the verse of Psalm 47 with the guest who arrives at the monastery guesthouse: “God, we have received your mercy in the midst of your temple.” God’s mercy is a place, a place where He meets me, the temple is His presence among us in time, the Church, the body of

his Son. This verse reminds the monks that we are all guests of God in this life, invited into his loving mercy. The very existence of the monastery, whether or not if it receives visitors, is an invitation to men and women of all walks of life to recognize that in all our circumstances there is a reason to hope, that it is possible to answer affirmatively on this day of my life the cry of the Psalmist, so near to St. Benedict’s heart that he identifies it in his prologue to the Rule as the defining feature of the vocation: “Is there anyone here who yearns for life and desires to see good days?”

I would like to conclude with an illustration of this possibility from a remarkable book we recently heard at table reading (at the monastery we eat dinner in silence, with readings), Simon, Called Peter: In the Company of a Man in Search of God, by Dom Maruo-Giusseppe Lepori, a Cistercian abbot, and Abbot-general of the Cistercian order of Benedictine monasteries. In it he imagines how Simon reacts to being called by Christ at the beginning, when Jesus gives him a new name, the sign of a new place to remain, Cephas, Peter.

Simon felt that this new way of seeing things was drawing him close to everything and yet separating him from everything. Everything was suspended in the eyes of Jesus, and Simon was stunned when he realized that it was not only his own fate that was at stake but that of his family, Andrew, his home, his boat, his hired hands. As in a whirlpool spinning faster and faster, he saw that even the fate of the lake, the mountains, the sky, the stars, the fish, the treeseverything absolutely everything depended on his decision before the Lord. He was afraid, but to his astonishment, he saw that, as in the light of a lamp, even his fear had been accepted in the eyes of Jesus.

So Simon left everything behind, in order that nothing might be lost. 

Living the Liturgy

Commentary on the Liturgical Year

By James R. A. Merrick

THE MONTH OF THE IMMACULATE HEART

Augustis dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. What a Marian month it is. Not only do we celebrate her Assumption on the 15th and her Queenship on the 22nd, but we also mark St. Dominic to whom she gave the Rosary, St. Maximilian Kolbe who had great devotion to the Immaculate Heart and saw Mary as the human analogue of the Holy Spirit, and St. John Eudes who celebrated the first Mass dedicated to Mary’s Immaculate Heart.

The heart is symbolic of the center of the person— the place of the internalization of experience and recollection, the source of wisdom and understanding, the spring of love and compassion, the site of conversion. When we devote ourselves to the heart of Mary, we devote ourselves to discovering her readiness for the will of God and her inestimable love for her Son.

As we become sensitive to her heart, we are moved to make reparation for the ways in which we and the world have injured it through neglect or contempt for her Son. Mary knew intimately our Lord’s ministry. Who experienced the Incarnation more profoundly than her? Who knows how to care for Him more than she who nurtured and protected Him as an infant and child? Who experienced the grief of the Cross more than her?

The Sacred Scriptures themselves call attention to Mary’s heart and establish it as especially emulable. When St. Mary and St. Joseph presented Jesus in the Temple, that holy priest St. Simeon declared to her that on account of her child, “a sword will pierce through your own soul also that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:35). In that same chapter of Luke’s Gospel, it tells us that Mary “pondered” the events surrounding her Son and “kept” the Word of God given to her. Thus, pious souls have discerned that her heart is a treasure of knowledge and

affection for Jesus Christ as well as an object of veneration that reveals the thoughts of their own hearts.

Many such souls can be found in the Middle Ages. St. Bernardine of Sienna (1380-1444), for example, has been called the “Doctor of the Heart of Mary” because of his deep writings on devotion to her heart. The first Mass offered in honor of the Heart of Mary was initiated by St. John Eudes (1601-1680), who was likewise instrumental in the promotion of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

This devotion took a significant turn with the apparitions of Fatima in 1917. On July 13th of that year, she told the three children “to save poor sinners, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.” During the twenty-fifth anniversary of Fatima, Pope Pius XII appointed August 22nd as the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This date was later changed by Paul VI after Vatican II to the Saturday after the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

There are a number of practices we can do during this month of Mary’s Immaculate Heart. Perhaps the most obvious is praying the Rosary more frequently and fervently. One could use the month of August to say the Angelus three times every day. It is also a month to take up those great Marian prayers like the Memorare and Sub Tuum Praesidium.

There is a Novena to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that one could offer for a special intention. One could also say the Litany of the Immaculate Heart of Mary throughout the month.

There is one more devotion worth mentioning. It requires much discernment and shouldn’t be undertaken flippantly. Ideally, one would consult with his or her spiritual director beforehand. I am speaking here of total consecration to Mary. Such consecration is precisely for the purpose of gaining her heart for

her Son. In preparing for consecration, one might be helped by the classic work of St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary. Or, one could take up a more contemporary version of a thirty-three day preparation recently published by Sophia Press. It is titled Fruit of Her Womb and was authored by Fr. Boniface Hicks, a Benedictine monk in Pennsylvania and internationally renowned spiritual director.

6 AUGUST – FEAST OF THE TRANSFIGURATION OF THE LORD

Thetransfiguration of Christ is another one of those moments when the Father declares His love for His Son and exhorts those present to “Listen to Him.” Aspects of this event resemble Christ’s Baptism, most obviously the voice of the Father but also the shadowy presence of the Holy Ghost. A lot had happened since Christ’s Baptism and He was now turning His face toward His Cross. Thus, the Father uses this moment to reiterate both His love for and our duty toward His only begotten.

The act of listening or hearing is deeply important for the religion of the Israelites. The great Jewish prayer, said by pious Jews three times a day, is called

the Shema, Hebrew for “hear” or “listen.” One could say that Israel’s history develops only as it “listens” to or “hears” the Word of the Lord which comes to them through their great prophets.

It was the prophets who foretold the coming of the Messiah. At the Transfiguration, the Father clearly identifies Jesus as the One of whom they spoke. Alongside Jesus appear Moses and Elijah, the greatest and most paradigmatic of Israel’s prophets. The indication is that Christ is the One whom they foreknew.

In addition to showing the great continuity between the ministry of Christ and the history of Israel, the Transfiguration also highlights the new exodus. Moses, of course, led the Israelites on the exodus from slavery in Egypt. In St. Luke’s Gospel, Moses and Elijah speak of the “departure” Jesus will accomplish in Jerusalem. It is a strange expression, only understood when we see that the word for “departure” is the Greek word for the “exodus.” The Transfiguration is thus a revelation of Christ’s Cross, declaring that the new exodus will be from this life to the life to come. The exodus led by Christ is a departure from slavery to sin and the Devil and it is accomplished not by Moses’ outstretched arms over the Red Sea but Christ’s outstretched arms on the Cross.

The Entrance Antiphon for the Feast announces that “in a resplendent cloud, the Holy Spirit appeared. The Father’s voice was heard: This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him.” From the outset of today’s Mass, we are called to listen to Christ. To receive His teachings, of course, but also to follow the way of the Cross in our own lives, making sacrifices, dying to self and sin, and making the pilgrimage to the heavenly Jerusalem.

The theme of listening is picked up again in the opening Collect. It beseeches the Father that we who listen to His beloved Son “may merit to become coheirs with Him.” The Post-Communion Collect, however, implores God to transfigure all the communicants into the “likeness of your Son.”

Our focus during this feast ought to be on listening to Christ and discovering the ways in which His humble and cruciform way is paradoxically the way of glory.

TheEntrance Antiphon is taken from Psalm 73. It implores the Lord to “look to your covenant” and “forget not the life of your poor ones.” It is a cry for help as well as an act of faith. Knowing God’s promises in His covenant, the Psalmist calls God to act accordingly. This may seem presumptuous, but it is precisely the kind of persistent, childlike begging that the Lord asks of us.

To know the Lord requires trust in Him. Yes, we can be presumptuous. But when we call upon the Lord to act in ways that He has promised to, we are not being arrogant but faithful. Sometimes we think our desires are not His concern. We feel ashamed. Or we feel that we should take care of them ourselves, leaving to Him only the religious or pious aspects of our lives. But to truly know the Lord is to know His desires for us, to internalize His fatherly care, and so to depend upon Him as our Father. This means calling upon Him, as we do in our opening collect this day, to help us in our troubles, to remember His promises to provide for our needs as we seek to follow Him.

A life of calling upon His covenantal faithfulness is the life of the true children of God. Thus in the opening Collect, we ask that the Father will “bring to perfection in our hearts the spirit of adoption…that we may merit to enter into the inheritance” which He has won for us in Jesus Christ.

This Sunday, we ought to reflect on the fact that God is our Father and we are His children. We should reflect on ways in which we can depend upon Him more and trust Him in all our difficulties and joys. We should ask that we grow closer in intimacy with Him such that we do not live most of our lives apart from Him or as if He does not exist or is not relevant. He is not only with us on Sunday or at the Mass. Rather, He gives Himself to us in the Eucharist that we might internalize His presence and carry Him with us everywhere and at every moment.

15 AUGUST – SOLEMNITY OF THE ASSUMPTION OF THE B.V.M.

Thisis a holy day of obligation, meaning all Catholics are required to attend Mass. If the liturgical year is the Church’s accompaniment of the Lord in His life, then it should be no surprise that such includes attention to Mary, His Mother.

One of the great puzzles of Church history is that while we know the burial sites of many of the martyrs and Apostles and their relics are spread throughout the Church, we have nothing for Mary. This is quite strange given the significance of Mary as the mother of the Lord. As leaders of the Church discussed how her body was not found, preachers explained that the Lord would not let the body of the mother who bore Him suffer decay, since it was hallowed and preserved by Him. The notion that Mary’s body was assumed into heaven, then, is something of the completion of her Immaculate Conception. Just as the Lord prepared her to be His Mother by preserving her body from Original Sin, so too he fulfilled His salvation of her by preserving her body from the chief consequence of Sin, namely, death and decay.

The feast of the Assumption is the oldest of Marian festivals. One of the first records of it comes from the early sixth century, in which ancient tradition identifies the 15th of August as the date of her “falling asleep.” In 602, Emperor Mauritius established the feast as a public holiday throughout his empire. During the seventh and eighth centuries, the feast started to be known as the “Assumption of Mary.” In the ninth century, it was appointed a vigil and octave by Pope Leo IV, which existed until the modern liturgical renovations.

Fr. Francis Weiser explains that “from early centuries the Feast of the Assumption was a day of great religious processions” which seemed to have been inaugurated by Pope Sergius I in 701 (Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs, p. 289). Since this feast was close to harvest time, processions would go through the fields as the people prayed for a blessing on the harvest.

The readings for this Solemnity are exquisite. The first reading is from the Book of Revelation in which St. John sees a woman in heaven who is clearly Mary

(she is in labor giving birth to the son who will rule all the nations). This passage has often been understood to mean that it is through Mary’s heavenly intercession that her Son’s reign is continually born upon the earth. In other words, it is through Mary that nations are brought under her Son’s authority.

The second reading is from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. It declares that Christ is the “firstfruits” of the dead. In the context of the Feast of the Assumption, it is seen as evidence that Christ’s life after death is but the first and prototypical instance of the salvation from death for all those who belong to Him. It thus shows the fittingness of His rescue of His Mother from death in a special way.

The Responsorial Psalm returns us to the first reading, repeating the verse “The queen stands at your right

hand.” This Psalm is seen as something of a prophecy of Mary’s heavenly reign with her Son.

The Gospel comes from the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth in which she sings her Magnificat. As we hear these words in the Feast of the Assumption, we recognize that one of the “great things” the Almighty has done for her is take her up into heaven, body and soul. This is another reason why all generations will call her “blessed.” They can turn to her in prayer and ask for her intercession as she reigns in heaven alongside her Son, who is king of all peoples and nations.

The Feast of Mary’s Assumption is a time to marvel at the excessiveness of God’s grace. As efficient moderns, we might not think too much of honoring Mary. Mary, we think, is a mere instrument. But the Father does not look at her as the mere vessel through which His Son became incarnate. He sees her wants to give her the fullness of her Son’s life, which is the life of heaven.

Today we honor Mary as the Trinity has. But we also remember the reality and significance of heaven, growing more confident in it as a source for our earthly pilgrimage. So we commit ourselves to depending upon her intercession more and more.

20 AUGUST – 20TH SUNDAY IN ORD. TIME

Earlierit was noted that St. John Eudes was instrumental in spreading devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart and, further, that Pope Pius XII originally placed the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary on August 22nd, within the Octave of her Assumption. We can see the fittingness of this placement when we recognize that St. John Eudes day was just celebrated on the 19th of August.

With Mary’s Assumption fresh in our minds, we contemplate the wonders of worshipping God in His heavenly Temple. The Entrance Antiphon declares that “one day within your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.” The opening collect recalls the “good things which no eye can see,” asking that we would love God in and above all things so that we may attain what He promises.

But the theme of the Mass is really the inclusion of the Gentiles into the worship of God. The first

reading, from the prophet Isaiah, speaks of a time when God will uplift those who “keep the Sabbath free from profanation” and will bring foreigners “to my holy mountain” to make them “joyful in my house of prayer.” The Responsorial Psalm thus resounds with “let all the nations praise you!”

The Gospel captures a moment when Jesus, focusing on His ministry to the people of Israel, is compelled to help a Gentile woman. Not just a foreigner, but a Canaanite, a historic enemy of the Israelites. To her persistence and trust in His mercy, He says “O woman, great is your faith.”

Like an undeserving child who is given a treat on account of his siblings’ goodness, we can take this day to give thanks for those faithful Israelites who paved the way for our faith. We might consider how different history would have gone if the fulfillment of God’s promises were exclusive to the Jewish people. We should also use this day to pray for the Jewish people, for as the reading from Romans reminds, they remain very much a part of God’s salvific plan.

27 AUGUST – 21ST SUNDAY IN ORD. TIME

Theopening collect for today’s Mass is truly beautiful and inspiring. It asks God to “grant your people to love what you command and to desire what you promise, that, amid the uncertainties of this world, our hearts may be fixed on that place where true gladness

is found.” Is this not one of our biggest challenges in the life of holiness? Amidst all our selfish loves and the promises of the world, how difficult it is to love what God commands and desire what He promises?

This Sunday nicely rounds out this Marian month. We have celebrated Mary’s Assumption and Queenship. Now we consider how God’s heavenly Kingdom is administered here on earth. The theme of today’s Mass is the bestowal of the keys to the kingdom being given to the royal steward or administrator. “You are Peter,” declares the Lord in today’s Gospel, and “upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.”

Throughout this season of Ordinary Time, we have been prompted to reflect on the gift of divine authority to the bishops of the Church. Here we are prompted to recognize the singular gift of authority given to their head, the Pope. How important is it that we pray for him? What sacrifices can we offer for his pontificate? And when we are troubled by the faltering of the Church today, we must hope in God’s promise that the gates of hell will not withstand the triumphant march of the Church through history. Lest we wish to hold ourselves up above the Church, thinking we have a more pure faith, we remember the words of the opening Collect and how frequently we don’t love what God commands and desire what He promises. 