Padre Pio, Fr. Wojtyla and the Shoulder Wound of Christ

The following comes from Kathy Schiffer at Aleteia:

What do medieval mystic St. Bernard of Clairvaux and modern monk St. Padre Pio have in common? Well, they’re both saints, sharing in the eternal reward that God has prepared for them. But beyond that, both had a sincere devotion to the Shoulder Wound of Christ.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, the French abbott and mystic who helped renew the Cistercian Order in the 12th century, related in the annals of Clairvaux a conversation he’d had with our Lord. He prayed, asking Jesus which was his greatest unrecorded suffering; and the Lord answered him:

“I had on My Shoulder while I bore My Cross on the Way of Sorrows, a grievous Wound that was more painful than the others, and which is not recorded by men. Honor this Wound with thy devotion, and I will grant thee whatsoever thou dost ask through its virtue and merit. And in regard to all those who shall venerate this Wound, I will remit to them all their venial sins and will no longer remember their mortal sins.”

ST. PIO OF PIETRELCINA, Capuchin friar, priest and mystic, died in 1968. Padre Pio was known as a confessor and a holy man who for more than 50 years bore the wounds of Christ (the stigmata) on his hands and feet.

In a book published in the Italian language by St. Pio’s friary, titled Il Papa e Il Frate, author Stefano Campanella reported that the future St. Pio had once had a very interesting conversation with Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope St. John Paul II.

According to Campanella, Fr. Wojtyla asked Padre Pio which of his wounds caused the most pain. Fr. Wojtyla expected Padre Pio to say that it was his chest wound; but instead Padre Pio replied, “It is my shoulder wound, which no one knows about and has never been cured or treated.”

In 2008, 40 years after Padre Pio’s death, author Frank Rega wrote about Padre Pio:

At one time Padra [sic] had confided to Brother Modestino Fucci, now the doorkeeper at Padre Pio’s friary in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy, that his greatest pains occurred when he changed his undershirt. Brother Modestino, like Father Wojtyla, thought that Padre Pio was referring to pains from the chest wound. Then, on February 4, 1971, Brother Modestino was assigned the task of taking an inventory of all the items in the deceased Padre’s cell in the friary, and also his belongings in the archives. That day he discovered that one of Padre Pio’s undershirts bore a circle of bloodstains in the area of the right shoulder.

On that very evening, Brother Modestino asked Padre Pio in prayer to enlighten him about the meaning of the bloodstained undershirt. He asked Padre to give him a sign if he truly bore Christ’s shoulder wound. Then he went to sleep, awakening at 1 a.m. with a terrible, excruciating pain in his shoulder, as if he had been sliced with a knife up to the shoulder bone. He felt that he would die from the pain if it continued, but it lasted only a short time. Then the room became filled with the aroma of a heavenly perfume of flowers — the sign of Padre Pio’s spiritual presence — and he heard a voice saying, “This is what I had to suffer!”

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, after receiving the message from Christ regarding the pain he experienced in his shoulder, sought to foster devotion to the Shoulder Wound of Christ, and penned this prayer:

Prayer to the Shoulder Wound of Christ
Most loving Jesus, meek Lamb of God, I, a miserable sinner, salute and worship the most Sacred Wound of Thy Shoulder on which Thou didst bear Thy heavy Cross which so tore Thy flesh and laid bare Thy Bones as to inflict on Thee an anguish greater than any other wound of Thy Most Blessed Body. I adore Thee, O Jesus most sorrowful; I praise and glorify Thee, and give Thee thanks for this most sacred and painful Wound, beseeching Thee by that exceeding pain, and by the crushing burden of Thy heavy Cross to be merciful to me, a sinner, to forgive me all my mortal and venial sins, and to lead me on towards Heaven along the Way of Thy Cross. Amen.

An Encounter of Saints: Padre Pio and Karol Wojtyla

The following comes from The Path Less Taken:

From a fascinating article by Frank M. Rega. 
Shortly after World War II was over, a young Polish priest who was studying in Rome, Fr. Karol Wojtyla, visited Padre Pio in San Giovanni Rotondo. This encounter took place around 1947 or 1948. At that time in post-war Italy, it was possible to have access to Padre Pio, since travel was difficult and great crowds were not besieging the Friary. The young priest spent almost a week in San Giovanni Rotondo during his visit, and was able to attend Padre Pio’s Mass and make his confession to the saint. Apparently, this was not just a casual encounter, and the two spoke together at length during Fr. Wojtyla’s stay. Their conversations gave rise to rumors in later years, after the Polish prelate had been elevated to the Papacy, that Padre Pio had told him he would become Pope. The story persists to the present day, even though on two or three occasions "Papa Wojtyla" denied it.
     Recently, new information about this visit has come to light, according to a new book in Italian published by Padre Pio's Friary, Il Papa e Il Frate, written by Stefano Campanella (1).  As reported in this book, the future Pope and future Saint had a very interesting conversation.  During this exchange, Fr. Wojtyla asked Padre Pio which of his wounds caused the greatest suffering. From this kind of personal question, we can see that they must have already talked together for some time and had become at ease with each other. The priest expected Padre Pio to say it was his chest wound, but instead the Padre replied, "It is my shoulder wound, which no one knows about and has never been cured or treated." This is extremely significant, not only because it reveals that Padre Pio bore this wound, but because, as far as is known, the future pope is the only one to whom Padre Pio ever revealed existence of this secret wound.
     Centuries earlier, Our Lord himself had revealed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux in a vision, that his shoulder wound from carrying the heavy wooden cross caused him his greatest suffering, and that the cross tore into his flesh right up to the shoulder bone.

Why does God let us suffer?

The Joy of Suffering

The following comes from In God's Company 2:

"I consider the sufferings of the present to be as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed in us." -Romans 8:18

When we suffer, we may take a pill for pain relief. However, Paul recommends that we pray for a deeper awareness of God's glory. We need to increase our awareness of God's glory more than decrease our pain. Then we will consider our suffering as nothing compared to His glory to be revealed in us. We can even become so aware of God's glory that we consider suffering a privilege (Phil 1:29), find our joy in our suffering (Col 1:24), and even rejoice in proportion to our suffering (1 Pt 4:13).

For most people, their joy increases as their suffering decreases. For Christians aware of God's glory, our joy increases as our suffering increases. This is only possible for those deeply aware of God's glorious presence (1 Pt 2:19). This fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Ps 111:10), even of wisdom concerning our suffering. We find joy in suffering only when we suffer redemptively through self-sacrifice and persecution.

Most suffering should be removed through repentance, evangelization, deliverance, and/or healing. Redemptive suffering, however, should be compared to God's glory and considered nothing (see Rm 8:18). We should rejoice in redemptive suffering and even seek to increase it by living totally for Christ.

 Father, give me the faith and love to pray to share more in Your sufferings (see Phil 3:10).

 "So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but shall do My will, achieving the end for which I sent it." -Is 55:11

Dostoyevsky on Suffering

"I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened."

            Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Pray for Fr. Joseph Peek

Fr. Joseph Peek is nearing the end of his earthly journey and is preparing for life eternal.  Please keep him and his family in your prayers.  Fr. Peek is a military veteran of the US Navy and is asking prayers through the intercession of  the courageous and holy Grunt Padre, Servant of God Fr. Vincent Capodanno. 

Read about Fr. Peek's vocation and courage here.

A SHORT PRAYER FOR THE DYING

The Special Prayer of the Pious Union of St. Joseph
  

O St. JOSEPH, foster father of the Child Jesus and true spouse
of the Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us and for the dying of this
day (or this night). Amen. 

PRAYER FOR THE AGONIZING 

O St. JOSEPH, protector of those in agony, take pity on those
who at this very moment when I pray to thee are engaged in
their last combat. 

O blessed Joseph, take pity on my soul too when the hour of
the final battle shall arrive for me. Then, O my holy patron, do
not abandon me, but grant me thine assistance; show that thou
art my good father, and obtain that my Divine Savior may receive
me with mercy into that abode where the elect enjoy a life
that shall never end. Amen. 

Takayama Ukon: Samurai and Saint

(CNA/EWTN News)  The martyrdom of a 16th-century Samurai who died for his Catholic faith was approved this week by Pope Francis, making the Japanese warrior one among nine other causes that advanced toward sainthood.

Takayama Ukon was born in 1552 in Japan during the time when Jesuit missionaries were becoming introduced within the country. By the time Takayama was 12, his father had converted to Catholicism and had his son baptized as “Justo” by the Jesuit Fr. Gaspare di Lella.

Takayama's position in Japanese society as daimyo allowed him many benefits, such as owning grand estates and raising vast armies. As a Catholic, Takayama used his power to support and protect the short-lived missionary expansion within Japan, influencing the conversion of thousands of Japanese.

When a time of persecution set in within the country under the reign of Japan's chancellor Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1587, many newly-converted Catholics abandoned their beliefs.

Instead of denying their faith, Takayama and his father left their prestigious position in society and chose a life of poverty and exile. Although many of his friends tried to persuade Takayama to deny Catholicism, he remained strong in his beliefs.

Takayama “did not want to fight against other Christians, and this led him to live a poor life, because when a samurai does not obey his 'chief,' he loses everything he has,” Fr. Anton Witwer, a general postulator of the Society of Jesus, told CNA in 2014.

Ten years passed, and the chancellor became more fierce in his persecution against Christians. He eventually crucified 26 Catholics, and by 1614, Christianity in Japan was completely banned.

The new boycott on Christianity forced Takayama to leave Japan in exile with 300 other Catholics. They fled to the Philippines, but not long after his arrival, Takayama died on February 3, 1615.

In 2013, the Japanese bishops' conference submitted the lengthy 400-page application for the beatification of Takayama to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. On Jan. 22, 2016, Takayama's advancement in the cause for canonization was further promulgated when Pope Francis approved his decree of martyrdom.

“Since Takayama died in exile because of the weaknesses caused by the maltreatments he suffered in his homeland, the process for beatification is that of a martyr,” Fr. Witwer explained.

Takayama's life exemplifies the Christian example of "a great fidelity to the Christian vocation, persevering despite all difficulties," Fr. Witwer continued.

Takayama's cause was one of ten other new sainthood causes, which included three blesseds who have had approved miracles attributed to their intercession.

The other approved decrees included Bl. Stanislaus of Jesus, Bl. Jose Gabriel del Rosario Brochero, Bl. Jose Luis Sanchez del Rio, Francesco Maria Greco, Elisabetta Sanna, Fr. Engelmar Unzeitig CMM, Genaro Fueyo Castanon, Arsenio da Trigolo and Maria Luisa del Santissimo Sacramento.

St. John of the Cross and the Night of the Senses

The following comes from Fr. Iain Matthew O.C.D.

“The trouble is our culture has a mesmeric fascination in keeping moving–there is no where so urgent as an airport. Our fascination is moving, and growing fear of having to stop. It takes courage to stay with it: not to move on when I do not like it anymore but, instead, to stay with it and let what is no longer novel disclose its unsuspected depth.

“St. John of the Cross tells us, ‘Say no to your desires and you will discover what your heart really desires. What makes you think your longings are God’s longings?’

“To live on likes and dislikes–gusto, apetito, gratification, affective drive–keeps one a tourist, doing more and more, experiencing less and less.  This is to live on the level of ‘sense’. It refers not so much to the sensory–the body, the emotions–as to the person who is hostage to his or her own needs. And the sensory side of the person can symbolize that: body and emotions are a rich blessing when they are in place, but they tend to turn imperialist and extend dominion over the whole person, making us ‘sensual’. Sensual man is the person enslaved to each next moment.

“If, however, a person chooses not to fill the hole with one more sensation, not to flit to another relationship or different project, but to see this one through, life can transfer on to a new level. St. John calls it ‘spirit’.

“At first it can feel like starving. John tells of a language, taste, texture, freedom, peace, life which is yet to be discovered and which we cannot know until it is discovered. He assures us that, ‘To come to know what you know not, you have to go by a way that you know not.’ Not filling the gap inside of us with another novelty can feel like we’re starving, but it allows the genuinely new to be disclosed. It allows one to live, not as a consumer among objects, but as a person among persons: Fit for communion, for the love, which can hold the other, and be held, on open palms. Not grasped.

“That is the level of spirit: availability as a person for communion; the space for the gift of the Other. This is more than just a rearrangement of the pieces.”

Christmas, Suffering, and the Cross

The following comes from Michael Coren at the Catholic World Report:

I graduated from high school in England back in 1977, and it’s grimly sobering that some of the people reading this column weren’t even born then! Be warned younger people—middle age creeps up on as surreptitiously as the most careful and crafty beasts of prey. There was a somewhat perfunctory party where students and teachers said goodbye to one another, but most of us were only too eager to see the back of school and go on to university, work, fun, whatever. I remained close to my oldest friend, who later was the best man at my wedding, but otherwise I have not maintained contact with most of my contemporaries. Frankly, I can’t even remember their names.

There was one couple, however, who I do remember: Jonathan and Angela. I say “couple” because while only 17-years-old back then, they always seemed to have been together. Not in some prurient way but as surprisingly mature, committed young people. They were also both extremely good-looking, athletic, and intelligent. With so many gifts they could at least have been unpleasant and rude just to balance things out, but they were also kind and generous—the model couple.

I recall Angela speaking to me at the party about her plans but I think I was too busy trying to look at her legs to listen to what she was saying (I wasn’t a Catholic at the time, so it was okay!). After that I pretty much forgot about Angela and Jonathan. I married, came to Canada, started a family, and moved on.

Fast-forward twenty years to a phone-call from that oldest friend. “Are you still visiting London at Christmas,” he asked, “and do you remember Jonathan and Angela?” I said “Yes” to both questions. “They’ve apparently been living in Africa and have just returned to Britain. They’re having a party to say hello to everybody. They want us all to know, however, that Jonathan was in an accident. Angela has been a teacher at a small school, and there had been a fire. One little boy, Joshua, had been left inside. Jonathan ran back in and rescued the boy. The child is fine, but Jonathan is badly burnt; they don’t want anybody to be shocked when they see him.”

I did indeed fly to London that Christmas, and made my way to the apartment whereJonathan and Angela were staying. It was Christmas Eve, and I’d planned to go to Midnight Mass after seeing them. As for burns and the accident, I had worked as a war reporter, had seen death up close, and I was—so foolishly prided myself—a man of the world. I arrived a little early, and knocked on the door. There was Angela, as lovely as ever. “Come in, come in”, she said. “You’re the first here, and Jonathan will be overjoyed so see you.”

There he was. This once strikingly handsome young man, sitting in a large armchair, his face so disguised by scar tissue that I could barely see his eyes. One ear seemed to be almost missing, and he had hardly any hair. I tried to register nonchalance, but it never works. Then he spoke, and the voice was the same as it had been two decades ago. And the words, the words. “All right Coren, I know I look a bloody mess. But at least one of us has kept their figure.”

I tried to laugh, but instead I began to cry. Angela ran to me, embraced me, said, “Don’t worry, don’t worry, we’ve both done a lot of that. Don’t worry.” Then a little African boy ran into the room, jumped on Jonathan’s lap and said, “Daddy, daddy!” Angela held my hand and said, “Have you met our new adopted son? His name is Joshua.”

I learned that night that Jonathan and Angela were Christians, had been all of their lives, and that after university they had worked as missionaries in Africa. Jonathan helped bring a clean water supply to the region; she set up and ran a school. Christ had formed their lives, their behavior, their relationship, their love, their sacrifice, and their courage. I should have known this years earlier but I was—yes—too busy trying to look at Angela’s legs. That was an evening, a Christmas, and a Midnight Mass I will never forget.

Let me be candid. There are times when I wonder if it’s all worth it. The internal politics of the Church; the ambitious Catholics—clergy and laity—who gossip and betray; those who are never happy unless they are condemning and criticizing the words and actions of others. It was Flannery O’Connor who spoke of suffering for the Church and suffering from the Church. The first is easy and rewarding, and can lead to deeper faith. The second is enervating and painful, and can lead to despair. But whenever I feel the sting, see the unfairness, shudder at the injustice, I try to think of Jonathan, Angela, and little Joshua. But most of all I think of what this season is all about, and it is about He whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.

I know the birth of Jesus Christ may well not have been in December and that it may not have been a stable, but I really could not care less. I have been to Bethlehem, but more importantly Bethlehem has been to me. I have not had to run into burning schools or put my life at risk, and my complaints about ill treatment are generally little more than privileged whines. Nor do I want to be a martyr, if it can be at all avoided. The point, though, is not whether we die for Christ but whether we are willing to die for Christ. If it’s love, it’s total. There’s no middle way when it comes to the romance of faith.

He became a baby so that we could know Him and understand Him properly. This is the quintessence of Christmas, the story of God becoming man—becoming child. Naked vulnerability guaranteeing eternal life. Angela reminded me of this when I spoke to her the day before I returned to Canada those twenty years ago. “Women used to turn and look at my husband in the street because he was so good-looking”, she said. “Now everybody turns and looks at him, but for other reasons.” A pause. “I’ve never stopped looking at him, and never will.”

Never stop looking at Jesus, as a baby, a child, an adult, a man dying on the Cross, a God restored to life, a savior with us until the end of time.\

Have a blessed and wonderful Christmas.

Pope Francis: When Christians lack difficulties, 'something is wrong'

(CNA/EWTN News)  Faithful Christians will always face difficulties, said Pope Francis on Tuesday, warning that a worldly, career-based approach to faith avoids the suffering and persecution inherent in following Christ.

“Many Christians, tempted by the spirit of the world, think that following Jesus is good because it can become a career, they can get ahead,” the Pope said.

“When a Christian has no difficulties in life – when everything is fine, everything is beautiful – something is wrong.”

He suggested this temptation is common for a Christian who is “a great friend of the spirit of the world, of worldliness.”

“You cannot remove the cross from the path of Jesus, it is always there,” he added.

Pope Francis delivered his homily at morning Mass at the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta residence. Archbishop Rino Fisichella and Monsignor José Octavio Ruiz Arenas, respectively the president and secretary of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, concelebrated Mass.

“Think of Mother Teresa: what does the spirit of the world say of Mother Teresa? ‘Ah, Blessed Teresa is a beautiful woman, she did a lot of good things for others.’ The spirit of the world never says that the Blessed Teresa spent, every day, many hours in adoration ... Never!” the Pope said.

He explained that the worldly spirit “reduces Christian activity to doing social good.”

“As if Christian life was a gloss, a veneer of Christianity,” he said. “The proclamation of Jesus is not a veneer: the proclamation of Jesus goes straight to the bones, heart, goes deep within and changes us. And the spirit of the world does not tolerate it, will not tolerate it, and therefore, there is persecution.”

Just as Pope Francis criticized career-based Christianity, he also warned about a solely culture-based approach to the faith.

He criticized the attitude of following Jesus because one was born in a Christian culture. He said this ignores “the necessity of true discipleship of Jesus, the necessity to travel his road.”

“If you follow Jesus as a cultural proposal, then you are using this road to get higher up, to have more power. And the history of the Church is full of this, starting with some emperors and then many rulers and many people, no?” the Pope observed.

The Holy Father said that this attitude is present even among some priests and bishops.

He concluded with an exhortation to follow Jesus Christ truly.

“Following Jesus is just that: going with him out of love, behind him: on the same journey, the same path. And the spirit of the world will not tolerate this and what will make us suffer, but suffering as Jesus did,” he said.

“Let us ask for this grace: to follow Jesus in the way that he has revealed to us and that he has taught us. This is beautiful, because he never leaves us alone. Never! He is always with us. So be it.”

Heather King on the Cross of the Church

 The following comes from Heather King at Word on Fire:

"We must all be saved together! Reach God together! Appear before Him together! We must return to our Father’s house together…what would He think if we arrived without the others, without the others returning, too?" - Charles Péguy

Recently  a reader sent a link to a piece by a disgruntled lapsed Catholic who was marching about fuming that no mere Pope Francis would induce him to re-join the Church. " 'God is love, God is love,'" he groused. That's the namby-pamby message I hear. I want something challenging. I want to hear about sacrifice. He approvingly quoted Flannery O'Connor: "They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross."

This guy so does not get what Flannery, with her huge sense of humor, and profound love of Christ, got from Day One: the Church IS the Cross. If you want to be challenged (and ridiculed, and marginalized, and scorned), do major penance and sacrifice, and die to every idea you've ever had about who you are, who God is, and what religion is, become a member of the Catholic church.

"When you finally discover that you are just one of the little people, don’t conclude that this makes you special," observed French eccentric/lay comic-mystic/lover of the poor Madeleine Delbrêl.

The idea isn't to demand that the Church make herself worthy of us. The idea is to realize that in spite of our unworthiness, we - miracle upon grace upon wonder upon mystery - have been deemed worthy of the Church. "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed," we pray, just before receiving the Eucharist. The Eucharist! The Body and Blood of the Savior of the World. I mean this joker thinks Christ is not worthy of him?!

Here's the Cross of the Church: It's not just for us. It's for everybody. Thus, we don't get to have homilies tailor-made for us, although in another way a homily always is tailor-made, usually in the last way we would have chosen. The priest has to meet the tentative searcher; the elderly man who has tottered in, aching in every bone in his body, to give thanks; the pregnant teenager; the wife of the CEO whose son is a crackhead dying out on the streets; the crackhead; the guy who's cheating on his wife; the wife; the vet suffering from PTSD; the general who's ordered the killing; the nurse trying to figure out whether to quit her job because her hospital is performing abortions.

He has to meet the one who thinks the Church is too hard and the one who thinks the Church is too soft, the one who is rejoicing and the one who is mourning, the one who is pissed at God and the one who is falling madly in love with God. He has to meet the eight-year-old and the eighty-year-old. He also has to meet the blowhard, the Pharisee, the one who thinks only she is up to being challenged, only she suffers, only she gets it and for God's sake can't we get some decent music. All in six minutes.

The priest has to do that while performing baptisms, weddings, funerals; while overseeing the fundraising fall festival; while settling parish conflicts; while blessing homes, cars, and candles. He has to do this, day after day, often many times a day, while exhausted, understaffed, impatient, critical and doubtful (i.e. human) himself. He doesn't get to have it his way, all the time, any more than any of us do.

It is one of the glories and gifts of the Church that we don't encourage priests who are "personalities." We don't encourage flamboyancy. We encourage humility, plodding perseverance, and service. So perhaps the priest can be forgiven for resorting to saying that God is love, not least of all because God IS love--just not the love, ever, that we think. Actually, in seventeen years in the Church, I have never once heard a priest say "God is love." I've heard priests say our job is to serve the poor, examine our faults, love God. I've heard a steady stream of Gospel-based homilies that, if not individually wildly compelling, have consistently, slowly, quietly, inexorably led me closer to Christ.

In seventeen years, I can also count on one hand the number of times a priest, while celebrating Mass, has appeared surly, bored, condescending, or irreverent. This quiet, faithful carrying out of the duties of the office, no matter how disordered the priest may be personally, has set me free to ponder the great mystery and sacrifice of the Mass, to penetrate beneath the surface, to realize that, as Flannery O'Connor observed, the Mass could be celebrated out of a suitcase in a furnace room and it would still be the Mass: the most shocking, scandalous, cataclysmic, glorious, horrifying, sublime act the world ever has or ever could know. After awhile I realized, Let me bring my burning heart. Let me make up for what is lacking in the suffering of Christ. Instead of sitting around complaining and carping, maybe I could think about what I could contribute to the Church.

Fr. Robert Barron: ISIS and the Meaning of the Cross

The following comes from Word on Fire:

Last week, the attention of the world was riveted to a deserted beach in northern Libya, where a group of twenty one Coptic Christians were brutally beheaded by masked operatives of the ISIS movement. In the wake of the executions, ISIS released a gruesome video entitled “A Message in Blood to the Nation of the Cross.” I suppose that for the ISIS murderers the reference to “the Nation of the Cross” had little sense beyond a generic designation for Christianity. Sadly for most Christians, too, the cross has become little more than an anodyne, a harmless symbol, a pious decoration. I would like to take the awful event on that Libyan beach, as well as the ISIS message concerning it, as an occasion to reflect on the still startling distinctiveness of the cross.

In the time of Jesus, the cross was a brutal and very effective sign of Roman power. Imperial authorities effectively said, “If you cross us (pun intended), we will affix you to a dreadful instrument of torture and leave you to writhe in agonizing, literally excruciating (ex cruce, from the cross) pain until you die. Then we will make sure that your body hangs on that gibbet until it is eaten away by scavenging animals.” The cross was, basically, state-sponsored terrorism, and it did indeed terrify people. The great Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero once described a crucifixion but only through a convoluted circumlocution, for he couldn’t bring himself to characterize it directly. After putting down the great slave uprising of Spartacus, the Roman government lined the Appian Way with hundreds of crosses so as to dissuade any other would-be revolutionaries. Pontius Pilate had much the same intention when he nailed dozens of Jewish rebels to the walls of Jerusalem. That same Pilate arranged for Jesus to be crucified on Calvary Hill, a promontory situated close to one of the gates of ancient Jerusalem, guaranteeing that his horrific death would not be missed by the large Passover crowds moving in and out of the city.  

From the crucified Jesus, all of the disciples, save John, fled, precisely because they wanted with all their hearts to avoid his dreadful fate. After Good Friday, the friends of Jesus huddled in terror in the Upper Room, petrified that they might be nailed up on Calvary as well. The disciples on the road to Emmaus were, understandably, heading out of Jerusalem, away from danger, and they were utterly convinced that Jesus’ movement had come to naught. In a word, the cross meant the victory of the world, and the annihilation of Jesus and what he stood for.  

And this is why it is surpassing strange that one of the earliest Apostles and missionaries of the Christian religion could write, “I preach one thing, Christ and him crucified!” How could Paul—the passage is taken from his first letter to the Corinthians—possibly present the dreadful cross as the centerpiece of his proclamation? He could do so only because he knew that God had raised the crucified Jesus from the dead, proving thereby that God’s love and forgiveness are greater than anything in the world. This is why his exaltation of the cross is a sort of taunt to Rome and all of its brutal descendants down through the ages: “You think that scares us? God has conquered that!” And this is why, to this day, Christians boldly hold up an image of the humiliated, tortured Jesus to the world. What they are saying is, “We are not afraid.”

How wonderful this is, by the way, in light of the Charlie Hebdo tragedy and the controversy over the Dutch cartoonist’s mocking depictions of the prophet Muhammad. Christians don’t fuss particularly about insults to Jesus, for we reverence a depiction of the insulted Christ as our most sacred icon. We can say, with Paul, “I am certain that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither height nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39), for we know that the world killed Jesus but God raised him from the dead.

Read the rest here.

The Cross Is the Key to Understanding Life

A reflection by Fr. Richard Tomasek, SJ at Celebrating the Year of Faith:

“Were not our hearts on fire within us while He spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?”  ( Luke 24:13-35).  The story of the two disciples returning to Emmaus, disillusioned and discouraged by the terrible execution of Jesus whom they thought was the Messiah sent to free Israel, is the story of each one of us.  We too often find ourselves defeated by life’s difficulties and questioning whether God cares or even exists.

In 1946 a Viennese psychiatrist by the name of Viktor Frankl wrote a little book called Man’s Search for Meaning.  By the time of his death in 1997, the book had sold over 10 million copies in 24 languages and was considered one of the ten most influential books ever published in the USA.  Frankl found himself in a Nazi concentration camp and observed that some prisoners withered away and died quickly whereas others carried on with relative strength.  By interviews and reflection, it became clear to him that the people who had the best chance of survival were whose who had a meaning, a purpose and a hope in their life.  Perhaps it was a burning desire to rejoin their family, or to finish a science project started, or to persevere in the strength of their religious faith.  From that, Frankl developed a school of psychotherapy called Logotherapy, based on the Greek word logos, which signifies word or meaning.  It is the same word used by the New Testament to name the Word of God, the second Person of the Divine Trinity, who became man for us in the womb of Mary. “And the Word became flesh…” (Jo 1:14).

In the Emmaus account in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus, the true Word of God, enlightens his disheartened followers by opening the Scriptures to them and showing them how his sacrificial death-victory were prophesied for hundreds of years in the writings of Moses and the prophets.  The key phrase is, “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”  The Cross is the key to understanding life.  Jesus himself pondered and prayed over the scriptural Word of God and found His vocation described in such passages as Deut 18:18 (he will be another Moses), Psalm 22 and Is 53 (by his sufferings and death we will be healed) or Psalm 2 (You are My son; you shall rule the nations).  Just as Jesus learns his identity and mission from praying over the Word of Scripture, so each of us must make a practice of reading and praying over the Scriptures in order to find God’s meaning for what is happening in our lives.   As with the disciples whom Jesus instructs “along the way,” our hearts too will be set on fire with understanding , hope and enthusiasm when we see God’s secret and unexpected ways for blessing and leading us.  And we too will run to tell others of our discovery just as the two disciples ran back to Jerusalem to share their new faith with the rest of the Church.

Another way to do this easily is to pray the Scriptures with Mary. Just to pray theMysteries of the Rosary is to see how God led her from one challenge to another, one surrender to another, all the way to sharing her Son’s bitter death and His glorious resurrection and outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost.  As we pray these Mysteries, Jesus the Word also teaches us and sets our hearts on fire, rejoicing to share His cross and resurrection in the concrete challenges and details of our own life.

Ave Maria

Cardinal Van Thuan: Model of hope

(Romereports.com) The life of late Cardinal, Francis Xavier Van Thuan was unique, and perhaps even saintly. From being imprisoned for over a decade to becoming one of the main prelates of his native Vietnam. 


WALDERY HILGEMAN
Van Thuan Cause for Canonization “Saints stand out from the rest, not because they were perfect but because they made it a point, despite the challenges, to follow Christ closely. It's about living one's Christian vocation at a heroic level.” 
The first stage of his canonization process,  known as the Diocesan Process, has come to a close. It involved thousands of pages that include testimonies, his own writings and accounts on his life and how he carried out his faith.

LUISA MELO
Cardinal Van Thuan Canonization “The presence of Cardinal Van Thuan is alive. He may not be here physically, but spiritually he is. I feel it.”
He served as a Cardinal and as the President of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Justice and Peace.  But, perhaps the period that stands out the most, are the 13 years he spent behind bars, nine of them in solitary confinement.  The communist regime, arrested him in 1975, when he was ordained a Bishop.  He was never tried or sentenced. Even so, he always encouraged people, to leave the past behind. 

CARD. François-Xavier VAN THUAN
September 2002“As I said the other day, the future is much more exciting than the past.”
During that time, the government actually had to replace the prison guards, because one by one, they too became Catholic. His signature cross, he wore even after being released, was made with the help of the guards. 

WALDERY HILGEMAN
Van Thuan Cause for Canonization “The prison guards helped him out. They gave him some electrical wire. He cut out the plastic covering and made a chain out of it. He placed his handmade cross on that chain and wore it around his neck.”
Those who knew him best, say he was always cheerful. Even in the last days of his life, he would crack jokes, laugh and mimmick those around him. He would often say that if he wasn't a priest, he would have been a comedian. 

LUISA MELO
Cardinal Van Thuan Canonization “He would imitate John Paul II, Cardinal Sodano, and all of us, really. Each one of us. He was very good at it. He combined his simple spirit with his great sense of humor.” 
Cardinal Van Thuan died on September 16th, 2002. His canonization process began in 2007, on the fifth anniversary of his death. 

Archbishop Sheen on Suffering

The Hard Way

The following comes from The Art of Manliness:

“The essential thing “in heaven and earth” is…that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.” – Friedrich Nietzche, Beyond Good and Evil

In 1989, Wyoming-native Mark Jenkins set out with three Americans and four Russians to become the first to bicycle all the way across Siberia, starting at the Pacific port town of Vladivostok and ending 7,500 miles later in Leningrad. Battling mud, wind, injuries, and sub-zero temperatures, the 5-month journey took them through hundreds of villages, an 800-mile swamp, the Ural mountains, and a culture permanently hardened by the savage taskmaster of communism. The trip planted the team in the Guinness Book of World Records, but what made it remarkable was not that it was long, but that it was hard – brutally, numbingly, painfully…hard.

We don’t come across that word too often when discussing heroes or success. Everything we long for is easy and instant. Without a shortcut to the end we often conclude that the journey isn’t worth the time and effort. We want everything neatly packaged and ready for immediate consumption – our food, our friends, even our faith. Our lives have come to resemble those of tourists, wanting the experience, but not wanting to stay long enough to risk experiencing the realities that come with permanence and commitment. In fact, “hard” has become more of a scarlet letter rather than a badge of honor. Let’s face it, the idea of spending years busting your butt at the same job or pursuing the same goal has become downright antiquated, a fool’s game.

Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Carnegie are finding their stories of long persistence quickly displaced by those of the flash-in-the-pan celebrity tabloid genre. Teenage phenoms, reality “stars,” 20-something internet billionaires, and people for whom success and its spoils came swift and early are the new cultural heroes and idols. With each new fresh-faced superstar, the idea of success as a secret formula to be unlocked rather than something to be worked for is slowly cemented into our brains.

“He or she is naturally-gifted,” we proclaim, inwardly hoping that we too can find our own hidden talent or skill to make us famous, rich, or at least…noticed. The books and seminars that sell out most quickly are those that promise the easiest steps to a better life – the secrets that have been known for ages by the rich and famous, but somehow managed to escape your radar until this very moment.

This “easy” epidemic has reached every aspect of our culture from health to education to relationships. People don’t want to workout and eat healthy because it’s hard. No problem, according to the creators of 1,000 different diets promising a great body with little to no effort. As for expanding one’s knowledge, why waste time reading a whole book when you can get the gist from the Cliff Notes? And relationships? Well, working through marriages can be difficult, so “experts” have stepped in to hand you a Kleenex and pat your back as they tell you, “You deserve to be with someone who adores you for you, don’t feel bad about ending things and moving on to someone new who will better meet your needs.”

At some point it has become acceptable to avoid things because they’re hard. Success has become some sort of self-help scavenger hunt with all of us desperately wanting to find an easier way than just grinding it out, a magic solution to life’s equation waiting to be uncovered. We cut corners and call it “optimizing.” We take the path of least resistance and dress up our cowardice in the guise of efficiency. And in doing so, we’re killing ourselves, one life-hack at a time.

There’s nothing wrong with working smarter or making things more simple. There’s no reason to make something harder than it has to be. And I’m not suggesting we go back to plowing fields by hand or walking uphill both ways to work. The problem is that many of us have begun to think that if something is hard, it is automatically wrong and must be changed or substituted immediately. In the process we often fail to reach our real goals, substituting in ones that are more “realistic.” And more importantly, we rob our character of some much needed pruning. We’re missing out on a fundamental truth of manhood – doing things that are hard molds boys into men of strength and character.

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In the recent blockbuster smash 300, audiences and critics were shell-shocked by the ripped and chiseled bodies of the actors and stuntmen involved. How did they get so jacked? Surely they were Hollywood-ized, right? Wrong, says Mark Twight, the man behind the regime that molded these actors and stunt men into Spartan warriors. Writing to the critics he responded curtly:

“It appears everyone has an opinion about ’300′ and how the actors and stunt crew achieved the level of fitness €“ and consequentially, appearance €“ for the movie. I have read that it was all CGI, make-up, steroids, etc. However, no one has come right out and said, ‘those guys worked really hard and had the self-discipline to control what they put into their mouths.’”

In short, these guys got their stuff handed to them 10-12 hours a day, five days a week for four months. It wasn’t pretty and they didn’t get the usual, “Way to go buddy!” or “‘Atta boy!” after each set. Instead they were called losers and mocked for being fat. Not the kind of positive, feel-good, self-congratulation you would find most life-coach gurus promoting. It was brutal, it wasn’t fun, but it worked. It was hard, hellishly hard. Lead actor Gerard Butler summed up the experience saying, “Pretty much anything Mark Twight offered up was so difficult in the kind of way where you wish you had never been born – and even more than that, wished he had never been born.”

Absolutely nothing replaces hard work. No shortcuts, no 5-steps to success, no secrets. This may come either as a blessing or a curse depending on how one looks at it. But, what makes the hard way so important for men is not just the end result, but the character built along the way.

It may sound cliche, but the journey we take often matters much more than the destination. How we live our lives each hour, each day determines the type of men we will be in ten years. Knowing this, we should construct our lives to embrace difficult challenges which will mold our character into one of discipline and perseverance. In doing hard things on a daily basis we’re constantly training ourselves so that on other days, in other situations, we can remain solid.

The hard way may be scoffed at as old-fashioned, but it produces integrity and strength far more meaningful and concrete than any gold star along the way. This method of living produces men who remain faithful to their wives and children, decade after decade. Men who refuse to sacrifice their integrity for short-term results or gain. Men who at the end of the day are fulfilled with the fruit of their labor. Men who finish a marathon rather than simply starting a million sprints.

If we can develop in ourselves a certain zeal for the hard things in life we will reap the benefits for years to come. Not only victories won along the way and character developed, but a fulfilled life at the end of the day. As legendary football coach Vince Lombardi once put it:

“But I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.”