Praise and Glory to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

June is the month when we honor The Sacred Heart of Jesus.  When I was in Saint Bridget's School way back in the year 1959 I won an award.  I do not remember why I won it, but it was very special indeed. It was an 8 1/2 by 11 picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  It was a beautiful picture and you could look at it and see the love that Jesus had for you in the eyes.  No one ever really explained the picture to me but I remember being very impressed with it none-the-less. Since that moment, the Sacred Heart of Jesus has formed an integral part of my spiritual life.  His Heart beats with love and mercy each of us.  Not just for the Catholics, but for all of humanity.  Jesus is so much in love with us that He wanted to use the symbolism of His heart, which we traditionally consider the place where the soul resides, to express how He is on fire with love and mercy for all who desire it.  Is it idolatrous to have a devotion to a body part or the representation of one even if it is of Jesus?  The unlearned would think so.  But, in their ignorance, they forget that we are not honoring an actual heart, but rather, the love and mercy that radiates from the very soul of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and our Savior.  In order to honor the Sacred Heart, we are asked to make an effort to go to Mass on the first Friday of every month and to receive communion. Jesus communicated His desire for this practice to St. Margaret Mary and He makes these promises to those that do this in honor of His Sacred Heart.:

I will give them all the graces necessary for their state of life.

I will give peace in their families.

I will console them in all their troubles.

I will be their refuge in life and especially in death.

I will abundantly bless all their undertakings.

Sinners shall find in my Heart the source and infinite ocean of mercy.

Tepid souls shall become fervent.

Fervent souls shall rise speedily to great perfection.

I will bless those places wherein the image of My Sacred Heart shall be exposed and venerated.

I will give to priests the power to touch the most hardened hearts.

Persons who propagate this devotion shall have their names eternally written in my Heart.

In the excess of the mercy of my Heart, I promise you that my all powerful love will grant to all those who will receive Communion on the First Fridays, for nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance: they will not die in my displeasure, nor without receiving the sacraments; and my Heart will be their secure refuge in that last hour.

Feast of the Visitation

And Mary said:

"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;

Brother Michael the Lessor TOR
He had a dream...
October 1976 - Feast of St. Francis

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed: 

the Almighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him

in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm,

he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones

and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel

for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

the promise he made to our fathers,

to Abraham and his children forever."

Mary remained with her about three months

and then returned to her home.

Those that know me, know that Michael the Lesser is a fugitive from the monastery.  That's me in the picture above, mugging for the camera.  I was Brother Michael TOR.  I still own the cord that's around my waist and the crucifix, which was a gift to me from Brother Ambrose who was my boss at the mission goods store where I was assigned to work, hangs on the wall in my living room.  Those were two years that I would not trade for anything. They were hard years in a way because you were living in a small community and little petty things tended to grow in importance and little annoyances became major issues.  But, for the most part, it was a good life. I remember one day I was cleaning the sacristy and took a couple of old rugs out to beat.  As I came out of the house onto the back porch, I saw the sun glowing through the trees in the and in the distance I heard a crow cawing and it was a moment in my life where everything was in line, everything was perfect, and those moments, I have learned, come few and far between.  

As brothers, we said the daily office. In the morning was Lauds, and if you ever wanted to know what a cacophony sounded like, come and listen to twenty-four late teen and early twenty-something men try to chant in the morning.  After dinner was Vespers and the best hour of the day was Compline or as it was sometimes called, night prayer.  There was a rhythm to the day and it was punctuated by these times of prayer.  What used to annoy almost all of us is that Compline started promptly at ten o'clock, the same time that the news began.  Father Pat could give a rat's patoot about that, we never started Compline late.  

But, it is Vespers that I want to mention today.  Part of Vespers is the Canticle of Mary which is the reading at Mass today. For two years my evening featured this beautiful prayer that was said by our Blessed Mother when she visited her cousin, Elizabeth.  I got to really, really love this part of our daily public prayer.  If you read through the prayer you will begin to understand who Mary is.  Protestants say that we worship Mary.  Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.  Mary would not approve of our worshiping her.  She always points the way to Jesus.  She had just been chosen to be the very Mother of God and she does not puff herself up with pride, no, she begins her prayer with the words, "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord."  She at once shows her great humility.  Mary speaks very little in Scripture, but when she speaks, she points the way to God. 

On this great feast day, my fondest hope is that I can imitate Mary in her great humility.  There never has been anyone who could claim to have any greater honor.  The old Ark of the Covenant has been replaced by the new and the tabernacle of Israel was now a virgin mother who carried inside her who would be the very Bread of Life for us. 

There are those that think that our prayers to Mary somehow diminishes Jesus.  Nothing can be further from the truth. Mary brings our prayers to her Son.  She pleads for us to get another chance.  To us, she always points to her Divine Son and she is quoted as saying, "Do whatever he tells you to do."

In all things, we are called to imitate Christ.  We are to imitate His love for the poor, for those who are in distress and we are to imitate Him in loving His mother.  Scott Hahn, a convert to Roman Catholicism, says that if we admit that Jesus lived a perfect, sin-free life, then we have to admit that He never even one of the ten commandments.  He goes on to say that if this is true then Jesus honored His father and His mother perfectly.  Further, if we are adopted sons and daughters of God, then our spiritual mother is the Blessed Virgin Mary.  We, in imitation of Christ, give her the same honor that her Son gives to her.  Honoring Mary, therefore, takes nothing away from God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit. So, if you have a problem with honoring Mary, please talk to Jesus, He is the one who started it!  

Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.  Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. (1)   Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen. 

Footnotes
(1) These are the words of the Angel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary when she agreed to become the Mother of God.  It forms the first half of the prayer called "The Hail Mary"

Easter Sunday

They laid him in the tomb. It was getting late, the Sabbath was approaching so they did what they could in the time that they had and the women said they would come back and finish the job. They went back to Jerusalem and crept into their room and each of them seemed to exude the feeling of gloom.  The Master was gone, why had he died? They gave everything up to walk at His side. The Sabbath was over so the women got on the way.  Carrying spices and ointments to anoint the body of Jesus that day, to do to Him the last kindest act, for he lay there dead, they saw Him so they new this was a fact. As they walked to the garden where his body lay, they wondered who would roll the stone away. Finally they were there and thy could not believe what they saw, the stone was away, the body was gone, they were in awe. Two men dressed in dazzling white asked them why they sought the living among the dead the body was gone that is what they saw. The shroud was in a pile at the foot of the crypts cold stone bed and the cloth that covered his face was rolled up in another place. The men in their clothes of brilliant white told them the Jesus was raised late in the night. They told them to tell Peter, James, and John, that Jesus had returned from the great beyond.  To Galilee they must go and go there in haste for Jesus awaits them there and there is no time to waste. So the women left their burdens of spices, and ran to tell the the men of this wonder and they arrived in a trice. The men, they laughed and heaped up scorn, how foolish these women were on this Sunday morn. 

But Peter, James, and John remembered the word that they had received. Could it be as they now perceived that the Lord was risen? They ran to garden and looked in and saw the body was gone and they were in awe. They remembered he said to Galilee they must go so the picked up their cloaks and on the road they went. Their joy was so great that it was very hard to state, The Master had risen on this very date.    

This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad!

Today we celebrate the victory of Christ over sin and death. Had Jesus just died, he would have been no more than another pious preacher. But he tore the veil away and turned death into life. Thank you for letting me tell the story, I know my poetry is bad at best but the story it tells will refresh your soul. You see, because of Jesus and his obedience to the Father, we now can enter heaven.   To all of you, Happy Easter.  Jesus is Risen, He is truly risen.

Catholic vs Protestant ?

Before we start let me say that this entry is NOT going to be a tirade against Protestantism. I really consider, as my Church tells me to, my Protestant friends as brothers and sisters in the faith. But we have to admit that there are differences of course in what we believe and there is clearer marker of this fact if we look at the symbols that adorn our places of worship. The main symbol that separates us is the cross and the crucifix. For some reason we hold different beliefs on what is proper. Catholics show a representation of the Crucified Christ on their crosses in church while in most Protestant places of worship a simple cross, without the corpus, is used. I would imagine, and please feel free to correct me if I am wrong, that the Protestants feel that the representation of the corpus is a graven image and violates the first commandment. Well, the Catholic view on this is that we need to be reminded that Jesus went to the Cross for us, He hung in the burning sun, scorned, ridiculed, in deadly pain, bleeding, being set upon by flies and other bugs. We do not pray to the figure on the Crucifix, for we realize that it is but wood, or stone and is inanimate and has no power. We use it as we would use a picture of a loved one, a reminder or a prayer aid. This is how Catholics view all statues and other representations of Jesus, the Trinity, and the Saints. They are mere reminders and help us elevate our thoughts and prayers to God. No sane Catholic would ever think of praying to a statue or for that matter a cross or crucifix.

Our respective views of the Lord's Supper divide us as well. For many Protestants it is a ritual that is a simple memorial service that recalls the Last Supper. Some denominations believe that Christ is present in the bread and grape juice as long as the congregation is present but once the service is over the remnants can be fed to the birds and the juice can be dumped down the drain. For the Catholic believer the Holy Eucharist, the bread and wine are, through God's mysterious action, are transformed into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Examination under the most powerful microscopes would show no change to the bread or wine that we could see with out senses. But we Catholics take the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John very seriously indeed. The power to change bread and wine into the Body and Blood was given to the Apostles at the Last Supper. 

The center of Catholic worship is the Holy Eucharist, the person of Christ that has been consecrated by the priest at Mass. Christ is NOT killed again and again, but rather, His sacrifice is re-presented to the Father at each Mass celebrated. At Catholic Mass we are fed with the Word of God in readings from Holy Scripture. At each Mass we hear a reading from the Old Testament, a reading from the Psalms and a reading from the Gospel. It is at this point that mist Protestant services conclude. Teaching from the Word is shared, songs of praise are sung and a sermon is preached. At Catholic Mass after we are fed from the bounty of God's Word we then are fed by Christ with His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the bread and wine. So, we Catholics are fortunate to be nourished by both word and Christ Himself. We Catholics believe that the Eucharist is an awesome gift that is given to us by God and the way he chooses to be with us until He comes back for us at the end of time. 

For most Protestants there is a theory of Once saved, always saved. In other words, once you commit yourself to Christ, usually by saying "the sinners prayer" you are forever marked as being bound for heaven. My questions would be first, where is the sinners prayer in the Bible? Secondly, personal responsibility for how you live your life, what happens to it if once saved always saved is true? Luther said "sin boldly" while Scripture counsels us; "...because it is written be ye holy for I am holy...1 Peter 1:16 KJV. For us Catholics we realize that the gift of salvation is just that, a gift that cannot be purchased or earned. It is available to all as a birth right of all Christians but as we see in the story of the prodigal son it can be squandered and thrown away. God is always there ready to welcome us back but using our free will we have cooperate with His grace and return to His house. He is always watching and waiting for us to return. Christ gave us Catholics a way to heal the hurt of sin and that is called the sacrament of reconciliation or confession. Christ gave this power to the Apostles when He told them that those sins that they forgive are forgiven and those that they held bound were held bound.  It stands to reason that in order to decide if a sin is to be forgiven it has to be verbalized.  We do this in confession and receive the forgiveness of Christ and his Church for no sin only affects the sinner, it affects the Church, the kingdom. Imagine a placid pool of water and a person throws a rock into the middle the water is disturbed and the effects of the rock is felt from the epicenter to the shore of the pool. 

There are other differences between Catholics and Protestants but that would be the subject for a book and not for a blog post. The things that divide us are not trivial but I think that we are closer that even Jack Chic, the most anti-Catholic person ever to draw breath would suspect.  We have in common Jesus Christ who uses each of us, each denomination through the action of the Holy Spirit to get the work of the Kingdom done. He will return one day and it may amaze us who he gathers to his right side and who are sent shamefully to the left. 

There is a great danger in the world today. The soil of the earth is being enriched by the blood of Christian martyrs, both Protestant and Catholic by the misguided followers of Islam that swear allegiance to ISIS. Closer to home we are attacked on all sides by a society that has been sinking down into moral depravity since Row v Wade became the law of the land and human life became cheaper.  We Christians, Catholics, Baptists, Anglicans, all of the thirty thousand plus denominations have to pray for unity. If a return to one church is not possible yet, then we must unite ourselves beneath the banner of Christ and cry out with loud voices when injustice appears. In our country it is not fashionable to be a Christian of any sort anymore. It is more fashionable to be a homosexual activist, an advocate for the murder of babies in the womb, a disciple of Jack Kevorkian demanding that life of the old, the diseased, be snuffed out because their life is no longer worth living. The age old question of life echos into our frail ears; "When the Son of Man comes will He find any faith on the earth?"

May God bless and keep you this day. Watch for opportunities to be Christ to people and burn with the fire of His love in your heart and show it by your life.   

Christ The King - Can I Say it Better than John?

Jesus Christ is The Faithful Witness,
the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the Earth,
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood,
who has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father,
to him be glory and power forever and ever Amen.
Behold, he is coming amid the clouds,
and every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him,
All the peoples of the earth will lament him.
Yes. Amen.
"I am the Alpha and the Omega." says the Lord God,
"the one who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty."

On this the last Sunday of the Church Year, I silence my voice, put down my pen, and adore the King of Glory.