By Christine Bryan
As I write this, it is still Christmas season, which I find a perfect time to pause, between bites of chocolate torte and sips of sparkling wine, to consider if we have learned to feast appropriately. Mind you, the observations that follow relate to the entirety of the Church’s year, so it’s OK if you happen to pick this up during Lent.
The whole matter is less of a financial issue than one of leisure and union with the liturgical year. And it also involves a serious look at how we receive us this day our daily bread and embrace the times of fasting. It is only by the contrasts of these three that we can know if we are connected with hundreds of years of Catholic practice. Our society is rapidly blurring lines of distinction. We see this not only in perpetual gastronomic celebrations but also in attire: as a nation we seem to have forgotten about Sunday clothes and evening dress. I remember (way back in my youth) changing out of play clothes to "go to town." There's a crisis in other areas as well: manners (why wouldn't I text my friends while sitting at your dinner table?) and correspondence (what's a thank-you letter or a pen pal?). But this is not to be a lamentation: rather an encouragement to take a look around the kitchen and decide to feast well, by understanding what it means to eat simply on a regular basis.
Our meals should nourish us body and soul by being wholesome and satisfying. Our bodies are made of what we eat. As one brief example (given while wiping away a chocolate smear), every cell in our bodies regularly recycles — drawing from available nutrients to rebuild. If each cell membrane isn't healthy, the cell itself is limited in its ability to function. Therefore, it seems reasonable that our normal fare should be composed of simple, wholesome foods that promote health, produce satiety and comfort, and are affordable. Research into options needn't be tedious. There's an abundance of good reading about dietary traditions, such as the wealth of information in the second volume of Fatima in Lucia's Own Words. With wise and faithful management, the Portuguese family ate quite well, albeit simply, in the days before the apparitions changed their lives forever. The Weston A. Price Foundation (www.westonaprice.org) is a reliable source regarding traditional diets. And countless times, in reading Catholic biographies, I have come across references to the Sunday dinner being a miniature feast in contrast to the weekly fare.
I feel a warning here is necessary. In our time, there is a mistaken perception that choosing to purchase cheap food is virtuous. Modern, inexpensive, processed products, available in abundance, create a situation where, for the last one hundred years, many people aren't eating quality, or even real, foods. A look at the American populace indicates that we are paying a heavy (ha!) price because of it. We are not a nation of healthy people. It takes concentrated focus to find or make quality food on a tight budget — but I believe it's a vital aspect of the vocation to parenthood.
To fast well means to pare down the regular diet to one that is less comforting but still nutritious. It is the keenest way to wake up a sluggish spirituality. The liturgical year is full of opportunities to experiment in this area. It may take consulting an older missal or calendar and looking at something a bit stricter than the current regulations of only two fast days during the entire liturgical year. A season of fasting can take great courage, but is essential to appreciate a period of feasting.
And feasting (pardon me, while I pour another glassful) is really a simple concept because it is merely an expansion of how we eat regularly. This may include desserts or seasonal treats, dinners with multiple courses, special beverages, and even eating between meals. The art of it all, however, involves not only slowing down our fast-paced lives to enjoy the celebration, but ending the feasting appropriately and not prolonging it perpetually. Again, the Church's year is an excellent guide. Some feasts are celebrated for a season (fifty days of Easter!), some for an octave, and some for only one day. A family might have its own feast day and children (well, most adults, too) enjoy a dinner in their honor — with candlelight and a special dessert.
Because food affects us so deeply, feasting well becomes a duty in a vital Catholic life. It involves thought and discipline (and some attention to personal digestion). The shift into celebration expands our hearts (potentially our waistlines) and helps us live the Church year with a more festive connection. À votre santé!
Related Book: Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats
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Thursday, April 22, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Just Over a Year Ago: Brother Francis and the Richmond 250 Cane
Only last March, the Richmond town cane was presented to Brother Francis. This cane was given to the town on the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of the town’s founding, thus the name: “The Richmond 250 Cane.” It is passed on from year to year at the town meeting and is presented to the oldest citizen. Brother Francis, at 95 years of age, received it last year. (Brother died at 96.) The certificate bears his Lebanese name, Fakhri Maluf.
Brother Francis, the town cane, and the letter that Brother received at the town meeting.
The cane and letter, when they were on display in our Priory,
between Saint Veronica and Saint Benedict.
between Saint Veronica and Saint Benedict.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Promising Signs in Rome
By Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M.
Thanks to the largesse of some benefactors who funded our plane fare, Brother Maximilian Maria and I recently spent two weeks in Rome. The trip, like my last year’s solo pilgrimage, was part “business,” and part “pleasure.” For that reason, I referred to it as a “working pilgrimage.”
I regret to say that I was unable to make regular reports to our web site from Rome. This was partly do to our activity-rich schedule, and partly due to logistical problems that precluded it; it’s simply too hard to get an Internet connection in Rome, at least we found it so.
I’ve decided that, poco a poco, I will post some columns on the site showcasing some of the wonderful Roman churches we saw. First though, I would like to give one little snapshot among hundreds of mental photographs from our fortnight in the Eternal City. It is a picture of the encouragement we felt in the presence of young clerics and a few seminarians.
But it would be precipitous to portray this image without first supplying a background.
Part of our routine was daily Mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica, at 7:00 AM, just after the Basilica opens to the relatively small groups of people waiting outside (among whom are many religious sisters). Just before that hour, when the security guards and other Basilica staff allow pilgrims to enter the Church, there is another line forming — a much more competitive one — in a certain wing of St. Peter’s. Here, clerical Vatican employees — who, with their Vatican credentials, can pass the Swiss Guards and other security beyond them — are lining up for the mad dash into the sacristy (specifically, here). The little crowd is composed of priests, bishops, and a few others, who enter with them under the rubric of servers. There must be some thirty of them awaiting the 6:55 or so opening of the sacristy doors. Everyone rushes in to vest, grab an acolyte and Mass provisions, and race for an altar while altars are still available. One Monsignor described it to me as a “rat race.” More than once, Brother Maximilian and I were part of that “rat race,” as we entered the sacristy entrance to serve the Mass of a priest friend of ours, who works for the Holy See. Nearly daily for two weeks, we assisted at his Mass at the altar of the Transfiguration. One day, when that altar wasn’t available (it’s first-come-first-serve), Father offered Mass at the Altar of Our Lady of Succor, which is underneath a twelfth-century icon of the Mother of God, and atop the relics of Saint Gregory of Nazianzen. This particular Mass was a Requiem, offered for a deceased friend of ours, under his Tertiary name, Brother Malachi Mary.
Of course, the Masses were in the traditional rite. And here’s the thing: Now, post Summorum Pontificum, a full half or more of the morning Masses in St. Peter’s are in the classical Roman rite! When our curial priest-friend was out of town for a couple of days, we “tried our luck” one morning and went from one altar to another in search of the traditional rite. Soon, we were at the Mass of a young Czech priest who works for the Secretariat of State’s Office. He had no server, so, not being shy, I jumped in and served. And it was an honor to serve Mass being offered over the body of Pope Saint Leo the Great at this magnificent altar, where one may observe in the altarpiece Pope Leo giving the business to Attila the Hun, with the help of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. (Read the story here if you're not familiar.)
Every day, in close proximity to “our” altar, we could see a few other traditional-rite Masses.
After Mass every morning, we went for a light breakfast in a nearby coffee bar, which is filled with a few small crowds of clerics who, like us, have just come from Mass at St. Peter’s, and are about to begin their day in the office or in the classroom. On a couple of these days, we found ourselves with some seminarians, who talked of their desire to offer the traditional rite Mass, and how their convictions in this area were shared overtly or covertly by many fellow seminarians. In these conversations, the spirit of false ecumenism was seriously scorned, and adherence to all things traditional was made evident. These future priests speak the language of Jerusalem, and not of Egypt.
To quote a song I truly hate, but that aptly captures the thing I want to say: the times they are a-changin'!
Thanks to the largesse of some benefactors who funded our plane fare, Brother Maximilian Maria and I recently spent two weeks in Rome. The trip, like my last year’s solo pilgrimage, was part “business,” and part “pleasure.” For that reason, I referred to it as a “working pilgrimage.”
I regret to say that I was unable to make regular reports to our web site from Rome. This was partly do to our activity-rich schedule, and partly due to logistical problems that precluded it; it’s simply too hard to get an Internet connection in Rome, at least we found it so.
I’ve decided that, poco a poco, I will post some columns on the site showcasing some of the wonderful Roman churches we saw. First though, I would like to give one little snapshot among hundreds of mental photographs from our fortnight in the Eternal City. It is a picture of the encouragement we felt in the presence of young clerics and a few seminarians.
But it would be precipitous to portray this image without first supplying a background.
Part of our routine was daily Mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica, at 7:00 AM, just after the Basilica opens to the relatively small groups of people waiting outside (among whom are many religious sisters). Just before that hour, when the security guards and other Basilica staff allow pilgrims to enter the Church, there is another line forming — a much more competitive one — in a certain wing of St. Peter’s. Here, clerical Vatican employees — who, with their Vatican credentials, can pass the Swiss Guards and other security beyond them — are lining up for the mad dash into the sacristy (specifically, here). The little crowd is composed of priests, bishops, and a few others, who enter with them under the rubric of servers. There must be some thirty of them awaiting the 6:55 or so opening of the sacristy doors. Everyone rushes in to vest, grab an acolyte and Mass provisions, and race for an altar while altars are still available. One Monsignor described it to me as a “rat race.” More than once, Brother Maximilian and I were part of that “rat race,” as we entered the sacristy entrance to serve the Mass of a priest friend of ours, who works for the Holy See. Nearly daily for two weeks, we assisted at his Mass at the altar of the Transfiguration. One day, when that altar wasn’t available (it’s first-come-first-serve), Father offered Mass at the Altar of Our Lady of Succor, which is underneath a twelfth-century icon of the Mother of God, and atop the relics of Saint Gregory of Nazianzen. This particular Mass was a Requiem, offered for a deceased friend of ours, under his Tertiary name, Brother Malachi Mary.
Of course, the Masses were in the traditional rite. And here’s the thing: Now, post Summorum Pontificum, a full half or more of the morning Masses in St. Peter’s are in the classical Roman rite! When our curial priest-friend was out of town for a couple of days, we “tried our luck” one morning and went from one altar to another in search of the traditional rite. Soon, we were at the Mass of a young Czech priest who works for the Secretariat of State’s Office. He had no server, so, not being shy, I jumped in and served. And it was an honor to serve Mass being offered over the body of Pope Saint Leo the Great at this magnificent altar, where one may observe in the altarpiece Pope Leo giving the business to Attila the Hun, with the help of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. (Read the story here if you're not familiar.)
Every day, in close proximity to “our” altar, we could see a few other traditional-rite Masses.
After Mass every morning, we went for a light breakfast in a nearby coffee bar, which is filled with a few small crowds of clerics who, like us, have just come from Mass at St. Peter’s, and are about to begin their day in the office or in the classroom. On a couple of these days, we found ourselves with some seminarians, who talked of their desire to offer the traditional rite Mass, and how their convictions in this area were shared overtly or covertly by many fellow seminarians. In these conversations, the spirit of false ecumenism was seriously scorned, and adherence to all things traditional was made evident. These future priests speak the language of Jerusalem, and not of Egypt.
To quote a song I truly hate, but that aptly captures the thing I want to say: the times they are a-changin'!
Friday, April 2, 2010
R.I.P., Right Reverend Abbot Gabriel Gibbs, O.S.B.
Abbot Gabriel, one of the early members of Saint Benedict Center and the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, passed away on Saturday, March 27, 2010. We have had a Mass offered, for the repose of his soul, in our Immaculate Heart of Mary Chapel in Richmond, N.H. Details of the Abbot’s wake and funeral are on the web site of Saint Benedict Abbey in Still River, Massachusetts.
Please join us in praying for the repose of Abbot Gabriel’s soul, and for the Abbey’s Prior, Father Xavier Connelly, O.S.B., and the community, as they mourn their monastic father and prepare to elect his successor.
Please join us in praying for the repose of Abbot Gabriel’s soul, and for the Abbey’s Prior, Father Xavier Connelly, O.S.B., and the community, as they mourn their monastic father and prepare to elect his successor.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Kelly Forum: Keep Our Fires Burning, O Lord
By Brian Kelly
After Christmas, with the days getting longer in the Northern Hemisphere, one would expect that the temperatures would start rising. Instead, the days actually grow colder in January and February than they do in December. One reason for this is because of water. Three quarters of the earth is water.
That percentage is somewhat less in the Northern Hemisphere (60%) and greater in the Southern (80%). It takes water a longer time to cool and freeze than the ground. So, you’ll notice that, usually, ponds and lakes do not freeze until after the winter solstice. And they retain their frozenness long into the winter months even as the days grow longer. Just as it takes water longer to freeze than land, so does it take it longer to warm. It is the water temperature that affects weather more than the length of the day. Another reason is that, for the Northern Hemisphere countries, the continental landmass has to have time to bottle up cold air from lack of sunlight and increased snow cover. This bottling up begins to occur in October and reaches its full level of frigidity in December. At this point temperatures plummet and the cold air moves south. My meteorologist nephew informed me about this “bottling up” effect, explaining, too, that even the Artic air in Siberia can reach the U.S.
Still, naturally speaking, the longer days do nothing to warm the spirit since the weather is so cold and there’s nothing outside but snow and ice and run-down cars to deal with. All these things we do deal with so that we can go to work, feed the family, feed the oil and gas tanks, pay a ton of bills, pay taxes, and pay mechanics so they can feed their families. Wouldn’t it be nice if it could be otherwise?
The best place my car takes me is to Mass. There, I can be pampered with a liturgy, which brings warmth to the mystical hearth as “the Orient on high” visits us at Christmas, opens His arms to us at His Epiphany, is baptized for us, walks among us teaching and working miracles during the weeks of Lent, suffers and dies for us on Good Friday, and rises from the dead for us on Easter Sunday. By this time, liturgically, it is April or May on the monthly calendar and the weather begins to warm and nature begins to blossom back to life. How much colder winter would be without the liturgy and the daily sacrifice of the altar! Indeed, as Saint Padre Pio said, “It would be easier for the world to exist without the sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.”
How much colder, too, would winter be without Our Lady! She it was whose fiat opened the heavens so the clouds could rain down the Just One and the earth bud forth a Savior. Mary, the New Eve, would bring forth a Savior, whereas the Old Eve brought forth death.
This is our Introit for the last Sunday of Advent: “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened, and bud forth a saviour” (Isaias 45:8).
In Our Lord’s extended life in His Mystical Body, the Church, it seems that we, His members, may be living in the winter years. Of all the things that Jesus said in His answer to His Apostles’ questions about the latter times, the following revelation is most disturbing to me. Why? Because it seems that it is coming to pass before our eyes and may be even knocking at the door of our soul. “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall seduce many. And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold” (Matt 24:11, 12).
For those of us who are entering into the winter years of our life, who have kept the traditional Catholic Faith and tried, however weakly, to live it, for those of us who may be going through whatever degrees of acedia that go with our own personal “battle fatigue,” there may be a temptation to pull in the oars and just coast along.
Coast along? How can we be so ungrateful to entertain the thought? The everlasting “coast” may be over the horizon, or just beyond the thick mist that has enveloped our spirits. When it was suggested to Saint Francis Xavier, after his hair turned gray and he passed his fiftieth birthday, to slow down and let younger missionaries do the field work, he replied: Does the captain of the ship pull in his oars when, after a long voyage, he sees the coast in view? No, rather, with renewed energy, he rows with more gusto, so great is his yearning to reach the shore.
Such ought to be our spirit. But it cannot be our spirit until we open ourselves with abandon to the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit. Through His transforming grace let us allow His spouse, the Blessed Mother, to form Christ more fully in our souls. In so doing we can be more effective servants and slaves of her Immaculate Heart.
Veni Sancte Spiritus, fove quod est frigidum: Come, Holy Ghost, warm the coldness of my soul. Do not let my charity die in this dark and icy winter, which threatens to dehydrate my spirit. Riga quod est aridum: Refresh what is barren.
In his book, True Devotion to Mary, Saint Louis Marie de Montfort writes of a more blessed day, a day that will see all coldness disappear from our hearts. I will conclude my column with his inspiring words:
“‘When will that happy day come,’ asks a saintly man of our own day whose life was completely wrapped up in Mary, ‘when God's Mother is enthroned in men's hearts as Queen, subjecting them to the dominion of her great and princely Son? When will souls breathe Mary as the body breathes air?’ When that time comes wonderful things will happen on earth. The Holy Spirit, finding his dear Spouse present again in souls, will come down into them with great power. He will fill them with his gifts, especially wisdom, by which they will produce wonders of grace. My dear friend, when will that happy time come, that age of Mary, when many souls, chosen by Mary and given her by the most High God, will hide themselves completely in the depths of her soul, becoming living copies of her, loving and glorifying Jesus? That day will dawn only when the devotion I teach is understood and put into practice. Ut adveniat regnum tuum, adveniat regnum Mariae: ‘Lord, that your kingdom may come, may the reign of Mary come!’”
After Christmas, with the days getting longer in the Northern Hemisphere, one would expect that the temperatures would start rising. Instead, the days actually grow colder in January and February than they do in December. One reason for this is because of water. Three quarters of the earth is water.
That percentage is somewhat less in the Northern Hemisphere (60%) and greater in the Southern (80%). It takes water a longer time to cool and freeze than the ground. So, you’ll notice that, usually, ponds and lakes do not freeze until after the winter solstice. And they retain their frozenness long into the winter months even as the days grow longer. Just as it takes water longer to freeze than land, so does it take it longer to warm. It is the water temperature that affects weather more than the length of the day. Another reason is that, for the Northern Hemisphere countries, the continental landmass has to have time to bottle up cold air from lack of sunlight and increased snow cover. This bottling up begins to occur in October and reaches its full level of frigidity in December. At this point temperatures plummet and the cold air moves south. My meteorologist nephew informed me about this “bottling up” effect, explaining, too, that even the Artic air in Siberia can reach the U.S.
Still, naturally speaking, the longer days do nothing to warm the spirit since the weather is so cold and there’s nothing outside but snow and ice and run-down cars to deal with. All these things we do deal with so that we can go to work, feed the family, feed the oil and gas tanks, pay a ton of bills, pay taxes, and pay mechanics so they can feed their families. Wouldn’t it be nice if it could be otherwise?
The best place my car takes me is to Mass. There, I can be pampered with a liturgy, which brings warmth to the mystical hearth as “the Orient on high” visits us at Christmas, opens His arms to us at His Epiphany, is baptized for us, walks among us teaching and working miracles during the weeks of Lent, suffers and dies for us on Good Friday, and rises from the dead for us on Easter Sunday. By this time, liturgically, it is April or May on the monthly calendar and the weather begins to warm and nature begins to blossom back to life. How much colder winter would be without the liturgy and the daily sacrifice of the altar! Indeed, as Saint Padre Pio said, “It would be easier for the world to exist without the sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.”
How much colder, too, would winter be without Our Lady! She it was whose fiat opened the heavens so the clouds could rain down the Just One and the earth bud forth a Savior. Mary, the New Eve, would bring forth a Savior, whereas the Old Eve brought forth death.
This is our Introit for the last Sunday of Advent: “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened, and bud forth a saviour” (Isaias 45:8).
In Our Lord’s extended life in His Mystical Body, the Church, it seems that we, His members, may be living in the winter years. Of all the things that Jesus said in His answer to His Apostles’ questions about the latter times, the following revelation is most disturbing to me. Why? Because it seems that it is coming to pass before our eyes and may be even knocking at the door of our soul. “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall seduce many. And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold” (Matt 24:11, 12).
For those of us who are entering into the winter years of our life, who have kept the traditional Catholic Faith and tried, however weakly, to live it, for those of us who may be going through whatever degrees of acedia that go with our own personal “battle fatigue,” there may be a temptation to pull in the oars and just coast along.
Coast along? How can we be so ungrateful to entertain the thought? The everlasting “coast” may be over the horizon, or just beyond the thick mist that has enveloped our spirits. When it was suggested to Saint Francis Xavier, after his hair turned gray and he passed his fiftieth birthday, to slow down and let younger missionaries do the field work, he replied: Does the captain of the ship pull in his oars when, after a long voyage, he sees the coast in view? No, rather, with renewed energy, he rows with more gusto, so great is his yearning to reach the shore.
Such ought to be our spirit. But it cannot be our spirit until we open ourselves with abandon to the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit. Through His transforming grace let us allow His spouse, the Blessed Mother, to form Christ more fully in our souls. In so doing we can be more effective servants and slaves of her Immaculate Heart.
Veni Sancte Spiritus, fove quod est frigidum: Come, Holy Ghost, warm the coldness of my soul. Do not let my charity die in this dark and icy winter, which threatens to dehydrate my spirit. Riga quod est aridum: Refresh what is barren.
In his book, True Devotion to Mary, Saint Louis Marie de Montfort writes of a more blessed day, a day that will see all coldness disappear from our hearts. I will conclude my column with his inspiring words:
“‘When will that happy day come,’ asks a saintly man of our own day whose life was completely wrapped up in Mary, ‘when God's Mother is enthroned in men's hearts as Queen, subjecting them to the dominion of her great and princely Son? When will souls breathe Mary as the body breathes air?’ When that time comes wonderful things will happen on earth. The Holy Spirit, finding his dear Spouse present again in souls, will come down into them with great power. He will fill them with his gifts, especially wisdom, by which they will produce wonders of grace. My dear friend, when will that happy time come, that age of Mary, when many souls, chosen by Mary and given her by the most High God, will hide themselves completely in the depths of her soul, becoming living copies of her, loving and glorifying Jesus? That day will dawn only when the devotion I teach is understood and put into practice. Ut adveniat regnum tuum, adveniat regnum Mariae: ‘Lord, that your kingdom may come, may the reign of Mary come!’”
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