All posts by Anne Tschanz

Saints

The Red Cross of Charity

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The members of the Order of St. Camillus Servants of the Sick, in addition to the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience profess a fourth vow: “To serve the sick, even with danger to one’s own life.” This vow is no shallow or meaningless promise. The Order’s numbers were often decimated by epidemics or by caring for the injured on battlefields.

St. Camillus’ life is an example to all mothers to never give up hope on their children. Camillus was a rowdy, reckless boy given to gambling. After a stint in the military and a leg injury requiring numerous hospitalizations, Camillus took up work in a Capuchin monastery where he experienced a profound conversion. During a stay at St. James Hospital in Rome, he gathered some like-minded men around him to tend the sick.

Pope John Paul II, speaking to the Camillian family  on 450th anniversary of the birth of St Camillus de Lellis (May 25, 1550) said, that St. Camillus offered “insights and advice most of which would be adopted by the science of nursing in our day. He maintained that it was important to consider all the dimensions of the sick person with attention and respect, from the physical to the emotional, from the social to the spiritual. In a well-known passage of his Rule he invites us to ask the Lord for the grace ‘of motherly affection for our neighbor,’ so that ‘body and soul can be served with true love. Indeed, with God’s grace we want to serve the sick with the affection that a loving mother is wont to show her sick only child.'”

The Camillians wear a red cross over their cassocks, predating the Red Cross by hundreds of years!

 

Women's Communities

The Cross and the Guillotine

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In this month of July devoted in particular to the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, it is fitting that the Church honors today the Martyrs of Compiegne in France. In 1794, sixteen members of the Discalced Carmelite community offered themselves as a holocaust, poured out their blood, to end the bloodshed of the French Revolution, in particular the Reign of Terror.

Their Superior, Blessed Teresa of St. Augustine, said, “Having meditated much on this subject, I have thought of making an act of consecration by which the community would offer itself as a sacrifice to appease the anger of God, so that the Divine peace of His dear Son would be brought into the world, returned to the Church and State.”

Fr. Richard Veras said that these were not melodramatic women. “This was a Christian community who prayerfully and painstakingly discerned and verified a vocation to martyrdom.”

On July 16, 1794, on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the 16 women (13 nuns, 2 externs and 3 lay sisters) were brought before a court in Paris, accused of treason, sedition, etc. for holding fast to the ancient Faith of France. Sentenced to death, they were led one by one to the guillotine. As each sister was helped up the steps by Bl. Teresa of St. Augustine, they kissed a small statue of Mary hidden in the palm of her hand (still preserved by the Carmelites). The Reign of Terror lasted only 10 more days after this sacrifice. As Warren Carroll, founder of Christendom College, so beautifully put it in his book on the subject: “The Cross had vanquished the guillotine.”

O blessed Martyrs of Compiegne,

you were offered the choice of life versus death, and you chose life eternal!

We too are asked to make sacrifices big and small for the sake of the Kingdom.

Help us to courageously stand with Christ no  matter what the cost.

Amen.

 

Reflection

“With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord, God of hosts.”

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Today, on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, we reflect on this title of Our Lady as the patroness of the Carmelite order, under which she appeared to St. Simon Stock and presented to him the brown scapular. The Carmelites, who began as a community of hermits on Mount Carmel, Israel, in the 1200s and who point back to Elijah (hermit and prophet) as the first to be fired with the zeal of Mount Carmel, have spread throughout the world and continue to live the charism of seeking a direct and intimate experience of God.

But this kind of intimate union is purely a gift from God, which raises the question, how do we go about seeking it? How do we attain it? The answer is that we simply ready ourselves for it, so that if God seeks to give it, we are there with open hands. St. Teresa of Avila explained our hearts as a garden, which we weed and seek to water, so that if God wishes, He may come into it and take His delight. Carmelites characteristically have a deep-seated desire to be touched by God in this way, and so they accept many purgations and challenges of growing in virtue, that their hearts might become a beautiful and inviting dwelling place for the God Who placed this desire within them.

This union with God is the end goal of all of our lives, although most of us will experience it only in heaven. But St. Teresa tells us that many of us are called to experience it to varying degrees here on earth too. Our Lady of Mount Carmel, pray for us, that we might also desire interior intimacy with God and be willing to do what it takes to be receptive to it!

News

A Meeting of the Saints

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It is always interesting, when reading the lives of the saints, to discover that different saints’ lives often intertwined. It’s as if one were attending class in a schoolroom and sitting next to you was St. Catherine of Siena and in front of you was St. Ignatius of Loyola. Of course, there is the other moment in history when Poland had in their midst St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Faustina and Bl. Pope John Paul II and yet they did not personally know one another!

Today, we celebrate the great saint Bonaventure, Cardinal-Bishop and Minister General of the Franciscan Order, Doctor of the Church known as the Seraphic Doctor who, with St. Thomas Aquinas, studied in Paris. Born in c. 1218, Bonaventure was given the name John. When he was 4 years old, according to tradition, his mother threw herself at the feet of St. Francis of Assisi begging that her son John be delivered from a serious illness. He was cured and St. Francis, foreseeing the “Divine graces” in store for the child cried out ,”O buona ventura!” (Good Fortune!).

At age 22, Bonaventure entered the Order of St. Francis. Sent to Paris to study, he was asked by St. Thomas Aquinas where he had acquired his knowledge. St. Bonaventure pointed to the crucifix and said: “This is the source of all my knowledge. I study only Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”

While attending the Council of Lyons in 1274, St. Bonaventure took ill and died on July 14th. Amazingly enough, St. Thomas Aquinas died en route to the same council. The humble Franciscan who rose to the highest ranks of the Church and the celebrated Dominican who said at the end of his life, “All that I have written seems like straw compared to what has now been revealed to me,” were like bookends in a glorious chapter of the Church.

Pope Benedict XVI (March 17, 2010) describes the two Doctor’s definition of the ultimate goal of mankind:

St Thomas and St Bonaventure define the human being’s final goal, his complete happiness in different ways. For St Thomas the supreme end, to which our desire is directed is: to see God. In this simple act of seeing God all problems are solved: we are happy, nothing else is necessary.

Instead, for St Bonaventure the ultimate destiny of the human being is to love God, to encounter Him and to be united in His and our love. For him this is the most satisfactory definition of our happiness.

In the words of St. Bonaventure, “Let us therefore say to the Lord Our God: ‘Lead me forth, Lord, in Thy way, and let me step in Thy truth; let my heart be glad, that it fears Thy name.'”

 

 

News

Listen Carefully, My Child

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I S T E N  carefully, my child,
to your master’s precepts,
and incline the ear of your heart (Prov. 4:20).
Receive willingly and carry out effectively
your loving father’s advice,
that by the labor of obedience
you may return to Him
from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience.

To you, therefore, my words are now addressed,
whoever you may be,
who are renouncing your own will
to do battle under the Lord Christ, the true King,
and are taking up the strong, bright weapons of obedience.

And first of all,
whatever good work you begin to do,
beg of Him with most earnest prayer to perfect it,
that He who has now deigned to count us among His children
may not at any time be grieved by our evil deeds.
For we must always so serve Him
with the good things He has given us,
that He will never as an angry Father disinherit His children,
nor ever as a dread Lord, provoked by our evil actions,
deliver us to everlasting punishment
as wicked servants who would not follow Him to glory.

From the Prologue of the Rule of St. Benedict

Papal Address

The Source of Mission

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On Sunday, July 7, Pope Francis celebrated Mass before 6000 seminarians and novices who have been on a 4-day pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Peter, reflecting on their call from God and their vocation.

The Holy Father described the three reference points to the missionary call, part of his reflection on the Sunday readings.

First: the joy of consolation. “If we first experience the joy of being consoled by Him, of being loved by Him, then we can bring that joy to others. This is important if our mission is to be fruitful: to feel God’s consolation and to pass it on to others!”

Second: the Cross of Christ. “The fruitfulness of the Gospel proclamation is measured neither by success nor by failure according to the criteria of human evaluation, but by becoming conformed to the logic of the Cross of Jesus, which is the logic of stepping outside oneself and spending oneself, the logic of love. It is the Cross – the Cross that is always present with Christ – which guarantees the fruitfulness of our mission.”

Third: Prayer. “If the Apostle is born of prayer, he finds in prayer the light and strength for his action. Our mission ceases to bear fruit, indeed, it is extinguished the moment the link with its source, with the Lord, is interrupted.”

The spread of the Gospel is not guaranteed either by the number of persons, or by the prestige of the institution, or by the quantity of available resources. What counts is to be permeated by the love of Christ, to let oneself be led by the Holy Spirit and to graft one’s own life onto the tree of life, which is the Lord’s Cross.

To see the complete text, visit the Vatican News website.

Women's Communities

It’s All in the Family

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When a young teenage boy learned that his sister was going to become a “Sister,” he immediately thought, “I’m going to get made fun of for this!” Steve Mills was just entering 7th grade and his sister, now Sr. Mary Cecilia, was entering the School Sisters of Christ the King in Lincoln, NE.

Fast forward to May 25th, 2013, which is the day that Steve Mills was ordained to the priesthood in the diocese of Lincoln. He and his sister are just two of the brother/sister/priest/Sister combinations in the School Sisters family. Fr. Tom Dunavan is the brother of Sr. Mary Fidelis and Sr. Mary Agnes while Fr. Mark Tasler (now deceased) is the brother of Sr. Marie Jacqueline.

“Growing up with the sisters has been a blessing,” Fr. Steve said. “I think her ‘yes’ helped foster my ‘yes,’ whether I realized it or not. Being around the Sisters and their joyful spirit really helped me be more open to a vocation.”

Fr. Steve is the youngest of four children in the family. He graduated from the Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln and then devoted two years to the missionary group FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students), assigned to the Air Force Academy.  Interacting with priests “helped me to realize the need to be rooted in prayer in order to keep that flame of faith alive, whether or not I was called to be a priest.”

His parents were surprised yet supportive of his desire to enter the seminary. At his ordination, Father Steve’s sister felt “intense jubilation and awe at watching his transformation into a priest of Jesus Christ.” Father Steve has one goal: “to be a faithful priest, pure and simple.”

Women's Communities

Hospitality and Joy

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I have just returned from a brief trip to Kansas City where the beauty of the Church was on full display.

The occasion of the visit was the 25th anniversary of the profession of Sr. Silvia Enriquez, S de M, in the order of the Servants of Mary, Minsters to the Sick. The impact that Sr. Silvia has had on my own life as I dealt with the deaths of several close relatives was amazing. She has truly been a mother to me. We, who had never met in person until the day of her celebration, greeted each other like old friends.

The Servants of Mary (Check out this documentary on their life) care for the sick and dying in their own homes. They provide a respite to the families who are caring for loved ones and they give solace to the sick and dying as they prepare to go to their final and everlasting Home. They are true angels of mercy. We could use them in every diocese in America!

What was amazing was that I was staying with the Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Eucharist at their very comfortable retreat house in Independence, Missouri. Just before we arrived, these wonderfully hospitable sisters had brought one of their elderly sisters home from the hospital to the convent where her death was expected to come quite soon. Who came to help the sisters? The Servants of Mary came each night while I was there to do the night watch. Seeing the sister in her white habit getting out of the car in the rain and gloom was like looking at a light from heaven.

The Servants of Mary also have two Lovers of the Holy Cross living with them who are studying at a local college. The Franciscan Sisters have seminarians living on their property for the summer as they work in local parishes and ministries. Once again, the all-embracing love that these two groups of sisters have for the Church and Her members was all too evident. I put myself in that category.

Many thanks to Bishop Naumann of Kansas City for his wonderful homily on consecrated virginity and its meaning for today. How wonderful to see so many religious and priests from around the diocese in attendance at the Jubilee Mass. And if you are looking for a great book (I bought a biography on St. Philip Neri and a G. K. Chesterton Father Brown Anthology) visit the Sisters of St. Francis’ Bookstore.

May God bless these two communities with vocations!

News

On the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle

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Saints like St. Thomas the Apostle, separated from us by 2000 years of time and minimal in their biblical documentation, can often become a bit abstract in our minds. Most people can recognize the name “Thomas” and recall, “Oh, yes, the doubter,” but few can actually account for how he got the title “St.” placed before his name. Much less can they see any real depth of applicability in his story, besides the obvious “Don’t doubt in Jesus.”

Perhaps, however, in the Gospel of John, when Jesus says to Thomas, “Put out your hand, and place it in my side,” He is offering Thomas a directive that years of meditation could not exhaust. Place your hand in the wound in My side? In the very wound inflicted by a lance, and from which streams of blood and water flowed? In the very puncture of My beating heart, which loved you enough to die for you? Even though you had not the trust to take both My own and My apostles’ word for it that I was truly alive? Thomas’s need for continuing proof, despite all that he had already seen, is at one time or another an experience we all share, but Jesus’ merciful response—to enter the Upper Room through a locked door and invite him to touch His wounds anyway—belongs to us just as much. He extends to all of us this inexhaustible invitation to forever share in all His heart’s secrets—His joys and pains, His love and His sorrow.

As for how Thomas did get the “St.” before his name, traditional accounts say that he traveled as far as India in response to Jesus’ instruction to teach all nations, and that in the end, he met his martyrdom by being pierced through with a lance. For one who was given the privilege to touch the pierced heart of Jesus Himself, this act of accepting a lance through his own heart was the ultimate response. And it is the response we must make (day-to-day and probably in less dramatic ways than Thomas did, but make it we must nonetheless), if we are one day to have the title “St.” placed before our own names.

Cloistered life, Men's communities

The Faith of Peter is Our Faith!

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A priest and friend of the IRL from the Maronite Monastery in Petersham, Massachusetts, recently sent us a picture of a beloved confrere who died (or as the ancient monastic saying has it was “perfected”) on June 3, 2013. He was by all accounts everyone’s favorite, a lovely and holy priest. The picture says it all. May he rest in peace.

As an Eastern Rite Church, the Maronites are a beautiful example for the Church to take inspiration from today. They are and always have been in full communion with the Catholic Church. Despite persecution, their belief in the teachings of the Church and in the authority of the Chair of St. Peter have never wavered. Over 350 Maronite monks were martyred in 517 A.D. for their defense of the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon (451) which defined Jesus as “true God and true Man.”

The ancient roots of the Maronite Church are quite amazing. The early Maronites were descendents of the people who received the gift of Faith from Saint Peter himself. The Maronite Patriarch resides in Antioch which is where the early followers of Jesus were first called Christians (Acts 11:26). According to Eusebius, St. Peter founded the Church at Antioch and became its first bishop. Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus, is still the liturgical language of the Maronite Church.

The cloistered, contemplative Maronite Monks of the Most Holy Trinity in Petersham were founded in 1978 and are dedicated to a life of prayer and Eucharistic Adoration. “The particular goal of the Maronite Monks of Most Holy Trinity is to participate in the hidden and suffering life of Jesus Christ. The spirit of the community is especially to consist in this: that it is joined to Christ as a body appropriated by Him in His love and adoration of the Father and pouring out of Himself in love for His brothers.”

On the Feast of  St. Peter and St. Paul, the Maronites pray in the Divine Liturgy: “O Lord, preserve your children from all error or deviation, grant us to live and die proclaiming: ‘Our faith is the faith of Peter, the faith of Peter is our faith!’” May we today have the faith and courage of the early Maronites!