Fr Greg, Carmelite priest – blog, homilies, fun and holy ideas
Saint Therese described her spirituality as a ‘way of spiritual childhood’ – all trust, confidence and love; so let us ask for ‘childhood’ in this sense in our lives today.
Saint Therese suffered from tuberculosis and so should be declared the protecting saint, the guiding saint, the patron saint of the world in this time of pandemic. A novena is a prayer across nine days and in this novena we ask Therese to continue to “spend her heaven doing good on earth.”
Saint Therese of Lisieux is called ‘the Greatest Saint of Modern Times;’ so on ‘Day 4’ let us ask for greatness in all we do today.
Saint Therese suffered from tuberculosis and so should be declared the protecting saint, the guiding saint, the patron saint of the world in this time of pandemic. A novena is a prayer across nine days and in this novena we ask Therese to continue to “spend her heaven doing good on earth.”
As we pray Day 3 of this Novena (nine-day prayer) let us pray that everything we do today be done with love.
Saint Therese suffered from tuberculosis and so should be declared the protecting saint, the guiding saint, the patron saint of the world in this time of pandemic. A novena is a prayer across nine days and in this novena we ask Therese to continue to “spend her heaven doing good on earth.”
Let us pray this novena (nine-day prayer) asking Saint Therese to intercede for the world in As we pray Day 2 of this Novena (nine-day prayer) let us pray that we add heart to everything we do, wherever we are.
Saint Therese suffered from tuberculosis and so should be declared the protecting saint, the guiding saint, the patron saint of the world in this time of pandemic. A novena is a prayer across nine days and in this novena we ask Therese to continue to “spend her heaven doing good on earth” as we pray for the sick, caregivers, the isolated, the unemployed and all effected by this pandemic.
Let us pray this novena (nine-day prayer) asking Saint Therese to intercede for the world in this time of pandemic.
Because Saint Therese suffered from a lung ailment, tuberculosis, she should be declared our protecting saint, the guiding saint, the patron saint of the world in this time of pandemic. A novena is a prayer across nine days and in this novena we ask Therese to continue to “spend her heaven doing good on earth.”
When I was still a seminarian, an older Carmelite, Father Bonaventure, visited us for a few days. During his visit I listened to his stories of life in the missions, in our schools, in our parishes and stories about his family and about his hobbies – and his battle with cancer. Just before leaving he handed me a large box filled with clergy shirts and some regular shirts, too. He said, “you look like my size and so consider this a ‘thank you’ for the kindness of listening to an old man tell his stories.” And then he took the ring off his finger and said, “this ring has been with me throughout my Carmelite life and I would rather it not be buried with me so I’m giving it to you.” I tried to refuse it but he insisted, and then left for home.
Later that day I examined the ring. It was ugly! Badly tarnished. Scratches galore. A big dent on the back. Dirt encrusted around the Carmelite shield design. And when I tried to put it on, it was too small and the dent dug into my skin. I decided that I should keep it since it was a gift, so I put it away and then soon forgot about it.
When I ran into it again, I was serving as an associate pastor in a Carmelite parish in New Jersey. The president of the parish council ran a jewelry store in town so I brought it into his store and asked if he could do anything to make it fit. He sized the ring and sized my finger and said that a small insert could be added. But then he added that it was a cheap ring and an identical new one would be easier to make than to resize this old one. But I said that this ring had some sentimental value and I’d prefer if he did something with it instead of making a new one.
Two weeks later he called to say the ring was ready. So I walked over to pick it up. He went to the back room and came out with a small box and handed it to me. I opened it and was completely surprised at what I saw. The ring was beautiful! The basic band was bright silver and the Carmelite shield logo was in gold. And everything caught the light and glistened. No grime. No tarnish. No dent. Clean. Bright. Beautiful. It was so super-nice now and such a complete surprise. Yes, the same scratch is there, but now barely noticeable. In fact, it is that scratch and all the dents, the tarnish — the history — that even makes this ring all the more beautiful. Beauty with history has to mean a lot more than beauty alone.
If God wanted us to be angels, God would’ve made us angels. Instead God made us humans. Being human must be important in God’s plan for me and in God’s plan for you. And I think this ring illustrates that. The jeweler could have made a brand new identical ring and it would be perfect — no scratches, no dents, no resizing. Yes, perfect. I sometimes think the angels are like that. They have no faults, no sins — they’re perfect. But the jeweler instead took the old ring and scrubbed out the grime, polished out the scratches, and hammered out the dents and made it beautiful. But it’s even more beautiful because of that grime, those scratches, and the dents. It’s even more beautiful because of has that history.
When the Father did all that for His Son — closing the whip marks, reknitting the marks from the thorns, drying up the flow from the nails — that is Resurrection! Jesus is beautiful in the Resurrection, and all the more beautiful because of the whipping, the thorns and the nails. The marks are still there, but no longer marks of pain and horror but marks of depth and meaning. Resurrection is all the more beautiful because of the Crucifixion. Easter is all the more beautiful because of Good Friday.
And it’s the same with us. Who hasn’t been scourged or beaten or even crucified in this life? We all have. Each one of us. But if this is born in love or chosen in love or suffered because of love, then God will do the same thing. God will close my whip marks, your whip marks. God will reknit my thorn scratches, your thorn scratches. God will dry up my flow of blood, your flow of blood. This is resurrection! My resurrection, and your resurrection, will be all the more beautiful because through the whips and thorns and nails, we still chose love. We chose the cross.
This is why, when we celebrate Easter we don’t only celebrate Jesus’ rising from the tomb. That’s not enough! We are also celebrating his Passion, and his Crucifixion. Now that’s enough! We celebrate Easter across three days — Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Great Vigil of Easter. That is Easter. Easter is not Sunday; rather, Easter is Thursday-through-Sunday. And then we take that and celebrate for fifty more days.
The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe by Richard Rohr, OFM | Convergent Press, 2019 | pp 260
“I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food.” – 1 Corinthians 3:2
To sit down to read Richard Rohr’s The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe is like sitting down to a twenty-course meal (i.e., there are 17 chapters, two appendices, and an afterword). And like a huge banquet, there are some courses that are scrumptious, some that are less tasty, some that will have to grow on you, and some that maybe should be off the menu. But there is no milk here, only solid food. To belabor the metaphor: after finishing this banquet, it will take you some time to digest it all.
What is Rohr trying to accomplish in this book? I think there are quite a few things:
I would go so far as to say that he is trying to reorient the Church and the faith away from philosophy-based theology to mysticism-based theology, and from a sin-based need for redemption to a fulfillment-based need. That’s quite an undertaking, and The Universal Christ reads like a systematic theology for this undertaking, interpreting all aspects of the faith through the Christian mystics (and occasionally through non-Christian mystics).
Does Rohr succeed? I sure hope so. Firstly, in this secular age and rationalistic age, a sin-based starting point (the Fall of Adam and Eve) no longer works. As Rohr points out, a Father sending his Son and then demanding the death of the Son to redeem the sin of Adam and Eve (either to the devil or to Himself) is no longer workable and no longer believable. I knew I was in for a wild ride when Rohr opens the book saying that the first Incarnation is in Genesis, “Then God spoke” (Genesis 1:3). The coming of Jesus is the second Incarnation. Yes, food for thought. Secondly, in this global age and information age, the world needs a global religion and an informative religion. Rohr is telling us that Mystical Christianity can offer that vision.
Do I recommend this book? Like the huge banquet that it is, I heartily recommend some of the courses (i.e., chapters), I need to chew further on other chapters, and there are a couple of chapters that I might recommend be off the menu. Overall, if you feel that you’re ready for solid food, go for it.
Carmelite homily for Friday, April 3, 2020 – Lectionary 255 (John 10:31-42)
All this week in these Gospel passages we’ve had a lot of turmoil. And today the religious leaders are calling Jesus ‘a blasphemer’ – a capital offense – and the pick up rocks to kill him. He doesn’t make much of a defense; instead, he walks through their midst and goes to Bethany. Saint John of the Cross writes, “It is great wisdom to know how to be silent. Look at neither the remarks nor the deeds nor the lives of others.” Yes, the religious leaders should be doing this to Jesus. And Jesus is modelling this to the religious leaders by just walking through their midst. He’s not condemning them despite their condemnations of him. Maybe that’s the lesson here – to love our neighbor, love our enemies, condemn no one, return a blessing instead – to live and love like Jesus.
Carmelite homily for Thursday, April 2, 2020 – Lectionary 254 (John 8:51-59)
Saint John of the Cross wrote a commentary on his poem, The Dark Night, called The Ascent of Mount Carmel. There are forty chapters in two books and there are forty days of Lent. It’s a perfect Lenten practice. What is he trying to accomplish in The Ascent of Mount Carmel, but freedom! To free us from ourselves, our self-righteousness, our sinfulness, our pride. Saint John off the Cross writes, “It makes little difference whether a bird is tied by a thin thread or by a cord.” That’s what John is trying to do – cut the cords, cut the ropes, but cut even the thin threads that tie us. I think that so well ties in with all these Gospels we have in this season and it ties in well with our hearts.
Evangelization and Contemplation: the Gifts of Pope Francis and Saint Teresa by Rev. Tracy O’Sullivan, O.Carm. | Dorrance Publishing Co., 2019
Seeing a world in desperate need for evangelization, especially in his work as a long-time inner city pastor, Father Tracy begins with the call for a new evangelization seen in Pope Francis’ 2013 encyclical, Evangelii gaudium (the Joy of the Gospel) and similar-themed documents from Pope Paul VI (Evangelii nuntiandi) and Pope John Paul II (Redemptoris missio). All these documents call the Church to not only proclaim the Good News (old evangelization) but through the Gospel to transform the world (new evangelization). But how do we get there? Father Tracy says that the answer is prayer.
Using Saint Teresa of Avila’s book on prayer, The Interior Castle, Tracy sees that the journey of personal interior transformation proceeds from simple prayer (Interior Mansions 1 thru 3) to contemplation (Interior Mansions 4 thru 7) which leads us to more God-centered and less ego-centered ministry. Our ego-driven needs can easily thwart the lofty call for world transformation (new evangelization) and so these documents are, in fact, a call to contemplation. Teresa herself says, “This is the reason for prayer, my daughters, the purpose of this spiritual marriage: the birth always of good works, good works” (Interior Castle, 7.4.6). This contemplative-based ministry is the transformative evangelization that Pope Francis (and his predecessors) calls us to in the new evangelization. Let me try to schematize this:
Then using the writings of Thomas Merton (Trappist spiritual writer) and Rowan Williams (Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, emeritus) Tracy illustrates how contemplative evangelization (new evangelization) is lived and proclaimed. Archbishop Williams, in a Vatican address, says,
Evangelization, old and new, must be rooted in a profound confidence that we have a distinctive human destiny to show and share with the world…The humanity of Christ’s redeeming work is a contemplative humanity.”
This call of Rowan Williams is the call of Father Tracy in Evangelization and Contemplation, and by artfully using Saint Teresa of Avila Tracy adds a Carmelite roadmap. I think the subtitle of Father Tracy’s book should be amended to read the Gifts of Pope Francis and Saint Teresa and Father Tracy.
Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Evangelization-Contemplation-Gifts-Francis-Teresa/dp/1645302636/