Novena to St Anthony of Padua

The novena begins on June 4  and ends on June 12. St Anthony's feast day is June 13. St Anthony, pray for us!

O wonderful St. Anthony, glorious on account of the fame of your miracles, and through the condescension of Jesus in coming in the form of a little child to rest in your arms, obtain for me of His bounty the grace which I ardently desire from the depths of my heart . (State your intention) You who were so compassionate toward miserable sinners, regard not the unworthiness of those who pray to you, but the glory of God that it may once again be magnified by the granting of the particular request  (State your intention)  which I now ask for with persevering earnestness. Amen Pray one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and Glory Be to the Father, in honor of Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony, pray for us! DAY ONE O holy St. Anthony, gentlest of saints, your love for God and charity for his creatures made you worthy while on earth to possess miraculous powers. Miracles waited your word, which you were ever ready to speak for those in trouble or anxiety. Encouraged by this thought, I implore you to obtain for me the favor I seek in this novena (State your intention). The answer to my prayer may require a miracle; even so, you are the saint of miracles. O gentle and loving Saint Anthony, whose heart was ever full of human sympathy, whisper my petition into the ears of the Infant Jesus, who loved to be folded in your arms, and thee gratitude of my heart will always be yours. One Our Father, one Hail Mary, and Glory Be to the Father, in honor of Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony, pray for us! DAY TWO O miracle-working St. Anthony, remember that it never has been heard that you left without help or relief anyone who in his need had recourse to you. Animated now with the most lively confidence, even with full conviction of not being refused, I fly for refuge to thee, O most favored friend of the Infant Jesus. O eloquent preacher of the divine mercy, despise not my supplications but, bringing them before the throne of God, strengthen them by your intercession and obtain for me the favor I seek in this novena (State your intention) . One Our Father, one Hail Mary, and Glory Be to the Father, in honor of Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony, pray for us! DAY THREE O purest St. Anthony, who through your angelic virtue was made worthy to be caressed by the Divine Child Jesus, to hold him in your arms and press him to your heart. I entreat you to cast a benevolent glance upon me. O glorious St. Anthony, born under the protection of Mary Immaculate, on the Feast of her Assumption into Heaven, and consecrated to her and now so powerful an intercessor in Heaven, I beseech you to obtain for me the favor I ask in this novena (State your intention). O great wonder-worker, intercede for me that God may grant my request. One Our Father, one Hail Mary, and Glory Be to the Father, in honor of Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony, pray for us! DAY FOUR I salute and honor you, O powerful helper, St. Anthony. The Christian world confidently turns to you and experiences your tender compassion and powerful assistance in so many necessities and sufferings that I am encouraged in my need to seek you help in obtaining a favorable answer to my request for the favor I seek in this novena (State your intention). O holy St. Anthony, I beseech you, obtain for me the grace that I desire. One Our Father, one Hail Mary, and Glory Be to the Father, in honor of Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony, pray for us! DAY FIVE I salute you, St. Anthony, lily of purity, ornament and glory of Christianity. I salute you, great Saint, cherub of wisdom and seraph of divine love. I rejoice at the favors our Lord has so liberally bestowed upon you. In humility and confidence I entreat you to help me, for I know that God has given you charity and pity, as well as power. I ask you by the love you did feel toward the Infant Jesus as you held him in your arms to tell Him now of the favor I seek through your intercession in this novena (State your intention). One Our Father, one Hail Mary, and Glory Be to the Father, in honor of Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony, pray for us! DAY SIX O glorious St. Anthony, chosen by God to preach his Word, you received from Him the gift of tongues and the power of working the most extraordinary miracles. O good St. Anthony, pray that I may fulfill the will of God in all things so that I may love Him, with you, for all eternity. O kind St. Anthony, I beseech you, obtain for me the grace that I desire, the favor I seek in this novena (State your intention). One Our Father, one Hail Mary, and Glory Be to the Father, in honor of Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony, pray for us! DAY SEVEN O renowned champion of the faith of Christ, most holy St. Anthony, glorious for your many miracles, obtain for me from the bounty of my Lord and God the grace which I ardently seek in this novena (State your intention) . O holy St. Anthony, ever attentive to those who invoke you, grant me that aid of your powerful intercession. One Our Father, one Hail Mary, and Glory Be to the Father, in honor of Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony, pray for us! DAY EIGHT O holy St. Anthony, you have shown yourself so powerful in your intercession, so tender and so compassionate towards those who honor you and invoke you in suffering and distress. I beseech you most humbly and earnestly to take me under your protection in my present necessities and to obtain for me the favor I desire (State your intention). Recommend my request to the merciful Queen of Heaven, that she may plead my cause with you before the throne of her Divine Son. One Our Father, one Hail Mary, and Glory Be to the Father, in honor of Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony, pray for us! DAY NINE Saint Anthony, servant of Mary, glory of the Church, pray for our Holy Father, our bishops, our priests, our Religious Orders, that, through their pious zeal and apostolic labors, all may be united in faith and give greater glory to God. St. Anthony, helper of all who invoke you, pray for me and intercede for me before the throne of Almighty God that I be granted the favor I so earnestly see in this novena (State your intention). One Our Father, one Hail Mary, and Glory Be to the Father, in honor of Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony, pray for us! May the divine assistance remain always with us. Amen May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen. O God, may the votive commemoration of blessed Anthony, your confessor, be a source of joy to your Church, that she may always be fortified with spiritual assistance, and deserve to enjoy eternal rewards. Through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

The Holy Family

The Feast of the Holy Family
By St. Bernard of Clairvaux

In Mary we praise that which places her above all others, that is, fruitfulness of offspring together with virginity. For never has it been known in this world that anyone was at the same time mother and virgin. And see of Whom she is mother. Where does your astonishment at this so wondrous dignity lead you? Is it not to this, that you may gaze in wonder yet never sufficiently revere? Is she not in your veneration, nay, in the esteem of Truth itself, raised above choirs of angels? Does not Mary address the Lord and God of all the angels as Son, saying: Son, why hast thou done so to us?

Who among the angels may thus presume? It is enough for them, and for them their greatest honour, that while they are spirits by nature they have become and are called angels, as David testifies: Who makest thy angels spirits. Mary, knowing herself mother, with confidence calls that Majesty Son Whom the angels in reverence serve. Nor does God disdain to be called that which He disdained not to be. For the Evangelist adds a little later: He was subject to them.

Who was subject to whom? A God to men. God, I repeat, to Whom the angels are subject: Whom principalities and powers obey: was subject to Mary; and not alone to Mary, but to Joseph also, because of Mary. Admire and revere both the one and the other, and choose which you admire the more: the most sweet condescension of the Son, or the sublime dignity of the Mother. For either am I at a loss for words: for both are wondrous. For that God should obey a woman is humility without compare; and that a woman should have rule over God dignity without equal. In praise of virgins is it joyfully proclaimed: that they follow the lamb withersoever he goeth. Of what praise shall you esteem her worthy who also goeth before Him?

Learn, O Man, to obey. Learn, O Earth, to be subject. Learn, O Dust, to submit. The Evangelist in speaking of thy Maker says: He was subject to them; that is, without doubt, to Mary and to Joseph. Be you ashamed, vain ashes that you are. God humbles Himself, and do you exalt yourself? God becomes subject to men, and will you, eager to lord it over men, place yourself above your Maker? O would that God might deign to make me, thinking such thoughts at times in my own mind, such answer as He made, reproving him, to His apostle: Go behind Me, Satan: because thou savorest not the things that are of God.

For as often as I desire to be foremost among men, so often do I seek to take precedence of God; and so do I not truly savour the things that are of God. For of Him was it said: And he was subject to them. If you disdain, O Man, to follow the example of a Man, at least it will not lower thee to imitate thy Maker. If perhaps you cannot follow Him wheresoever He goeth, at least follow in that wherein He has come down to you.

If you are unable to follow Him on the sublime way of virginity, then follow God by that most sure way of humility; from whose straitness should some even from among the virgins go aside, then must I say what is true, that neither do they follow the Lamb withersoever he goeth. He that is humble, even though he be stained, he follows the Lamb; so too does the proud virgin; but neither of the two whithersoever He goeth: because the one cannot ascend to the purity of the Lamb that is without stain, nor will the other deign to come down to the meekness of the Lamb, Who stood silent, not merely before the shearer, but before the one that put Him to death. Yet the sinner who makes after Him in humility, has chosen a wholesomer part than the one that is proud in his virtue; since the humble repentance of the one washes away uncleanness, but the pride of the other contaminates his own virtue.

Truly blessed was Mary who possessed both humility and virginity. And truly wondrous the virginity whose fruitfulness stained not, but adorned her; and truly singular the humility, which this fruitful virginity has not troubled, but rather exalted; and wholly incomparable the fruitfulness which goes hand in hand with her humility and her virginity. Which of these things is not wondrous? Which is not beyond all comparison? Which that is not wholly singular? It would be strange if you did not hesitate to decide which you regard as most worthy of praise: whether the wonder of fruitfulness of offspring in virginity, or of virginal integrity in a mother: sublimity of Offspring, or humility joined to such dignity: unless it be that we place both together above each one singly: and it is truly beyond any doubt more excellent and more joyful to have beheld these perfections united in her, than to see but one part of them.

And can we wonder that God, of Whom it is written that He is wonderful in his saints, shows Himself in His own Mother yet more wondrous still. Venerate then, Ye spouses, this integrity of flesh in our corruptible flesh. Revere likewise, Ye virgins, fruitfulness in virginity. Let all men imitate the humility of God's Mother. Honour, Ye angels, the Mother of your King, you who adore the Offspring of our Virgin; Who is your King and our King, the Healer of our race, the Restorer of our fatherland: Who among you is so sublime, yet among us was so lowly: to Whose Majesty as well from you as from us let there be adoration and reverence: to whose Perfection be there honour and glory and empire for ever and ever. Amen.

"On the feast of Stephen"

Father Stephen’s Homily & Reflection for Wednesday, December 26, 2012 during the Octave of Christmas on the Feast of St. Stephen. 

It’s sort of a jolt to celebrate the martyrdom of St. Stephen on the very day after Christmas. Yesterday, it was the angels singing the good news, and all is calm, all is bright was the mood of the day, but now we switch gears quickly and celebrate the martyrdom of Stephen, the first martyr of the Church – certainly nothing calm or bright about a martyrdom.

However, I do believe that our feast today reminds us of why the Lord Jesus came to earth in the first place. He came to earth, was placed in a wooden manger, so that some 33 years later he could be placed on a wooden cross to die for our sins, to bring us salvation. From the wood of the manger to the wood of the cross, Jesus comes to save us. He comes to save us and invites us to accept his invitation into his kingdom. However, the entrance into his kingdom calls us to follow him – his words and his actions. So therefore, if we wish to belong to his kingdom then eventually we will go to the cross.

Jesus told us as much as he told us that we must pick up our cross and follow after him.
If we wish to follow Jesus then we will go to the cross. Following the Lord is not always easy because many people will refuse the invitation and those who refuse will make it difficult, make it hard on those who accept. Once again, from the Lord’s mouth we hear that three will be against two and son against father and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law. If we accept his invitation the cross will be a part of our lives, just as surely as it was a part of St. Stephen’s life.

When we accept Christ we accept not only the tiny babe in the manger with all is calm all is bright, but we also accept the fact that Jesus calls us to follow in his footsteps from the wood of the manger to the wood of the cross. So then, like St. Stephen we can expect trials and tribulations and perhaps even death as we follow the Lord because if we follow the Lord, then we will be lead to the cross. In the words of another great saint, Saint Bonaventure, “there is no other way except through the burning love of the crucified.”

Today let us go visit Christ as he lies in his manger bed and ask him to give us the courage and strength to follow after him as did St. Stephen, knowing full well that it will take us to the cross. It will take us to eternal life!

God Bless,
Father Stephen McKinley, OFM Conv
Rector of the National Shrine of St. Maximilian Kolbe
Spiritual Advisor to the MI for the USA & Canada

Pope Benedict on St Therese of Lisieux

Dear Brothers and Sisters,Today I would like to talk to you about St Thérèse of Lisieux, Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, who lived in this world for only 24 years, at the end of the 19th century, leading a very simple and hidden life but who, after her death and the publication of her writings, became one of the best-known and best-loved saints. “Little Thérèse” has never stopped helping the simplest souls, the little, the poor and the suffering who pray to her. However, she has also illumined the whole Church with her profound spiritual doctrine to the point that chose, in 1997, to give her the title “Doctor of the Church”, in addition to that of Patroness of Missions, which had already attributed to her in 1939. My beloved Predecessor described her as an “expert in the scientia amoris” (, n. 42). Thérèse expressed this science, in which she saw the whole truth of the faith shine out in love, mainly in the story of her life, published a year after her death with the title The Story of a Soul. The book immediately met with enormous success, it was translated into many languages and disseminated throughout the world.

I would like to invite you to rediscover this small-great treasure, this luminous comment on the Gospel lived to the full! The Story of a Soul, in fact, is a marvellous story of Love, told with such authenticity, simplicity and freshness that the reader cannot but be fascinated by it! But what was this Love that filled Thérèse’s whole life, from childhood to death? Dear friends, this Love has a Face, it has a Name, it is Jesus! The Saint speaks continuously of Jesus. Let us therefore review the important stages of her life, to enter into the heart of her teaching.Thérèse was born on 2 January 1873 in Alençon, a city in Normandy, in France. She was the last daughter of Louis and Zélie Martin, a married couple and exemplary parents, who were beatified together on 19 October 2008. They had nine children, four of whom died at a tender age. Five daughters were left, who all became religious. Thérèse, at the age of four, was deeply upset by the death of her mother (Ms A 13r). Her father then moved with his daughters to the town of Lisieux, where the Saint was to spend her whole life. Later Thérèse, affected by a serious nervous disorder, was healed by a divine grace which she herself described as the “smile of Our Lady” (ibid., 29v-30v). She then received her First Communion, which was an intense experience (ibid., 35r), and made Jesus in the Eucharist the centre of her life.

The “Grace of Christmas” of 1886 marked the important turning-point, which she called her “complete conversion” (ibid., 44v-45r). In fact she recovered totally, from her childhood hyper-sensitivity and began a “to run as a giant”. At the age of 14, Thérèse became ever closer, with great faith, to the Crucified Jesus. She took to heart the apparently desperate case of a criminal sentenced to death who was impenitent. “I wanted at all costs to prevent him from going to hell”, the Saint wrote, convinced that her prayers would put him in touch with the redeeming Blood of Jesus. It was her first and fundamental experience of spiritual motherhood: “I had such great trust in the Infinite Mercy of Jesus”, she wrote. Together with Mary Most Holy, young Thérèse loved, believed and hoped with “a mother’s heart” (cf. Pr 6/ior).In November 1887, Thérèse went on pilgrimage to Rome with her father and her sister Céline (ibid., 55v-67r). The culminating moment for her was the Audience with , whom she asked for permission to enter the Carmel of Lisieux when she was only just 15. A year later her wish was granted. She became a Carmelite, “to save souls and to pray for priests” (ibid., 69v). 

At the same time, her father began to suffer from a painful and humiliating mental illness. It caused Thérèse great suffering which led her to contemplation of the Face of Jesus in his Passion (ibid., 71rc). Thus, her name as a religious — Sr Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face — expresses the programme of her whole life in communion with the central Mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption. Her religious profession, on the Feast of the Nativity of Mary, 8 September 1890, was a true spiritual espousal in evangelical “littleness”, characterized by the symbol of the flower: “It was the Nativity of Mary. What a beautiful feast on which to become the Spouse of Jesus! It was the little new-born Holy Virgin who presented her little Flower to the little Jesus” (ibid., 77r).For Thérèse, being a religious meant being a bride of Jesus and a mother of souls (cf. Ms B, 2v). On the same day, the Saint wrote a prayer which expressed the entire orientation of her life: she asked Jesus for the gift of his infinite Love, to be the smallest, and above all she asked for the salvation of all human being: “That no soul may be damned today” (Pr 2). 

Of great importance is her Offering to Merciful Love, made on the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity in 1895 (Ms A, 83v-84r; Pr 6). It was an offering that Thérèse immediately shared with her sisters, since she was already acting novice mistress.Ten years after the “Grace of Christmas” in 1896, came the “Grace of Easter”, which opened the last period of Thérèse’s life with the beginning of her passion in profound union with the Passion of Jesus. It was the passion of her body, with the illness that led to her death through great suffering, but it was especially the passion of the soul, with a very painful trial of faith (Ms C, 4v-7v). With Mary beside the Cross of Jesus, Thérèse then lived the most heroic faith, as a light in the darkness that invaded her soul. The Carmelite was aware that she was living this great trial for the salvation of all the atheists of the modern world, whom she called “brothers”.

She then lived fraternal love even more intensely (8r-33v): for the sisters of her community, for her two spiritual missionary brothers, for the priests and for all people, especially the most distant. She truly became a “universal sister”! Her lovable, smiling charity was the expression of the profound joy whose secret she reveals: “Jesus, my joy is loving you” (P 45/7). In this context of suffering, living the greatest love in the smallest things of daily life, the Saint brought to fulfilment her vocation to be Love in the heart of the Church (cf. Ms B, 3v). Thérèse died on the evening of 30 September 1897, saying the simple words, “My God, I love you!”, looking at the Crucifix she held tightly in her hands. These last words of the Saint are the key to her whole doctrine, to her interpretation of the Gospel the act of love, expressed in her last breath was as it were the continuous breathing of her soul, the beating of her heart. The simple words “Jesus I love you”, are at the heart of all her writings. The act of love for Jesus immersed her in the Most Holy Trinity. She wrote: “Ah, you know, Divine Jesus I love you / The spirit of Love enflames me with his fire, / It is in loving you that I attract the Father” (P 17/2).

Dear friends, we too, with St Thérèse of the Child Jesus must be able to repeat to the Lord every day that we want to live of love for him and for others, to learn at the school of the saints to love authentically and totally. Thérèse is one of the “little” ones of the Gospel who let themselves be led by God to the depths of his Mystery. A guide for all, especially those who, in the People of God, carry out their ministry as theologians. With humility and charity, faith and hope, Thérèse continually entered the heart of Sacred Scripture which contains the Mystery of Christ. And this interpretation of the Bible, nourished by the science of love, is not in opposition to academic knowledge. The science of the saints, in fact, of which she herself speaks on the last page of her The Story of a Soul, is the loftiest science. “All the saints have understood and in a special way perhaps those who fill the universe with the radiance of the evangelical doctrine. Was it not from prayer that St Paul, St Augustine, St John of the Cross, St Thomas Aquinas, Francis, Dominic, and so many other friends of God drew that wonderful science which has enthralled the loftiest minds?” (cf. Ms C 36r). Inseparable from the Gospel, for Thérèse the Eucharist was the sacrament of Divine Love that stoops to the extreme to raise us to him. In her last Letter, on an image that represents Jesus the Child in the consecrated Host, the Saint wrote these simple words: “I cannot fear a God who made himself so small for me! […] I love him! In fact, he is nothing but Love and Mercy!” (LT 266). 

In the Gospel Thérèse discovered above all the Mercy of Jesus, to the point that she said: “To me, He has given his Infinite Mercy, and it is in this ineffable mirror that I contemplate his other divine attributes. Therein all appear to me radiant with Love. His Justice, even more perhaps than the rest, seems to me to be clothed with Love” (Ms A, 84r). In these words she expresses herself in the last lines of The Story of a Soul: “I have only to open the Holy Gospels and at once I breathe the perfume of Jesus’ life, and then I know which way to run; and it is not to the first place, but to the last, that I hasten…. I feel that even had I on my conscience every crime one could commit… my heart broken with sorrow, I would throw myself into the arms of my Saviour Jesus, because I know that he loves the Prodigal Son” who returns to him. (Ms C, 36v-37r). 

“Trust and Love” are therefore the final point of the account of her life, two words, like beacons, that illumined the whole of her journey to holiness, to be able to guide others on the same “little way of trust and love”, of spiritual childhood (cf. Ms C, 2v-3r; LT 226).Trust, like that of the child who abandons himself in God’s hands, inseparable from the strong, radical commitment of true love, which is the total gift of self for ever, as the Saint says, contemplating Mary: “Loving is giving all, and giving oneself” (Why I love thee, Mary, P 54/22). Thus Thérèse points out to us all that Christian life consists in living to the full the grace of Baptism in the total gift of self to the Love of the Father, in order to live like Christ, in the fire of the Holy Spirit, his same love for all the others

1 October, 2012. Vatican Radio 

"True love alone has the power to unite the wills of men.."

Pope St. Pius X, a member of the Third Order of St. Francis:

"For to be right and good, worship of the Mother of God ought to spring from the heart; acts of the body have here neither utility nor value if the
acts of the soul have no part in them. Now these latter can only have one object, which is that we should fully carry out what the divine Son of
Mary commands. For if true love alone has the power to unite the wills of men, it is of the first necessity that we should have one will with Mary to
serve Jesus our Lord. What this most prudent Virgin said to the servants at the marriage feast of Cana she addresses also to us: "Whatsoever he shall
say to you, do ye" (John ii., 5). Now here is the word of Jesus Christ: "If you would enter into life, keep the commandments" (Mt. xix., 17). Let
them each one fully convince himself of this, that if his piety towards the Blessed Virgin does not hinder him from sinning, or does not move his
will to amend an evil life, it is a piety deceptive and lying, wanting as it is in proper effect and its natural fruit." (Ad diem illum laetissimum, Feb 2, 1904:  para. 17)  Ad diem illum laetissimum

St Bonaventure, the Seraphic Doctor...

Pope Benedict XVI Wednesday Audience 10 March 2010

Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

Last week I spoke of the life and personality of St Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. This morning I would like to continue my presentation, reflecting on part of his literary opus and on his doctrine.

As I have already said, among St Bonaventure's various merits was the ability to interpret authentically and faithfully St Francis of Assisi, whom he venerated and studied with deep love. 

In a special way, in St Bonaventure's day a trend among the Friars Minor known as the "Spirituals" held that St Francis had ushered in a totally new phase in history and that the "eternal Gospel", of which Revelation speaks, had come to replace the New Testament. This group declared that the Church had now fulfilled her role in history. They said that she had been replaced by a charismatic community of free men guided from within by the Spirit, namely the "Spiritual Franciscans". This group's ideas were based on the writings of a Cistercian Abbot, Joachim of Fiore, who died in 1202. In his works he affirmed a Trinitarian rhythm in history. He considered the Old Testament as the age of the Fathers, followed by the time of the Son, the time of the Church. The third age was to be awaited, that of the Holy Spirit. The whole of history was thus interpreted as a history of progress:  from the severity of the Old Testament to the relative freedom of the time of the Son, in the Church, to the full freedom of the Sons of God in the period of the Holy Spirit. This, finally, was also to be the period of peace among mankind, of the reconciliation of peoples and of religions. Joachim of Fiore had awakened the hope that the new age would stem from a new form of monasticism. Thus it is understandable that a group of Franciscans might have thought it recognized St Francis of Assisi as the initiator of the new epoch and his Order as the community of the new period the community of the Age of the Holy Spirit that left behind the hierarchical Church in order to begin the new Church of the Spirit, no longer linked to the old structures.

Hence they ran the risk of very seriously misunderstanding St Francis' message, of his humble fidelity to the Gospel and to the Church. This error entailed an erroneous vision of Christianity as a whole.

St Bonaventure, who became Minister General of the Franciscan Order in 1257, had to confront grave tension in his Order precisely because of those who supported the above-mentioned trend of the "Franciscan Spirituals" who followed Joachim of Fiore. To respond to this group and to restore unity to the Order, St Bonaventure painstakingly studied the authentic writings of Joachim of Fiore, as well as those attributed to him and, bearing in mind the need to present the figure and message of his beloved St Francis correctly, he wanted to set down a correct view of the theology of history. St Bonaventure actually tackled the problem in his last work, a collection of conferences for the monks of the studium in Paris. He did not complete it and it has come down to us through the transcriptions of those who heard him. It is entitled Hexaëmeron, in other words an allegorical explanation of the six days of the Creation. The Fathers of the Church considered the six or seven days of the Creation narrative as a prophecy of the history of the world, of humanity. For them, the seven days represented seven periods of history, later also interpreted as seven millennia. With Christ we should have entered the last, that is, the sixth period of history that was to be followed by the great sabbath of God. St Bonaventure hypothesizes this historical interpretation of the account of the days of the Creation, but in a very free and innovative way. To his mind two phenomena of his time required a new interpretation of the course of history.

The first:  the figure of St Francis, the man totally united with Christ even to communion with the stigmata, almost an alter Christus, and, with St Francis, the new community he created, different from the monasticism known until then. This phenomenon called for a new interpretation, as an innovation of God which appeared at that moment.

The second:  the position of Joachim of Fiore who announced a new monasticism and a totally new period of history, going beyond the revelation of the New Testament, demanded a response. As Minister General of the Franciscan Order, St Bonaventure had immediately realized that with the spiritualistic conception inspired by Joachim of Fiore, the Order would become ungovernable and logically move towards anarchy. In his opinion this had two consequences: 

The first, the practical need for structures and for insertion into the reality of the hierarchical Church, of the real Church, required a theological foundation. This was partly because the others, those who followed the spiritualist concept, upheld what seemed to have a theological foundation.

The second, while taking into account the necessary realism, made it essential not to lose the newness of the figure of St Francis.

How did St Bonaventure respond to the practical and theoretical needs? Here I can only provide a very basic summary of his answer and it is in certain aspects incomplete: 

1. St Bonaventure rejected the idea of the Trinitarian rhythm of history. God is one for all history and is not tritheistic. Hence history is one, even if it is a journey and, according to St Bonaventure, a journey of progress.

2. Jesus Christ is God's last word in him God said all, giving and expressing himself. More than himself, God cannot express or give. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. Christ himself says of the Holy Spirit:  "He will bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you" (Jn 14: 26), and "he will take what is mine and declare it to you" (Jn 16: 15). Thus there is no loftier Gospel, there is no other Church to await. Therefore the Order of St Francis too must fit into this Church, into her faith and into her hierarchical order.

3. This does not mean that the Church is stationary, fixed in the past, or that there can be no newness within her. "Opera Christi non deficiunt, sed proficiunt":  Christ's works do not go backwards, they do not fail but progress, the Saint said in his letter De Tribus Quaestionibus. Thus St Bonaventure explicitly formulates the idea of progress and this is an innovation in comparison with the Fathers of the Church and the majority of his contemporaries. For St Bonaventure Christ was no longer the end of history, as he was for the Fathers of the Church, but rather its centre; history does not end with Christ but begins a new period. The following is another consequence:  until that moment the idea that the Fathers of the Church were the absolute summit of theology predominated, all successive generations could only be their disciples. St Bonaventure also recognized the Fathers as teachers for ever, but the phenomenon of St Francis assured him that the riches of Christ's word are inexhaustible and that new light could also appear to the new generations. The oneness of Christ also guarantees newness and renewal in all the periods of history.

The Franciscan Order of course as he emphasized belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ, to the apostolic Church, and cannot be built on utopian spiritualism. Yet, at the same time, the newness of this Order in comparison with classical monasticism was valid and St Bonaventure as I said in my previous Catechesis defended this newness against the attacks of the secular clergy of Paris:  the Franciscans have no fixed monastery, they may go everywhere to proclaim the Gospel. It was precisely the break with stability, the characteristic of monasticism, for the sake of a new flexibility that restored to the Church her missionary dynamism.

At this point it might be useful to say that today too there are views that see the entire history of the Church in the second millennium as a gradual decline. Some see this decline as having already begun immediately after the New Testament. In fact, "Opera Christi non deficiunt, sed proficiunt": Christ's works do not go backwards but forwards. What would the Church be without the new spirituality of the Cistercians, the Franciscans and the Dominicans, the spirituality of St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross and so forth? This affirmation applies today too: "Opera Christi non deficiunt, sed proficiunt", they move forward. St Bonaventure teaches us the need for overall, even strict discernment, sober realism and openness to the newness, which Christ gives his Church through the Holy Spirit. And while this idea of decline is repeated, another idea, this "spiritualistic utopianism" is also reiterated. Indeed, we know that after the Second Vatican Council some were convinced that everything was new, that there was a different Church, that the pre-Conciliar Church was finished and that we had another, totally "other" Church an anarchic utopianism! And thanks be to God the wise helmsmen of the Barque of St Peter, Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II, on the one hand defended the newness of the Council, and on the other, defended the oneness and continuity of the Church, which is always a Church of sinners and always a place of grace.

4. In this regard, St Bonaventure, as Minister General of the Franciscans, took a line of government which showed clearly that the new Order could not, as a community, live at the same "eschatological height" as St Francis, in whom he saw the future world anticipated, but guided at the same time by healthy realism and by spiritual courage he had to come as close as possible to the maximum realization of the Sermon on the Mount, which for St Francis was the rule, but nevertheless bearing in mind the limitations of the human being who is marked by original sin.

Thus we see that for St Bonaventure governing was not merely action but above all was thinking and praying. At the root of his government we always find prayer and thought; all his decisions are the result of reflection, of thought illumined by prayer. His intimate contact with Christ always accompanied his work as Minister General and therefore he composed a series of theological and mystical writings that express the soul of his government. They also manifest his intention of guiding the Order inwardly, that is, of governing not only by means of commands and structures, but by guiding and illuminating souls, orienting them to Christ.

I would like to mention only one of these writings, which are the soul of his government and point out the way to follow, both for the individual and for the community:  the Itinerarium mentis in Deum, [The Mind's Road to God], which is a "manual" for mystical contemplation. This book was conceived in a deeply spiritual place:  Mount La Verna, where St Francis had received the stigmata. In the introduction the author describes the circumstances that gave rise to this writing:  "While I meditated on the possible ascent of the mind to God, amongst other things there occurred that miracle which happened in the same place to the blessed Francis himself, namely the vision of the winged Seraph in the form of a Crucifix. While meditating upon this vision, I immediately saw that it offered me the ecstatic contemplation of Fr Francis himself as well as the way that leads to it" (cf.The Mind's Road to God, Prologue, 2, in Opere di San Bonaventura. Opuscoli Teologici / 1, Rome 1993, p. 499).

The six wings of the Seraph thus became the symbol of the six stages that lead man progressively from the knowledge of God, through the observation of the world and creatures and through the exploration of the soul itself with its faculties, to the satisfying union with the Trinity through Christ, in imitation of St Francis of Assisi. The last words of St Bonaventure's Itinerarium, which respond to the question of how it is possible to reach this mystical communion with God, should be made to sink to the depths of the heart:  "If you should wish to know how these things come about, (the mystical communion with God) question grace, not instruction; desire, not intellect; the cry of prayer, not pursuit of study; the spouse, not the teacher; God, not man; darkness, not clarity; not light, but the fire that inflames all and transports to God with fullest unction and burning affection.... Let us then... pass over into darkness; let us impose silence on cares, concupiscence, and phantasms; let us pass over with the Crucified Christ from this world to the Father, so that when the Father is shown to us we may say with Philip, "It is enough for me'" (cf. ibid., VII 6).

Dear friends, let us accept the invitation addressed to us by St Bonaventure, the Seraphic Doctor, and learn at the school of the divine Teacher:  let us listen to his word of life and truth that resonates in the depths of our soul. Let us purify our thoughts and actions so that he may dwell within us and that we may understand his divine voice which draws us towards true happiness.

* * *

On contemplative prayer...

Pope Benedict XVI Wednesday Audience June 13, 2012

 On St Paul the Apostle's experience of contemplative prayer.

 * * * Dear brothers and sisters, Daily encounter with the Lord and frequenting the Sacraments allow our minds and hearts to be opened to his presence, to his words, to his action. Prayer is not only the soul’s breath but -- to use an image -- it is also the oasis of peace from which we draw the water that nourishes our spiritual lives and transforms our existence. And God draws us to himself; he causes us to ascend the mountain of holiness and offers us light and consolation along the way so that we might grow ever closer to Him.

This is the personal experience St. Paul refers to in Chapter 12 of the Second Letter to the Corinthians, which I wish to consider today. In defending the legitimacy of his apostolate, he lists not so much the communities he founded nor the kilometers he travelled; he does not limit himself to recalling the difficulties and the opposition he faced for the sake of announcing the Gospel; but rather, he appeals to his relationship with the Lord, a relationship so intense that at times it was marked by moments of ecstasy and of deep contemplation (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:1); therefore, he boasts not in what he has done, in his own strength, in his activities and successes; but rather, he boasts in what God has done in him and through him.

With great restraint, in fact, he recounts the experience of being caught up to God’s heaven. He recalls how fourteen years before the sending of the letter “he was caught up – so he says – to the third heaven” (Verse 2). Using the language and the ways of one who recounts what cannot be recounted, St. Paul speaks of the event in the third person; he affirms that a man was caught up into the “garden” of God, into paradise. His contemplation is so deep and intense that the Apostle fails even to remember the content of the revelation received. But the time and circumstances are present to him, of the moment when the Lord seized him so completely and drew him to himself, as he had done on the road to Damascus at the moment of his conversion (cf. Philippians 3:12).

 St. Paul goes on to say that it is in order not to be filled with pride on account of the grandeur of the revelation received that he carries a thorn in his flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7), a suffering, and he implores the Risen One to be delivered from the messenger of the Evil One, from this painful thorn in his flesh. Three times – he says – he besought the Lord to remove this trial from him. And it is in this situation, in deep contemplation of God when “he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter” (Verse 4), that he receives an answer to his plea. The Risen One addresses a clear and reassuring word to him: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (Verse 9). Paul’s commentary on these words may astonish us, but they reveal how he understood what it truly means to be an apostle of the Gospel. He exclaims, in fact: “I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong” (Verses 9b-10); that is, he boasts not in his activity, but in the action of Christ, which acts precisely through his weakness.

Let us reflect a moment more on this event, which occurred during the years when St. Paul lived in silence and contemplation before commencing his journeys across the West to proclaim Christ, for this attitude of profound humility and trust before God’s self-revelation is also fundamental for our prayer and for our lives, for the way we relate to God and to our own weakness.

First, what is the weakness of which St. Paul speaks? What is this “thorn” in his flesh? We don’t know, and he doesn’t say, but his attitude makes us understand that all the difficulties we meet in following Christ and witnessing to his Gospel can be overcome by opening ourselves in faith to the Lord’s action. St. Paul is well aware of being a “useless servant” (2 Corinthians 4:7) in whom God places the riches and power of his grace. In this moment of intense contemplative prayer, St. Paul understands clearly how to face and live every event, especially suffering, difficulty and persecution: when he experiences his own weakness, the power of God is manifested, which neither abandons us nor leaves us alone but which becomes our support and strength. Certainly, Paul would have preferred to be delivered from this “thorn”, from this suffering; but God says: “No, this is necessary for you. You shall have grace sufficient to resist and to do what must be done”. This is true also for us. The Lord may not deliver us from evil, but he helps us to mature through suffering, difficulty and persecution. Faith, then, tells us that if we remain in God, “though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day” (cf. Verse 16).

The Apostle communicates to the Christians of Corinth and also to us that “this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (Verse 17). In reality, humanly speaking, the weight of difficulty was not light, it was exceedingly heavy; but compared with God’s love, with the grandeur of being loved by God, it seemed light in knowing that the weight of glory will be without measure. Therefore, as our union with the Lord grows and our prayer intensifies, we too come to focus on the essential, and we understand that it is not through the power of our resources, our virtue, or our abilities that the Kingdom of God shall come; rather, it is God who works marvels precisely through our weakness, through our inadequacy for the task at hand. We must therefore have the humility not to trust in ourselves alone but to work -- with the Lord’s help -- in the Lord’s vineyard, entrusting ourselves to Him as fragile “earthen vessels”.

St. Paul speaks of two particular revelations that radically changed his life. The first -- we know -- is the disturbing question on the road of Damascus: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4), a question that led him to discover and to encounter Christ living and present, and to sense his call to be and apostle of the Gospel. The second are the words the Lord addressed to him in the experience of contemplative prayer we are reflecting on: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”. Only faith and reliance on the action of God, on the goodness of God, which never abandons us, is the guarantee of not working in vain. Thus, the Lord’s grace was the force that accompanied St. Paul in his tremendous efforts to spread the Gospel, and his heart entered into the heart of Christ, and thus became capable of leading others towards Him who died and rose for us.

In prayer, then, we open our souls to the Lord so that he might come and abide in our weakness, transforming it in strength for the Gospel. And the Greek word St. Paul uses to describe this indwelling of the Lord in his fragile humanity is deeply significant; he uses episkenoo, which we may render as “to pitch his own tent”. The Lord continues to pitch his tent in us, in our midst; this is the Mystery of the Incarnation. The same divine Word who came to dwell in our humanity, wills to abide in us, to pitch his tent in us, to enlighten and transform our lives and the world.

The intense contemplation of God that St. Paul experienced recalls that of the disciples on Mount Tabor, when, seeing Jesus transfigured and resplendent with light, Peter says to him: “Master, it is well that we are here; let us make three booths, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah” (Mark 9:5). “For he did not know what to say, for they were exceedingly afraid,” St. Mark adds (Verse 6). To contemplate the Lord is at once fascinating and terrifying: fascinating because He draws us to himself and steals our hearts towards heaven, carrying them to the heights where we experience the peace, the beauty of his love; terrifying, for it lays naked our human weakness, our inadequacies, the struggle to conquer the evil that threatens our lives -- that thorn that we too carry in our flesh.

 In prayer, in daily contemplation of the Lord, we receive the strength of God’s love and we sense the truth of St. Paul’s words to the Christians of Rome when he writes: “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, now angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

 In a world in which we risk trusting only in the efficiency and power of human resources, in this world we are called to rediscover and bear witness to the power of God that is communicated through prayer, and by which we grow each day in greater conformity of our lives to Christ’s, who – he affirms – “was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God” (2 Corinthians 13:4).

Dear friends, during the last century, Albert Schweitzer, a protestant theologian and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, stated that “Paul is a mystic and nothing other than a mystic”; that is, he is truly a man so enamored by Christ and so united to Him as to be able to say: Christ lives in me. The mysticism of St. Paul is based not only on the exceptional events he experienced but also on a daily and intense relationship with the Lord, who always sustained him with his grace. Mysticism did not distance him from reality; on the contrary, it gave him the strength to live each day for Christ and to build up the Church unto the end of the world of that time. Union with God does not distance us from the world; rather, it gives us the strength truly to remain in the world, to do all that needs to be done in the world. In our prayer lives too, then, we may experience moments of particular intensity, when we feel the presence of the Lord to be more alive, but constancy and fidelity to one’s relationship with God is important, above all in times of aridity, difficulty, suffering, and of God’s apparent absence. Only when we are gripped by the love of Christ will we be able to face every adversity like Paul, convinced that we can do all things in Him who strengthens us (cf. Philippians 4:13).

Therefore, the more space we give to prayer, the more we come to see that our lives will be transformed and enlivened by the concrete strength of God’s love. So it happened, for example, to Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who discovered in the contemplation of Jesus and precisely during long periods of aridity the ultimate reason and incredible strength to recognize him in the poor and abandoned, despite her fragile figure. In our lives, the contemplation of Christ does not distance us from reality -- as I already said – rather, it makes us ever more involved in human affairs, since the Lord, in drawing us to himself in prayer, allows us to become present and close all of our brothers and sisters in his love.

Thank you.

Pope Benedict XVI on St Anthony of Padua

Pope Benedict XVI on St Anthony of Padua   

Excerpt - Two weeks ago I presented St Francis of Assisi. This morning I would like to speak of another saint who belonged to the first generation of the Friars Minor: Anthony of Padua, or of Lisbon, as he is also called with reference to his native town. He is one of the most popular Saints in the whole Catholic Church, venerated not only in Padua, where a splendid Basilica has been built that contains his mortal remains, but also throughout the world. Dear to the faithful are the images and statues that portray him with the lily a symbol of his purity or with the Child Jesus in his arms, in memory of a miraculous apparition mentioned in several literary sources

Bl Pope John Paul II on St Anthony of Padua

ON THE OCCASION OF THE EIGHTH CENTENARY OF ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA'S BIRTH

Pope John Paul II

Address given on 13 June 1994 The centenary commemoration (of St. Anthony’s birth) will prove fruitful for the Church if it leads to unanimously imploring St. Anthony to spur the Christians of our time, through his example and intercession, to reach the loftiest and noblest goals of faith and holiness. For this shared hope to be fulfilled, everyone, pastors and faithful alike, must discover the person of St. Anthony with sincere devotion. They must examine his spiritual journey, understand his virtues and listen with docilely to the message given by his life. The last stage of St. Anthony’s life began when God guided him down paths he would never have dreamed of taking. After uprooting him from his land and his plans of evangelizing abroad, God led him to live the ideal of the Gospel way of life on Italian soil. St. Anthony lived the Franciscan experience for barely 11 years (being a former Canon Regular of St. Augustine), but he assimilated its ideals so deeply that for him Christ and the Gospel became a rule of life embodied in everyday living. In a sermon he said: "For you we have left everything and have become poor. But since you are rich, we have followed you that you might enrich us... We have followed you as the creature follows the Creator, like sons of the Father, as children follow their mother, as the starving their bread, as the sick their doctor, as the weary their bed, as exiles their homeland..." (Sermones, II, p. 484). All his preaching was a constant and tireless proclamation of the Gospel sine glossa. A true, courageous and clear proclamation. through preaching he found the way to kindle faith in souls, to purify, console and enlighten them (ibid., p. 154). He based his life on Christ. The Gospel virtues, particularly poverty of spirit, meekness, humility, chastity, mercy, the courage of peace, were the constant themes of his preaching. His witness was so shining that during my pilgrimage to his shrine in Padua on 12 September 1982, I also wished to present him to the Church, like Pope Pius XII before me, as a "man of the Gospel". Indeed St. Anthony taught in an outstanding way how to make Christ and the Gospel a constant point of reference in daily life and in private and public moral decisions: he suggested that everyone should bolster his courage at this source for consistent and enticing proclamation of the message of salvation. Precisely because he was in love with Christ and his Gospel, St. Anthony "illumined with the understanding of love that divine wisdom he had acquired from assiduously reading the Sacred Scriptures" (Pius XII, Apostolic Letter Antoniana sollemnia, 1 March 1946). For him, the Sacred Scriptures were the terra parturiens that begets faith, lays the foundations of morality and wins over the soul with its sweetness (cf. Sermones, Prologue, I, 1). Absorbed in loving meditation on Holy Scripture, the soul is opened, as he puts it, "ad divinitatis arcanum". During his journey to god, Anthony nourished his own mind from this mysterious abyss, drawing from it wisdom and learning, apostolic strength and hope, tireless zeal and ardent charity. From his thirst for God, from his yearning for Christ, theology was born, which for St. Anthony was radiant love for Christ: a wisdom of priceless value and a science of knowledge... (cf. Sermones, III, 55; I, 225). St. Anthony threw himself into this method of study with a passion that remained with him throughout his life as a Franciscan. St. Francis himself has appointed him to teach "sacred theology to the brothers," urging them, nevertheless, you take care "not to extinguish the spirit of prayer and devotion (cf. Fonti Francescane, n. 252). He used all the scholarly tools known at the time to deepen his knowledge of Gospel truth and to make its proclamation more easily understood. The success of his preaching confirms that he could speak the same language as his listeners and that he was able to effectively to convey the content of the faith and to ensure the acceptance of Gospel values in the popular culture of his age. I deeply hope that the centenary celebrations in honor of St. Anthony will allow the whole Church to become increasingly familiar with the witness, message, wisdom and missionary zeal of this great disciple of Christ and of the Poverello of Assisi. His preaching, his writings and above all the holiness of his life also offer the people of our time living and inspiring guidelines for the necessary commitment to the new evangelization. Today, as then, there is an urgent need for a renewed catechesis based on God’s word, particularly on the Gospels, to make the Christian world understand once more the value of revelation and faith. The community of believers should have an ever fresh awareness of the Gospel’s perennial relevance. It should recognize that through preaching, the figure of the Incarnate Word appears to us again as occurred in St. Anthony’s homilies: genuine, contemporary, current with our history, rich in grace and able to inspire people’s hearts an intense outpouring of supernatural love. St. Anthony’s writings, so rich in biblical teaching but also deeply imbued with spiritual and moral exhortations, are still a model and a guide for preaching today. They widely demonstrate, among other things, the extent to which homiletic instruction during liturgical celebrations can enable the faithful to experience the active presence of Christ who still proclaims the Gospel to His people, to obtain their response in prayer and song. I therefore urge all the members of the great Franciscan Family to commit themselves to spreading a worthy knowledge of the holy Wonderworker, who is so widely venerated in Christian communities throughout the world. Sentiments of authentic fervour in proclaiming the true faith are alive again among the friars of the Franciscan Orders, together with attentive and conscientious care for preaching, knowing and appreciating God’s word and for constant, assiduous dedication to the new evangelization, on the threshold of the third Christian millennium. As I asked the Lord, Master and Shepherd of souls, to grant to everyone through the intercession of St. Anthony distinguished preacher and patron of the poor, will faithfully and generously follow the teachings of the Gospel, I impart a special Apostolic Blessing to you, to the entire Franciscan Family and to all who are devoted to this great saint. From the Vatican, 13 June 1994, in the 16th year of the Pontificate.

The Cross of Christ

The following reflection is taken from the Sermones of Saint Anthony of Padua, published in Saint Anthony: Herald of the Good News (translated by Fr. Claude M. Jarmak OFM Conv., Conventual Franciscan Friars, Ellicott City, Maryland, 1995).

Just a Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of God be lifted up, that all who believe may have eternal life in him (Jn 3:14-15).

“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert.” In the Book of Numbers, we read that God sent poisonous snakes to bite the people who had murmured against Him. Then the Lord commanded Moses: “Make a fiery serpent and mount it on a pole, and if anyone who has been bitten looks at it, he will recover” (Num 21:18). The bronze serpent symbolizes Christ, God and man. Bronze, which does not deteriorate with age, signifies Jesus’ divinity; the serpent symbolizes His humanity, which was indeed raised up on the wood of the cross as the sign of our salvation.

Let us raise our eyes and “Keep them fixed on Jesus” (Heb 12:2), the author of our redemption. Let us contemplate our Lord, pierced with nails and suspended from the Cross. But lo, as Moses says in Deuteronomy (28:66), “Your life will hang before you, and you will not believe your life?” He does not say, “living life” but “hanging life”. What is more precious that a person’s life? The life of the body is the soul, and the life of the soul is Christ. Your very life hangs from the Cross. How can you not suffer with Him? How can you not partake in His sufferings? Christ hangs from the Cross before you to invite you to share in His sufferings as written in the Lamentations: “Come, all of you who pass by the way, look and see whether there is any suffering like my suffering” (1:12).

“Your life hangs before you” on the Cross so that you might see yourself as in a mirror, examining and scrutinizing yourself in it. You can see how serious were your wounds that they could not be healed by any other medicine except by the blood of the Son of God. If you pause to reflect profoundly, you will realize how sublime is your dignity, and how excellent your worth, which demanded so high a price.

You cannot better appreciate your worth than by looking into the mirror of the Cross of Christ; there you will learn how you are to deflate your pride, how you must mortify the desires of the flesh, how you are to pray to your Father for those who persecute you, and to commend your spirit into God’s hands. But, sad to say, what happens to us is what Saint James writes: “A man who listens to God’s word but does not put it into practice, is like a man who looks into a mirror at the face he was born with; he looks at himself then goes off and promptly forgets what he looks like” (1:23-24). In the same way, we look at the Crucified and recognize the image of our redemption, but grieve little. As soon as we turn our eyes away, we divert our hearts and return to vain worldly amusements.

This Lent.."Fix your eyes on Jesus."

The following reflection is taken from the Sermones of Saint Anthony of Padua, published in Saint Anthony: Herald of the Good News (translated by Fr. Claude M. Jarmak OFM Conv., Conventual Franciscan Friars, Ellicott City, Maryland, 1995).

Just a Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of God be lifted up, that all who believe may have eternal life in him (Jn 3:14-15).

“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert.” In the Book of Numbers, we read that God sent poisonous snakes to bite the people who had murmured against Him. Then the Lord commanded Moses: “Make a fiery serpent and mount it on a pole, and if anyone who has been bitten looks at it, he will recover” (Num 21:18). The bronze serpent symbolizes Christ, God and man. Bronze, which does not deteriorate with age, signifies Jesus’ divinity; the serpent symbolizes His humanity, which was indeed raised up on the wood of the cross as the sign of our salvation.

Let us raise our eyes and “Keep them fixed on Jesus” (Heb 12:2), the author of our redemption. Let us contemplate our Lord, pierced with nails and suspended from the Cross. But lo, as Moses says in Deuteronomy (28:66), “Your life will hang before you, and you will not believe your life?” He does not say, “living life” but “hanging life”. What is more precious that a person’s life? The life of the body is the soul, and the life of the soul is Christ. Your very life hangs from the Cross. How can you not suffer with Him? How can you not partake in His sufferings? Christ hangs from the Cross before you to invite you to share in His sufferings as written in the Lamentations: “Come, all of you who pass by the way, look and see whether there is any suffering like my suffering” (1:12).

“Your life hangs before you” on the Cross so that you might see yourself as in a mirror, examining and scrutinizing yourself in it. You can see how serious were your wounds that they could not be healed by any other medicine except by the blood of the Son of God. If you pause to reflect profoundly, you will realize how sublime is your dignity, and how excellent your worth, which demanded so high a price.

You cannot better appreciate your worth than by looking into the mirror of the Cross of Christ; there you will learn how you are to deflate your pride, how you must mortify the desires of the flesh, how you are to pray to your Father for those who persecute you, and to commend your spirit into God’s hands. But, sad to say, what happens to us is what Saint James writes: “A man who listens to God’s word but does not put it into practice, is like a man who looks into a mirror at the face he was born with; he looks at himself then goes off and promptly forgets what he looks like” (1:23-24). In the same way, we look at the Crucified and recognize the image of our redemption, but grieve little. As soon as we turn our eyes away, we divert our hearts and return to vain worldly amusements.

St Joseph, A Timeless Example

In Luke’s gospel, the archangel Gabriel appears to the Virgin Mary with the annunciation that she is to be the mother of God’s Son. In Matthew’s gospel, it is St. Joseph who is the recipient of such Good News. Our Lady responds with her unreserved ‘yes’. St. Joseph, on the other hand, says nothing; instead he simply ‘did as the angel of the Lord commanded him’ (Mt 1:24). In his Apostolic Exhortation Redemptoris Custos (‘Guardian of the Redeemer’) on the life of St. Joseph, Pope John Paul II noted that “this first ‘doing’ became the beginning of ‘Joseph’s way’. The Gospels do not record any word ever spoken by Joseph. But the silence of Joseph has its own special eloquence” (n. 17). St. Joseph was a man of great faith, not speaking his own words, but listening to the word of the Living God. He listens in silence, and is ready to put into action the word he hears.

St. Joseph proved himself a just man in the silence of his relationship with Mary. At the time of the Annunciation, they were betrothed, but were as yet not living together. Their union had not been consummated by sexual union since it is stressed that Mary was a virgin. With this in mind, the news of her pregnancy is unsettling for St. Joseph. Using his own logic he could only assume that she had been unfaithful to him. And yet he does not react with righteous anger, pointing the finger, or the need to defend his reputation. Instead, we are told that “Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to send her away quietly” (Mt 1:19).

He was resolved to carry out this plan when he was visited by the angel in a dream who reassured him of the divine origins of Mary’s unborn child. St. Joseph’s response to the angel’s intervention was one of obedient openness to the will of God. Although he could hardly have conceived the magnitude of the mystery that confronted him, “he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took Mary as his wife” (Mt 1:24). “He took her in all the mystery of her motherhood,” wrote John Paul. “He took her together with the Son who had come into the world by the power of the Holy Spirit. In this way he showed a readiness of will like Mary’s with regard to what God asked of him through the angel” (ibid., n. 3).

St. Joseph also took the Virgin Mary as his wife in the knowledge that she had consecrated herself to the Lord. “From the moment of the Annunciation, Mary knew that she was to fulfil her virginal desire to give herself exclusively and fully to God precisely by becoming the Mother of God’s Son” (ibid., n. 18). This is not the usual way of marriages. Sexual intimacy is a natural and integral part of the marriage union. To get around the ‘unnaturalness’ of Joseph and Mary’s marriage, it has often been suggested that St. Joseph was an old man, whose union with the Blessed Virgin was therefore more like a guardian than a husband. However, I don’t think that such an explanation is necessary. Indeed, it somehow diminishes St. Joseph’s virtue, and neglects the power of God’s Spirit active in his life. John Paul wrote: “Joseph, in obedience to the Spirit, found in the Spirit the source of love, the conjugal love which he experienced as a man. And this love proved to be greater than this ‘just man’ could ever have experienced within the limits of his human heart” (ibid., n. 19). His need for human love and intimacy was not nullified, but was supplied by God’s Spirit working in his life.

It is the same for those of us who profess a vow of celibate chastity. We do not profess chastity because sex is bad. Rather, a life of consecrated chastity acts as “a witness to the power of God’s love manifested in the weakness of the human condition” (Vita Consecrata, n. 88). Like St. Joseph, who in his chaste union with the Virgin Mary experienced a love greater than he could ever have imagined within the limits of his human heart, the consecrated person attests “that what many have believed impossible becomes, with the Lord’s grace, possible and truly liberating. Yes, in Christ it is possible to love God with all one’s heart, putting him above every other love, and thus to love every creature with the freedom of God!” (ibid.). John Paul adds that “this testimony is more necessary than ever today, precisely because it is so little understood by our world. It is offered to everyone – young people, engaged couples, husbands and wives and Christian families – in order to show that the power of God’s love can accomplish great things precisely within the context of human love. It is a witness which also meets a growing need for interior honesty in human relationships” (ibid.).

St. Joseph is therefore a timeless example for us to contemplate. The virtues that he witnessed to – his faithfulness, integrity and chastity – are qualities not much esteemed in our contemporary society. But for us, as men and women who are conformed to Christ, they are necessary virtues. By nurturing these values in our lives, we too, like St. Joseph, act as silent witnesses to the world. Being open to the action of God’s grace in our lives, we too, like him, will be just in our way of living.

St. Joseph, pray for us!