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From Pope Benedict XVI, in a General Audience 4/25/2012:

“Prayer, nourished by faith and enlightened by God’s word, enables us to see things in a new way and to respond to new situations with the wisdom and insight bestowed by the Holy Spirit. In our own daily lives and decisions, may we always draw fresh spiritual breath from the two lungs of prayer and the word of God; in this way, we will respond to every challenge and situation with wisdom, understanding and fidelity to God’s will.”

Looking Glass Falls in the Pisgah National Forest of North Carolina (photo – Looking Glass Falls  – R. Thomas Richard © 2010)

A retreat is a time away from the usual busyness of life – a time to listen to God in quietness, in moments alone (and sometimes with others who are also listening and seeking for God). How we need such time in silence and peace to reach out, interiorly, for His wisdom and guidance! During such a retreat now many years ago I heard Christ calling me, and I knew in my heart that my life had to change. I knew that unless I became His disciple I would die to face His final judgment. I did resolve to become His disciple, and everything changed for me. A few years later during a different retreat I met Deborah, who first became my true friend in Jesus and later became my wife in Him: our marriage was a gift from His hand.

Clearly, Deborah and I have reason to believe in the importance and power of retreats! We can meet God in the quiet times, the times apart. We can hear Him, and He can change us; He can heal us. He can renew us. In the following years Deborah and I have participated in, and have led, a good number of retreats. We have always been blessed to do so. I am saddened, frankly, that many Catholics have never experienced such times apart! Many do catch a moment here and there of resting in Him, of listening for Him, of sensing His holy Presence! But then the world too soon recalls them, and they rush back to busyness and hurrying and noise – wondering, perhaps, why it must be this way in life.

A different kind of retreat

Deborah and I know the value of taking time apart – for prayer, for listening, for recollection in a place of beauty that offers solitude and quiet. We are thinking about possibly offering a somewhat different kind of retreat – and we wonder if we offered it, would any Catholics come. Suppose we selected some place of beauty, like a state or national park where camping is allowed, and we offered a retreat there! People would need to like to “camp” – whether in a camper, or RV, or (for those young enough!) a tent – but such a place would offer much natural beauty, opportunity for quiet walks alone or for walks with others having a focus on the things and truths of God. And in such a place we could gather at scheduled times in the day for Bible study, for prayer, for spiritual talks and discussions – with free time as well for just being in the beauty of God’s creation.

Please help us as we pray about offering such retreats! What are your thoughts about such a thing? Do you think any would come to such a retreat? Would you come? Leave a post – or email us at fidelis@renewthechurch.com.

Blessings, Thomas

The background is the beautiful Cathedral in Savannah GA.

I’ve written a new book in e-Book format, for the Nook and the Kindle, on the Holy Mass.  The title is the title of this Post: The Mass in movements – Conversion Consecration Communion.  Here’s the “back story” –

I’ve been pondering and reflecting on the Holy Mass for a while – led in doing so most recently by a commitment to give presentations on the Mass to groups of Returning Catholics in our parish.  Our Returning Catholics program is a simple one – in six sessions – that we (the team) hope can be a helpful bridge to those who are considering coming home to the Church.  We have presently in the six sessions, two on the Mass.  The first of the two is on the “externals” of the Mass (the sacred vessels, the vestments and so on, with a “tour” of the church, the altar area and the sacristy).  This presentation is led by one of our deacons, and consistently is greatly appreciated by the returning Catholics.

The second of the two sessions on the Mass concerns the “internals” of the Mass: the spiritual meanings and intentions (and the interior participation from us that is being called for) that flow through the liturgy.  This has been my “assignment” – to present this aspect of the Mass to the returning Catholics, to help them enter interiorly into the Mass more fully.  After giving this presentation several times over the months, I found myself growing in understanding this most beautiful and supernatural work of God!  I found myself growing in appreciation of the “movements” in the Mass, seeing in them a consistent “directing” in our souls to Christ, deeper and more complete as the Mass progresses.

Thanks be to God, who shows and teaches one so that he can show and teach others!  After a little encouragement from the team, to offer the insights to a wider audience, I thought I would try to do so in e-Book form.  (I did not plan it this way, but it turned out that I finished the book during Holy Week – the first draft on Good Friday – and uploaded on Easter Sunday.)

Here’s the “brief description” that I wrote for Amazon and Barnes and Noble:

The Mass brings Christ to us! This book can help the reader bring himself to Christ in the Mass, and therefore find Him there, and receive Him.

The Holy Mass is the liturgy at the very center of a Catholic Christian life. In the Mass we encounter Christ both in His Word, and in the Holy Eucharist – and in those two encounters, two liturgies, we find three distinct but related movements. In those three movements in the Mass we the Christian people are called first to Conversion, then to Consecration, and then to Communion. Each of the three is an encounter with Christ! All three are preparing us for the final Sending at the close of the Mass. We are a sent people: sent by Christ by His power, in His name, to finish the work that He began.

The Church teaches that the Eucharist is “the Source and Summit” of the Christian life! (Catechism 1324) To personally receive this Source fruitfully – to truly attain the Summit which is present to us – requires of us that we are actually personally present to the reality of the Mass.

This book takes the reader through the Mass, interiorly. In each of the major parts of the Mass, the reader is helped to understand and to enter the sacred liturgy with the “full, conscious and active participation” (Catechism 1141) that is necessary for the Mass to do its work in us.

If anyone decides to try the book, please let me know what you think.  I think that many Catholics don’t see the full invitation into Christ that the Mass offers!  I think that many do not hear Him calling, waiting!  Thus the book.  I think there is a need.

Blessings, Thomas

Zenit reported recently some powerful words from the Pope to priests of Rome, concerning in particular the need for adult catechesis. Below is a portion of the report – it is brief, but so very encouraging to hear. Our current crisis in the West is seen and recognized by the Pope: “One great problem facing the Church today is the lack of knowledge of the faith, ‘religious illiteracy,'”

FEB. 24, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI on Thursday met with priests of his diocese and led them in “lectio divina,” offering a spontaneous Scripture reflection.
……..
Immature faith
Lack of humility destroys the unity of Christ’s Body. Yet at the same time, unity cannot develop without knowledge. “One great problem facing the Church today is the lack of knowledge of the faith, ‘religious illiteracy,'” the Pope said. “With such illiteracy we cannot grow. … Therefore we must reappropriate the contents of the faith, not as a packet of dogmas and commandments, but as a unique reality revealed in its all its profoundness and beauty.

We must do everything possible for catechetical renewal in order for the faith to be known, God to be known, Christ to be known, the truth to be known, and for unity in the truth to grow.”
We cannot, Benedict XVI warned, live in “a childhood of faith.” Many adults have never gone beyond the first catechesis, meaning that “they cannot — as adults, with competence and conviction — explain and elucidate the philosophy of the faith, its great wisdom and rationality” in order to illuminate the minds of others. To do this they need an “adult faith.”

To turn this immense ship about, more intentionally toward “full, active and conscious participation” in our common vocation to evangelize, toward the obedience of faith and worship, will not be easy! There is so much inertia, and habits are hard to change. So many have so small a sense of our calling to be light in this world! To evangelize! To leave all and follow Him! To be a People worthy of His Holy Name!

Let us pray and work, work and pray. May God ignite fires of zeal where there is now sleepiness, courage where there is now timidity, magnanimity (“great-soul-ness”) where now the opposite reigns. Grace is volatile, and our Source is abundant. Mary, please pray with us and for us.

When a democratically controlled country is in danger of losing its freedom by actually voting to do so, you know something is dangerously wrong. These are dangerous times, and people are afraid. Such an outcome is possible. America could take a turn in this election to choose government-assured rights, privileges and benefits over the freedom of self-determination that has always been a defining mark of the American character.

The current crisis has been brought about by government-run health care setting aside freedom of religion in favor of what the (I groan to say it: “Catholic”) bureaucrat in power at the moment, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, has declared and pronounced to be more important: free contraception – even to the point of post-conception avoidance of the child, namely abortion, called the “morning after pill”. Even to the point of permanent sterilization: a travesty abhorrent to Catholic faith.

The Bishops of the USCCB released a press report last summer of their call to rescind this mandate that is impossible for faithful Catholics to obey:

The general counsel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) called on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to rescind its mandate forcing private insurance plans to cover contraception — including abortifacients — and sterilization, calling the mandate “unprecedented in federal law and more radical than any state contraceptive mandate.” The comments also criticize the narrow “religious employer” exception to the mandate, explaining that it provides “no protection at all for individuals or insurers with a moral or religious objection to contraceptives or sterilization,” instead covering only “a very small subset of religious employers.”

Yes, even the many Catholics – in high position – in this present administration seem deaf, dumb and blind to the moral travesty threatening us. (Where are their Pastors? Where did they learn the Faith? What if anything did they learn of the Faith?)

Brothers and sisters, we need to pray as if this country depended upon it: because at this point in our history, it seems to be literally the case. The Church has kept too low a profile on the crucial but politically incorrect doctrines of our faith! The Church has said and has preached too little and too softly to too few for too long. The time for being quiet and gentle leaven seems to have passed us; the time to be salt is almost lost to us. We need to be clear, unambiguous, and consistent. The issues are freedom, and life, and moral truth. Some Catholics seem to have willingly traded these in for the much cheaper trinkets of political power, social status, and a comfortable time on this earth. They have been scammed.

What can we do, before it is too late? Well, we can vote when the election gets here, and change the powers that be and try to repair the damage that has already been done. But our votes and voices at this moment may be too few – we need to cry out to heaven for help. We need to repent and confess our silence and inaction, and we need to acknowledge to God that without Him we can do nothing. As indeed, so far, we have done so very little.

A Novena of Rosaries for our Country

In our parish we are beginning, this month, a series of nine monthly assemblies in our Adoration Chapel to pray the Rosary together, in petition for divine help to reform and renew this country. We will seek the loving help of our loving Mother, a most holy advocate for her children born and preborn. We will seek the help of our Lord Jesus. We will seek the intercessions of all the saints. We will cry out to the heavens for help, as if the whole country depended upon it – and it does.

I, with others who will come together and pray, ask you to plan and organize and do this very same thing yourselves! Let there be a thousand congregations across the whole county, praying for the renewal and reform of this country! Imagine, if this happened! Such a thing would be evidence of one crucial need being answered already: the renewal and reform of this Catholic Church.

May the Lord assist us, with graces to empower us, with mercy to enable us to begin again. It is not too late.

Thomas

Jesus sent His Church to “make disciples” (Mt 28:19). Pope Paul VI wrote that the Church exists to evangelize:

Evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize, that is to say, in order to preach and teach, to be the channel of the gift of grace, to reconcile sinners with God, and to perpetuate Christ’s sacrifice in the Mass, which is the memorial of His death and glorious resurrection.(1)

Is the Church evangelizing? Is she making disciples? Is she gathering new believers into the living Body of Christ, as Jesus sent us to do? Membership in the Catholic Church in America is growing, but not because of the evangelization and conversion of new members. The only reason that the Catholic Church in America is not in decline in membership, is because of the Catholic immigrants pouring in. Without them, our Church would be shrinking. In America, out of those adult Catholics born and raised in the Church (“cradle Catholics”), only 68% remain. Of the 32% who left the Church, 18% converted to some other religion and 14% abandoned “church” altogether.(2) This is dismal and shameful!

Many non-Catholic denominations and even non-Christian religions have the Catholic Church to thank for some of their new membership. About one in ten Protestants were raised Catholic. Over one in four (27%) who have no religious affiliation at all today were raised Catholic. Over one in four (26%) Jehovah Witnesses were raised Catholic. Or did you already know that from the many “former Catholics” now knocking on doors evangelizing you to join them in the Jehovah Witnesses? Even the Buddhists! Almost one in four (22%) Buddhists were raised Catholic.

To me, the most staggering statistic of all is this one: about one in ten (10.1%) of all American adults are former Catholics! Imagine looking out upon some large crowd of typical Americans at a ball game, or watching a parade, or shopping in a mall – about one out of every ten that you are looking at is a former Catholic! These 10% of all the adults in this country saw fit, somehow, to leave the Faith that Jesus died to give us, the faith held dear through centuries of martyrs who bled to remain faithful even unto death themselves. Something is very, very wrong.

Here’s my solution. I have a plan. Evangelize! Be Church! Let us wake up and do what God gave us grace and mercy to do: make disciples.

First step: before making new disciples, let us regather those who are lost. Let us knock on doors and ring bells and find the lost sheep, the ones scattered and astray, and shepherd them home again. If we could find and regather just those who left and have no connection with any church at all, the Catholic Church would grow by 14%! If we could help those who became Protestants to see the great blessings and treasure awaiting them in their return home as a Catholic, and they returned, we would grow by 18%! The harvest is plentiful – do we have any laborers?

We need to take the apostolate of seeking the sheep who are scattered, the “inactive Catholics,” more seriously. Didn’t Jesus teach about leaving the ninety-nine in the wilderness to go out in search of the one that was lost? We have 32% of our flock wandering out there – almost a third – and they deserve to know that they are missed, and needed, and wanted and loved by the Lord and by their brothers and sisters waiting for them at home, in the Church.

In the next installment of this post, I’ll try to focus on some specifics, and posibilities.

(1) Evangelii Nuntiandi #14

(2) See the PEW FORUM ON RELIGION & PUBLIC LIFE, especially HERE

What is the “bottom line” for this presidential election? Is it still, “the economy, stupid”? Most campaign speeches so far say yes: the crucial, essential issue for this country is economic: jobs! If only we can get the debt reduced, the budget balanced, the housing market active, and more jobs, then America can be secure and strong – “that shining city upon the hill” once more.

Such hope is shallow and misplaced. Unless this country begins to see more deeply into what did make America great, and thus what our priorities must be now, we will surely continue our slide to decadence, corruption, disintegration and poverty.

Rick Santorum is the only candidate that I have heard recognize this truth: “… at the core of the American experience is the family, and … without strong families, we cannot have a strong and vibrant nation.” Santorum seems to know the central importance of the family for any culture and nation. The family is the foundational cell of any society, and when the family is weak, the nation is at peril. Our nation is at peril.

Yes the economy is important, but only after we recover our national moral sanity. If money remains the foundation of this nation then we are already doomed. Jesus said we must seek first His kingdom and righteousness, and all these other things will be provided. National strength begins in strong moral families standing upon the rock of sure truth. May we awaken soon, before it is too late.

So much suffering has come upon so many around us. There is one effective, efficacious truth that we can cling to – it speaks to us from the Cross – it is the saving love of God. Jesus showed us this love in His patient suffering on our behalf on the Cross – and in doing so, He also showed us the path to holiness: Take up your own cross, and follow.

I am copying below a portion of a Retreat presentation on this theme that was delivered by the holy priest, Fr. John Hardon, S.J. The italics were added by me for emphasis. The presentation can be read in its entirety HERE.

… But that is not the lesson of the patience of God in the person of Christ. The lesson that Christ’s patience teaches us is that someone must suffer, and there is such a thing as someone else suffering for the sins I have committed, and I suffering for the sins that others have committed against a just God. What Christ’s patient suffering teaches us is there is a mysterious solidarity among the members of the human family, which is why God became Man: to join the human family, so that the sin of one member of the human family can obtain from God the mercy the sinner needs by the suffering of another member of the human family.

Christ’s patience teaches us that by our patience, not by our pain, not even by our suffering, but by our patience we become more and more like Jesus Christ who, having joy set before him, chose the Cross. I just wish I had preached and taught this way twenty-five years ago. I didn’t realize, I’m sure I don’t fully realize it yet; but no words can describe what faith tells us: the value of patient suffering out of love for God is the most precious treasure that man can possess in this world. Oh, the blindness of the human heart! With the short few moments, which we happen to call years, spent in this life, we fail to realize the priceless value of patient suffering in union with Jesus Christ.

….

We are not to be surprised that suffering is part of our faithful following of Christ. Don’t be surprised; that’s the way it is.

There is a necessary relation between sin and pain. Sin, we believe, is an offense against the will of God. Our created will says no to the will of God, that’s sin. Pain is the experience of something against our will. There are two wills involved, the will of God and the will of man. Whatever is against the will of God is sin; whatever is against the will of man is pain.

God sent pain into the world in order to expiate the evil of sin. In other words, had there been no sin there would have been no pain. But now, in God’s mysterious providence, he enables us to suffer in order that sin might be expiated.

Everyone suffers, but not everyone suffers willingly. To suffer willingly is always to expiate the evil of sin. Let me repeat. To suffer willingly is always to expiate the evil of sin, either my own sins or the sins of others. And we don’t have to read the Washington Post or the Chicago Tribune or the New York Times to know there are mountains, Himalayas of sin.

My Jesuit confrere, St. Francis Xavier, exhausted himself for ten years in India. There were one hundred thousand known baptisms that he personally performed. He kept writing back to Europe, pleading with the easygoing, well-fed, well-groomed European gentry. “How can you be lolling in ease and not doing all you can to keep souls from going to hell?”

All the patience we are talking about in this meditation, the willing endurance of pain, has a purpose. What’s the purpose? To prevent souls from going to hell. That’s why, faith tells us, God became Man.

The more holy a person is, and therefore the less sins that individual, man or woman, has to expiate, sins which they have themselves committed, the more innocent the sufferer, the more sinless the one who endures pain, the more pleasing that suffering is to God, and the more expiatory in the salvation of souls. Because, you see, it was the innocent Lamb of God, the all-holy Son of God who became man and who suffered. Needless to say there were no sins of his own that he had to expiate. What are we being told? To become as holy as we can, so that when we experience suffering, and patiently endure pain, our sufferings, like that of Christ’s, will be sublimely effective in the eyes of God.

Pope Benedict’s Anglelus Address for the First Sunday in Advent helps us to begin this beautiful season well.  Commenting on the Mass Readings, he said:

“…”Stay awake!” This is Jesus’ call in today’s Gospel. He directs it not only to his disciples, but to everyone: “Stay awake! (Mt, Mk 13:37)…

“Isaiah, the prophet of Advent, also makes us think today with his heartfelt prayer addressed to God in the name of his people. He dwells on the shortcomings of his people and at a certain point says: ‘There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hands of iniquity’. How can we not be struck by this description? It seems to reflect certain aspects of the post-modern world: cities where life has become anonymous and horizontal, where God seems to be absent and only man is master, as if he were the universal architect. Building, work, economy, transport, science, technology, everything seems to depend only upon man. And at times, in this apparently perfect world, terrible things happen, either in nature or society, which make us think that God has withdrawn and has, so to say, left us to our own devices.

“In reality, the real ‘master’ of the world is not man but God. The Gospel says: ‘stay awake for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly’. Advent comes every year to remind us of this fact, that our lives might find their just orientation towards the face of God. The face not of a ‘master’, but of a Father and a Friend”.

How very important it is to listen to the Pope’s urging:  “Stay awake”!  There is so little evidence of Advent around us.   Most of the world is busy preparing for the “Holidays”, with  little or no thought of Christ’s Coming.  Even we who participated in the Advent liturgy on Sunday, may have forgotten the purple vestments and the lighting of the Advent candle already.  I wonder sometimes how many Catholics appreciate the season of Advent.  How many stop to ponder that  purple is a color of penance?  How many ponder the painful longing of the world weighted down by sin before Jesus?  How many think of the stillness of that moment of Incarnation, or that moment of Birth or the Humility of God Who became Man for Love of us?  There seems so little stillness or quiet, unless we resolve to quiet our souls, and resolve to find stillness in our hearts for prayer.

As Advent begins I am often especially mindful of Mary, as she waited to see the Face of God made Man who dwelt within her womb.  This year, however, I am also mindful in a deeper way than in previous years of St. Joseph, her humble and righteous husband.

By God’s Grace, St. Joseph was certainly awake, as Mary was, to the coming of our Savior.  They knew the longing of the whole people of God to see the fulfillment of His Promise.  How did they prepare for Christ’s Coming?  I believe that prayer, (as St. John Vianney defines prayer :  “Prayer is nothing other than union with God”) is the key.

Like us, Mary and Joseph lived (seemingly) ordinary lives, but “ordinary” only as to the external appearances.  Interiorly, they were “watching and waiting” with the lamps of Love’s Fire burning  in their hearts.  While Joseph was preparing wood in his carpenter’s shop and Mary was preparing food in their home, what Great Work God was accomplishing in their souls!   For they did all their work in a spirit of love – with their whole hearts, and souls and minds and strength.  The hardships they endured and their joys were offered in love.  When the Father looked upon them He was pleased.  His Son Jesus resting within Mary’s womb was adored, and loved;  Jesus was safe and protected by Joseph.  How the world needs other Marys and other Josephs today to welcome Him!

The image below is a wood-carving, entitled, “St. Joseph, Shadow of the Eternal Father” and I believe it conveys the beautiful work God accomplished in Joseph.  It speaks also to the work God, our Master Artisan and Loving Father,  wills to accomplish in each soul who longs to receive Him.  This Advent is a time of preparation not only to remember Christ’s First Coming, but His also His continual coming to us, especially in Eucharist, and that Final Coming when at last He comes to take us to our Eternal Home.   St. Joseph can help us this Advent to gaze upon both Mary and Jesus, and learn as he did to become the saint each of us is called to be.

The world needs saints!  We need to bring Jesus into the world as Mary did and defend Him as Joseph did.  We need to bring His Light into the darkness that keeps us from knowing, loving, and serving Him as we were born to do.  May this Advent be more simple, more quiet and more loving interiorly — no matter what our exterior situations may be.  If we are called to go somewhere unexpectedly, so were Mary and Joseph.  Let us trust God as they did.  Will we face difficulties?  Let us trust God as Mary and Joseph did.  This Christmas may we hold the Eucharistic Jesus in the poor stable of our hearts as they did and know in newer deeper ways, the perfect joy Mary and Joseph knew sharing  utter poverty of spirit with Him.

Blessed Advent 2011 to all!