Homily of Archbishop Charles Brown at the closing Mass in Knock

From http://www.catholicbishops.ie/2012/08/22/homily-archbishop-charles-brown-closing-mass-knock/

Homily of His Excellency Archbishop Charles Brown, Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland, at the closing Mass of the National Novena, Knock
“The Future of the Church in Ireland”
[Your Excellencies… Father Richard Gibbons, Parish Priest of Knock], my fellow priests, dear men and women religious, beloved brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.  It is truly an honour and a joy for me to be here with you today on the final day of the National Novena at Our Lady’s Shrine in Knock.
When Blessed John Paul II came here on September 30, 1979, to celebrate Holy Mass, he began with the words: “Here I am at the goal of my journey to Ireland: the Shrine of Our Lady of Knock” and, in a certain sense, his words are true for all of us here today, as we celebrate the conclusion of the National Novena; we too have come to the goal of our journey.  We come as pilgrims to pray at the feet of Mary, the humble girl of Nazareth, the glorious Mother of God, the “Woman clothed with the sun” who appeared here in 1879 to comfort and console the Catholic people of Ireland.  The passage of time tends to make us forget what things were like in Ireland when Mary appeared.  Ireland was not yet a free and independent nation; close to a million people had suffered and died during the Great Famine thirty years previously, and in the year 1879 when Mary appeared, hunger had returned to the West of Ireland.  Huge numbers of Irish people had been forced to leave as emigrants, never to return, so much so that the population of Ireland plummeted by something like 25 per cent.
And so it was that, in those very bad times, Mary appeared, to comfort and to console and – although she never spoke a word – to lead her people, to direct her children to the Lamb on the altar, the Lamb who was slain but who now is alive, the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”.  Yes, the times in which Mary appeared here in Knock were very bad, and yet it bears noting that the century which followed the apparition would be marked by an extraordinary flourishing of the Catholic Church in Ireland, with huge numbers of vocations to the priesthood and religious life and a deep Christianisation of all aspects of society.  Such a flourishing would have seemed impossible in 1879.  But the night is often darkest before the dawn.
When we reflect on Our Lady’s apparition at Knock and the historical circumstances in which it occurred, we cannot help thinking about our times and our own future.  Certainly, there are reasons for discouragement.  It seems as if every few months, a new survey is released showing, or purporting to show, that the Catholic faith is disappearing in Ireland.  We have had two decades of scandals, crimes and failures.  ‘The Church is finished!’ seems to be the cry heard everywhere.
But, my brothers and sisters, let me tell you what I have seen and heard (cf. 1 John 1:3).  Two months ago, I saw the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin exceed everyone’s expectations, with tens of thousands of people coming to learn more about the central mystery of our faith – the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.  One month ago today, I was in Ballyvourney in County Cork, where I had the joy of ordaining a young man to the priesthood.  The small country church was filled with people young and old; the liturgy was celebrated in a beautiful way, with music and hymns in the Irish language.  The sanctuary was packed with more than eighty good and faithful priests, many very young, some quite old, all of them there to welcome and to support their newest brother in the priesthood.   Three weeks ago, in County Mayo, I saw thousands of pilgrims climbing Croagh Patrick on Reek Sunday.  Many young people.  Many men.  Some climbing in bare feet.  I saw hundreds of people that day going to confession to the priests on the top of the mountain.  Ten days ago, I was at Clonmacnoise and I saw literally hundreds of young people kneeling in adoration in front of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, praying the Rosary, confessing their sins, rejoicing in the liberating love of God, and sharing the joy and excitement of being Catholic with their peers.
That, my brothers and sisters, is the future of the Church in Ireland.
So what is this future going to be like?  Before all else, I would say that the future needs to be authentically Catholic if there is to be a future.  We need to propose the Catholic faith in its fullness, in its beauty and in its radicality, with compassion and with conviction.  We need to be unafraid to affirm the elements of the Catholic way which secular society rejects and ridicules.
I believe that the Gospel for today’s Mass points the way for the future of the Church in Ireland.  Jesus speaks to his disciples about priorities.  He tells us not to worry about things like what we are to wear and what we are to eat, or about how much money we can amass.  He says put first things first: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be given you as well” (Mt 6:33).  And what is this Kingdom of God proposed by Jesus?  It cannot be identified with a worldly kingdom.  As Jesus says in front of Pontius Pilate, “My Kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).  It is a Kingdom which only reaches its fulfilment and fruition in the life of the world to come, as described in our first reading from the Book of the Apocalypse.  Only in the end, will the Kingdom be complete: “a new heaven and a new earth”, the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem.  That city – to paraphrase Pope John Paul II’s words about Knock – is the goal of our journey.  If we seek that city, that goal, that Kingdom, then everything else will be taken care of.  But that Kingdom of light and joy is not only a future reality, it is also anticipated, made real in advance, wherever Jesus Christ is truly present in our world, in the celebration and adoration of the Holy Eucharist, in the sacraments and in the love we have for one another.
As the Church in Ireland moves into the future, we need to recognise that everything the Church does is somehow related to that reality: the reality of salvation.
Pope Benedict XVI has instituted a number of initiatives designed to help the Church move into the future.  He has established an office for the New Evangelisation, which means finding new ways of presenting and communicating the ancient faith, especially in those countries like Ireland which were first given the gift of Catholic faith many centuries ago.  The Holy Father has called a Synod of Bishops, that is, a meeting of Bishops in Rome, which will take place in October of this year, in order to have Bishops from all over the world reflect on this most critical question.  And thirdly, Pope Benedict has established a “Year of Faith”, which will also begin this October, on the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council.  Pope Benedict writes: “We want to celebrate this Year in a worthy and fruitful manner.  Reflection on the faith will have to be intensified, so as to help all believers in Christ to acquire a more conscious and vigorous adherence to the Gospel, especially at a time of profound change such as humanity is currently experiencing.  We will have the opportunity to profess our faith in the Risen Lord in our cathedrals and in the churches of the whole world; in our homes and among our families, so that everyone may feel a strong need to know better and to transmit to future generations the faith of all times” (Porta fidei, 8).
The Holy Father is insistent on this point.  If we are indeed to “transmit to future generations the faith of all times,” we need to deepen our own understanding of that faith.  In calling for the Year of Faith, the Holy Father has also indicated a means for deepening our understanding of the faith.  The opening day of the Year of Faith (October 11, 2012) is not only the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, it is also the twentieth anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is a magnificent summary and synthesis of the Catholic faith.  The Holy Father recommends that we study the Catechism of the Catholic Church as part of the Year of Faith.  He describes the Catechism as a means of encountering the person of Christ.  Remarkably, he writes “on page after page, we find that what is presented here is no theory, but an encounter with a Person who lives within the Church” (Porta fidei, 11).  That Person is Jesus Christ, God made man.
Here in Ireland, the recently published National Directory for Catechesis of the Bishops of Ireland, entitled Share the Good News, also recommends that Catholics “consider setting up a [study] group to look at the Catechism over a period of time”… “like a book club taking a night to discuss a particular section read beforehand” (page 74).  This is a great idea, which would have a very positive effect on the future life of the Church in Ireland.
Brothers and sisters, the future of the Church in Ireland begins now.  We have all been revitalised in our faith by the unforgettable experience of the International Eucharistic Congress, which, pray God, has marked a turning point in the life of the Church in Ireland.  Certainly, the road ahead is not an easy one, but the road ahead for Catholics in Ireland did not look very easy in 1879 when Our Lady appeared here on that rainy evening in August.  And yet her appearance was followed by one of the most fruitful periods in the fifteen centuries of Catholicism on this Island.  Yes, brothers and sisters: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be given you as well” (Matt 6:33).

Pope explains how Mary's queenship points to Jesus

Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Aug 22, 2012 (CNA/EWTN News).

Pope Benedict XVI recommended that Christians look to the queenship of Mary, who is “queen in the service of God to humanity,” as a sure guide towards her son.
“Dear friends, devotion to Our Lady is an important part of spiritual life. In our prayer we should not fail to turn to her, confident that Mary will intercede for us with her Son,” the Pope said to pilgrims during his Aug. 22 general audience at Castel Gandolfo.
“Looking upon her, let us imitate her faith, her complete openness to the loving plan of God, her generous welcoming of Jesus. We learn to live from Mary.”
The Pope recalled how the establishment of a particular day to celebrate the queenship of Mary is actually a “recent establishment,” even though it has “an ancient origin and devotion.” When Pope Pius XII created the feast in 1954, he originally placed it on May 31, at the end of the month dedicated to Mary.
“On that occasion he said that Mary is Queen more than any other creature for the elevation of her soul and for the excellence of gifts received. She never ceases to bestow all the treasures of her love and of her care on humanity,” Pope Benedict said.
Following the Second Vatican Council the feast day was moved by Pope Paul VI to Aug. 22, so that it would be “eight days after the Solemnity of the Assumption to emphasize the close relationship between the royalty of Mary and her glorification in soul and body next to her Son.”
The fact that Mary is “uniquely bound to her Son” both on earth and in Heaven lies at the root of today’s feast, said the Pope, since she now participates in “God’s responsibility for the world and the love of God for the world.”
Just as the kingship of Jesus “has nothing to do with that of the powerful of this world,” as evidenced by his washing of the disciplines feet or death on the cross, so the queenship of Mary “is not (one of) wealth and power” but is “a service of love,” Pope Benedict taught.
She is “queen in the service of God to humanity, is queen of the love that lives the gift of self to God (so as) to enter into the plan of salvation of man. To the angel she replies: I am the handmaid of the Lord.”
This love is expressed, suggested the Pope, in the fact that Mary is continually “watching over us, her children, the children who come to her in prayer, to thank her or to ask for her maternal protection and heavenly help, perhaps after having lost their way, burdened with grief or anguish amid the sad and troubled vicissitudes of life.”
It is the queenship of Mary that we should turn to throughout life, he said, “so that from her Son we may receive every grace and mercy necessary for our journey along the roads of the world.”
“To him who rules the world and holds the destinies of the universe we turn with confidence, through the Virgin Mary.”

Blessing of Herbs on the Feast of the Assumption

From http://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=386

 Our help is in the name of the Lord;
Who hath made heaven and earth.
A hymn, O God, becometh Thee in Sion: and a vow shall be paid to Thee in Jerusalem.
O hear my prayer: all flesh shall come to Thee.
The words of the wicked have prevailed over us; and Thou wilt pardon our transgressions.
Blessed is he whom Thou hast chosen and taken to Thee: he shall dwell in Thy courts.
We shall be filled with the good things of Thy house: holy is Thy temple, wonderful in justice.
Hear us O God, our Savior, who art the hope of all the ends of the earth, and in the sea afar off.
Thou who preparest the mountains by Thy strength, being girded with power: who troublest the depth of the sea, the noise of its waves.
The Gentiles shall be troubled, and they that dwell in the uttermost borders shall be afraid at Thy signs: Thou shalt make the outgoings of the morning and of the evening to be joyful.
Thou hast visited the earth, and hast plentifully watered it: Thou hast in many ways enriched it.
The river of God is filled with water, Thou hast prepared their food: for so is its preparation.
Fill up plentifully the stream thereof, multiply its fruits: it shall spring up and rejoice in its showers.
Thou shalt bless the crown of the year with Thy goodness: and Thy fields shall be filled with plenty.
The beautiful places of the wilderness shall grow fat: and the hills shall be girded about with joy.
The rams of the flock are clothed, and the vales shall abound with corn: they shall shout, yea, they shall sing a hymn.
For the Lord will give goodness;
And our earth shall yield her fruit.
Thou waterest the hills from Thy upper rooms.
The earth shall be filled with the fruit of Thy works;
Bring forth grass for cattle.
And herb for the service of men;
That Thou mayst bring bread out of the earth;
And that wine may cheer the heart of man
That he may make the face cheerful with oil;
And that bread may strengthen man's heart.
He sent His word and healed them;
And delivered them from their destruction.

Almighty, eternal God: by Thy word Thou hast created heaven, earth, and the sea, all things visible and invisible, out of nothing; Thou hast ordained that the earth bring forth plants and trees for the use of men and animals; Thou hast decreed that each germinate according to its nature and bring forth fruit in due time, and Thou hast decreed that these plants should serve not only as food but as medicine in time of sickness. We humbly pray with heart and tongue that Thou wouldst bless these various herbs and plants and in Thy mercy grant a new blessing upon those powers that Thou hast caused to be inherent in these plants. May they, therefore, be a protection against all sickness and tribulation when we use them for man and beast in Thy name whose glorious Assumption we celebrate this day.

O God, who on this day didst raise the root of Jesse, the mother of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, to the heights of heaven, we humbly pray Thee, that by her intercession and under her protection the fruit of her womb, Thy Son, might be given to us mortal men, that by the power of Thy Son and the protection of His glorious Mother we may be disposed to our eternal salvation by these temporal gifts.

O God, who didst command the children of Israel that they should bring the sheaves of new fruits to the priest to be blessed and that they should rejoice before the Lord, graciously hear our prayers and pour forth the fullness of Thy blessing upon these fruits and herbs which we gratefully present this day before Thy alta

Grant that, wherever they may be placed, they may be a potent means against sickness and pestilence, against the poison of serpents and the sting of poisonous animals, as also against the deceits, snares, and machinations of the devil. Grant that we may be worthy to be received with our sheaves of good works into heaven through the merits of the most Blessed Virgin Mary.

Translated by Most Reverend J. H. Schlarman Bishop of Peoria

August 15th: The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Special Operations Sergeant Tells of Eucharistic Starvation

Catholic Lane August 7, 2012:

In March of 2007, less than a month after I had turned twenty-two years old, I was deployed to Afghanistan with my engineer unit. I would remain in Afghanistan, with the exception of twenty day’s vacation in January of 2008, for the next fifteen months. At that point in my life my faith was quietly growing from a very important part of my life, to the most important part of my life.
I had been receiving the Sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist at least weekly all my life, and had been saying the Rosary and reading the Bible daily for a couple of years, and it was at this point that I think all of these habits were really beginning to bear fruit, particularly in the shape of a strong desire to go to Mass, every day if possible. During my pre-deployment leave I went to Mass every day while I was at home.
The military has a chaplain corps, and some of those chaplains are Catholic priests (although at the moment the Catholic Chaplain strength in the army is at about 1/3 of ideal). Stateside there is at least a couple of priests assigned to every installation. Afghanistan, however, is a different story. The country is big, the terrain is rugged, and American troops are spread out across hundreds of miles of winding mountain passes. There are only a few large bases, a handful of medium sized ones, and then dozens, or perhaps hundreds of small, isolated outposts spread out throughout the country.
When I was in country there were only two or three Roman Catholic chaplains and one Greek Orthodox chaplain in the eastern half of the country. There was guaranteed to be one priest in Bagram, since that is the biggest base in the country. Kandahar might also have one, and for a while there was a priest, an Air Force Major, in Sharanam, who was one of the kindest and holiest chaplains I have ever met. Looking back, I realize that I owe him an unpayable debt for his patience and dedication to his vocation, and to my shame I do not even remember his name.
These few priests were run to the limits. Some would say as many as six or eight masses in a single day, each one separated by a helicopter flight of an hour or more. Others would travel for hours by convoy to far flung bases in order to minister to any who would show up.
So here I was, with a newfound hunger for the Sacrament of the Eucharist, suddenly stuck in the middle of a country in which priests were rare, harried and hurried. Throughout the fifteen months I was there my platoon was shuffled around the country. I don’t think we stayed more than two months at any single base. It was nothing short of miraculous how often I was able to get to Mass. Priests would show up just as I was off mission. We got stationed in Bagram for a short time, and while there I was able to go to Mass more than once a week, and there was even a Eucharistic chapel. I got moved to Sharana and about that time the Air Force chaplain showed up.
There were, however, times when I just couldn’t get to Mass. The spring of 2008, from the end of February almost to the end of the tour, I did not see a priest even once.
The lack of Confession was the most frightening to me. Since I was still a sinner, I still needed forgiveness as often and as direly as I ever had, but was unable to seek it out in the way I was accustomed to. I was still required to risk my life every day, unshriven. The fear of getting blown into little pieces with my soul all heavy with unconfessed sins was a very real thing that I had to come to terms with and doing so has forever altered and deepened my understanding of the Sacrament of Mercy. I may write about that someday.
However, right now I want to write about what that abstinence, just then, did for my understanding of the Eucharist.
The Air Force chaplain told me, “What we do here, in this little plywood building, does more good for this country than all the missions the military has ever run.”  In those long, empty months of spiritual isolation I came to understand that, in a way that transcended understanding. I was not sensible of any deep emotional hunger, but I knew that I was missing something.
Furthermore I knew, with the cold clear light of reason, that it was not something but rather Someone. I knew who He was, and I knew where to go to find Him. I watched my spiritual and emotional state slowly crumbling, my confidence in myself and my abilities being eroded (despite unparalleled success in all my missions). I learned the logic of nothingness, that I am emptiness needing to be filled. The Eucharist is the Fullness of He That IS, desiring to pour Himself into my emptiness.
When I returned home I began going to daily Mass. Every single day, if I could, I did. I didn’t  always want to. I didn’t always feel like it, but I knew that there was a time when I had felt the need. It was as if, by withdrawing Himself for that time (under one mode) God had given Himself more fully in another mode.
In the years since Afghanistan I have continued to go to daily Mass every time I get the chance. I still, don’t always feel like it. There are times I want to take a day off, and go take a leisurely lunch instead (on the very rare days when I actually have enough of a lunch hour to make Mass feasible.) But I made my choice four years ago in the desert and now it is just a matter of living up to it.
I was able to go to Mass this morning after a long, hard week of training. In my worship of the Eucharist I have so much to be thankful for. God has been shaping things. Opportunities for Mass still arise, seemingly out of nowhere (during a trip to Thailand this spring I got stationed in the one of the only cities outside of Bangkok with a Catholic Church and school) and today, after Mass, I realized something.
It hit my heart with a shuddering clarity of wonderment, that my desire for the Eucharist, for union with Jesus in that Blessed Sacrament, is a mere nothing. It is a shadow, a distant echo, of His desire to receive me in the Eucharist. For as surely as I receive Him, I am received up into Him, and this could only happen by His desire. He will, and Has, moved Heaven and Earth, to draw me to Him.
Every moment of my twenty-seven years He has been working tirelessly, ceaselessly, gently, to enkindle in me a spark of desire for Him. Even at my most desirous, that is all it is, a spark. Like trying to start a fire with tinder and flint, My desire for Him is just the tiny red glow on the very end of one miniscule filament of dried moss. It cannot sustain itself. It can be killed in an instant by a ghost of too much breath, or half a molecule too little breath. It cannot be fed twigs, or even straws yet. It wouldn’t know what to do with them. This tiny little glow is barely holding its own, unsure whether growing into a bonfire is really worth it, or whether it wouldn’t be much less bother simply to die out. But He will never quench that smoldering wick.
And God? God is the Sun! God is the boiling furnace of a thousand times a thousand suns, a blazing inferno (pun intended) of desire for me. God is the Love that exists from all eternity, Love that loved me into existence, Love that loves me into love with the Triune Love.
This is why I go to Communion! Not because I am so in love with God, but because He is eternally in love with me.
As of this writing I am facing the prospect of a very long time in a desert where there are no priests. At first this panicked me, but now I am at peace with it. The God who has worked so hard to bring me to Him (despite my best efforts to the contrary at times) will not abandon me. If it is His will to starve me for a year, or for the rest of my life, then starvation is what is best for me.
What saddens me, though, is the number of people who starve themselves. Millions upon millions of Americans live within walking distance, or ten minutes driving distance of a Catholic Church. Millions of people, all living next door to the God of the Universe, and yet daily Mass is empty. A handful of elderly retired people and a homeschooling family or two, that is all the attendance you are likely to get at the Eternal Sacrifice. In Afghanistan I would give up sleep, shower, food and internet time without a second thought if there was an opportunity for Mass, but here in the States it gets crowded out so easily. I do the same thing. I get busy. Other things crowd out what is truly important. Then the other things get taken away and I wonder what I ever saw in them.
So these days, when I receive the Eucharist I think about the people who want to receive and cannot. I feel sorry for them, and I pray for them, but they are not that badly off. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied. I am far sorrier for those who do not hunger and thirst for righteousness. Those who don’t even know enough to be hungry for the God who is hungry for them. I pray for those who starve themselves, day in and day out, years at a time, out of pride, ignorance, apathy, laziness, fear, doubt, insecurity, or just plain old human woundedness.
Lord, make them hungry.
Ryan Kraeger is a cradle Catholic homeschool graduate, currently serving as an Army Special Forces Medical Sergeant, stationed on the West Coast.

We're losing our faith faster than most countries as only 47pc say they are religious

See http://www.independent.ie/national-news/were-losing-our-faith-faster-than-most-countries-as-only-47pc-say-they-are-religious-3194317.html

Ancient Testimonies Against Abortion

From http://blog.adw.org/2012/08/ancient-testimonies-against-abortion/

By: Msgr. Charles Pope

In doing research for an Our Sunday Visitor column (my regular Q and A column), I found it necessary to comb through some of the early Church sources regarding the teaching against abortion. I thought it might be helpful here, by way of a resource, to post some of those teachings here. While I have seen a quote here and there, I was actually quite pleased to find several quotes I had not seen or read before on the question of abortion and to assemble in one place a good number of quotes.

I also ask your help in adding to the list I have assembled here. For the sake of some scope I have limited the quotes to generally no later than the 4th Century. While you can feel free to add from later periods as well, I find the early centuries to be of particular value, due to their antiquity.

As with many quotes from the ancient world, some of the quotes herein are perhaps quite harsh, and some may be critiqued at their focus essentially on the women who procure abortion, with little mention of the men involved. In our own time the Church is more careful to articulate and understand that abortion often occurs when women are under duress, or on account of family crisis, poverty and other social factors. Hence, we who speak against abortion must be ready and able, as I think the Church admirably is, to assist women and families in crisis to give birth. Yet the churchmen who are quoted below were men of their times, and, as my father was often heard to say of the “old days” Things were tough all over.

Whatever the tone, the teaching is not at all unclear, and for this we can be grateful.

A couple of years ago a former Speaker of the House, whose name need not be mentioned here at all, showed herself an amateur theologian lacking in even basic knowledge by claiming (on what she called Jesuitical authority) that the Church teaching on abortion was no older than the 1950s. The usually cautious American Bishops lost no time in issuing vigorous correction. And rightly so, of course, as quotes like these will show.

Here then are some of the quotes:

The Didache (“The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”) ca 110 AD. Thou shalt not murder a child by abortion. (2:2)…The Way of Death is filled with people who are…murderers of children and abortionists of God’s creatures. (5:1-2)

Letter of Barnabas, circa 125: You shall not kill either the fetus by abortion or the new born

Athenagoras the Athenian (To Marcus Aurelius), ca 150 AD: “We say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion…, [For we] regard the very fœtus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God’s care… (# 35).

Clement of Alexandria: (circa 150 – 215 AD) Our whole life can go on in observation of the laws of nature, if we gain dominion over our desires from the beginning and if we do not kill, by various means of a perverse art, the human offspring, born according to the designs of divine providence; for these women who, if order to hide their immorality, use abortive drugs which expel the child completely dead, abort at the same time their own human feelings. Paedagogus, 2

Tertullian circa 160-240 AD: For us, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter when you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to birth. That is a man which is going to be one: you have the fruit already in the seed. Apology 9:6

Tertullian (circa 160 – 240 AD): …we are not permitted, since murder has been prohibited to us once and for all, even to destroy …the fetus in the womb. It makes no difference whether one destroys a life that has already been born or one that is in the process of birth. Apology (9:7-8)

Tertullian circa 160-240 AD: [John the Baptist and Jesus] were both alive while still in the womb. Elizabeth rejoiced as the infant leaped in her womb; Mary glorifies the Lord because Christ within inspired her. Each mother recognizes her child and is known by her child who is alive, being not merely souls but also spirits. De Aninta 26:4

Hippolytus (circa 170-236 AD): Whence certain women, reputed believers, began to resort to drugs for producing sterility and to gird themselves round, so as to expel what was conceived on account of their not wanting to have a child either by a slave or by any paltry fellow, for the sake of their family and excessive wealth. Behold, into how great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by inculcating adultery and murder at the same time. From “Refutation of all Heresies” 9:7

Minucius Felix (180 – 225 AD): Some women take medicines to destroy the germ of future life in their own bodies. They commit infanticide before they have given birth to the infant (Octavious (30, 2))

St. Basil the Great (330 – 379 AD): The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder. With us there is no nice enquiry as to its being formed or unformed. In this case it is not only the being about to be born who is vindicated, but the woman in her attack upon herself; because in most cases women who make such attempts die. The destruction of the embryo is an additional crime, a second murder, at all events if we regard it as done with intent. The punishment, however, of these women should not be for life, but for the term of ten years. And let their treatment depend not on mere lapse of time, but on the character of their repentance. Letter 188:2

St. Ambrose: (339 to 397 AD) The poor expose their children, the rich kill the fruit of their own bodies in the womb, lest their property be divided up, and they destroy their own children in the womb with murderous poisons. and before life has been passed on, it is annihilated. Hexaemeron”, (5, 18, 58)

St. John Chrysostom (circa 340 – 407 AD): Why sow where the ground makes it its care to destroy the fruit? Where there are many efforts at abortion? Where there is murder before the birth? For you do not even let the harlot remain a mere harlot, but make her a murderer also. You see how drunkenness leads to whoredom, whoredom to adultery, adultery to murder; or rather something even worse than murder. For I have no real name to give it, since it does not destroy the thing born but prevents its being born. Why then do you abuse the gift of God and fight with His laws, and follow after what is a curse as if a blessing, and make the place of procreation a chamber for murder, and arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter? Homily 24 on Romans

St. Jerome (circa 342-420 AD): I cannot bring myself to speak of the many virgins who daily fall and are lost to the bosom of the church, their mother….Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception. Some, when they find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure abortion, and when (as often happens) they die with their offspring, they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery against Christ but also of suicide and child murder. Letter 22:13

The Synod of Elvira, 306 AD: If a woman becomes pregnant by committing adultery, while her husband is absent, and after the act she destroys the child, it is proper to keep her from communion until death, because she has doubled her crime. Canon 63.

The Synod of Ancyra, 314 AD, Concerning women who commit fornication, and destroy that which they have conceived, or who are employed in making drugs for abortion, a former decree excluded them until the hour of death, and to this some have assented. Nevertheless, being desirous to use somewhat greater lenity, we have ordained that they fulfill ten years [of penance], according to the prescribed degrees. (Canon 21).

Council of Trullo (692 AD): Those who give drugs for procuring abortion, and those who receive poisons to kill the fœtus, are subjected to the penalty of murder. (Canon 91)

Romeo and Juliet: Lust and the Failure of Adults to Serve as a Moral Compass for the Young

From http://catholicmom.com/2012/08/08/romeo-and-juliet-lust-and-the-failure-of-adults-to-serve-as-a-moral-compass-for-the-young/

Despite a degree in English, my understanding of Romeo and Juliet hadn’t changed substantially since middle school when I first saw Leonardo di Caprio and Clare Danes in the modern film version of the book. I understood the play as an extravagant tale of love at first sight that for some horribly twisted reason had been doomed from the beginning. The whole thing just wasn’t fair. And then everyone died. The two had simply languished in Fate’s hands. What a waste. Despite my “grasp” of the play, I was forever unsettled by the story because it seemed a bit heavy-handed—why did they have to die that way? Why did the plot have to unfold at such a breathless pace? Why was it all so tragic if it was meant to be a love story? I didn’t like it. And I felt like I was missing something.
Then my darling husband gave me for Mother’s Day this year the Ignatius Press Critical Editions version of the story, edited by Dr. Joseph Pearce (formerly of Ave Maria, now teaching at Thomas More), a series I have recommended in the past for anyone looking to study Shakespeare through the traditional lenses of faith and history. I devoured the introductory essay on the way to my in-laws’ house, intermittently letting loose such enlightened expressions of understanding as “yes!”, “no way!”, and “this is awesome!”.
So, how about this: what if Romeo and Juliet weren’t a story about a fated case of true love after all? What if, let’s say, the author—who himself had a twelve-year-old daughter at the time—chose to rewrite the story of Arthur Brooke’s Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet which begins “To this ende (good Reader) is this tragicall matter written, to describe unto thee a coople of unfortunate lovers, thrilling themselves to unhonest desire, neglecting the authoritie and advise of parents and frendes, conferring their principall counsels with drunken gossypes, and superstitious friers…abusying the honorable names of lawefull marriage, the cloke of shame of stolyne contracts, finallye, by all means of unhonest lyfe, hastyng to most unhappy deathe”, dropped the age of the heroine to thirteen (to further scandalize Elizabethans who viewed early marriage as a detriment to one’s health–the average marrying age at that time was twenty-six and twenty-four), and surrounded the young lovers with self-interested guardians (Capulet at first seems to want to protect Juliet from too-early marriage though ultimately tries to press her into it), all to hit home the point that unrestrained passions of youth in the absence of sound parental guidance and example will result in disaster (x-xxiv).
Dr. Pearce makes an astonishingly simple argument for the above, and I wondered why I had never heard it before. He notes the selfish interests of the parents and poor judgment of the nurse and friar. Of course. He highlights the similarities between Romeo’s lusting after Rosaline (who in her maturity turned down his rather forceful advances) and his almost immediately thereafter fixation on Juliet. Obviously—how could he have changed substantially into a decent man in a matter of a few hours? And Dr. Pearce points out that their first kiss is robed in the metaphor of sin, suggesting that Romeo and Juliet’s “love” is something significantly less. “Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg’d! / Give me my sin again” (107-8).
I was blown away—here, a perfectly sound, clear understanding of the play. It was so simple. The tale wasn’t a mysterious study of Fate or a glamorous portrayal of total, pure love; rather, it was about virtue, and what lack of it can do to people. Why had such a plain explanation eluded my teachers and university professors?
I now knew why the whole story seemed a little off, frenzied, and why they had to die at the end. That’s what sin and self-interest does to us. I am so grateful for Dr. Pearce for making Romeo and Juliet more relevant to me now than when I was thirteen.
Dr. Pearce with his usual good sense and clarity writes, “Juliet was ‘too soon marr’d’ by the neglect or manipulation of callous and heartless adults. At the play’s tragic heart is the broken heart of a child.” (xxi)

How Charlemagne Discovered the Relics of Saint Anne the Mother of Mary

From http://cantuar.blogspot.ie/2012/07/how-charlemagne-discovered-relics-of.html

On Easter AD 792, Charlemagne discovered the relics of Saint Anne with the help of a deaf handicapped boy. It's a wonderful tale for this feast day of Saint Anne.

Below is the account, preserved in the correspondence of Pope Saint Leo III, concerning the discovery of the relics of Saint Anne in the presence of the Emperor Charlemagne.

Fourteen years after Our Lord’s death, Saint Mary Magdalen, Saint Martha, Saint Lazarus, and the others of the little band of Christians who were piled into a boat without sails or oars and pushed out to sea to perish — in the persecution of the Christians by the Jews of Jerusalem — were careful to carry with them the tenderly loved body of Our Lady’s mother. They feared lest it be profaned in the destruction, which Jesus had told them was to come upon Jerusalem. When, by the power of God, their boat sur vived and finally drifted to the shores of France, the little company of saints buried Saint Anne’s body in a cave, in a place called Apt, in the south of France. The church, which was later built over the spot, fell into decay because of wars and religious persecutions, and as the centuries passed, the place of Saint Anne’s tomb was forgotten.

The long years of peace, which Charlemagne’s wise rule gave to southern France, enabled the people to build a magnificent new church on the site of the old chapel at Apt. Extraordinary and painstaking labor went into the building of the great structure, and when the day of its consecration arrived [Easter Sunday, 792 A.D.], the beloved Charlemagne, little suspecting what was in store for him, declared himself happy indeed to have jour neyed so many miles to be present for the holy occasion. At the most solemn part of the ceremonies, a boy of fourteen, blind, deaf and dumb from birth — and usually quiet and impassive — to the amaze ment of those who knew him, completely distracted the at tention of the entire congrega tion by becoming suddenly tremendously excited. He rose from his seat, walked up the aisle to the altar steps, and to the consternation of the whole church, struck his stick re soundingly again and again upon a single step.

His embarrassed family tried to lead him out, but he would not budge. He contin ued frantically to pound the step, straining with his poor muted senses to impart a knowledge sealed hopelessly within him. The eyes of the people turned upon the em peror, and he, apparently in spired by God, took the matter into his own hands. He called for workmen to remove the steps.

A subterranean passage was revealed directly below the spot, which the boy’s stick had indicated. Into this pas sage the blind lad jumped, to be followed by the emperor, the priests, and the workmen.

They made their way in the dim light of candles, and when, farther along the pas sage, they came upon a wall that blocked further ad vance, the boy signed that this also should be removed. When the wall fell, there was brought to view still another long, dark corridor. At the end of this, the searchers found a crypt, upon which, to their profound wonderment, a vigil lamp, alight and burning in a little walled recess, cast a heavenly radiance.

As Charlemagne and his afflicted small guide, with their companions, stood be fore the lamp, its light went out. And at the same moment, the boy, blind and deaf and dumb from birth, felt sight and hearing and speech flood into his young eyes, his ears, and his tongue.

“It is she! It is she!” he cried out. The great emperor, not knowing what he meant, nevertheless repeated the words after him. The call was taken up by the crowds in the church above, as the people sank to their knees, bowed in the realization of the presence of something celestial and holy.

The crypt at last was opened, and a casket was found within it. In the casket was a winding sheet, and in the sheet were relics, and upon the relics was an inscrip tion that read, “Here lies the body of Saint Anne, mother of the glorious Virgin Mary.” The winding sheet, it was noted, was of eastern design and texture.

Charlemagne, over whelmed, venerated with pro found gratitude the relics of the mother of Heaven’s Queen. He remained a long time in prayer. The priests and the people, awed by the graces given them in such abundance and by the choice of their countryside for such a heavenly manifestation, for three days spoke but rarely, and then in whispers.

The emperor had an exact and detailed account of the miraculous finding drawn up by a notary and sent to Pope Saint Leo III, with an accom panying letter from himself. These documents and the pope’s reply are preserved to this day. Many papal bulls have attested, over and over again, to the genuineness of Saint Anne’s relics at Apt.

St. James, the Muslim Moorslayer

Spero News July 25, 2012:

On the 23rd of May in the year of our Lord 844, near a place called Clavijo in the Rioja region of Spain, legend recalls that a miracle occurred that would alter the tide of history then washing over the Iberian peninsula.  José González de Tejada, a Spanish historian of the 19th century, wrote “It was at that time that Saint James appeared, mounted on a strong and beautiful white horse. The sight of him enlivened the Christians and so terrified the infidels who then cowardly turned their backs and retreated, leaving the field covered with Moorish corpses and running with rivers of their blood that, it is said, flowed to the Ebro River some two leagues away from that place.”
This image of the apostle of Jesus, James the Greater – so-called because he was the first of that time to heed the call of the Lord – would serve the resurgent Catholics of Spain well in their centuries of struggle against Muslim Moorish occupation. Muslims had come to Spain in 711 at the invitation of a Spanish Christian prince who had made war on a fellow Christian. Having established a foothold across the Strait of Gibraltar, the Moors would then advance and then cover the entire Iberian peninsula south of the Pyrenees and drive into France, only to finally break against the iron wall of Frankish infantry led by Charles Martel in 732 near Poitiers on the outskirts of Paris. Once the Moors retreated south of the Pyrenees, Spain and Portugal would become a prize to be contested by Muslims and Christians for centuries. The Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne himself would lead a crusade into Spain, only to retreat and come to grief over the death of his lieutenant Roland at the hands of renegade Basques.
The figure of a saint mounted on a white charger gave wings to Spanish resistance to Moorish occupation. Saint James himself was a martyr, killed by his own people over religious differences. But the mounted hero of the battle of  came to symbolize the beginnings of an Hispanic nationalism that was to carry Spain ultimately to its unification under the Catholic Monarchs Fernando and Isabel and their endorsement of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to what he thought was the Spice Islands. The crusades against the Moors throughout Spain for nearly eight centuries became known as the Reconquest, since it was agreed that Muslim usurpers must be thrown back to Morocco from whence they came. Since Spain was occupied with its own crusades, very few Spanish knights and crusaders apart from some from Catalonia were to follow their English, French and German confreres to the Holy Land. And that Spanish Reconquest, with its religious and secular motivations, was to continue under the guise of conquest in the Americas like a relentless tidal wave that swept both pitiless Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, and pious and humane Friar Bartolomé de las Casas, to their destinies in a new land where Spain would be remembered for the implacable fervor of its sons, for good and for ill.
‘James’, in the Castilian and Catalonian languages, is rendered variously as ‘Jaime’, ‘Jaume’, ‘Jacobo’, and ‘Yago’. It is the last of these names that the patron of Spain and its furious knights became known. ‘Santiago’ is, of course, ‘Saint James’ and it is Santiago by which he is known in Spanish history. The bones of the Apostle James are found in the cathedral at at Santiago de Compostela, which has been a place of Christian pilgrimage rivaled only by Rome and the Holy Land for more than 1000 years.  The saint’s name was invoked during the centuries of fighting between Moors and Christians: ‘¡Santiago y cierra España!’ – Saint James and Spain, charge!  This was the battle cry that had its origins at the Battle of Clavijo and that would be famously shouted at the Battle of Navas de Tolosa in 1212 when rival kings and princes of the Iberian peninsula joined forces against the Almohad Caliph Muhammad al-Nasr.
Orders of knights were established in Spain both to protect pilgrims to Santiago deCompostela, and to do battle with the Moors. At the bloody battle at Navas deTolosa, the Knights of Saint James, the Knights of Calatrava, and the Templar Knights were heavily engaged and suffered great losses, only adding to their renown and mystique. The Knights of Saint James ‘Los Caballeros de Santiago’ became among the most prominent of Spanish cavalry, and later figured in the Conquest of the Americas – as evidenced by the many cities and towns in the Americas bearing the name ‘Santiago’. The legendary appearance of Saint James was the beginning of the Jacobean tradition, that through the centuries has become a peaceful pilgrimage of those seeking spiritual and corporeal health, walking along the Camino de Santiago – the Road to Saint James.
A great deal of ink, as well as blood, has been spilt since the alleged appearance of Saint James with sword in hand and astride a white horse, some twelve centuries ago.  It is said that the Moors also saw the vision, and cried “Allah has come to the aid of Santiago!” – the heaven-sent mounted knight thereafter known as SantiagoMatamoros, Saint James the Moorslayer.  History and legend, religion and the affairs of state, were forged into a story that would sustain and unify an embattled Hispanic nation for centuries, giving it a character that would last well into the 20thcentury.
It has long been said, and repeated by balladeers, chroniclers and historians, that King Ramiro of Asturias, the son of Alfonso the Chaste, had refused to render a nefarious tribute to the Moors that had been imposed by long before. According to legend, the Kingdom of Asturias had long suffered under what became known as the annual Tribute of One Hundred Maidens. This was a tribute of Christian souls sent to pacify the Emir of Córdoba,  that included not only the 100 unmarried girls, but also more than 50 women. Shamed by this sacrifice to the minotaur in Cordoba, Ramiro decided to do battle instead.
Uniting the entire region, Ramiro gathered a powerful army that he hurled against the Moors at Albelda de Iregua, near Logroño – the capital of La Rioja. The Moors proved to be nearly matchless opponents, having been reinforced by levies from Morocco. These encircled Ramiro’s forces, who were then thrown back towardsClavijo where they took refuge at the castle there. On the night of his defeat, Ramiro had a dream which promised a victory against the Moors arrayed around him. Assured of being accompanied by the heavenly knight Santiago, Ramiro and his men went to battle on the next day, defeating the Moors at a place that has ever after been known as the Field of Slaughter.
Just a day later, while Moorish and Christian corpses still littered the ground, Ramiro declared in the nearby town of Calahorra that all Christians should go as pilgrims to the shrine of Saint James at Compostela in gratitude for what appeared to be a victory sent from God.  Linking the martial victory to Christian religion in 1270, King Alfonso the Wise wrote in his General Chronicle the words of Saint James in Ramiro’s dream before the Battle of Clavijo, “’Know that Our Lord Jesus Christ divided among the Apostles all of the provinces of the earth. And to me he gave only Spain to guard. King Ramiro, strengthen your prayer and be strong and firm in your deeds, knowing that I am Saint James. And it will come true tomorrow that you will have victory over all of those Moors, with God’s help.’”
So the legend began. When it seemed that the Moors would carry the day, a brilliant Santiago appeared on his white horse and wielding an enormous sword that decapitated 70,000 Muslims at once, thus earning a humble Jewish fisherman of the 1st century, James the son of Zebedee, the sobriquet of Moorslayer.
Invocations of Saint James, an apparent atomic weapon of the medieval age, only multiplied after his brilliant sword was unsheathed at Clavijo. And it was Spain as an entity that also emerged from the forge of battle. Spain, which remains divided by mountains and valleys, language and custom, was unified at least while disparate kingdoms such as Aragon, Asturias, Navarra, Catalonia, and Valencia were killing Muslim Moors.  It was at the Battle of Coimbra in 1064 that Santiago again intervened in favor of Christian Iberians when the troops of Fernando I  of Leon encountered a Moorish army in Portugal. It was there that the battling of Christians against Muslims became known as a Crusade to rid European soil of Islam. Thus, gradually, Catholic religion became an identifying identity long before the Castilian language would become the Spanish lingua franca by the 15th century and the Age of Discovery.
Oddly enough, it was a Mozarab – a Christian of Moorish or Jewish ancestry – who urged him to seize Coimbra.  Sisnando Davidiz became the count of Coimbra and ruled during the apogee of Mozarabic culture on the peninsula. Known for fostering relative peace with Muslim neighbors to the south of the city,  he nonetheless hedged his bets and fortified the region with peerless castles. His bones rest in the cathedral of Coimbra, but are not noted for visits from pilgrims, despite his efforts in the cause of Santiago.