St. John Vianney's Devotion to Mary

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In the heart of the month of August, a holiday period for many families and also for me, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. This is a privileged opportunity to meditate on the ultimate meaning of our existence, helped by today's Liturgy which invites us to live in this world oriented to eternal happiness in order to share in the same glory as Mary, the same joy as our Mother (cf. Opening Prayer).

Let us, therefore, turn our gaze to Our Lady, Star of Hope, who illumines us on our earthly journey, and follow the example of the Saints who turned to her in every circumstance.

You know that we are celebrating the Year for Priests in remembrance of the Holy Curé d'Ars, and I would like to draw from the thoughts and testimonies of this holy country parish priest some ideas for reflection that will be able to help all of us especially us priests to strengthen our love and veneration for the Most Holy Virgin.

His biographers claim that St John Mary Vianney spoke to Our Lady with devotion and, at the same time, with trust and spontaneity. "The Blessed Virgin", he used to say, "is immaculate and adorned with all the virtues that make her so beautiful and pleasing to the Blessed Trinity" (B. Nodet, Il pensiero e l'anima del Curato d'Ars, Turin 1967, p. 303).

And further: "The heart of this good Mother is nothing but love and mercy, all she wants is to see us happy. To be heard, it suffices to address oneself to her" (ibid., p. 307). The priest's zeal shines through these words. Motivated by apostolic longing, he rejoiced in speaking to his faithful of Mary and never tired of doing so. He could even present a difficult mystery like today's, that of the Assumption, with effective images, such as, for example: "Man was created for Heaven. The devil broke the ladder that led to it. Our Lord, with his Passion, made another.... The Virgin Most Holy stands at the top of the ladder and holds it steady with both hands" (ibid.).

The Holy Curé d'Ars was attracted above all by Mary's beauty, a beauty that coincides with her being Immaculate, the only creature to have been conceived without a shadow of sin.

"The Blessed Virgin", he said, "is that beautiful Creature who never displeased the good Lord" (ibid. p. 306). As a good and faithful pastor, he first of all set an example also in this filial love for the Mother of Jesus by whom he felt drawn toward Heaven. "Were I not to go to Heaven", he exclaimed, "how sorry I should be! I should never see the Blessed Virgin, this most beautiful creature!" (ibid., p. 309).

Moreover, on several occasions he consecrated his parish to Our Lady, recommending that mothers in particular do the same, every morning, with their children.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us make our own the sentiments of the Holy Curé d'Ars. And with his same faith let us turn to Mary, taken up into Heaven, in a special way entrusting to her the priests of the whole world.

[After praying the Angelus, the Holy Father addressed the crowd in various languages. In English, he said:]

I am happy to greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors gathered here at Castel Gandolfo and also in St Peter's Square. As we celebrate the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, we are invited to raise our eyes to Heaven and contemplate Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our Mother. She who on earth believed in God's word is now glorified in body and soul. May Mary's intercession and example guide you always and renew your hearts in faith and hope. May God grant you and your families abundant blessings of peace and joy!

I wish you all a good Feast of the Assumption!

© Copyright 2009 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Ordinatio Sacerdotalis: John Paul II

It has been recently brought up to me that what I faced in the Anglican Communion concerning women in the priesthood is also an ongoing debate in the Catholic Church. This has been said to me time and time again. Yet there is a big BUT that gives the issue two totally different perspectives that actually makes them polars apart and that is the Apostolic Authority that is found within the Catholic Church that is indeed absent from Anglicanism or any Protestant ecclesial community. The authority in the Catholic Church is an authority that is in direct opposition to the 'freedom of belief' concerning sacramental teaching and authority that I found lacking within Anglicanism.

Pope John Paul II makes this distinction abundantly clear in his Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. In it he upholds the Church's teaching on the spiritual giftedness of women and their role in the Church without undermining the sacramental realism taught in the Church's theology of symbol. I think it would be a wrong interpretation to say that this is open for debate in the Catholic Church as it is in Anglicanism. The following from JPII makes this abundantly clear and the authority behind his apostolic blessing seals the issue of whether or not this is a debate that is open for change.

Furthermore, the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, received neither the mission proper to the Apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to priestly ordination cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as discrimination against them. Rather, it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the universe.

The presence and the role of women in the life and mission of the Church, although not linked to the ministerial priesthood, remain absolutely necessary and irreplaceable. As the Declaration Inter Insigniores points out, "the Church desires that Christian women should become fully aware of the greatness of their mission: today their role is of capital importance both for the renewal and humanization of society and for the rediscovery by believers of the true face of the Church."(10)

The New Testament and the whole history of the Church give ample evidence of the presence in the Church of women, true disciples, witnesses to Christ in the family and in society, as well as in total consecration to the service of God and of the Gospel. "By defending the dignity of women and their vocation, the Church has shown honor and gratitude for those women who-faithful to the Gospel-have shared in every age in the apostolic mission of the whole People of God. They are the holy martyrs, virgins and mothers of families, who bravely bore witness to their faith and passed on the Church's faith and tradition by bringing up their children in the spirit of the Gospel."(11)

Moreover, it is to the holiness of the faithful that the hierarchical structure of the Church is totally ordered. For this reason, the Declaration Inter Insigniores recalls: "the only better gift, which can and must be desired, is love (cf. 1 Cor 12 and 13). The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are not the ministers but the saints."(12)

4. Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.

Invoking an abundance of divine assistance upon you, venerable brothers, and upon all the faithful, I impart my apostolic blessing.

From the Vatican, on May 22, the Solemnity of Pentecost, in the year 1994, the sixteenth of my Pontificate.

Great News of Conversions Coming Out of Baltimore

After seven years of prayer and discernment, a community of Episcopal nuns and their chaplain will be received into the Roman Catholic Church during a Sept. 3 Mass celebrated by Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien.

The archbishop will welcome 10 sisters from the Society of All Saints’ Sisters of the Poor when he administers the sacrament of confirmation and the sisters renew their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in the chapel of their Catonsville convent.

Episcopal Father Warren Tanghe will also be received into the church and is discerning the possibility of becoming a Catholic priest.

Mother Christina Christie, superior of the religious community, said the sisters are “very excited” about joining the Catholic Church and have been closely studying the church’s teachings for years. Two Episcopal nuns who have decided not to become Catholic will continue to live and minister alongside their soon-to-be Catholic sisters. Members of the community range in age from 59 to 94.

“For us, this is a journey of confirmation,” Mother Christina said. “We felt God was leading us in this direction for a long time.”

Wearing full habits with black veils and white wimples that cover their heads, the sisters have been a visible beacon of hope in Catonsville for decades.

The American branch of a society founded in England, the All Saints’ Sisters of the Poor came to Baltimore in 1872 and have been at their current location since 1917.

In addition to devoting their lives to a rigorous daily prayer regimen, the sisters offer religious retreats, visit people in hospice care and maintain a Scriptorium where they design religious cards to inspire others in the faith.

Read it all here.

Mary's Eucharistic Faith

The late Pope John Paul II has an exciting theological insight in the Eucharistic faith of the Mother of our Lord in his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia. He brings out the theological implications concerning real presence and sacrifice within his discussion of Mary's Eucharistic faith. I encourage this encyclical to be read by anyone who may doubt the Catholic teaching of the Real Presence and or Eucharistic Sacrifice. I am convinced it will speak to those who doubt as it spoke to me a number of years ago in my study and still speaks to me today. This is outstanding reading and so I offer a portion of it here.

55. In a certain sense Mary lived her Eucharistic faith even before the institution of the Eucharist, by the very fact that she offered her virginal womb for the Incarnation of God's Word. The Eucharist, while commemorating the passion and resurrection, is also in continuity with the incarnation. At the Annunciation Mary conceived the Son of God in the physical reality of his body and blood, thus anticipating within herself what to some degree happens sacramentally in every believer who receives, under the signs of bread and wine, the Lord's body and blood.

As a result, there is a profound analogy between the Fiat which Mary said in reply to the angel, and the Amen which every believer says when receiving the body of the Lord. Mary was asked to believe that the One whom she conceived “through the Holy Spirit” was “the Son of God” (Lk 1:30-35). In continuity with the Virgin's faith, in the Eucharistic mystery we are asked to believe that the same Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Mary, becomes present in his full humanity and divinity under the signs of bread and wine.

“Blessed is she who believed” (Lk 1:45). Mary also anticipated, in the mystery of the incarnation, the Church's Eucharistic faith. When, at the Visitation, she bore in her womb the Word made flesh, she became in some way a “tabernacle” – the first “tabernacle” in history – in which the Son of God, still invisible to our human gaze, allowed himself to be adored by Elizabeth, radiating his light as it were through the eyes and the voice of Mary. And is not the enraptured gaze of Mary as she contemplated the face of the newborn Christ and cradled him in her arms that unparalleled model of love which should inspire us every time we receive Eucharistic communion?

56. Mary, throughout her life at Christ's side and not only on Calvary, made her own the sacrificial dimension of the Eucharist. When she brought the child Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem “to present him to the Lord” (Lk 2:22), she heard the aged Simeon announce that the child would be a “sign of contradiction” and that a sword would also pierce her own heart (cf. Lk 2:34-35). The tragedy of her Son's crucifixion was thus foretold, and in some sense Mary's Stabat Mater at the foot of the Cross was foreshadowed. In her daily preparation for Calvary, Mary experienced a kind of “anticipated Eucharist” – one might say a “spiritual communion” – of desire and of oblation, which would culminate in her union with her Son in his passion, and then find expression after Easter by her partaking in the Eucharist which the Apostles celebrated as the memorial of that passion.

What must Mary have felt as she heard from the mouth of Peter, John, James and the other Apostles the words spoken at the Last Supper: “This is my body which is given for you” (Lk 22:19)? The body given up for us and made present under sacramental signs was the same body which she had conceived in her womb! For Mary, receiving the Eucharist must have somehow meant welcoming once more into her womb that heart which had beat in unison with hers and reliving what she had experienced at the foot of the Cross.

Blessed Dominic Barberi: 'A Great Love for England'

This morning in the office of readings we meditated on Pope Paul VI's homily at the Beatification of Blessed Dominic. I have meditated on the words of Paul VI for much of the day. I especially connected with the repeated line 'he had a great love for England.' As the readers will know, it was Blessed Dominic who on 8 October, 1845 heard the confession of faith from Cardinal Newman. It was Cardinal Newman who said, 'he [Fr. Dominic] had a great love for England.' As I prayed this morning I reflected on the past ten years of my life. I reflected on the connection between myself and Blessed Dominic. That connection has nothing to do with his holiness but everything to do with 'his love for England.' As a recent convert myself and one who is an American citizen who lives in England, I can share Blessed Dominic's love for England. I too love England and have felt called to be here for the past nine years of my life.

I recall about eight years ago riding on a train from the north heading back to London preparing to return to the States where I served as a vicar as the light rain ran down the slightly tinted windows of the train. I remember my eyes filling with tears as I looked across the rolling hills of Yorkshire and seeing beautiful old churches in every village we passed and thinking, 'those churches are the biggest buildings in every village.' And they were. It communicated something to me very deep about England and her Catholicity that runs deep within the soil up and down this beautiful land. It communicated to me that England is indeed one the important nations given to our Lord Jesus as his inheritance.

Not too long ago I read Evelyn Waugh's book The Life of Edmund Campion and when I closed the book with tears in my eyes I knew that here was a saint who died for the faith and not political gain. As I reflect on the journey of the past several years I am able to see how God was bringing all of this together where he would use the prayers of the saints in this land to bring me into union with the Catholic Church. On that day in 2000 while riding on the train I prayed that God would make it possible for me to move and live in England. That prayer became a daily prayer of mine for the next four years until in February 04 I took a fifth trip to England to look for a home for my family so that we could move to Durham. With all our hearts we desire nothing more than to offer our lives for England as well as the Gospel. So, greatly have I, like Blessed Dominic, learned to love England. May God grant me the gift of love he had for the wonderful people of this land where my ministry can be some help for many to find pardon and peace in the unity of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church!

Blessed Dominic, pray for me and for the England you and I so love!

Chant is Medicine for the Soul

G.K. Chesterton on Why the Catholic Church is Right

But it is one thing to conclude that Catholicism is good and another to conclude that it is right. It is one thing to conclude that it is right and another to conclude that it is always right. I had never believed the tradition that it was diabolical; I had soon come to doubt the idea that it was inhuman, but that would only have left me with the obvious inference that it was human. It is a considerable step from that to the inference that it is divine. When we come to that conviction of divine authority, we come to the more mysterious matter of divine aid. In other words. we come to the unfathomable idea of grace and the gift of faith; and I have not the smallest intention of attempting to fathom it. It is a theological question of the utmost complexity; and it is one thing to feel it as a fact and another to define it as a truth.

One or two points about the preliminary dispositions that prepare the mind for it are all that need be indicated here. To begin with, there is one sense in which the blackest bigots are really the best philosophers. The Church really is like Antichrist in the sense that it is as unique as Christ. Indeed, if it be not Christ it probably is Antichrist; but certainly it is not Moses or Mahomet or Buddha or Plato or Pythagoras. The more we see of humanity, the more we sympathise with humanity, the more we shall see that when it is simply human it is simply heathen; and the names of its particular local gods or tribal prophets or highly respectable sages are a secondary matter compared with that human and heathen character.

In the old paganism of Europe, in the existing paganism of Asia, there have been gods and priests and prophets and sages of all sorts; but not another institution of this sort. The pagan cults die very slowly; they do not return very rapidly. They do not make the sort of claim that is made at a crisis; and then make the same claim again and again at crisis after crisis throughout the whole history of the earth. All that people fear in the Church, all that they hate in her, all against which they most harden their hearts and sometimes (one is tempted to say) thicken their heads, all that has made people consciously and unconsciously treat the Catholic Church as a peril, is the evidence that there is something here that we cannot look on at languidly and with detachment, as we might look on at Hottentotts dancing at the new moon or Chinamen burning paper in porcelain temples. The Chinaman and the tourist can be on the best of terms on a basis of mutual scorn. But in the duel of the Church and the world is no such shield of contempt.

The Church will not consent to scorn the soul of a coolie or even a tourist; and the measure of the madness with which men hate her is but their vain attempt to despise.

Marian Piety: How Does One Get There From Protestantism?

In an email exchange a number of weeks ago, I responded to a Protestant minister who let me know how disheartened he was to learn that I had become a Roman Catholic. I listened to his talk on line that was called 'Mariolotry' in a series on Church History he was giving at his parish church. As a result of reading Benedict XVI and von Balthasar's book Mary: The Church at the Source, I responded to his concerns and thoughts about Catholics bringing Mary to the place of divine worship in our spirituality. It was the above book that helped me to really understand the ministry of Our Lady and so I responded with the following from my reading of it. I realise it is a one-sided email but I hope that it communicates my understanding of Mary's place in our spiritual life which I gleaned from reading the Holy Father and von Balthasar's book.

Marian piety is never expressed within a vacuum. When her relationship is described as 'Mother of the Church' it is not as structure, as you described it, but as a person and in person. It is incarnational in relation to God consisting of the ontological freedom of the creature vis-a-vis the Creator and of the 'body' of Christ in relationship to the head. Marian piety is of the heart, and fixes itself deeply on the being of man. Therefore, Marian piety, in the words of Benedict XVI, is 'Advent piety.' Jesus was not born in a cocoon. He was and is flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone. Marian piety is ALWAYS focused on the LORD. Marian piety focuses on the LORD who has come and the Church learns with Mary to stay in his presence (unlike his disciples who left him at the passion). And so, Marian piety is passion-centred as she participates in the rejection by being given away (given to St. John at the crucifixion) only to participate in the true coming that took place in the outpouring of the Spirit (Pentecost). In Luke's narrative we clearly see his weaving of these joyful and sorrowful mysteries.

This theology naturally leads to the eschatological nature of Marian piety in her Assumption that you mentioned. As Advent broadens into eschatology, says Benedict XVI, so also her assumption is in keeping with the logic of biblical faith. Marian piety must be kept strictly bound to Christology and must not be withdrawn or abstractly viewed into partial mysteries of the Christian faith but open the Church up to the breadth of the mystery of Christ in his incarnational ministry. As Benedict XVI said, 'Marian piety will always stand within the tension between theological rationality and believing affectivity.' These must be held in balance but this becomes difficult in our time where man is falling into an increasing disintegration of mere rationalism. Marian piety within its proper context of Christology helps the Church to constantly rediscover this unity by maintaining the purity of heart from the heart as seen in Mary.

Whoever is to take the Gospels seriously must take the words of and about Mary seriously. In Catholic understanding this is not isolated in itself but is ALWAYS embedded in and ordered to Christ (and thus it is ALWAYS Trinitarian in its nature) and towards the Church as Mother. As the Mother of God (defined at the Council of Ephesus 431 where she was given this title and anyone who denied this was a heretic) she too is keen that she not be elevated in the divine sphere and so overlook Christ's work. Everything about Mary points us to her Son.

The Catholic Church is clear when She distinguishes between veneration and worship just as the Old Testaments saints were venerated and not worshipped. Where the confusion lies is in your mis-understanding of what the Marian prayers actually refer to, which is the larger context of our relationship to Christ, to the Father and to the Church our Mother. But, your caution that is a result of an uncatechized people is a strongly heard warning to us all and should be heeded that she never be elevated to the divine sphere and the Catholic Church warns of the same.

Let me briefly make a final statement about the Marian prayers you mentioned. Marian prayers always lead us into a concrete (incarnational) closeness to Jesus and to the whole mystery of redemption and they are never isolated from that. Your lecture tended to treat them abstractly. Let me use just three of the most popular prayers as an example of all that I have said above where I found misrepresentation in your talk.

1) The Hail Mary: Hail Mary, full of grace, the LORD is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

As you will know these words come from the Angel Gabriel and Elisabeth's response to Mary. The petition added at the end is the inclusion of what was said about Mary at Ephesus 431 and is straightforward with the concern of the sinful Christian in the Church imploring intercession for the present and the all-decisive hour of our death.

2) The Angelus which is prayed three times a day at 6:00 am, noon, and 6 pm. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary. And she conceived of the Holy Spirit. Hail, Mary, full of grace...Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to Thy word. Hail, Mary, full of grace...And the Word was made flesh. And dwelt among us. Hail, Mary, full of grace...Pray for us, O holy Mother of God. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray. Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts, that we to whom the incarnation of Christ, Thy Son, was made known by the message of an angel, may by His Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of His Resurrection. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

The three short sentences above are Christocentric as you can see. This prayer does not go one step beyond the pattern of scripture. The three additional Aves allows us a moment to linger with our fallen humanity in whom the Incarnation was realized and we are called upon to remember the miracle of the Lord's coming and that this coming of Christ is to remain in us if we are to be a Christian.

3) The rosary. The rosary weaves everything pertaining to the history of our salvation into the Marian prayer. It makes present the mysteries of Jesus' life from his youth to his glorious return and to which it draws us to Mary as the archetype of the Church. The entire prayer of the rosary is always introduced by the Apostle's Creed and the prayer is given with Mary who is the compass of faithfulness to her Son. She is the one who accompanies Jesus from the cradle to the grave and beyond in his transfigured life (Acts 1) and has a unique place in his destiny as a hope that all believers are to look to, her Assumption.

All of these prayers are not required for common and personal prayer. The Catholic Church never has and never will look to anyone other than Jesus died and risen for our salvation. Mary has the most honoured place among all believers as the ONE and ONLY who gave her flesh and blood to Jesus' humanity. That unity is different than anyone else's in all of humanity. Therefore the Church venerates her more than any other saint in its communion of saints and how could it be any different? She said NO, in order to say YES to God and we are called to imitate her piety in this. This is the basic theological apologetic for Marian piety that is always to lead all Christians to Blessed One of her womb, Jesus.

I feel your talk took Marian piety from its context and distorted it to a point unrecognisable to any catechized Catholic Christian. In your email you welcomed me to point out any misrepresentations and these are the immediate ones that stand out to me. You must realise that Marian piety began way before the Fourth Latern Council or Aquinas. It is very early in the Apostolic Fathers who wrote prior to the gathering of the full Canon of Holy Scripture. I think academic honesty demands from us all to read and communicate what is there in the historical record. It was this uncovering of the Church that was always held from my eyes that allowed me to discover the truth and the beauty of the one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of which any personal desires or opinions could no longer isolate me from her beauty and authority. It is the only way I knew how to make John 17 effectual for my life and the life of my family.

The question of needing reformation is a right question that should be joined to the question of whether this is done inside or outside the Church. I would like to discuss all of this in a friendly way. One of the things that I believe could help you, at least in understanding what the Catholic Church teaches and how it comes to theological statements beyond the scriptures, is to understand her hermeneutic that is far different from the one you gave in your lecture which left out the concept of authority, canon and the role of Tradition in the Church's teaching ministry. I think without this foundation one can never rightly argue against her teaching because what happens is what Luther himself once said (after he left Rome) was 'that every man hath a pope in his belly.'

It must also be remembered that Marian devotion and prayers to Mary is not a command but an encouraged practice for the benefit of the Christian. One's particular rhetorical explanation of Mary's ministry is not necessarily dogmatic. That does not answer your questions, I realise, but one cannot be fair and substantive in a refutation if it is something you personally claim to 'not get'. Have you read Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's (Pope Benedict XVI) book, Mary: The Church at the Source? I recommend it to you.

Returning to Blogging as a Catholic Layman

This is a quick announcement to let all who read the blog when I was writing as an Anglican priest and on my journey into full communion with the See of Peter that I am returning to writing here. These will continue to be my feeble attempts at theological exploration and reflection. We were received into the Catholic Church on 18 July that was a wonderful celebration. God has been so good to my family as we have made this transition and we have never been happier in our spiritual lives to be where we are now as a family. I am very grateful to all of you who prayed with and for us during this exciting time in our lives.

This blog will take on a bit of a different format in writing and reflection. I hope to include some reflections on spiritual reading that I am doing with my spiritual director. I will not be putting a lot of personal information about my future work or ministry possibilities for some time. Much of that remains and needs to remain private for the foreseeable future. I can say that we are remaining in the northeast for the next year and we are preparing to move house on 4 September to where we will be living for the next year in Durham. I do hope that the readers who used to come around will continue to visit again.

Looking forward to being here again with my many friends in the comfort of the prayers and care of the Blessed Mother of our Lord!