The Blessed Ones

This painting, Madonna with Grape by Mignard, is on the cover of my parish's Missalette this season. My eye fell on it while I was waiting for Mass to begin. Although I have only a passing intellectual acquaintance with spiritual art, I found myself gazing at it, engrossed as if I were deep into a compelling mystery story.

The Mother is a real woman, sturdy, beautiful yet not necessarily "pretty", genuine, her full, tender attention on the actions of her young Son. Of all the fruits available at her elbow, she is offering him the grapes, an anticipation of the sacrifice that is to save her and us all. Jesus doesn't grab at the grapes greedily nor spurn them, but he lays his hand on them, taking possession. He reclines peacefully, protected for the moment in her arms and under her veil.

Whatever has attracted the child's attention, his mother doesn't appear to have heard or seen it. He raises the draped veil, looking out, his expression carrying a bit of "Yes? Were you speaking to me? Were you calling me?"

Is he looking at us? at his Father? It could be either, because he is Love. He loves the Father enough to live toward the Cross out of obedience; He loves us enough that the love between Him, his Father and his mother will be ours one day through the Holy Spirit, and the grapes of sacrifice will be ours too. "All in good time," he tells us. "I have come for you. Save me a place."

Habemus blogum

It turns out the Pope is a blogger. Who knew?

Don't even consider missing it.

Good catch, Whappers!

Good Sisters

"They were smart. They were good at sports. They were fun to hang out with."

Not what we might expect from a teenager about the fully-habited nuns who taught in her high school. However this young woman, now known as Sister Maria Faustina, just made her permanent vows to that same order, the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is part of a trend of growth among more traditionally-focused orders. The Sisters of Mary, founded in 1997, expect 17 new postulants in September and have launched an ambitious building program to accommodate their increasing numbers.

I wish I could show you the photos from the print version of the story that appeared this morning in the Ann Arbor News. The sight of young nuns, with white veils over their heads, prostrated in front of the altar of Christ the King Catholic Church (my home parish) was striking. The piece is surprisingly well done, despite the obligatory curmudgeonly quotation from a faculty member from somewhere, ( "There's always been a rear-guard action among Catholics who don't like Vatican II . . . "). More typical is the following:

The order is different from many others today in that members wear the traditional, floor-length habit; place strong emphasis on community life; and spend at least three hours each day in traditional, communal prayer, some in Latin.

And,

"Young women are attracted to the total gift of self,'' said Sister Joseph Andrew Bogdanowicz, vocations director for the Sisters of Mary. "They trust Christ and are willing to pour out their lives first to him, then through him, to all his people,'' Sister Bogdanowicz said. "This total commitment is most attractive to a generation starving for authenticity.''

Since the Sisters have their own chapel, I don't see them often at Mass at Christ the King. I wish that weren't so.

P.S. Just to prove that Sister Mary Faustina wasn't kidding about the "good at sports" comment, here are the good Sisters tuning up their Kick-the-Can skills.

Potential patron of the fainthearted

I fully expect to be a wimp in the face of persecution and hardship. I've lived a pretty soft life and I could be tempted to forsake faithfulness for a television show, a frivolous conversation, or a noodle kugel from Zingerman's, much less a genuine threat to something I care about. There could be no more laughable contrast than between this nebbish and the persevering saints of the past who were faithful through thick, thin and even more thin.

Well, today I was reading a back issue of Magnificat and ran across a story of someone who surprised me. Blessed John Hambley was a youthful convert in the days of England when becoming a Catholic was dangerous. He studied abroad for the priesthood but was captured and arrested after his return.

So far, it's no different from anything we might expect to read about Catholic heros from the dangerous 16th century. But this young man, upon being bribed with release, yielded to pressure and forswore the faith. After being set free, he returned to the Catholic faith and was arrested again. Once more he "conformed" to the Protestant religion, but this time he betrayed fellow Catholics into the bargain. Freed yet again, he returned to Catholicism and (surprise!) was arrested again. (The officials must have been delighted to have developed this pipeline of regular information on the Catholic Underground.)

According to trial accounts, Fr. Hambley seemed to be at the point of once again betraying his beliefs and his brothers when there came a turnabout. Some say it was sparked by a letter from a fellow prisoner.

"Upon reading it, the priest wept. Although Father Hambley refused to divulge the letter's contents, he thereafter became steadfast in professing the Catholic faith, expressing deep remorse for his inconstancy, and bravely endured death by drawing and quartering."

Now this is my kind of guy. And my kind of God. I have felt that deep disappointment of failure to live up to even my own modest expectations of virtue, much less the pure goodness of Jesus' example. And when I fall, I am convinced that I am hopelessly faulty and incapable of right action. If you can't do it, my inner sinner tells me, why waste energy trying?

Well this Fr. Handley, young, impulsive and ill-prepared as he was, kept getting on the horse that was bucking him off. He repented; he accepted the shame that he must have experienced every time he appeared as a penitent in front of the faithful. He also seems to have been unskilled at evading arrest, a circumstance that led to his betrayals but which also was foreordained to be an occasion of supernatural and unexpected grace.

Ven. John Handley is the perfect example of a truth I keep repeating to encourage myself and others: "God's grip on us is stronger than our grip on Him."

Less blogging and less behind

The second thing first: I posted a couple of months ago that I had joined Weight Watchers (in early May, I think). I am happy to say that I've lost nearly 25 lbs without biting hunks out of the couch, and look forward to losing lots more. God be praised! I give credit not only to Weight Watchers but to the Sacrament of Penance. Grace is truly given when I confess to the cardinal sin of Gluttony. While it's humanly just plain embarassing to have to say, on bended knee, that I sin in that way, it's also very purifying. And Jesus Christ has given me, to my bemused surpise, more and more strength to overcome it, with less of my own prideful effort and more reliance on Him.

If you have to grease yourself to fit into the confessional, but not confessing to that particular sin, please, humble yourself and name yourself a big old glutton. The Lord will bless you and help you reduce and refine your earthly appetite and strengthen your appetite for the things of Heaven.

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I will be blogging a little less over the next couple of weeks as I help my mother through serious surgery. I'll check in, but I won't have much time. I welcome your prayers for all our parents, as they face serious illness and their own mortality, and for us, as we guide and walk with them in patience, charity and love.