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Ave Maria Meditations

Through the tender mercy of our God when the day shall dawn upon us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness…(Lk 1:78-79)

Lauds II

The darkness flees, and dew-kissed earth Sings welcome to the waking day;

Hope holds to Christ the mirror high To catch the Dayspring’s healing ray!

You fill with light this sacred time, Give tears as well to purify;

Give flames of love to purge our hearts; In us your mercy magnify.

The hidden wound whence flow our sins, Wash clean by bathing in the tide;

Remove the things that, of ourselves, We cannot reach, or put aside.

The Day draws near when all re-blooms — Your Day, O Christ, life-giving Lord!

We too will joy, by your right hand From death’s dark tomb to joy restored.

To God, the loving Trinity, Let earth and sky adoring bend;

And evermore from hearts renewed Let songs fresh sprung of praise ascend. Amen.

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Ave Maria Meditations

 Unite me to Yourself, O adorable Victim, life-giving heavenly Bread, feed me, sanctify me, reign in me, transform me to Yourself – live in me, and let me live in You, let me adore You in your life-giving sacraments as my God – listen to you as to my Master – obey you as my King – imitate you as my Model – follow you as my Shepherd – love you as my Father – seek you as my Physician who will heal all the maladies of my soul – be indeed my Way, Truth, and Life, sustain me O heavenly Manna through the desert of this world, till I shall behold You unveiled in Your glory.

 +St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

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Variety #173 – statue of Blessed John Duns Scotus in Cassino, Italy ( 7min) >>> Play

Ave Maria!

In honor of the feast of one of the patrons of our FI house of studies (S.T.I.M.) here in Italy, we present this video of the Holy Mass celebrated in 2010 in Rome in the extraordinary form, with our co-founder Father Gabriele.  It’s a mixture of highlights and music from the Mass, as well as some thoughts from our blessed scholastic philosopher/theologian, who died in 1308.  The text is in both Italian and English.

Ave Maria!

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Ave Maria Meditations

Look at His Glorious Cross
Here is the gateway to Heaven
Opened at last for the lost;
See such a price for the sins of mankind,
And His love is paying the cost.
Towering over history
Look at His Glorious Cross

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 O Glorious Cross, Remedy for Every Affliction, Antidote for Every Poison, Medicine for Every Weakness!

September 14
The Exaltation of the Glorious Cross

Glory in the Cross

“It is for us to glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ in whom is our health, life and Resurrection: through whom we have been saved and set free” (Introit). Celebrating today the mystery of the Cross, we fix our gaze not upon an instrument of torture and of shame but, rather, upon the Tree of Life whose leaves are for the healing of the nations (Rev 22:2). We lift our eyes to the royal throne of the King of glory, the sign of the Son of Man that will appear in the heavens at the end of the age (Mt 24:30). To the eyes of faith, the Cross shines like the sun over the eastern horizon.

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Roving Reporter #120 – First Holy Mass of 4 New FI Priests, celebrated at Assisi ( 13min) >>> Play

Ave Maria!

This is the first Holy Mass celebrated by the newly-ordained FI priests, Fr. Alan Bernardino Wharton (USA), Fr. Vincent Michael Egbu (Nigeria), Fr. Giles Joseph Mary Atherton (Australia), and Fr. Vincent d’Elia (Italy). Our new priests had the privilege of celebrating at the Sanctuary of the Portziuncola in Assisi in the same edifice in which Saint Francis himself entrusted the Order of the Friars Minor into the hands of Our Lady some 800 years ago. The Mass was celebrated on March 26, 2011, the day after their holy ordinations at Tarquinia in Italy, and we ask that you remember these new servants of our Lord in your prayers. (more…)

Ave Maria Meditations

Let us be renewed so that we may thus attend the new feast of the new Lamb, for today we shall not be feasting on the flesh and blood of brute animals as the Jews did, but on God himself, on our Lord Jesus Christ who was sacrificed as our Passover. He is our new, completely sufficient, and rich banquet.

This banquet is new because of its nature; it is free from the staleness of sin, which is shown because it imparts its own newness to us if we eat it worthily. It is completely sufficient because Christ was sacrificed as the one true victim offered once for all in place of the many prefigurative and inadequate victims offered over and over in accordance with the Law. For although Christ is sacramentally offered, sacrificed, and broken daily on many altars, he was in fact sacrificed only once as the one true victim, for Christ, having risen from the dead, dies no more. And whereas the many sacrifices of the Jews – their sacrifices for sin, their peace offerings, their votive offerings, their victims – were insufficient, Christ is a sufficient sacrifice for everything and for everyone: to atone for sins, restore peace between God and humankind, win a hearing for human prayers, and overcome enemies.

Finally, this banquet is a rich one because our Lord Jesus Christ is, as it were, “fat” with the fullness of grace, charity, and mercy. He is the fatted calf which the father ordered to be slain when his son returned from the land of unlikeness. So now that we have been invited to this new, bountiful, and rich banquet, let us be careful to do as the wise man says: If you sit at a lavish table, know that you must prepare a sim­ilar one. Since we have been invited to the table of Christ, let us prepare a similar one for him: let us love him as he has loved us, humble ourselves for him as he humbled himself for us, and be ready to die for him as he died for us.

Ralph the Fervent  (+1101) was a priest in the diocese of Poitiers, France.

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I

Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord.
O King of Israel:
Hosanna in the Highest! (Antiphon, Palm Sunday, cf. Mt 21:9;).

Hypocrites, well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying:  This people honoureth me with their lips: but their heart is far from me (Mt 15:7).

The sacred liturgy offers us an opportunity, in this most holy of weeks, to enter into the history of our Lord’s suffering, death and resurrection.  Our presence at the Sacred Triduum is a proclamation of our faith in that the Christ of History and the Christ of Faith are one and the same.  Some scripture scholars have the tendency to demythologize the gospel accounts, and, inversely, some commentators on the liturgy have the tendency to mythologize the Easter liturgy.  In fact, the gospels are historical and the liturgy brings us into contact with that sacred and sacramental history.

Christopher West, as I have mentioned many times before, has tended to sexualize the liturgy.  (more…)

Ave Maria Meditations

Almighty and ever-living God, I approach the sacrament of your only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. I come sick to the doctor of life, unclean to the fountain of mercy, blind to the radiance of eternal light, and poor and needy to the Lord of heaven and earth.  Lord, in your great generosity, heal my sickness, wash away my defilement, enlighten my blindness, enrich my poverty, and clothe my nakedness.

Kind God, may I receive the Body of your only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, born from the womb of the Virgin Mary, and so be received into His mystical Body and numbered among his members.  Loving Father, as on my earthly pilgrimage I now receive your beloved Son, under the veil of a sacrament, may I one day see Him Face to face in glory, who lives and reigns with You forever. Amen.

Virgin full of goodness, Mother of mercy, I entrust to you my body and my soul, my thoughts and my actions, my life and my death. O my Queen, come to my aid and deliver me from the snares of the devil. Obtain for me the grace of loving my Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, with a true and perfect love, and after Him, O Mary, of loving you with all my heart and above all things. Amen.

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On Sunday, December 26th, His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke offered a Pontifical Solemn High Mass at the Seminary of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate in Rome. The Mass was offered in honor of Fr. Stefano Maria Manelli, being his patronal feast day, and in thanksgiving for the elevation of His Eminence to the Cardinalate. The Mass was sung by the combined choirs of the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Immaculate from various convents of the F.I. in Italy, and was conducted by Sr. Maria Cecilia Manelli and Fr. Giovanni Maria Manelli – resulting in an outstanding example of the magnificence the Mass is meant to have. The Friars and Sisters also had the honor of hosting His Excellency Bishop Gino Reali of the local diocese of Porto-Santa Rufino, Rome.

In his homily, Cardinal Burke focused on the need for beauty and splendor in the sacred liturgy, echoing what His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI wrote in the letter accompanying his Moto Proprio “Summorum Pontificum:” “It is not appropriate to speak of these two versions of the Roman Missal as if they were ‘two Rites’.  Rather, it is a matter of a twofold use of one and the same rite.” And “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.  It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place…”

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I was at the midnight Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica last night with the Holy Father.  I noticed during Communion a priest was giving Communion only on the tongue, then I saw another priest doing the same.  Fra Jerome, who has been to other Papal ceremonies in the past 2yrs. said this is something new.  Also new is that each priest carrying a ciborium was accompanied by a man dressed in a suit carrying a candle, very nice.

There are rumors going around that a new document is coming out in January that will establish ad orientem as the norm for the Novus Ordo, as well as Communion on the tongue.  I stress “rumor” but last night’s Communion procedure has me thinking maybe it’s true.

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We are greatly honored to announce that Raymond Cardinal Burke who was just raised to the Cardinalate on November 20th and is a good friend of the community will be celebrating a Pontifical High Mass at our friary on Via Boccea in Rome, Italy tomorrow, the 26th at 5:30pm in celebration of Fr. Stefano’s Feast Day.  This is our philosophy house for our seminarians studying for the priesthood. Deo Gratias!

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Ave Maria Meditations

Your eyes at the midnight Mass will gaze upon the elevated Host and your lips will utter, “My Lord and my God.” A few minutes more and the little Infant will have come to you. His Immaculate Mother did not hold him more truly in her arms that first Christmas midnight than you will have him, heart to heart. Then all the love of that Infant Redeemer will be poured out upon you. It is a thirst of the heart of every creature that desires to be loved, and the love which can alone satisfy that craving is the Divine Love.

Let your heart delight in the love your God has for you, personally, individually. No soul ever in ardent fervor desires to unite herself to our Lord in Holy Communion, as our Lord desires to unite him­self to her. So Holy Communion is a delight to your Infant Savior, because he loves you, oh, how immea­surably! He tells you in his heart to heart interview that he has become a little Infant so that you may love him with a human love without fear. He wants you to confide in him, approach to him with a con­viction that his Great Majesty is annihilated that you may no longer see in him but a little Child, with a body and soul just as you have.

And the mystery of love is this: that he unites his Body to your body and your soul to his Soul, so that yours may be a member of his very own. This Christmas Holy Communion will unite you to our Lord, it is my prayer, more intimately than ever before in all your lives so that even the smallest of your actions may by this union be animated with divine Life – and all for the honor of the Father and the salvation of souls. May you participate in his life of charity, and may a divine light illumine you to see the depths and heights of the charity of a God made Man to redeem that which was lost. You participate in the spirit and the immense charity of Christ so as to be born this Christmas to a new life of charity – for “he that abides in charity, abides in God.”

St. Katherine Drexel

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In an address made on December 17th, Pope Benedict XVI highlighted the role of Mary, who is all beauty – ‘tota pulchra’ – in guiding us to the Way of Beauty – the ‘via pulchritudinis’. Once again, and echoing John Paul II before him in his Letter to Artists, Benedict highlights the importance of art united to the liturgy and manifesting theology; and the importance of the formation of this art through dialogue between artists, liturgists and theologians.

via New Liturgical Movement.

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Variety #94 – Bsp. Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska ( 14min) >>> Play

Ave Maria!

Fr. Elias Mills of our Bloomington, Indiana friary recently interviewed the renowned Bishop Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska on current issues of faith and Church in America.  We are posting them here in a five part series. In the first part, in answering Fr. Elias questions, the bishop relates his thoughts about:

• His 50 years as a priest and bishop in the Church and all the changes and events in the time.
• His visits to shrines in Europe and Rome.
• His 19 years as Bishop of Lincoln.
• The graces that are ever needed for his office
• His work with John Paul II and Benedict XVI
• What these two papacies have done for the Church especially the continuity that they reaffirmed between the post and pre-Vatican II Church
• The Moto Proprio of Pope Benedict and how it is not at all against Vatican II
• The unlikelihood of a mixture of the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the liturgy
• New English translation of the Ordinary Form of the Liturgy
• How well Catechisis has been carried out in the Post Vatican II era
• balance needed between doctrine and pastoral and social concerns

Listening to Bsp. Bruskewitz’s clear  insights and answers is refreshing indeed.

Ave Maria!

Audio (MP3)

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Anna Arco visits the thriving Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate in Cornwall who follow an arduous daily routine of work and prayer

“THEY HOPE TO DRAW OTHERS CLOSER TO HIM.”

A Sister is called to her duties (Photo: Wayne Perry)

Lanherne monastery has always reflected the movements of the wider Church. Celtic monks first established the monastery near Newquay, Cornwall, in the sixth century. Later, the house became the property of the recusant Arundells of Wardour. They continued to have Mass celebrated there during and after the Reformation. In 1794, a group of Carmelite nuns from Antwerp escaping the French Revolution established a Carmel. Today, the brown habits of the Carmel have given way to the distinctive blue and grey habits of the contemplative Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate.

In 2001 the Carmelites found that their community had become too elderly and small to carry on keeping the building and its extensive gardens. But they were reluctant to leave a place so redolent with the prayers of the ages empty. So they approached the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate about taking up where they were leaving off. Several months after the meeting the new community was established.

Members of a new institute founded after the Second Vatican Council in Italy, the Franciscans of the Immaculate have a fourth vow alongside poverty, chastity and obedience. This is the Marian vow of total consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Sisters see themselves as the Virgin Mary’s property. The Marian devotion of both St Francis and St Maximilian Kolbe shaped the vision of the founders of the institute. Unusually for Franciscan Sisters, they follow the Rule of the First Order rather than the customary rule of the Third Order Regulars.

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