Year III, Number 36

Beginning with the Upper Room and Holy Thursday, the celebration of the Eucharist has a long history, a history as long as that of the Church. In the course of this history the secondary elements have undergone certain changes, but there has been no change in the essence of the "Mysterium" instituted by the Redeemer of the world at the Last Supper. The Second Vatican Council too brought alterations, as a result of which the present liturgy of the Mass is different in some ways from the one known before the Council. We do not intend to speak of these differences: It is better that we should now concentrate on what is essential and immutable in the Eucharistic Liturgy.

There is a close link between this element of the Eucharist and its sacredness, that is to say, its being a holy and sacred action. Holy and sacred, because in it are the continual presence and action of Christ, "the Holy One" of God, "anointed with the Holy Spirit," "consecrated by the Father" to lay down His life of His own accord and to take it up again, and the High Priest of the New Covenant. For it is He who, represented by the celebrant, makes His entrance into the sanctuary and proclaims His Gospel. It is He who is "the offerer and the offered, the consecrator and the consecrated." The Eucharist is a holy and sacred action, because it constitutes the sacred species, the Sancta sanctis, that is to say, the "holy things (Christ, the Holy One) given to the Holy," as all the Eastern liturgies sing at the moment when the eucharistic Bread is raised in order to invite the faithful to the Lord's Supper.

The sacredness of the Mass, therefore, is not a "sacralization," that is to say, something that man adds to Christ's action in the Upper Room, for the Holy Thursday supper was a sacred rite, a primary and constitutive liturgy, through which Christ, by pledging to give His life for us, Himself celebrated sacramentally the mystery of His passion and resurrection, the heart of every Mass. Our Masses, being derived from this liturgy, possess of themselves a complete liturgical form, which, in spite of its variations in line with the families of rites, remains substantially the same. The sacred character of the Mass is a sacredness instituted by Christ. The words and actions of every priest, answered by the conscious active participation of the whole eucharistic assembly, echo the words and actions of Holy Thursday.

Q. Dear Fr Anthony,

Hi! I’m seventeen. I was reading someone’s question saying that they had “electricity” shooting through them when the Holy Eucharist passed and wondered if they were being called. I would like to first start by saying that I also had a very similar experience. About a year ago I was at a festival of praise at Franciscan University of Steubenville. As the priest was processing through the rows I bowed my head down and closed my eyes. As the Eucharist passed me, I saw a vision of Jesus blessing me. I was in awe. As I opened my eyes I saw the priest right next to me holding the monstrance, completing the blessing.

I have felt the call to priesthood for a while; was this vision a confirmation of my vocation?

A. Dear Bill,

It would be very easy, but misleading to answer, yes, it was a confirmation of your vocation. I think it was no more than one of those “little things” that can mean a lot to us personally, but are no more than a motive to look into a vocation more deeply, and they sometimes help us to be more open to God’s call. But they do not constitute a proof or a confirmation of a vocation.

Take it as an invitation to look more closely into the call to the priesthood. Look for the truth your experience reflects and reminds you of: the priest takes the person of Christ, he is given Christ’s power to consecrate and to take away sins, without the priest there is no Eucharist; if you have a vocation it comes from him.

If you have felt the call to the priesthood look for verification of it by taking steps towards following it. If you are at Steubenville and are interested in the Franciscans, speak to one of the priests about a vocation to the order. If you feel drawn to the diocesan priesthood speak to your bishop or his vocation director. If you think you may be called to another order, go ahead and get in contact. You will get far more valid confirmation of your vocation by talking to these people, doing a retreat, reflecting on why God gave you life and on the value of a soul, asking the Holy Spirit for an increase in love, and trying out the life than you will through experiences like the one you describe, even though these make more of an immediate impact on us.

God bless. Fr Anthony

Q.Dear Fr Anthony,

I recently sat down with a sister to discuss her order and to get to know each other. She began to ask me how I knew I wanted to become a religious and what I was looking for in an order. I told her one of the things that I really wanted was to be a part of an order that wore a full religious habit, my reason being that the beautiful, full habit to me symbolized the complete giving of self and becoming a servant of God for those who I could minister to. The habit I have seen only allows one to see the hands and face of the sister, which for me represented the hands and face of Christ. Sister (who did not have a full habit at all) began to explain how the habit is not that important, since Vatican II said that traditional habits could be substituted for more contemporary clothes. She said it is easier to talk to or approach people because the “full” habit is intimidating to some. She also asked me what Mary probably wore in her life, which was the same as everyone else. I don’t know if I’m making a big deal about the need for a full habit, am I? I just think it is so beautiful to be a walking symbol of Christ. Am I justified in my preference?

A.Dear Jennifer,

The habit is an important part of being a religious, but the style of habit depends on the order and sometimes on external circumstances—for example, there are countries in which religious habits are against the law, yet there are nuns there and very good ones, extraordinary ones, in those countries.

Now as regards your preference, I see nothing wrong with it. As a matter of fact, I know several orders of nuns who wear the full habit and I don’t think any one of them are intimidating. Quite the contrary, the ones I know are attractive in their joy and simplicity. What is good about your preference is your reason for it.

God bless. Fr Anthony

You also have to take the time you need to examine your conscience before Confession. As you mature in your spiritual life and your self-knowledge, this becomes considerably easier and simpler to do. The best and most fruitful examinations of conscience are those you have prepared through your daily examination, and above all the dispositions with which you live your life. If you live your life as God would have it, you will not need great exertions to enter into your soul and fill your conscience with light.

The transformation that Confession brings about depends to a great extent, at least as far as we are concerned, on the depth of our examination of conscience. So I recommend that you always try to get to the roots, to the deep attitudes and reasons behind your faults and sins. It will help in this regard if you keep in mind your “life program,” especially what we call the “root-sin”, and if you always ask yourself why you behave the way you do, especially when you see that you commit certain faults over and over.

Among all the various sins, I recommend that you pay special attention to three categories as you examine your consciences: omission, poor use of time, and faults against charity. At times we give almost exclusive importance to sins against the sixth and ninth commandments — those dealing with purity and chastity — as if they were the most important or the core of Christian morality. But we should not lose sight of the fact that the three types of faults above deeply hurt the heart of Christ and the Church. The awareness of their gravity should make us always set our eyes on what God expects of us, and lead us to give our all so as to fulfill the mission for which we were created.

Preparatory Prayer:

"Lord, I believe in you: help me to believe more firmly.

I trust in you: help me to trust more surely.

I love you: help me to love you more ardently.

I want whatever you want, because you want it, the way you want it,

as long as you want it.

Lord, enlighten my mind, strengthen my will, purify my heart,

and sanctify my spirit.

Lord, in your goodness,

grant me the grace to love you

and forget myself,

to seek my neighbor's good

and despise the seduction of the world.

Teach me how trivial worldly interests are, how momentous is the Kingdom, how brief temporal concerns are, how lasting is life eternal.

-(from the Universal Prayer of Pope Clement Xl)

Petition: Mary, help me to pray. Increase my faith in Christ, your Son, my Redeemer and the Savior of all people. Increase my hope in the power of his grace working in my own soul and in the lives of all those who are close to me, all those in some way entrusted to me. Help me to experience Christ's love during this meditation so that I can become his more ardent apostle, so that I may want only one thing in life: to help bring others to experience this same love.

1. Our intimate need to grow in theological hope

The French writer Paul Claudel once described Hope as a little girl, walking along between her two bigger sisters of Faith and Charity, holding their hands. But if we look more closely at the scene, we will discover that Hope is the one out in front, eagerly pulling her two bigger sisters along. Supernatural hope in God's omnipotence and his loving care for us quickens our step along the path as we strive to follow Christ. At times in the face of disappointments or difficulties, it may feel as if we had greater hope in Christ earlier in our Christian life. But that is not true, or at least it should not be. Through the struggles we discover our need to grow constantly in theological hope.

"The more we advance in the spiritual life, the stronger must be our hope, for the struggles become more terrible, the sacrifices greater, and the intimate operations of grace more profound and more difficult to understand" (Luis Martinez, The Sanctifier, p.60).

Since the language of love is to love without limits, and God loves us as only he can, then he has no choice but to ask more and more of us, for that is the only way we can grow in love. And to grow in love is our only happiness in life. "Love is ... the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being" (John Paul II, The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World, 11).

2. The biggest obstacle to hope - how can we overcome it?

What is the biggest obstacle to growing in hope? Discouragement. "While we have confidence, any obstacle can be overcome, any sacrifice is easily made and our struggles are crowned with victory. But when discouragement invades the soul it is without energy or support, and thus easily deterred, misguided, and confused. Therefore St. Thomas teaches that, although despair is not the greatest of sins, yet so far as we are concerned despair is the most dangerous of sins. Here he cites St. Isidore: 'To commit a crime is death to the soul; but to despair is to descend into hell'" (Luis Martinez, The Sanctifier, p. 59).

There are three fundamental ways we can overcome temptations to discouragement when they arise.

The first is to realize that discouragement often comes about when our intentions are not pure, when we are secretly looking for human success, consolation, or to feel ourselves more holy. We can humbly embrace the difficulties of following Christ, asking him to purify our intentions through our sufferings, and renewing our trust in him alone - not in our own strength or abilities.

"The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men's activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1818). A second way to cut off discouragement at its roots is by humbly and confidently sharing our difficulties with our spiritual director or guide. In trusting dialogue, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, what at fIrst seemed to be insurmountable difficulties soon dissipate like morning mist beneath the rays of the sun.

Finally, we must turn again and again in prayer to our most powerful ally in resisting discouragement and growing in hope: the Holy Spirit. "The Spirit is not only light and life, he is also strength; he is the spiritual unction that invigorates those who struggle on earth, the strength of the Most High, the Gift of the omnipotent right hand of the Father" (Luis Martinez, The Sanctifier, p. 59).

3. Hope strengthened by the Holy Spirit

What are the effects on our lives of theological hope strengthened by the Holy Spirit? Besides the fruits already listed by the Catechism, supernatural hope leads to universal confidence in God. Nothing can discourage holy souls when they undertake any enterprise for God's glory, for saving souls: "One would say that contradictions and obstacles, far from diminishing the virtue of hope, intensify and augment it" (Jordan Aumann, Spiritual Theology, p. 261). How clearly the paradox of theological hope rings out in the words of John Paul II's very first encyclical: "If this mission seems to encounter greater opposition nowadays than ever before, this shows that today it is more necessary than ever and, in spite of the opposition, more awaited than ever. Here we touch indirectly the mystery of the divine 'economy' which linked salvation and grace with the cross" (John Paul II, The Redeemer of Man, 11).

A final characteristic of supernatural hope, so necessary in each one of our lives, is that it leads to indestructible peace and serenity. St. Ignatius of Loyola once said that if he were to learn of the complete destruction of the Society of Jesus, through no fault of his own, thirty minutes of prayer would be enough to restore his serenity.

Questionnaire

1. How is God calling me to grow in my relationship with the Holy Spirit, my strongest ally for growing in theological hope?

2. What situations or circumstances most often tempt me to become discouraged? Is this perhaps indicative of certain attitudes that God wants to purify in me?

3. What difficulties or obstacles is God calling me to overcome in my personal life and in my apostolate with the strength of theological hope?

Ignacy Jez, Bishop Emeritus of Koszalin-Kolobrzeg.

Bishop Ignacy Jez was one of the many Polish priests interned in concentration camps. He was ordained a priest on 20 June 1937. In the fifth year of his priesthood he was brought to the camp at Dachau as No. 37196.

He left the following testimony:

"The concentration camps were death camps. They were rightly called Vernichtungslager, 'extermination camps,' by those familiar with people who spent time there. To clarify matters, it was said that 'the only road to freedom for such people leads through the crematorium.'

"The title of my recollections of the three years I spent in the lager at Dachau was taken from the canticles of the Old Testament: 'Light and darkness, bless the Lord' (Dn 3,72). To me those years seemed a time of immense darkness. But alongside the darkness, one could also see the truth of Saint Paul's words in the Letter to the Romans: 'where sin increased, grace abounded all the more' (Rm 5,20). The signs of this were quite numerous. Our spiritual strength increased thanks to the priests who were also interned, at times too because of the positive attitude of the lay persons who recited prayers in common each evening in the dormitories after lights off, and at other times because of Holy Communion, received from Block 26, despite the fact that it was officially prohibited by the camp regulations."

Prayer

Remember, God of the darkness of Good Friday, God of the great silence of Holy Saturday and God also of the joyful dawn of the Resurrection, all those Christians who were victims of Nazism - Lutheran, Reformed, Catholic and Orthodox, together with their brothers and sisters of other faiths. They endured the burden of forced labor, violations of their human dignity, hunger and thirst, the obliteration of their memory and finally death in the gas chambers and the ovens. They bore witness to the Beatitude and the power of Gospel meekness. They did not succumb to the power of darkness; resisting evil, they proclaimed the power of the God of life.

May the memory of your just ones remain ever alive in you and in us.

R/. Kyrie eleison.

Upcoming Events & Retreats

(( Listed here are retreats directed by the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi members. For a listing of diocesan activities and other events, click here to go to the vocation.com website ))

LEGIONARIES OF CHRIST

Cheshire, CT, October 18-20, Test Your Call! retreat. Contact Br Branigan Sherman, (800) 420-5409. vocation@legionaries.org

Pittsburgh, PA, October 25-27. Spiritual exercises with Fr Anthony Bannon. Open to young men in college. Contact Fr Michael Goodyear, (740) 283-8835. mgoodyear@legionaries.org

Cheshire, CT, November 27 - December 1, Test Your Call! retreat. Contact Br Branigan Sherman, (800) 420-5409. vocation@legionaries.org

REGNUM CHRISTI consecrated women

Baltimore, MD, October 19. Young Women's Spiritual Growth Retreat. Ages 17-30. Contact Lucy Honnor, (301) 536-6931. lhonnor@inteducators.org

Los Angeles, CA, November 1-3. Young Women's Spiritual Growth Retreat. Ages 16-30. Contact Magdalena Faine, (562) 597-6351. mfaine@inteducators.org

Ottawa, Ontario, November 2. Young Women's Spiritual Growth Retreat. Ages 17-30. Contact Lourdes Cano, (401) 225-2314. lcano@inteducators.org

Atlanta, GA, November 4. Young Women's Spiritual Growth Retreat. Ages 17-30. Contact Dorrie Donahue, (770) 417-1045. ddonahue@inteducators.org

REGNUM CHRISTI consecrated men

Call Tony McDonnell for more information, (301) 365-3205. info@ytm.org

ShoreLines welcomes your questions and comments at questions@shorelines.org. If you do not specify otherwise, your question may be posted in the Vocations Q&A section.

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