Year III, Number 41

The Lord is calling you to choose between these two voices competing for your souls. That decision is the substance and challenge of World Youth Day. Why have you come together from all parts of the world? To say in your hearts: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (Jn 6:68). Jesus - the intimate friend of every young person - has the words of life.

The world you are inheriting is a world which desperately needs a new sense of brotherhood and human solidarity. It is a world which needs to be touched and healed by the beauty and richness of God's love. It needs witnesses to that love. It needs you—to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

Salt is used to preserve and keep. As apostles for the Third Millennium, your task is to preserve and keep alive the awareness of the presence of our Savior Jesus Christ, especially in the celebration of the Eucharist, the memorial of his saving death and glorious resurrection. You must keep alive the memory of the words of life which he spoke, the marvelous works of mercy and goodness which he performed. You must constantly remind the world of the "power of the Gospel to save" (Rom 1:16)!

Salt seasons and improves the flavor of food. Following Jesus, you have to change and improve the "taste" of human history. With your faith, hope and love, with your intelligence, courage and perseverance, you have to humanize the world we live in, in the way that today's Reading from Isaiah indicates: "loose the bonds of injustice ... share your bread with the hungry ... remove the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil ... Then your light shall rise in the darkness" (Is 58:6-10).

Q. What makes a priest, sister or consecrated soul different?

- Liz

A. Dear Liz,

What priests, sisters and consecrated persons have in common is the fact that they commit themselves freely, out of love, to follow Christ as perfectly as possible in celibacy for the Kingdom of God, and they place themselves at God's service through obedience. The religious and consecrated souls also take a vow or promise of poverty. The priest of course is set apart by the Sacrament of Orders to offer the sacrifice of the Mass and take people's sins away through the sacrament of Confession. The Sacrament of Orders transforms him and makes him able to take Christ's place and do both these in his place.

- Fr Anthony

Q. Hi! I am a 17 year-old female discerning a religious vocation. Not too abnormal! I know several other people doing so as well. A couple of them feel held back because of a dating relationship. My problem is the opposite! As a senior in High School, I have never dated. And I get pickier and pickier every day! (Has to be Catholic, somewhat intelligent...etc...) But no one has shown interest in me, ever. Earlier this year I tried to find a boyfriend, but when I tried to do that, I took my eyes off of God. My spiritual director told me that I should date at least a little before I make any decisions. Any suggestions on how to get a guy but keep a square head on my shoulders while I continue to discern? Thank You!

A. Dear Alice,

As long as you have had normal friendships, and your emotional development is also normal, the dating experience is not absolutely necessary. Matter of fact, you start dating, then you get to like the guy, then you have the problem: I like him, I would like to marry him - did God send him to me, or was it God telling me before that I had a religious vocation? The fact of the matter is, we are all human, and if you date, sooner or later you are usually going to find either ‘that special person’ or one that is ‘special enough.’ The fact that you are picky means you have your head on your shoulders, and you have seen for yourself that if you become overconcerned it takes you away from what is important. My advice is to be yourself, enjoy what God has given you, and give priority to your vocation without worrying about everything else. God bless.

- Fr Anthony

An accurate thermometer of our repentance is our desire to change. This is not a vague desire or intention to be better but a firm disposition of the will, that commits itself to fight to the death against all the concrete manifestations of sin in our lives, and to fulfill God’s will out of deep conviction – even though we might foresee future falls.

I recommend that at the end of each confession, with God’s help and enlightened by your confessor’s advice, you try to set for yourself a very concrete and realistic point to work on until the next confession. This way the sacrament of penance will show itself in all its power to transform as a “means to be perfect and persevere” and not merely, as is sometimes the common attitude, a chance to “unload” our faults and make peace with God and ourselves.

This dimension of the sacrament of confession is very important, especially for those who have already traveled far in their spiritual life and are more tempted to tedium, weariness and discouragement seeing the same faults over and over. If you really want to stop being merely good and really become the saint that God wants you to be and the Church need you to be, one of the most important means you will most desire and defend will be confession lived with this transforming dynamism.

With the Eyes of Christ

Gospel Passage: Matthew 9: 9-13

As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him. While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples. The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" He heard this and said, "Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, ´I desire mercy, not sacrifice.´ I did not come to call the righteous but sinners."

Prayer: Lord, I come here today knowing the importance of this prayer time spent with you. You are the center of my life and I truly want to use this moment to deepen my knowledge and love for you.

Petition: Christ, help me to see people through your eyes: the eyes of a compassionate, merciful and loving God.

1. He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post.

"Authentic love is not a vague sentiment or a blind passion. It is an inner attitude that involves the whole human being. It is looking at others, not to use them but to serve them. It is the ability to rejoice with those who are rejoicing and to suffer with those who are suffering. It is sharing what one possesses so that no one may continue to be deprived of what he needs. Love, in a word, is the gift of self" (John Paul II, Vatican City, 1994). Although Christ ascended into heaven over 2000 years ago, he continues to be present in his modern day saints and apostles. Concretely, Christ wants to touch peoples' hearts through you. He wants you to forget about yourself so as to become that which he is: a gift to others. A gift that does not expect anything at all in return, just as Jesus gave himself for us. He gave himself up so that we could share this joy with him eternally. This love, however, cannot be confined just to our families and friends. The love of God has no barriers or borders.

2. "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"

"Believers have a duty to treat all men and women as brothers and sisters in the one human family; prejudice and enmity have no place in true religion and can never be justified on religious grounds" (John Paul II, address to the ambassador of Great Britain, Vatican City, 1995). We have all been created in the image and likeness of God and therefore every individual deserves our full charity and respect. Seen through the eyes of Christ, every person on this earth is a soul in need of salvation. And Christ is asking us to be the ambassadors of his love to touch all of these souls and bring them closer to heaven. It is our love that matters the most, and only a sacrificial and generous love can penetrate the cold and indifferent hearts in today's world. In the end, we will be judged on our love.

3. “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

"It is urgent for all Christians to understand and live from day one what we could call the core of the Gospel; there can be no true love for Christ when there is no real love of our neighbor" (Father Marcial Maciel LC, Easter 1971). So often we express our love for God in our words and in our prayers, but how little we show it in our lives. God wants you to express your love for him precisely through your love for your neighbor. How? The details of service at home, a smile or complimentary word said to a friend, a hidden act of charity to someone you would naturally rather avoid, and the list could go on and on. In short, we need to continually see others through the prism of the eyes of Christ, and even more importantly we need to love them with the heart of Christ.

Dialogue: Lord Jesus, please help me to pray as St. Paul did, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." I ask you now to take over my heart, my mind and all I do so that you can think and love and pray in me.

Questionnaire:

1. What am I doing in order to grow in the knowledge of Our Lord’s example of charity? Does my own life reflect this example?

2. What aspect of my charity needs the most attention?

3. What can I do concretely in order to grow in charity and become more like Christ today?

The idea of 7 priests and a religious murdered in Motril, Spain is a horrible one in itself. In the light of thousands of priests, religious, and laity murdered for their faith in the turbulent years of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), is seems almost unworthy of notice. We know that every martyr gives a testimony to Christ that goes beyond simple statistics, and for the Augustinian Martyrs of Motril (Frs. Vicente Soler, Deogracias Palacios, León Inchausti, José Rada, Vicente Pinilla, and Julián Benigno Moreno, and Br. José Ricardo Díez, O.A.R), along with a parish priest, Father Manuel Martín Sierra, their testimony was acknowledged in heaven and on earth in being beatified by Pope John Paul II on March 7th, 1999.

All of humanity in the first half of the twentieth century was undergoing a deep identity crisis. New ideas had risen up to define a new humanity. For some it was the State, for others, the superior race. But without the spiritual certainty left to us by Christ in the Church and Gospel, it had no spiritual foundations on which to measure its actions. The only way to build the new humanity was to wipe away the old.

The Church has always been a very visible sign of thousands of years of history, not only in its foundation by Jesus Christ, but also in the rich treasures of Western and Eastern Culture that its faithful have defended in times of trial. The religious community of Augustinians and the parish were very clear signs of the identity the new order was trying to erase: imitation of Christ, mutual love and understanding, and fellowship. So an attack was launched on all levels to eradicate the image of Christ from his faithful. The comments (translated from the Spanish) made by Father Salvador Huertas Baena in a report of June 2nd, 1938 about the atmosphere of Motril in May of 1936 help us understand the mood of the times:

“...the hostility was intensified with propaganda, rallies, subversive meetings, poisoning, and deceiving the masses of workers to incite anarchy. As a result, the people were becoming more and more frightened, bringing a dangerous and shameful character to feast days and Sundays, especially in the larger parish and the Augustinians. This atmosphere was aimed directly at damaging the Church and the Order...”

The tensions that had been brewing exploded into action as quickly as a shot from the executioner’s rifle. On July 25th, 1936, just one week after the Spanish Civil War had started, the trouble began with an attack on the Augustinian convent that drove out five of the friars. Lead to one of the principal streets, they were offered their last chance for life: to deny their faith and join the revolutionary ranks. Horrified spectators watched from their windows as the five were shot to death for choosing their faith over their lives.

Two more priests were killed the next day in the courtyard of the Church of the Divine Shepherd (the parish near to the convent), after having taken refuge there the night before and spending the night in fervent prayer: the parish priest, Father Manuel Martín, and another Augustinian, Father Vicente Pinilla. Before being shot, Father Pinilla blessed those who shot him, causing one of the killers to say afterwards, “I will never shoot again. If it is true that saints exist, he is one of them.” We can only imagine the intimate union with God of these men in their last night of prayer, like the urgent prayers of Christ at Gethsemane. Seeing the cup the Father had asked them to drink, they begged for the strength to drink from it to the full.

Father Vicente Soler, the last surviving Augustinian father, had eluded the first attempt at capture, fleeing from the convent’s choir when the revolutionaries first attacked. On July 29th he was imprisoned in a Motril jail. Faithful to his call, the shepherd gathered his sheep, consoling his fellow prisoners and encouraging them to pray. Nine days before his death he began a novena to Mary along with the other prisoners. The night of August 14th a soldier began calling the names of those condemned to death. Father Soler asked to go in the place of another prisoner, a father of eight children, but the soldier knew Father Soler’s own condemnation was coming soon and refused the offer. Father Soler and seventeen others were then lead to a cemetery to be shot. Lined up to await their turn at the wall, Father Soler gave absolution to each prisoner as he was taken to the wall to be executed.

The martyrs of Motril had spent their lives serving the people, sent to the harvest by their Master. Like their Master, when the hour of darkness came the disciples were scattered, hidden away in the shadows of fear and confusion. The revolutionaries weren’t just after specific agitators who’d been living in the convent, and they weren’t just interested in scaring the Augustianians out of their convent and scattering them. In the end the only reason for the executions of the Augustinians was a religious habit and their unity. The execution itself came about quickly, and the victims not claimed in the first attack on the convent were actively sought out and later killed. The goal was total eradication that didn’t even spare the parish near the convent.

There are many martyrs known only to God, buried and forgotten victims of the totalitarian regimes and turbulent times of our era, leaving shameful silence that haunts all those who’ve been left behind. In the case of the martyrs of Motril, a survivor of the executions, Francisco Burgo Ramíres, prisoner eleven of the group of prisoners with Father Soler and also a Catholic Action youth, survived the executions to later testify about the events to the tribunal of the cause for beatification. We can see these scenes played out again and again throughout Spain as the revolutionaries dedicated themselves to their goal: to erase Christ.

In the Angelus of March 7th, 1999, the Sunday of the martyrs’ beatification, the Holy Father invited not only the Augustinians and pilgrims of Motril gathered for the beatification, but all the faithful not to forget the eloquent testimony of the martyrs' faith, since the blood of martyrs gives fecundity and vitality to the Church as it prepares with confidence to face the great challenges of proclaiming the Gospel in the Third Millennium. Christ is the model, and our imitation of him is the solution to all the challenges - yesterday, today, and forever.

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

Cheshire, CT, December 26-30, Test Your Call! retreat. Contact Br Branigan Sherman, (800) 420-5409. vocation@legionaries.org

REGNUM CHRISTI consecrated women

Atlanta, GA, December 2. Young Women's Christmas Retreat. Ages 17-30. Contact Dori Donahue, (770) 417-1045. ddonahue@inteducators.org

Washington DC, December 3. Young Women's Advent Retreat. Ages 17-30. Contact Lucy Honnor, (301) 536-6913. lhonnor@inteducators.org

Rome, Italy, December 26, 2002 - January 4, 2003. Rome Pilgrimage. High school girls. Contact Fernanda Paez, (877) 866-7738. matere@ids.net

Rome, Italy, December 26, 2002 - January 4, 2003. Rome Pilgrimage. Ages 17-30. Contact Fernanda Paez, (877) 866-7738. matere@ids.net

REGNUM CHRISTI consecrated men

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

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