The Epiphany: "Your Heart Shall Throb and Overflow..."

"Then you shall be radiant at what you see,
your heart shall throb and overflow..." - Isaiah 60:5a

My mind recalls that piercing glance of the young families this last week. They were all about in my travels; their presence was at once a blessing and—if turned inward—a blow against my own thought of timing and gift, as though there is no gift for me to give this Epiphany. And, yet, this was all very well enough for the Lord of me. And, yet, these words come through that time...

Oh, how my heart overflows, deep within what the Lord prepares. Where the passing material value is placed under the subject of the spiritual and every glance becomes a sign of love. This happens every day in the family... every day! ...And yet we miss it as clear as the sun at Noon.

In the family, we forgive passing blows and stored grievances... why? Because the value isn't in the passing... it is in the girded strength of the Eternal that gives the family its worth. No, it's not blood or water that is the end but the Spirit of the one who dwells in each of us to empower us to be ones who say "Yes" as Mary continues to say "Yes."

Simeon foretold the sword that should pierce her heart, and yet we think the road to family life is to be peaceful. It was not peaceful for the Holy Family! Yet they had peace.

We think that family life should be perfect and without any messes. It wasn't pristine for the Holy Family! Yet they had perfection.

We think that family life should be without trial. It was not so for the Holy Family. Yet they had joy and love, and peace. Why? Because of the Christ Child. Even when He could not speak, He spoke. Even when we cannot speak now, we speak by our own presence. Let us not delay our presence for one another but be materially and spiritually present to one another, for the sake of the Other and in the example of the One that did it all for love of His Holy Family.

"Then you shall be radiant at what you see,
your heart shall throb and overflow,
for the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you,
the wealth of nations shall be brought to you.
Caravans of camels shall fill you,
dromedaries from Midian and Ephah;
all from Sheba shall come
bearing gold and frankincense,
and proclaiming the praises of the LORD." - Isaiah 60:5-6

Catholic Beauty: Living as the Mystical Body of Christ

I recently had a family friend ask me why I was so drawn to the parish of Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston and the Ordinariate's Anglican Use Mass of the Latin Rite. I have no specific ties to Anglicanism and am cradle Catholic. However, it is precisely because I am Catholic that I am drawn to all of it, most especially the families wrapped in Our Lady's mantle for it. It is said from medieval times that England was—and still is—Mary's Dowry. To be Catholic is to be drawn in with anything that has that authentic beauty. It is imperative that we seek out authentic beauty and nurture it. Beauty is a compelling thing, but beauty also is most especially a person: Christ with His Mass through the Eucharist, in its varied reverent forms, are a reflection of Him, as His angels and saints are, as are those who show virtue in this life and extol the same.

The beauty of the holy ones and the holy places make all of the counterfeit examples dross in the same brilliant dazzling light. It makes the Mass, the prayers, and the devotionals all the more attractive. It furthers the desire to emulate and be near those who are "very members incorporate" of His Mystical Body, the Church.

Certainly, if I do all the good works He has prepared for me to enter into and avoid those near occasions of sin for the even nearer occasions of grace and endless beauty, I will not prosper for my own glory but His. It is all His after all, even if I am given the smallest amount for my use.

How can I be burdened with worry about what others have then? I speak of this as a projection; I am not even near this slightest perfection. How can I be even worried in the slightest when another is entrusted with something of great beauty or is entrusted with a beautiful love of another? I cannot question the heart of a cheerful giver, most especially the most cheerful of all givers and Father of all givers, the Almighty Himself.

So I cannot question, but I can still behold the beauty. Is this not the definition of a Christian? To behold the Beauty of Christ in all His forms? Love demands to be given, and we must give even when we are weary. The Beloved needs it, and He does not delay in giving us the love we need as our daily bread.

May we see this beauty as the Beloved and seek out to be Lovers in the ways God is generously calling us to be in our day to day movements of grace to one another. Let us not shy away from this Cross we are to bear with Him. Amen.

O the depths of His Presence... and the distance.

"Almighty and everliving God, we most heartily thank thee for that thou dost feed us, in these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ: and dost assure us thereby of thy favor and goodness towards us; and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, the blessed company of all faithful people; and are also heirs, through hope, of thy everlasting kingdom. And we humbly beseech thee, O heavenly Father, so to assist us with thy grace, that we may continue in that holy fellowship, and do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen." - The Post-Communion Prayer in the Anglican Use Liturgy of the Latin Rite

Love as Vocation

Vocation is an interesting topic. Much is often said about it in Catholic circles, especially for those of "religious" vocations, as though there only some specific religious vocation. Hardly is this the case, but it is quibble of the language to be sure.

Or is it only a failure of the language? Is it only an oddity of the English language as the word is? Is it shackled to conceptions that might be ill-formed or, perhaps, only under-formed? Could it be a lack of blossom in the modern conception of the word of "vocation?" Perhaps.

Vocationally, at least within some very reverent and holy groups of Catholics, the idea of the priesthood as the singular "holy" vocation—that is to say, in a way, religious—has historically been the priesthood or consecrated vocations. However, this might as well be a slighted perspective. Not always has this view been the case, but it has prevailed more often than perhaps is necessary. It belabors the earthly joys that the particular vocations offer up in one way or another. However, all authentic vocations do just this besides, in large or small ways, throughout the history of the Church. As it ought to be in the first case.

Nevertheless, we do hear prayers for the religious vocations to flourish. That those with these internal callings to be supported and rightly so. It is necessary, it is needed, and it is helpful. However, it could be say it is also a hindrance to the larger perspective.

How can we raise society merely from these—pardon the evocative language—"miracle cases?" Where are the ordinary cases of holiness? There lies the basis for each authentic vocation lived out as a testament to the Gospel preached. It is the Gospel preached without words but with actions.

God does work miracles, everyday miracles, and ones of intense conversions. Rightly and beautifully so, He does. However, He also works the smaller miracles, the ordinary miracles as well day in and day out within the Domestic Church. Building the Family into the Holy Family, in parcels or parts, raises the watermark for all subsequent actions. The holiness—the set-apart reality of grace—flows from this consecration of the ordinary, as Blessed John Paul the Great taught with his call for a "universal call to holiness" born out of the Second Vatican Council and one of its Apostolic Constitution, Lumen Gentium, as well as John Paul II's Apostolic Letter "Novo Millennio Ineunte" and his Apostolic Exhortation "Familiaris Consortio."

Certainly each vocation builds upon and supports the others, but it takes an initial spark of the Domestic Church, the "Holy Family," the hidden years of toil and work, to bring foundation for the work of the Vineyard at the summation of each person's vocation.

With regard to one's vocation, the heart should burn for consummation, which is to say: to consume and be consumed and yet remain as ever before, constant and unhindered for eternity, a burning bush that remains unburned as zeal presses on in beauty bright. One's vocation shouldn't be the path of least resistance, to the easy way out. It should be the innermost selfless desire wrapped in the greatest good with one's gift set—nothing more, nothing less. It should bear itself through trial and rejection. It should be peerless in its presence, open to questioning, yet receiving no doubt. In the end, the vocation is Love Itself, so in Love should one wait who is discouraged in the Vocation set, in its timing and its wait that Love so gently begets. Come, O Love Divine. Teach us thy ways to peace. Thy name be blessed.

"The Eucharist is the Sacrament of Love; It signifies Love, it produces Love." - St. Thomas Aquinas

It's been such a blessed time to spend so much of it in reflection at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, which has a re-presentation of the Holy House that Lady Richeldis was instructed by Our Lady to build in model of the Holy House in Nazareth.

There is a great joy to be in the Holy House in Nazareth and contemplate God's inner wisdom, the beauty of Love come down. To be at the prime example of the Domestic Church and thus pray for the whole world.

I was given the view, the quiet peace at the Sunday Mass of the Feast of the Holy Family at Our Lady of Walsingham to see a young family, a young suited man with his wife and their young child who kept smiling through out the High Mass, peering back perhaps at the organist and the choir in the loft. Not a cry or frown came from her. I couldn't help but focus there as the readings went on, as it was the Feast Day of the Holy Family... and I was enthralled with the smile, with the image of them. They were among those who went for a wedding anniversary blessing, which I thought was fitting to the time. The joy and contentment of such an example to reverberate and echo the liveable example of the Holy Family.

It amplified to me such a wonderful reverberation of the following reflection:

"[From the family in Nazareth] we learn silence. If only we could once again appreciate its great value...the silence of Nazareth should teach us how to meditate in peace and quiet, to reflect on the deeply spiritual, and to be open to the voice of God's inner wisdom and the counsel of his true teachers. Nazareth can teach us the value of study and preparation, of meditation, of a well-ordered personal spiritual life, and of silent prayer that is known only to God." Pope Paul VI, 5 January 1964

Let us live these words with joy for the New Year ahead. Deo gratias, Anno Domini 2013!

A Shepherd's Chorus

On holy ground we trod...
Glory be to Him Who Is, to our living God.
Will His grace come down again this morn,
This day when He, the Christ child, was born?

Will His grace come to us and visit us this day?
Heaven come down upon us, descend down to us,
Cover us in the grace to stay
For us this Christmas Day.

Manger-born, lowly-lived,
More than this, more is He than this...

A King in squalor
Raised up with selfless valor
For Love, a babe, is born unto us,
Love, our Love, He—Christ Jesus!

Good Christian men, join in!
With all voices begin
The Chorus to end all choruses then...

Join with us, the Praises now;
Join with us, as zeal allows!
Christ is born, Christ the King!

All glory now be;
All glory now rest!
Christ is near; Christ is here!
Christ be forever blest!

Dedicated to Our Lady of Walsingham,
Houston, Texas, December 25, 2012.

Walsingham Way: Our Lady of Walsingham & Mary's Dowry

How does one enter into a people's spirituality? Is it something to be grasped? Can it be designed, manufactured, or even laid as one does stonework? Or rather, is it like all greatness, chiseled out of the rock, to resemble the masterpiece that was beneath the rock face all along?

Certainly a personal spirituality is not limited to one's person at all, even though it is personal. It cannot be, especially for the Christian. It is corporate. It is meant to be shared, not placed under the proverbial bushel basket. It is part of a greater body, as St. Paul wrote. And so, yes, one can enter into a people's spirituality.

I believe it to be important to recognize this point, even—or rather—especially in the quieter moments for the contemplative reflects into the active moments. It is important because we are not islands unto oneself, with our own spirituality or our own beliefs. We are part of the great Body that is meant—and is designed in our very being—and most optimally—to be transformative.

And yet I can claim to have discovered a people's spirituality laid deep beneath a spiritual rock face that is being, day by day, recovered from beneath—a masterpiece to be revealed once more for and by the people within Holy Mother Church. It is a personal discovery that continues to shape outside of the personal and into the corporate, into the very Body of Christ and into the personal of countless others. It is not the stirring of my own act but rather a cooperation with my own into and of the greater Spirit at work and of Our Lord and Our Lady. It is a witnessing to those acts brought about by their work and Our Lady's intercession.

And so the transformative begins.

My experience with this renewal of spirituality—and its implicit marks of the Church—began on All Saints Day in 2010. This great solemnity is as great a day to demarcate a new beginning, especially for one from New Orleans, but it was unplanned and fortuitously blind as could be expected from the mundane exercise of scheduling and execution of a plan for attending Mass for All Saints Day on a Monday evening in the Catholic Church here in the United States when the obligation of such a Mass is removed for the Faithful, a happy fault that should gain me such a blessing!

I was led with great curiosity, as I am prone to do, to wander—and thus, wonder—upon the Anglican Use parish (now Principle Church of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter) of Our Lady of Walsingham. On that faithful day in 2010 began a personal unearthing of the Spirit alive within the Church and those coming into the Church that continues to this day.

I recall those first two weekend Mass homilies that followed by the retired Fathers Noble—as they have said, "Noble by name, not by birth." I especially recall the first homily of theirs on the "Seven Words." As it went, there are four words you do not want to hear and three you do. The four being "You are under arrest," and the three being "I love you." And with those seven words, Fr. Bruce Noble began an exhortation onto the following the life of St. Thomas More, a dear saint to my heart. It was indeed spiritual kindling for the fire within. And though Fr. David Noble has passed, it brings great strength to those first days of discovery until now.

As so it has continued until now this past week, with the new rector, Father Charles Hough IV's homily on the weekend preceding the Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham, which was cause for great celebration in the first year of the new Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter created by Pope Benedict XVI and has also spurred this post forward though her feast day has come and passed on September 24th. For it was with the medieval noblewoman Richeldis de Faverches that Our Lady appeared in 1061 A.D. and gave instructions for a replica of the Holy House at Nazareth to be built there in the tiny hamlet of Walsingham. It was a standing testament of the Faith of the people of the British Isles and for hundreds of years hundreds of thousands made pilgrimage to that Holy House to recall that domesticity of the faith enkindled there, first with the Annunciation.

It was indeed with one holy "yes" that faith continued to be rekindled by the Faithful in movement towards that holy "yes." And then, there was nothing... If we are so to believe history, as Henry VIII and the English Reformation brought them into fire and destruction in 1538, most violently. Said of the images of Our Lady of Walsingham by one Hugh Latimer:

"She hath been the Devil's instrument, I fear, to bring many to eternal fire; now she herself with her older sister of Walsingham, her younger sister of Ipswich, and their two sisters of Doncaster and Penrhys will make a jolly muster in Smithfield. They would not be all day in burning."

Further more approved and executed:

"It was the month of July, the images of Our Lady of Walsingham and Ipswich were brought up to London with all the jewels that hung around them, at the King's commandment, and divers other images, both in England and Wales, that were used for common pilgrimage ... and they were burnt at Chelsea by my Lord Privy Seal"

And so it was, the place of pilgrimage of Our Lady of Walsingham and the Holy House were no more than ruins and a distant memory for centuries until both the Anglicans and the Roman Catholics renewed, first with the re-establishment of the 14th Century Slipper Chapel in Walsingham in 1897 and the recognition of the pre-Reformation pilgrimage by the Anglican Father Alfred Hope Patten SSC in the 1920s, even down to a replication of the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham based off her image in the medieval priory seal.

And so it was and is, a death knell at first appearance but a rebirth in the latter. And so it continues, as is witnessed both there in England and here in the States, as the movement of hearts back towards unity and away from division continues. It is said that England is Mary's Dowry, referred to both by the English from medieval times during the times of Henry V and then given papal recognition by Pope Leo XIII in 1893. Even so, the Faith remains strong, for it so.

For in Houston, of all cities, lies this new shrine for the Faithful here in the States to aid in that spiritual pilgrimage back into the Faith fully, and to aid those within the Faith a place of respite and hospitality to those sojourners on the journey of life on the Way. For as was related to me in this beautiful unfurling of the Faithful banner to Him, the most important route in all of medieval London—Walsingham Way. And so it is now, renewed, the Walsingham Way.