Tag Archives: God

Christmas Message from Fr. Ottaviano D’Egidio, C.P.

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Nativity Scene in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral

Dear brothers and sisters of the Congregation and the Passionist Family,

When we celebrate Christmas we celebrate the coming of God among us:  He is a Child that is born into a family of the spouses Mary and Joseph, who will love him with simplicity and faithfully care for him in silence with the dedication of ones who know that God is in their home.  At the Annunciation the Angel said to Mary:  “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.  He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High.” (Lk.1:31-32)  His birth is so human!  He is immersed in the fullness of humanity:  sent from the perfect communion of the Trinity, he entered into a world of conflict.

Jesus is born as a man in the context of contemporary history:  “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria… And Joseph too went up from… the town of Nazareth…to Bethlehem… to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.  While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”  (Lk. 2:1-7)

Respectfully and reverently we almost always skip over the words of the angel:  “you will conceive in your womb” – even if we recite them in the Hail Mary; and also: “Mary, his betrothed, who was with child…the time came for her to have her child.”  She was a pregnant woman like so many others in the world who was expecting the birth of her child and the time arrived for her to give birth to Jesus.  God is born like all the children of the world and Mary is his mother and gives birth, although immaculate, like every other mother who gives birth to a child and feeds him at her breast.  Mary, according to the accounts of the nativity, gives birth to the One who was foretold, in poverty and in the solitude of a courageous journey.  She would not receive the glorious announcement of the angels:  “I proclaim to you good news of great joy…a savior has been born for you” (Lk.2:10-11); rather it would be the shepherds who would bring her the message and she would accept it in a spirit of faith.

Mary meditates on these events, trying to understand their meaning. (Lk.2:19)  It is by the power of faith that she struggles to enter into the mystery of God.  The relationship between this human maternity and the challenge to accept the reality of Jesus in faith will achieve its fulfillment when a woman in the crowd “called out and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.” But Jesus said: “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” (Lk. 11:27-28)

In addition to bearing him in her womb and nursing the Son of God at her breast, Mary was situated in her mission by the prophetic words of the old man Simeon:  “And you yourself a sword will pierce.” (Lk. 2:35)  If Jesus would be a “sign that will be contradicted”, i.e. he would encounter challenges, confrontations and rejection by the people that he came to save, then Mary would have to participate in the sorrowful mission of her Son.  Here, too, Mary is presented as a mother, but above all as a “believer” who “hears the word of God and observes it.”  She must walk along the dark road of danger and suffering.

Whoever believes in and loves God shares in His mission and if God calls him, he allows himself to be found and he accepts his plans even without knowing the details, as did Mary.  And all of us, religious and laity, are challenged, each according to his or her own status in life.

And we may ask ourselves, filled with wonder and surprise at such great simplicity:  Is the Baby that is wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger with animals really Him, the God announced by the prophets and the long-awaited Messiah who will free his people from oppression?

This is the same question that would be posed to John the Baptist when Jesus, now an adult, was about to begin his mission:  “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”  (Mt. 11:3)

Jesus is not confused by this question.  He understands John’s perplexity and he opens his mind and his heart:  “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”  (Mt. 11:4-6)  At times we too are blind and we don’t want to see or hear.  And many times and in different ways, whether on a personal level or the level of the Congregation, we refuse to accept new things as did the citizens of Nazareth when Jesus entered their synagogue one Sabbath to read the prophecy of Isaiah:  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”  Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Lk. 4:18-21)  But he was rejected:  to free the oppressed and to bring good news to the poor was at the very heart of his mission and because of this mission conversion and a change of heart from those things that have been irrefutable for so many years were needed.

And in profound agreement with the response he gave to John’s disciples and what he read in the synagogue of Nazareth, in Matthew 25, Jesus invites us to recognize him in the sick, in the hungry, in the imprisoned, in the poor and in the powerless of this world.   But we need eyes and evangelical wisdom to recognize him and a change of heart to understand and study the signs that God is sending us.

And at Christmas the sign that is also given by the angels is a Child wrapped in swaddling clothes.  Word and sign, simplicity and poverty, the gift and the glory of God come together in Him:  the Word was made flesh and came to dwell among us.  The Child Jesus is the language of God that reveals to us that not only man is in God, but primarily, that God is in man.

And this helps us to understand that perfection is not about self-realization, but is found in one another;  that greatness is not about being served, but serving;  that the fullness of liberty is to be free from oneself, free for others and for God;  that freedom is about total and serene abandonment to God especially in suffering and in sickness;  that the fullness of love is not about being loved, but about loving.  Thus it is for man and thus it is for God:  The Child of Bethlehem and the Crucified One on Golgotha is the sign and the gift of the one, same love.  May St. Paul of the Cross open our hearts to understand this great love!

Merry Christmas!  May the New Year 2012 be a year of peace for our communities, for the Passionist nuns and Sisters, for our families and for the world!  May there be work for the unemployed and a peaceful future for the young.

Together with the General Council and the religious of the Community of Sts. John and Paul, I particularly wish to remember the sick and those who are alone and suffering in spirit.

Fr. Ottaviano D’Egidio, C.P.
Superior General

Retreat of Sts. John and Paul
Rome, 20 December 2011

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Blessed Bernard Mary of Jesus Silvestrelli, C.P.

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He was born Caesare Silvestrelli on November 7, 1831.  Before all else it must be noted that he was one of the most brilliant leaders in the history of the Passionist Congregation.  Without a doubt he shaped the modern scope of the of the Passionists of the Twentieth Century.  Beyond that he helped to change the modern Papacy.

Born of noble parents in the aristocratic Minerva section of Rome behind the Piazzo Doria-Pamphila, he received a private education from two priests who were part of the domestic household.  His parents died when he was yet a teenager.  His spirituality was engendered principally by the Oratorians whose church, the Chiesa Nuova (the New Church) was only a few steps away from his home.  The times were turbulent, particularly between 1848 and 1853.  His brother, like that of Saint Gabriel Possenti fell in with the Roman Freemasons and actively sought the unification of Italy and the nullification of the power of the Papacy.  Caesare’s beloved sibling, Luigi, was a prominent leader of this movement.  Later, his younger brother Augusto joined Luigi and his sister, Elisa married yet another leader.  The family was divided.  They only came together to comfort their dying father, Giantommaso.  The entire experience steeled the heart of the young and devout Caesare with a resolve to defend the Catholic Church.

Saint Gabriel Possenti’s brother had also gone over to the Liberal Movement and, as a result, committed suicide.  Their separate but similar family experiences endeared them to one another.  They came together in the 1850 in the Passionist Novitiate in Morrovalle.  Gabriel died young and, under the supervision of his companion, was canonized the second Passionist saint in 1920.

In early 1853, Caesare entered the Passionist Motherhouse of Saints John and Paul in Rome.  The Superior General also was an indefatigable leader of the Passionist Congregation in the time after the first suppression.  The Major Superior took a personal interest in Caesare and gave him the religious name Luigi of the Heart of Mary.  He traveled to the foundation House of the Congregation at Monte Argentario.  Almost immediately after being clothed with the habit his health collapsed.  He left on May 3rd of the following year under a cloud of broken health and depression.  Still all was not lost.  Anthony of Saint James had his eye on him and arranged that Passionist Priests would tutor him toward the diocesan priesthood.  Eventually, through a series of indults and dispensations, he was ordained a diocesan priest A Cura di (under the protection of) the Passionist General Curia.

In 1857 he reentered the Passionist Novitiate, receiving the name Bernard Mary of Jesus.  He held a series of leadership positions within the Congregation from the moment of his ordination.  He published The Memoirs of the First Companions, an important document of Passionist history which stabilized the charism and the Rule of the Passionists for the next hundred years.  Just as importantly, he stabilized the foundation of the Congregation in Argentina and from there, supervised the spread of the Order throughout all of Latin America, through the Caribbean and into Spain itself.  In the United States, he divided the foundation into two Provinces and established the Retreat Movement de jure (by precept) several years before it could take effect in Pittsburgh and in Boston.

English: Pope Pius IX death mask from the auth...

Pope Pius IX Death Mask

Most important was his effect on the besieged Pope Pius IX, encouraging him to surrender to the Liberal Movement of Italy, assuring the Pope that God, in the Passion of Jesus, was in this action.  On September 20, 1870, the Cannonades blasted the city of Rome.  The ruling junta of the Resurgiments announced that Rome was no longer independent, but now part of the nation of Italy.  Bernard Mary met Pope Pius IX at the foot of the Scala Sancta (Holy Stairs), which is a Passionist Basilica.  Together the two men climbed the steep stairs which saw the condemnation of Jesus by Pilate.  When they reached the top after a painful journey on their knees, they both prostrated themselves.  Bernard Mary uttered the words:  “Let us place everything in the cup of the Blood of Jesus.”  To that, Pius replied:  “If I have done that, I have completed my mission.”  He immediately fell into great peace in order to face the eight years as a prisoner in the Vatican that awaited him.  In his own way, Bernard Mary helped the Pontiff see that the Papacy must now take on the role of Peter as a spiritual force.

- Father Jerome Vereb, C.P.

Prayer:

Lord our God, you taught Blessed Bernard Mary to love the crucified Christ by perfect detachment from material goods.  Following his example of prayers,  grant that through constant meditation on the Passion of our Lord, we may live and die for him who is our Redeemer.  We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit one God, forever and ever. Amen

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Homily for the Perpetual Profession of Brother James Fitzgerald, C.P.

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Today Brother James Fitzgerald is taking an important step in his life. He’s making his final religious profession as a Passionist at Mass on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the mother of the Jesus.

It’s traditional in our community to make our religious vows at Mass. We do it because we seek by vows to enter more deeply into the mystery of Jesus. The vows of poverty, chastity and obedience are ways of saying, “I want to be like him,” and so we make them in the presence of our Lord who gave himself so fully to us on the Cross. As Passionists we want to share as deeply as we can in the mystery of his Passion and Resurrection.

Usually, too, we make our vows on a feast of Mary, because she appreciates, more than anyone else, what it means to be called by God and how mysterious that call can be. She knows how to follow her Son.

The gospel today is the story of her call. That morning in Nazareth, Mary got up and was expecting to get married to Joseph and go into his house and bear children with him. Then the angel came. “How can this be?” Mary asks simply. God will bring it about, the angel says, and then leaves her.

That call radically touched Mary’s whole being: who she was, what she was used to and what she did. It was a lifelong call that raised questions all her life. “How can this be?” she said more than once. “Be it done to me according to your word.” She also said that more than once.

Mary’s experience was uniquely her own, we think, and it was. But we may also think that human life, our own lives included, go on in only human terms and God only occasionally has a hand in it, and there we would be wrong.  An infant is baptized, two people get married, someone makes religious vows, and that’s it, we may think. But God’s call is dynamic; God is with us continually and God pursues us all our lives.

“Lord, you have probed me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I stand.  All my thoughts are before you,” we say in the psalms. God’s call is an everyday, lifelong call.

I think Jim offers us a reminder of that mysterious, lifelong aspect of God’s call. In his early years he joined the Passionists and then that call seemed to be interrupted. “How can this be?” Yet, all through the years, he’s felt its thread pulling him back to a vowed life in a religious community he’s always loved. His profession today may be a good reminder of God’s steady, quiet, mysterious involvement in the lives of each of us.

We may tend to think that God calls only the young, but he calls us in our older years as well. In Advent we remember Zachariah, the priest, and his wife Elizabeth, who conceived a child in her old age. The Christmas story wouldn’t be the same without them.  Then, there’s Simeon and Anna who hold the Infant in their arms in the temple. God calls at every age. Whether we are young or old, we’re called to keep listening and questioning and responding:  “Be it done to me according to your word.”

Those great gospel figures remind us that it’s not age but faith that counts with God. It’s faith that gives life to religious vows and to communities where we live our vows. Faith moves mountains and changes the world, Jesus says, and he doesn’t limit faith to a certain age.

That’s important to remember today as we experience the phenomenon of aging in our church and our religious communities. What’s more, we’re living in an aging society; we’re living longer in our western industrialized world. It’s a phenomenon that’s increasingly affecting our economy, health care, immigration and so many other areas of our life, and we don’t like paying attention to it. We like to think young. A critical challenge for us is how we live these added years. “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart,” we pray in the psalms.

Our church is a pilgrim church, the Second Vatican Council says. In its sacraments and institutions it “belongs to this world of time.” The church bears “the likeness of this passing world.” Certainly, in our part of the globe, it bears the likeness of a changing, aging world.

Does our community–I think of this wonderful community of Passionists here in the Monastery of the Immaculate Conception, for example–have a role helping an aging world live in the spirit of the gospel.

As Jim Fitzgerald takes his vows today he’s not taking a step to security–certainly not in a religious community like ours. Religious vows don’t bring you safety, they spur you on to give yourself to God and his Kingdom. The make us ask like Mary: “How can this be?”  “Be it done to me according to your word.”

Any of you who know Jim, know that he doesn’t think he’s old. He works harder and longer that a lot of people much younger than he. But I would like to offer him a few words from the poet, T.S. Elliot as he makes his vows today, words that don’t’ state a fact, but like the vows challenge to something more.

“Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation.
In my end is my beginning.”

Victor Hoagland, CP                                                                            December 8,  2011

 

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Download Advent and Christmas Music by the Passionists

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Every Knee Shall Bend – Advent and Christmas music by the Passionists is now available as a digital download. The 19 selections range from Gregorian chant and newly arranged Christmas carols, to contemporary works in styles taken from many traditions and cultures.

Listen to previews. Download your favorite tracks or get the whole album. All proceeds benefit the ministries of the Passionist priests and brothers.

Check out: Every Knee Shall Bend.  It is our hope that these compositions and arrangements will inspire hope in the power of God’s saving presence.

 

 

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2 years and counting at Comedor Infantil Pasionista

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In September, I returned to Honduras for the first time since I left a little over a year ago.  As I walked through the dirt roads of Talanga my senses were overwhelmed with the sights, sounds, and smells that were once so familiar to me; the laughter of children as I passed the schools, the sight of women balancing baskets on their heads, and the smell of fresh pineapple and mangos being sold in the marketplace.  I was walking the route I had once walked daily, to Nuevo San Diego, a poor, marginalized neighborhood, to return to the Comedor Infanitl Pasionista, a lunch meal program for children my roommates and I started during our time as volunteers in Honduras.  My head and heart were swimming with emotions, excitement, and nervousness and I wondered what it would be like to see the kids and their mothers again.  What would they look like?  Would they remember me?  Would the meal program be flourishing as it was when we left?

As I turned the final bend that enters into Nuevo San Diego all of my questions, my anxiety, and my excitement was answered with the sounds of dozens of voices screaming, “JUANITA!!!!” (my name in Spanish).  I looked up and saw several of the kids from the Comedor running towards me.  I dropped my bag, ran towards them, and opened my arms as wide as I could to try to scoop them all up in one giant embrace.  I was overcome with emotion and as tears came down my face, I was filled with an overwhelming joy and love for the beauty of these children.

A little over a week ago, the Comedor Infantil Pasionista celebrated its two year anniversary.  Marlin, the cook, called me and I could hear the shouting of children, the chatters of their mothers, and the beat of the music from the celebration they were having.  We have come a long way since that first day, when we served just 12 children who sat around the floor and shyly ate their first meal.  We started with hardly anything – just a handful of donations, the willing hands of Marlin and the mothers, and the faith that God would give us each day our “daily bread” that we needed to feed these children, many of which previously ate out of dumpsters.  And slowly through the generosity of many Hondurans, a few organizations, and many of you back here in the states we received the needed tables, chairs, food, and support to grow the Comedor and nourish the minds, bodies, and spirits of not only the children, but the community as well.

This is what the Comedor looks like today:

  • Monday –Friday we serve a lunch meal to 40 children.
  • Each day the food is prepared by a different group of mothers and Marlin, who began as a volunteer and now hold her first job as the Comedor’s kitchen coordinator.
  • In addition to helping with the daily cooking, the mothers gather weekly to make cheese to have on hand for their children.
  • We offer regular sessions for the mothers to offer educational opportunities (ie: sewing classes), parenting advice, spiritual nourishment, domestic violence counseling, and to foster community and solidarity among the families
  • We have a social worker who provides educational activities/outings for the children, monitors their health, and works to empower their families to find solutions to overcoming the struggles of poverty
  • We have partnered with Nuestro Pequenos Hermanos (a nearby orphanage) to offer the families of the meal program free and regular medical care.  In addition, the Comedor has housed several medical brigades that are open to the entire community
  • The Comedor continues to be operated by a local Honduras board of directors that is made up of both successful business owners and members of the Nuevo San Diego neighborhood

I am amazed at what the Comedor has become and what it means to this community.  It is not only a place where children come to eat; it serves as an example of how the faith, hope, and love of a community can overcome poverty to create change.  I wanted to share how the Comedor is flourishing because in some way, you have been a part of making this happen.  Whether it was your support, your prayers, or your emails both while I lived in Honduras and since I have returned; it has had an impact and is so appreciated.

Jean Baumgardner
St. Vincent de Paul Society – Milwaukee, Meal Programs Manager
2009-2010 Passionist Volunteer International in Honduras

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