Ubi Petrus

…there is exactly one thing better than assisting at Mass. Yup, there’s one thing better. Wanna guess what it is? C’mon, you know you do.

It’s assisting at Mass after receiving the Sacrament of Confession. I mean right after. As in “walking out of the Confessional, performing your penance and praying until Mass begins without leaving your pew.” There is a qualitative difference, at least for poor sinful ol’ me, in my participation in praying with the Mass directly after Confession when I haven’t even had a chance to commit even a venial sin and assisting at Mass even only a couple of days later when I’ve been beaten down by the sludge of the world. The Mass is the Mass, yes, but assisting with a sparkly clean soul is just plain different. I can’t help it, sorry.

So I renew my plea to any priest (or potential priest) reading this post – please, do anything and everything in your power to offer confession before each and every Mass in your parish. Even if it means rearranging the Mass schedule to avoid, as I believe Pope Benedict called it “the parking lot syndrome” with Masses so close together there is neither time for people to get in and out of the parking lot easily nor for Confession. Even just ten minutes. Even if nobody comes. You can read, you can write, you can review your homily, you can just sit in the quiet and pray. Admit it my beloved priests, you’d love ten minutes of peace and quiet, if that’s the “down” side of offering Confession before every Mass. I simply cannot recommend this enough.

More Papal pictures from St. Joseph’s Seminary in Dunwoodie, courtesy of Keith (again). It’s still hard to believe the Pope was here just such a short time ago.

Being the optional memorial of St. Louis Marie de Montfort and conveniently exactly 33 days from the Marian feast of the Visitation, today is a perfect day to start the preparation for the Consecration to Jesus through Mary. At least, that’s what I’m doing. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the layout done by the folks at Fish Eaters and also the Friends of Our Lady for providing an up-to-date schedule to confirm for me that today was the appropriate day to start. Reading de Montfort’s True Devotion has already been an incredible experience – it could very well have been written in the present day. Pray, pray, pray.

Also, all priests look like Jesus from the back. (Source)

No kidding. There may be more theologically in-depth arguments for ad orientem, but this one sure does have a great weight-to-words ratio.

Julie at Happy Catholic broached the subject of whether we ought to pray for specific remedies for a given situation. My combox response is below:

One day, back when my prayer life was far better than it is now (you know, before marriage, kids and the hundred other bad excuses) I was praying from Ezekiel 36:26 – “I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts.” I asked the Lord to destroy that stony heart and give me the true heart of flesh of which He spoke. With a startling clarity I heard this response: “I do not destroy what I have created, I transform it.”

That one locution has stuck with me all the intervening years and reminds me that while we may ask for things the quick, simple and obvious way (since those are our priorities) He will do things according to His priorities which include involving us in our the story of salvation. I once read in one of Pope Benedict’s books that just as God did not put aside His creation to effect His breaking into the world but rather embraced it, so now He will also continue to embrace His creation and use it.

I think we gain great opportunity in asking the Lord for this, that or the other thing – not so much in asking for it but in those times when we’re actually willing to wait around to listen to His answer. I have played around with the idea that God indeed never says “no” to our prayers, but rather says “I have a better idea”. We just need to listen.

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To expand that just a little further, yes, I think we ought to ask for specific remedies if that’s where we are in our spiritual lives. There are many cases in the lives of the saints where they asked for very specific responses and were granted them, so clearly there is no good historical evidence backing up what I hear often these days of “whatever is your will, God”. We’re not asked to abdicate our roles in this world, we’re asked to elevate ourselves to conform our desires to God’s will. A saint, when saying “Your will be done Lord” has already taken steps to conform their will to His, has very often asked for a specific remedy and is then acknowledging that due to their fallen nature their request may not be in line with God’s plan and is bidirectionally admitting a willingness to be corrected – admitting it both to God and reminding him or herself that God’s answer will be the right one even if it’s not what was requested.

I think sometimes there’s a tendency today for people to jump the gun spiritually and try to outwardly emulate the great saints in their conformance to Christ’s Will without a matching inward conformance. I think it can be very dangerous to exclude the petitionary act of prayer in favor of a statement of conformance because, inter alia, very often the resolution God is working towards requires our involvement to begin with.

To attempt to avoid what now appears to be my typical circle-of-death logic in writing, let me wrap it up simply. I’d advocate doing just what Jesus did in Gethsemane – ask for a specific remedy as seems appropriate and then recommit yourself to: 1) listening to God’s answer and 2) accepting it. C’mon, y’all have to have an opinion on this!

Commenter (and seminarian) Keith dropped me a note in the combox with a pointer to his Facebook collection of pictures from the event at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Dunwoodie. In his words, “the Holy Father was AWESOME in Dunwoodie!” I’m not sure just which picture I like the most, so do go through the whole set.

And I am totally leaving the “you couldn’t swing a stick without hitting a Bishop” comment alone. In St. Blogs that can go in just too many places to be safe…

Just a week ago I was compelled by some as-yet unidentified force (although I get the feeling its name is “ruah” if you know my meaning) to look into making the consecration to Jesus through Mary as laid out in St. Louis de Montfort’s Total Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Now normally that’s not such a big surprise – people get that kind of spiritual kick in the fanny all the time, and ignore it just about as often.

As an aside, I’ve known for a long time my only chance to really get anywhere in the spiritual life was going to depend on me being willing to break down and talk to Mary. I don’t know why, but it’s always been very difficult for me – even as I can recommend the Rosary and other Marian devotions and even explain the theological bases of our devotion to Mary it’s just been the doggoned hardest nut to crack for me. I guess I’m just obtuse like that. I should say that the “I’ve known for a long time” thing, well, let’s just say it was made clear to me by someone other than myself and leave it at that. There are some things that don’t explain themselves well in the blogosphere.

Back to the topic at hand, I was doing a wonderful job at my usual procrastination at God’s prompting when I went to our Tuesday meeting this week (we’re now on Fr. Corapi’s Behold Your Mother in preparation for the Marian Month of May, coincidentally). Clear out of the blue one of the women pulls out this past Sunday’s bulletin, which I had uncharacteristically not read as yet, and starts talking about the fact that there will be a meeting to go over St. Louis de Montfort’s book and that at the end of the series we’d have the opportunity to make the consecration and … well, if the blood didn’t drain out of my face physically it certainly did feel like it. I suddenly had this feeling as if Jesus himself were staring me right in the face and saying, “well, now what’s your excuse going to be?”

To that question I simply have no answer. There is the hope right now that the meetings will be moved to cover our Tuesday meeting slot rather than the currently-planned mornings. But with that kind of, err, invitation whenever it winds up starting I don’t think I have much choice – I’ll have to make it work one way or another. The Good Lord knows I can be a stubborn one, but even I can read the six-foot letters this suggestion was written in.

So if you’re in the Manchester area and interested in joining us, feel free to drop me a line. I’ll be putting contact information in one of the sidebars shortly. Alternately, of course, feel free to drop it in the combox as well.

I found out last night that the husband of one of the women in my parish’s Tuesday night study group passed away a little over a week ago. Armand Rheault is survived by his wife, Mary, and seven children (if what I’m told is correct). Requiescat in pace. If you could find time, please offer a prayer for the repose of his soul and for peace in his family.

I will venture to project that the lasting impact of Pope Benedict’s visit to the U.S. will not be found in the text of his speeches, his homilies or even his extemporaneous comments. No, its impact will be found in the souls so deeply affected by this proximity to the Successor of Peter. A comment on Fox News’ Religion Correspondent Lauren Green’s blog post says it all:

Thank you all so very much. I am a 63 year old Catholic, but have been drifting in my faith lately, not anymore. I am also going to write to the Vatican and thank them for their visit.

As important as we will find all the statements, as closely as we will inspect each and every word, gesture and bit of clothing, the inestimable value of one soul to God is still far and away greater. I’m willing to bet there are a lot more souls equally touched by this visit, many of whom just haven’t written it down anywhere. This, above all else, is the call of the Pope – Shepherd of Souls.

Having just finished reading the Pope’s address to the Bishops, I was left with the vague hope that the following is seen in bulletins and heard in homilies far and wide this weekend:

Time spent in prayer is never wasted, however urgent the duties that press upon us from every side. Adoration of Christ our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament prolongs and intensifies the union with him that is established through the Eucharistic celebration (cf. Sacramentum Caritatis, 66). Contemplation of the mysteries of the Rosary releases all their saving power and it conforms, unites and consecrates us to Jesus Christ (cf. Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 11, 15). Fidelity to the Liturgy of the Hours ensures that the whole of our day is sanctified and it continually reminds us of the need to remain focused on doing God’s work, however many pressures and distractions may arise from the task at hand.

While addressed to the Bishops, it is most surely a message that applies to each and every one of us. Yes, you’re busy. When you find me something you have to do that’s more important than God, you let me know, ‘kay?

When I first signed on to help out our RCIA team I wondered what the central direction of my speaking would come to be. I knew that no matter what I tried to set as my direction that my fellow catechists and the very people we were catechizing would push and pull things into a somewhat different form. It’s part of that clay analogy, I think. Having finally had a chance to read the Pope’s address to the Bishops the below resonated as a constant point just about every time we talk.

This leads me to ask how, in the twenty-first century, a bishop can best fulfill the call to “make all things new in Christ, our hope”? How can he lead his people to “an encounter with the living God”, the source of that life-transforming hope of which the Gospel speaks (cf. Spe Salvi, 4)? Perhaps he needs to begin by clearing away some of the barriers to such an encounter. While it is true that this country is marked by a genuinely religious spirit, the subtle influence of secularism can nevertheless color the way people allow their faith to influence their behavior. Is it consistent to profess our beliefs in church on Sunday, and then during the week to promote business practices or medical procedures contrary to those beliefs? Is it consistent for practicing Catholics to ignore or exploit the poor and the marginalized, to promote sexual behavior contrary to Catholic moral teaching, or to adopt positions that contradict the right to life of every human being from conception to natural death? Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted. Only when their faith permeates every aspect of their lives do Christians become truly open to the transforming power of the Gospel.

Yup, I think I’ve said that so many times people can see it coming after about two words. Now if only I could say it with such eloquence and learning. Maybe someday. Probably not, but maybe.

Given that I’ve just now gone through this address, you can imagine by the fact I’ve not commented on the Mass at Nationals Stadium that I’ve not seen that either. It’s that silly work thing again.