Bishop Kallistos Ware on the Divine Liturgy part 1

Saturday Mass of Mary     

The Reading about our Lady by Kallistos Ware was moving at our Night Office. It was clear, deep and spiritual.

 COMMENT: 
Years ago we enjoyed Retreat talks at our Abbey.
Even the style of mysticism, think the vocabulary of Our Lady; Heavenly , Celestial Queen, "the love of the Celestial Queen is Unsurpassable", (Luisa Piccarreta). 

Published on 21 Aug 2012

April, 2011 – Metropolitan Kallistos Ware on the Divine Liturgy (first lecture) … presented to clergy from the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Atlanta at the Diakonia Center in South Carolina. Please enjoy and there will be more to come.

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Saturday, 20 June 2015

Mary Month Calendar June

Saturday Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary

This morning we had the Saturday Mass of Mary, I was reminded of the mid-week memorials of Our Lady of Walsingham and OL of Ransom. In fact, on every day of the year there are memorials, dedications, shrines, named of Our Lady. For the Saturday Mass of BVM, it is usually put among the Commons at the back of the Missal.

Even more appropriate is the Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Volume 1 Sacramentary and Volune II Lectionary.

With such an abundance of Marian memorials we celebrate this Saturday Mass in the spirit and help of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Saturday Vigil READING ABOUT OUR LADY

by Bishop Kallistos Ware.

In her recognition and acceptance of' her vocation, in her attitude of' receptivity, Mary stands before us supremely as the one who listens obediently in faith. Faith is the essence of Mary's response at the Annunciation, and faith presupposes listening. When we think of her obedience, it is important to give the word"obedience” its true and literal sense; both in Latin and in Greek it signifies 'to hear'. 'Let it be done to me according to your word', Mary replies to the angel. The Mother of God listens to God's word. The Gospel reading appointed for most feasts in her honour includes Christ's reply to the woman in the crowd:'Blessed rather are those who hear the word, of God and keep it.' This answer from a superficial point of view might seem to belittle the Holy Virgin, in reality indicates what is her true glory. She is blessed not merely by the physical fact of her child-bearing, but also and more fundamentally by the spiritual depth of her inner faith and attentiveness to God's word. Had she not first learnt to hear the word off God in her heart, she could never have born the Word Incarnate in her body.

Repeatedly the Gospels insist upon this characteristic of Mary as the one who listens. After the adoration of the shepherds, it is said that ‘Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart' Similar words after her discovery of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple: 'his Mother kept all these things in her heart'. The importance of listening is evident in Mary's own words to the servants at the marriage feast at Cana of Galilee: 'Do whatever he tells, you; listen, wait on God’. Once more the relevance - of Mary's example in our present age is easily apparent. Ours is an era in which words' can be multiplied with extraordinary facility - on the radio and television, on tape recorders, photocopiers, and word processors - but we have forgotten the art of" listening.

The Mother of' God, the one who listens, by her own example can help us to rediscover the lost dimension of inner space. Byzantine spirituality sees in her the model hesychast, a living icon of what it means to practise hesychia, stillness of heart. The words of the Psalmist - 'Be still, and know I God' apply exactly to her.

Mary Links Calendar http://www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm#JUNE JUNE

St Romuald Mass Friday 19th June 2015

Monastic Office of Vigils         



      Dom Donald's Blog: St Romuald Mass Thursday 11th Week Ord Time: Night Office Saints,   http://www.monasterodicamaldoli.it/   St Romuald       June 19. Portrait St. Romuald (FaceBook) Chris...



For the Memorial of Saint Romuald:

SECOND READING

From the life of Saint Romuald by Saint Peter Damian, bishop
(Cap.31 et 69: PL 144, 982-983, 1005-1006)

Denying oneself and following Christ

Romuald lived in the vicinity of the city of Parenzo for three years.  In the first year he built a monastery and appointed an abbot with monks. For the next two years he remained there in seclusion. In that setting, divine holiness transported him to such a summit of perfection that, breathed upon by the Holy Spirit, he foresaw many future events and comprehended with the rays of his intelligence hidden mysteries of the Old and New Testaments.

Frequently he was seized by so great a contemplation of divinity that he would be reduced to tears with the boiling, indescribable heat of divine love. In this condition he would cry out: Beloved Jesus, beloved, sweet honey, indescribable longing, delight of the saints, sweetness of the angels, and other things of this kind.  We are unable to express the ecstasy of these utterances, dictated by the Holy Spirit.

Wherever the holy man might arrange to live, he would follow the same pattern. First he would build an oratory with an altar in a cell; then he would shut himself in and forbid access.

Finally, after he had lived in many places, perceiving that his end was near, he returned to the monastery he had built in the valley of Castro. While he awaited with certainty his approaching death, he ordered a cell to be constructed there with an oratory in which he might isolate himself and preserve in silence until death.

Accordingly the hermitage was built, since he had made up his mind that he would die there. His body began to grow more and more oppressed by afflictions and was already failing, not so much from weakness as from the exhaustion of great age. One day he began to feel the loss of his physical strength under all the harassment of increasingly violent afflictions.  As the sun was beginning to set, he instructed two monks who were standing by to go out and close the door of the cell behind them; they were to come back to him at daybreak to celebrate matins. They were so concerned about his end that they went out reluctantly and did not rest immediately. On the contrary, since they were worried that their master might die, they lay hidden near the cell and watched this precious treasure. For some time they continued to listen attentively until they heard neither movement nor sound. Rightly guessing what had happened, they pushed open the door, rushed in quickly, lit a candle and found the holy man lying on his back, his blessed soul snatched up into heaven.  As he lay there, he seemed like a neglected heavenly pearl that was soon to be given a place of honor in the treasury of the King of kings.

RESPONSORY
Deuteronomy 2:7; 8:5

The Lord has blessed you in all that you have done;
he has watched over your progress
as you journeyed through the vast desert.
– The Lord your God has been with you;
no need of yours has been forgotten.

As a father teaches his son,
so the Lord your God was disciplining you.
– The Lord your God has been with you;
no need of yours has been forgotten.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Let us pray.

Father,
through Saint Romuald
you renewed the life of solitude and prayer in your Church.
By our self-denial as we follow Christ
bring us the joy of heaven.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen.

Monastic Life - Wednesday Chapte Br. Philip

 

     

Br. Philip. Wednesday Talk

Monastic Life                                   Chapter Talk – 17 June 2015

The Beginning – the Word

Jesus Christ did not directly found the monastic life, but He did have its origins in His preaching, for this included those elements which later became characteristic of the way of life of monks.  Did Jesus not tell us that “we must leave all to follow Him”?  That we must “sell our possessions and give to the poor” and that we must “renounce marriage” for the sake of the Kingdom”?  Did not Jesus surround Himself with men and women disciples who shared His everyday life and His care for the coming of the Kingdom and especially His mysterious dialogue with the Father?

Jesus appeared to his contemporaries as equal to those great men of the Old Testament who had been suddenly uprooted from their ordinary lives by the power of the word of God, so that they might be more completely dedicated to God’s service.  Men such as Abraham, Moses and the prophets.

From the beginning of sacred history the word of God has never ceased to work in this way.  It calls each one, inviting him in a special way to Him and dedicating him to a particular service.  The word of God recreates a man from the depths of his being – if necessary even changing his name.  In this way, through the call of one individual, the life of a whole people can be profoundly changed and they can be led to God.

At the beginning of every Christian life is the word of the Lord.  It comes in many ways, but it always calls accepted values and standards into question and stirs the soul of the believer to its depths.  St Anthony the Great, the father of monks owed his vocation to a word of the Gospel, heard by chance during a celebration of the Eucharist one day; “If you wish to go the whole way, go sell your possessions and give to the poor, and then you will have riches in Heaven; come follow Me.  Anthony did not know where this would lead him.  But the word of Jesus suddenly coming alive in his heart was call enough.  On the strength of it, he committed his whole life.

Likewise, two centuries later, St Benedict who was to become the Patriarch of the monks of the West, did not know any other way than that of the Gospel.  St Benedict knew that his Rule would not supplant the Gospel.  On the contrary, when he wrote the final chapter he recalled that the Rule is only a sort of humbly beginning, a kind of manual of introduction to what he calls “the heights of perfection, the loftier summits of teaching and virtue” which the disciple will find in every page of the scriptures.  The word of God is the sole rule of life and it alone is more than adequate.  Any religious rule has meaning only to the extent that it can make the demands of the word of God specifically.  It must apply the Gospels to the concrete circumstances of a particular age and culture.  St Benedict knew nothing of the world wide destiny of his Rule.  He was content to prepare his monks to hear the word of the Gospel and to follow Christ.

_____ cf. Andre Louf  

Community Monthly Memorial of the Dead

Night Office Reading. 

Thursday 18/06/2015 

 

Community Monthly Memorial of the Dead

..."the Church and Our Anticipated Victory over Death," 

Mass Intro: Today we celebrate the Monthly Mass for our dead;

Our brothers and sisters in the Order among our relatives and friends and benefactors have all gone before us. We pray for them and that we may in our turn and that we may in our turn join them in the joy of heaven.

OFFICE OF THE DEAD - 9

A Reading;
about the Church and Our Anticipated Victory over Death,
from a Book 13y Fro-Alexander Schmemann *..

THE liturgy of Christian death does not begin when a man has come to the inescapable end and his corpse lies in church for the last rites while we stand around, the sad yet resigned witnesses of the dignified removal of a man from the world of the living. It begins every day as the Church ascending in to heaven, "puts aside all earthly care"; it begins every feast day; it begins especially in the joy of Easter. The whole life of the Church is in a way the sacrament of our death, because all of it is the proclamation of the Lord's death the confession of his resurrection.  

The Church is the entrance into the risen life of Christ, communion in life eternal, "joy and peace in the Holy Spirit." And it is the expectation of the "day without evening" of the Kingdom; not of any "other world," but of the fulfilment of all things and all life in Christ. In him death itself has become an act of life, for he has filled it with himself, with his love and light, In him "all things are yours; whether the world" or life, or death, or things present , or things to come; all are yours; and you are Christ's; and Christ is God’s" (1 Cor 3 21-23). And if I make this new life mine, mine this hunger and thirst of the Kingdom, mine this expectation of Christ, mine the certitude that Christ is Life, my very death will be an act of communion with Life, For neither Life nor death can separate us from the love of Christ. I do not know when and how the fulfilment will cameo I do not know when all things will be consummated in Christ. I know nothing about the "whens" and "hows." But I know that in Christ this great Passage , the Pascha of the world has begun , that the light of the “world to come" comes to us in the joy and peace of the Holy Spirit , for Christ is risen and Life reigns.

________________________* Sacraments and Orthodoxy, New York 1965, 130-133

Association of Victim Souls, Bl. Joseph-Marie Cassant, Beatified 2004

An embroidery of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Saint Nicholas Church Ghent Belgium

           Dom Donald's Blog: Joseph-Marie Cassant, Beatified 2004: The beatification was celebrated on October 3, 2004, Saint Peter's Square,  Rome . (Fr. Raymond)  Prayer Beatification,...

Quote: A Victim–Priest   

It is significant that Father Marie–Joseph belonged to the “

Association of Victim Souls,” a movement of identification with the oblation of the Heart of Jesus, Priest and Victim. Saint Pius X (1835–1914), Blessed Charles de Foucauld (1858–1916), Blessed Columba Marmion (1858–1923), Blessed Jacob Kern (1897–1924), and Blessed Ildefonso Cardinal Schuster (1880–1954), were all members of the same Association. It was established by the Filles du Coeur de Jésus (Daughters of the Heart of Jesus) following the wishes of their foundress, Blessed Marie de Jésus Deluil–Martiny, after her death. As a member of the Association of Victim Souls, Father Marie–Joseph prayed, and signed, an Act of Oblation that the rest of his life was to illustrate and consummate.

St. Lutgarde Mass & Nignt Office Reading from Thomas Merton..

   Dom Donald's Blog:      
Saint Lutgarde of Aywieres 

   http://nunraw.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/saint-lutgard.html       





Dom Donald's Blog: St. Lutgarde Mass & Nignt Office Reading from Pref...: (NAB) For I am jealous of you with the jealousy of God, since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. ...

  Thursday, 16 June 2011

St. Lutgarde 

Mass & Nignt Office 

Reading from Preface of Merton

(NAB) For I am jealous of you with the jealousy of God, since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. (2Co 11:2).

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Nivard ….
Sent: Thu, 16 June, 2011 11:40:17
Subject: Lutgarde Addenda

St Lutgarde, 11^th wk.  The ‘Our Father’.

Paul says in the First Reading, ‘I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.’ This fits in well as we commemorate the Virgin, Lutgarde. The story of Lutgarde, with her exchange of hearts with Jesus, underlines the message of today’s Gospel. The message is that God wants to have an intimate relationship with each and every human being.

It is through the gift of the Holy Spirit that we can know God personally and call God “Abba, Father”, “Daddy, my daddy”, (Romans 8:15). We can approach God our Father with confidence and boldness because Jesus Christ has opened the way to heaven for us through his death and resurrection. When we ask God for help, he fortunately does not give us what we deserve. Instead, he responds with grace and favour and mercy. He loves generously and forgives mercifully. When he gives, he gives more than we need, so we will have something to share with others in their need. St. Lutgard loved the Father especially for his gift to us of the Sacred Heart of his divine Son.

St Lutgarde - 16 June

St Lutgarde was born in 1182 in the Flemish town of Tongres. She joined the community of nuns who educated her but later transferred to the monastery of Cistercian nuns at Aywieres. near Brussels. She was afflicted  with total blindness for the last eleven years of her life. She died in 1246.

The following Reading is taken from a book by Thomas Merton

• Some four hundred years before St Margaret Mary Labcured , prayed and suffered for the institution of the feast of the Sacred Heart, St Lutgarde had .entered upon the mystical life with a vision of the pierced side of the Saviour. But there are other facts besides which make Lutgarde of interest to the theologian, the Church historian, and to the general Christian. She was a contemporary of St Francis of Assisi, the first recorded stigmatic, and she too received a mystical wound in her heart which historians have not hesitated to class as a stigma. The life of St Lutgarde introduces us to a mysticism that is definitely extraordinary, yet her mysticism springs from the purest Benedictine sources. Lutgarde's mystical contemplation, like that of St Gertrude and St Mechtilde, is nourished almost entirely by the liturgy. Above all it centres upon the sacrifice of Calvary and upon the Mass which continues that sacrifice among us every day. 
• The charm of St Lutgarde is heightened by a certain earthly simplicity which has been preserved for us unspoiled in the pages of her medieval biography. She was a great penitent but she was anything but a fragile wraith of a person. Lutgarde, for all her ardent and ethereal mysticism, remained always a living human being of flesh and bone. As a young girl she seems to have been particularly attractive; no doubt we could see some resemblance of her beauty in the well-proportioned Flemish faces which we find in the great paintings of her countrymen in later ages.  
• The love of God, penance and reparation, intercession for mankind, were very much present in Lutgarde's life. But it cannot be too much stressed that in St Lutgarde, as in all the early Cistercians, the love that embraces penance and hardship for the sake of Christ is never merely negative, never descends to mere rigid formalism, never concentrates on mere exterior observance of fasts and other penitential rigours.
• The fire of love that consumed the heart of Lutgarde was something vital and positive, and its flames burned not only to destroy but to rejuvenate and transform.

(What are these Wounds? (Clonmore and Reynolds) 1948, pp. IX, X, XII.)

+ + +

Vultus Christi 

http://vultus.stblogs.org/2010/06/draw-me-to-thy-pierced-side-1.html

Draw Me to Thy Piercèd Side

By Father Mark    on June 16, 2010 

The feast of Saint Lutgarde, a Cistercian, and one of the first mystics of the Sacred Heart, occurs on June 16th. Some years ago I was given a piece of her wooden choirstall: one of my most treasured relics ...

Eleventh Sunday of the Year B gospel - June 14, 2015

 "Your mustard seed is what the Reign of God is about ..
...Kingdom of the Divine Will".

    

+++++++++++++ Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 14 June 2015

Commententary  from ICN

Patriarch Bartholomew 11th Sunday of the year Jesus was somebody totally tuned in to the world about him, his perception of nature is acute and he often uses his insights in parables like the comparison of the Kingdom with the mustard seed that grows from a small plant to a tree hosting birds that rest and nest. It is obvious that he loves the natural world and has a care for it, something that the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has been urging us to do for a very long time, that is take care of the environment, of living things and world. Pope Francis is just about to issue his encyclical 'Laudato si' that will commit us to action on these issues. I've long admired Patriarch Bartholomew's deep commitment and concern for the environment he's called the 'Green Patriarch' because of his work especially drawing attention to the destruction human being are capable of and the mess we leave all over our planet. It is good that the Pope is linking with him because this is an issue that affects all of our futures. I've just finished a book on perspectives on the environment for the point of view of Eastern Christianity because that tradition has a number of very good things to teach us about respect and reverence for all creation, even the least of living things! It's taken me a long time to get it finished, but I feel that it has made me reconnect with my place, my role as one simple human in a world of great wonder, but also one of damage and pain often caused alas by humans. Ezekiel reminds us that we are not the arbiter of our planets destiny nor are we ultimately in charge of living beings or our natural world, which belongs to the One who created and sustains life. This God not only deals with humans but all life, I love the way the prophet has that image of the Lord somehow communicating with the trees: "And all the trees of the field shall know that I, the LORD, bring low the high tree, lift high the lowly tree" - it is a wonderful way of bringing us right down from our pedestals and placing us alongside everything else! Jesus however reminds us we can change. Paul's lovely words to the Corinthians give us that spark of hope, for even now all is not lost, we can make a better world for those after us. Why? Because we walk by faith, trusting in the Lord. Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Chaplain for the Melkite Greek Catholics in Great Britain.

NOVENA TO THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS

 

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Pray this simple but immensely powerful novena with a trusting, childlike heart. The Sacred Heart of Jesus cannot but respond!

O my Jesus, you have said: "Truly I say to you, ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you." Behold I knock, I seek and ask for the grace of...

[Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be]

Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.

O my Jesus, you have said: "Truly I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you." Behold, in your name, I ask the Father for the grace of...

[Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be]

Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.

O my Jesus, you have said: "Truly I say to you, heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away." Encouraged by your infallible words I now ask for the grace of...

[Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be]

Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, for whom it is impossible not to have compassion on the afflicted, have pity on us miserable sinners and grant us the grace which we ask of you, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, your tender Mother and ours.
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy! Our life, our sweetness, and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve, to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn, then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us; and after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb Jesus; O clement, O loving, O sweet virgin Mary.

Pray for us, O holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus, pray for us.

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SAINT BARNABAS Apostle. Icon from original

 

 

Thursday, 11 June 2015 St. Barnabas, Apostle SAINT BARNABAS Apostle         We read that in the first days of the Church, "the multitude of believers had but one heart and one soul; neither did any one say that aught of the things which he possessed was his own." Of this fervent company, one only is singled out by name, Joseph, a rich Levite, from Cyprus. "He having land sold it, and brought the price and laid it at the feet of the apostles." They now gave him a new name, Barnabas, the son of consolation.         He was a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith, and was soon chosen for an important mission to the rapidly-growing Church of Antioch. Here he perceived the great work which was to be done among the Greeks, so he hastened to fetch St. Paul from his retirement at Tarsus.         It was at Antioch that the two Saints were called to the apostolate of the Gentiles, and hence they set out together to Cyprus and the cities of Asia Minor. Their preaching struck men with amazement, and some cried out, "The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men," calling Paul Mercury, and Barnabas Jupiter.         The Saints travelled together to the Council of Jerusalem, but shortly after this they parted. When Agabus prophesied a great famine, Barnabas, no longer rich, was chosen by the faithful at Antioch as most fit to bear, with St. Paul, their generous offerings to the Church of Jerusalem. The gentle Barnabas, keeping with him John, surnamed Mark, whom St. Paul distrusted, betook himself to Cyprus, where the sacred history leaves him; and here, at a later period, he won his martyr's crown.    ©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015   Below see Facebook  (click)

St Barnabas Society 18 hrs ·  A Very Happy Feast of St Barnabas to you all. Holy Mass will be offered for the intentions of all who work with and for the Society this evening at Wolvercote. Thank you for following the example of the son of encouragement. Your interest and support and prayers make all the difference. Like · Comment · Share

  The St Barnabas Society, a registered charity, operates in Great Britain and Ireland and exists to provide pastoral and financial help on behalf of the whole Catholic community to former clergy ministers and religious from other churches, who live in Great Britain and Ireland, and who have been led by faith and conscience to come into full communion with the Catholic Church.

The icon of St Barnabas is reproduced from an original by Sr Petra Clare, The Benedictine Skete, Marydale, Cannich, Beauly, Inverness IV4 7LT.