The Serene Face of Christ: A Cross Without A Cross

Genuine acceptance of the Mercy of God is reflected in serenity and joy.

Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God

and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings

in order that we may also share in his glory. (Rom 8:17)

In this Year of Mercy it is helpful to take note that since the early decades of the 20^th Century the Holy Spirit has been announcing something essential for us, something new and yet as old as Christianity itself. 

As far back as the 17^th Century, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque received revelations of the Sacred Heart and Jesus’ desire to make his love for all men and women known to the whole world but shortly after her death her writings and message were embargoed. It was not until the very end of the 19^th Century that they became available to the faithful which soon resulted in the canonization of St. Margaret Mary in 1920. Five years later the immensely popular St. Thérèse of Lisieux was canonized. She also had a great devotion to the Sacred Heart and God’s merciful love. These two have played a large role in propagating the message of God’s mercy but the Holy Spirit called on two other instruments to further the message.

The French Connection

Maria Teresa Desandais was a 26-year-old nun in the monastery of the Visitation of Dreux in France when she began receiving revelations about the Merciful Love in 1902. Regarding these revelations she wrote, “Love is not Loved because it is not known. Before this situation, Merciful Love wants to reveal itself to this world. To know God is also to know Merciful Love. Merciful Love is not a new thing; the Church has taught it from the beginning. It is the love of the Savior, his manifestation of the new Law. I do not want you to embrace this devotion hoping to find in it some new form of spirituality.”

Globalism vs. Familysm

There is a troubling characteristic of our society to rely on government to solve all the problems. I’ve even heard folks comment that a “true humanism” obtains when government takes care of all the needs of its citizens. Poor Government! It was never meant to work so hard.

In this sense, Tony Magliano’s political platform for all people (Making a Difference, July 18, 2016), so obviously right regarding what is wrong, gets it all wrong as to doing it right.

We need to correct the wrongs with the least government possible. True humanism is one human helping another human in a spirit of mutual cooperation and love. This humanism relies on Christian virtues lived every day, particularly the Christian virtue of personal poverty which is absolutely necessary for staying awake to the needs of those around us.

A great weight must be put on the individual responsibility of every Catholic, particularly laity engaged in human affairs, to be Jesus Christ and thus to bring Jesus Christ into her or his environment: into work, into family, into society.

Unfortunately, Mr. Magliano simplistically relies on government programs: the redistribution of tax dollars from the military budget to curing poverty. This impersonal approach to charity has not proven successful in the past 100 hundred years because it does not touch the hearts of either the giver or receiver.

The social teaching of the Catholic Church was intended to inform human consciences, not government programs. Here in the United States we got off on the wrong foot in 1917 when the U.S. bishops organized the National Catholic War Council to preach the “duty” of all Catholics to support the war effort. This coercion of consciences, by the predecessor of the USCCB, makes God small by demonstrating skepticism that the Catholic lay person – informed by the Holy Spirit and the teachings of the Church – is capable of making proper decisions in his or her personal engagement with the world.

Yet, this is where the true revolution lies and it starts in the heart of vibrant Christian families where the basic lessons of a person’s dignity and responsibility to the world are learned. Our revolutionary creed is spelled out in Familiaris Consortio and Amoris Laetitia. 

Let’s read these, learn their lessons, and do our part. Let’s let Christ reign!

Greed of Capitalists Assailed in St. Patrick's Cathedral

From the Socialist newspaper, The New York Call. Dorothy Day was working for The Call on Christmas of 1916 but she commented in her memoirs that she never noticed this article. In fact, she was not aware that the Catholic Church had a social teaching until she met Peter Maurin.

The Call followed up this piece with an interview of Fr. O'Rourke by Dante Barton on January 7, 1916 which I will post here in a few days.

Crazy in Love With the Mother of God

“Don't imitate me in anything, except for my devotion to Our Lady.”

St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer

Many who knew St. Josemaría in the early days of Opus Dei have testified to his love for Our Lady . Recently, I came across another example of this in an article in Studa et Documenta by Gloria Toranzo, “Los comienzos del apostolado del Opus Dei entre mujeres (1930-1939)” (http://www.isje.org/setd/2013/Toranzo-setd-7-2013.pdf).

Our Lady of Torreciudad
Another craziness of St. Josemaria

From the moment in 1930 that God showed him that there were to be women in Opus Dei, St. Josemaría set about looking for women who could understand a life of dedication to God in the middle of the world. One by one, a cousin of someone or a friend of someone else, he began imparting this spirit to women in Madrid. By the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, there were 18 in all plus María Ignacia García Escobar who had died of tuberculosis in 1933. None of these others continued in Opus Dei after the war as explained in the essay.

In interviews with those who were still living after St. Josemaría died in 1975 these women all related, in one way or another, that the founder of Opus Dei “amaba con locura” the Mother of God. The author gives as an example a statue that St. Josemaría had commissioned in 1934 “describing all the details, with the intention that the statue would accompany the path of the women of Opus Dei from its beginnings.” The result was a beautiful image of polychrome wood, about one foot tall. Our Lady is carrying the Child in her arms; at her feet are two doves that are not simple decorations but, as St. Josemaría explained in 1961, “they are a symbol of goodness, of fidelity, of purity.” On another occasion, he described it as “Muy sympatica.”

Escrivá de Balaguer had each woman keep the statue in her home for a few days and then pass it on to the next woman. He most likely got the rotation idea from a similar custom in his native region with an image of the Miraculous Medal.

All the women affirmed that this practice had a great benefit for their interior life and forty years afterwards they could still affectionately describe the image, its origins and the rotations. One of the women remarked, “Never have I seen an image of Our Lady that provoked so much piety,” and another sighed, “The Virgin was ours.”

At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, “it was in my home,” noted Ramona, “later it was moved to the home of Hermógenes.” St. Josemaría asked Hermógenes to keep it safe during the hostilities and afterwards it was returned to him. Since then, it has accompanied the apostolates of Opus Dei with women and today presides over the conference room of the Central Advisory in Rome, the governing body of women of Opus Dei. A photograph of the image can be found on the last page of the article.

Feb 9: the 99th Anniversary of the Anti-War Edition of The New York Call

Here is an excerpt from my book on Dorothy Day's months at The New York Call:

Throughout 1916 the prospect of joining the war against Germany was not popular with Americans, as can be gathered from by the success of Wilson’s slogan. The 20,000,000 casualties, the fields of corpses and leveled villages astonished and sickened the public who, for the first time, were seeing the carnage on the newsreels at their local motion picture theater. At least 15% of the population was German or of German origin, and most of the Irish had no desire to fight for Britain, which had so ruthlessly crushed the Easter Rebellion. Yet, by December, despite the repugnance to war on the part of many Americans, Wilson was urging Congress for a law that would suppress domestic opposition to the war,  another to require compulsory military service for all men and yet another forbidding strikes against munitions companies (labelled the “slave” law by The Call).

Additionally, Wilson created a public relations department within the White House to popularize the war, demonize the Germans and define “patriotism.” The director was a well-known, seasoned journalist, George Creel, who had written for The Masses and other radical publications.

 On the copy desk of The Call there was a guy named Norman Watson, a pretty good writer. At intervals when there was nothing to do, we would discuss theoretical matters of socialism and I thought he was very intelligent and very well aware of socialism and one night, we worked at night, he said you know Mike I want to ask your advice. I said go ahead. He said “I have a letter here. I’ve just been offered a good job by George Creel.” The government had formed a staff of ex-radicals for the purpose of propaganda to win over the intellectuals and trade unionists to the war. See, they had to pump it up all the time. So Norman Watson had gotten the offer, I forget what they paid, but they paid well, and he said “Should I take it? It would be a turning point in my life.” I was always a little too easy and I helped him off the hook by saying, “Well, no one can advise you. It is your own life…You have your own conscience. You must be honest with yourself.” Sure enough the next week he was on the staff of George Creel. (Mike Gold Papers)

George Creel and Norman Watson openly turned on their friends. Others did it more covertly: