Seeing the Church from the Inside

My favorite moment during the Pope's April visit to the US was the stunning image he evoked in his homily at St. Patrick's basilica in New York City:

From the outside, those windows are dark, heavy, even dreary. But once one enters the church, they suddenly come alive; reflecting the light passing through them, they reveal all their splendor. Many writers – here in America we can think of Nathaniel Hawthorne – have used the image of stained glass to illustrate the mystery of the Church herself. It is only from the inside, from the experience of faith and ecclesial life, that we see the Church as she truly is: flooded with grace, resplendent in beauty, adorned by the manifold gifts of the Spirit. It follows that we, who live the life of grace within the Church’s communion, are called to draw all people into this mystery of light.

That, that no doubt is what must happen to the person who walks into the famous Saint Chapelle in Paris, built by King Louis IX in 1239 to house some a rare series of relics. It is a the high point of Gothic architecture in the rayonnante style.

If it is a daunting task to do this in a spectacular church building, how much more for us in the mystical body of Christ:

This is no easy task in a world which can tend to look at the Church, like those stained glass windows, “from the outside”: a world which deeply senses a need for spirituality, yet finds it difficult to “enter into” the mystery of the Church. Even for those of us within, the light of faith can be dimmed by routine, and the splendor of the Church obscured by the sins and weaknesses of her members. It can be dimmed too, by the obstacles encountered in a society which sometimes seems to have forgotten God and to resent even the most elementary demands of Christian morality.

So if you want a dazzling experience in Montreal, go see the most beautiful church in the city, which many people don't know about: Saint Leon de Westmount, with mesmerizing stained glass by the great Guido Nincheri. Don't crane your neck too much, you be left sore...

Peggy Noonan says Something Beautiful Has Begun

Here's an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article by Peggy Noonan that makes an interesting comparison between JP 2 and B16:

At the open-air mass in St. Peter's on April 2, the third anniversary of the death of John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI spoke movingly – he brought mist to the eyes of our little group of visiting Americans – of John Paul's life, and the meaning of his suffering. "Among his many human and supernatural qualities he had an exceptional spiritual and mystical sensitivity," said the pontiff, who knew John Paul long and intimately. (Those who hope for swift canonization please note: "supernatural." Benedict the philosopher does not use words lightly.)

He spoke of the distilled message of John Paul's reign: "Be not afraid," the words "of the angel of the Resurrection, addressed to the women before the empty tomb." Which words were themselves a condensed message: Nothing has ended, something beautiful has begun, but you won't understand for a while.

Benedict was doing something great leaders usually don't do, which is invite you to dwell on the virtues of his predecessor.

We did. You couldn't hear Benedict without your eyes going to the small white window in the plain-walled Vatican where John Paul's private chambers were, and from which he spoke to the world. Quick memory-images: the windows open, the crowd goes wild, and John Paul is waving, or laughingly shooing away a white bird that repeatedly tried to fly in and join him, or, most movingly, at the end, trying to speak and not able to, and trying again and not able to, and how the crowd roared its encouragement.

Oh, you miss that old man when you are here! You feel the presence of his absence. The souvenir shops know. They sell framed pictures and ceramic plates of the pope: John Paul. Is there no Benedict? There is. A photo of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger being embraced by . . . John Paul. It's now on my desk in New York. They have their hands on each other's shoulders and look in each other's eyes. A joyful image. They loved each other and were comrades.

When I was writing a book about John Paul, I'd ask those who'd met him or saw him go by: What did you think, or say? And they'd be startled and say, "I don't know, I was crying."

John Paul made you burst into tears. Benedict makes you think. It is more pleasurable to weep, but at the moment, perhaps it is more important to think.

A Vatican reporter last week said John Paul was the perfect pope for the television age, "a man of images." Think of the pictures of him storm-tossed, tempest-tossed, standing somewhere and leaning into a heavy wind, his robes whipping behind him, holding on to his crosier, the staff bearing the image of a crucified Christ, with both hands, for dear life, as if consciously giving Christians a picture of what it is to be alive.

Benedict, the reporter noted, is the perfect pope for the Internet age. He is a man of the word. You download the text of what he said, print it, ponder it.

Connect to your Soulmate in Montreal

Looking for a soulmate?  Many people are desperately looking for someone they can love and give themselves to completely, for life.  Indeed, it is not infrequent to find some good Catholics who would love to settle down and get married, but they just don’t find the person that shares their most basic principles. Lifelong fidelity in marriage is one of the beautiful fruits of a holy matrimony, so it is logical that one would want to facilitate that fidelity as much as possible. How do you find someone who shares the same basic principles of what is truly important in life, like faith, openness to life, work, etc? Some people have looked long and hard, but are just not ready to settle for someone who is nice, kind, enjoyable, but does not have an active or vibrant faith. Websites have gone a long way to match people up. Some of them charge considerable fees and are not always successful. And what is the point of finding Mr. or Ms. Right when they live half way across the globe? So there here is an initiative in Montreal for people who live here or around here and would like to meet other practicing Catholics and see if they can connect. It is just in its beginnings, but may prove successful in bringing about those lifelong connections. The site is called The Montreal & South Shore Catholic Meetup. Clearly, the name says it all. It is totally free; all you have to do is register and participate in any of the events you prefer. It is not the most traditional way to meet people, but if works, why not?

Abortion debate shut down in Canada

You may have heard about the abortion debate that never happened at York University because it was shut down by the powers of the Graduate Students Association. Two debaters we’re going to discuss one of the most important issues of our time, and yet unbelievably, such a debate was deemed not to have a place in our universities. It would seem that it is a closed issue: the supreme court has decided it so just forget it. At first I was very disappointed, but then I thought about what happened to Pope Benedict XVI who had been invited to speak at the University of La Sapienza in Rome on January 17, 2008 but was forced to cancel due to the rather violent outcry and protest of some of the faculty and a few students. In the end he sent the prepared talk to the rector and the attention brought about a far greater exposure than one would have imagined. Here too, the debate refusal ended up on the cover of the National Post. The essence of the Pope’s talk was precisely about the nature and of the role of the university: we all know now that he focused on the need to respect others in their search for the truth, all within a civil debate. What else is the university for? Thousands of students we’re on hand to support the Pope’s courage. The entire text can be found here. It says something about the inferiority complex of those who can’t even bring themselves to debate with those they disagree with, labeling them and presuming upon the arguments they might use. Maybe they’ll be proven wrong in a rational debate, so they’d prefer to shut it down before that happens. So get your solid, rational, philosophically-nuanced arguments ready, for a debate at your local pub. At least there we can talk: there is only the background music to contend with.

The Repentance of Marion Jones

Not that I remember her in great detail, but I know enough that she was a spectacular athlete. Now she publicly reveals that she was using performance enhancing drugs and she willfully presents herself to return it all. Maybe she had no other choice but to come out with the truth, but her public confession is pretty impressive. She wept and begged for forgiveness and even stated:

“I have asked Almighty God for forgiveness . . . because of my actions, I am retiring from the sport of track and field, a sport that I deeply love,”.
This line about asking God forgiveness was left in most of the European weeklies and some were deeply cynical about her confession.

Colloque sur la sécularisation: Prêtres séculiers dans une société sécularisée

Mardi le 6 novembre 2007

Fr. Thomas Dowd
Office for Pastoral Per-sonnel of the Archdio-cese of Montreal

Mgr Mariano Fazio, recteur de l’Université pontifi-cale de la Sainte Croix, Rome

"Sécularisation et christianisme : défis et possibilités" par Mgr Mariano Fazio

"The Priest in a Secularized Society" by Fr. Thomas Dowd

Horaire du mardi le 6 novembre 2007
• 10 h arrivée
• 10 h 30 conférence par Mgr Mariano Fazio
• 11 h 30 conférence par Father Thomas Dowd
• 12 h 30 dîner, échanges, temps libre
• 15 h 30 deuxième conférence par Mgr Mariano Fazio
• 17 h prière du soir
• 18 h souper, échanges, départ
Frais d’inscription 65$
Le Cercle sacerdotal de Montréal est une initiative des prêtres du clergé séculier appartenant à la Société sacerdotale de la Sainte Croix. Son but consiste à encourager et à promouvoir la vie spirituelle et la formation permanente de prêtres et séminar-istes, par des conférences, séminaires et retraites spirituelles.

Le Manoir de Beaujeu se trouve au 508, Chemin du Fleuve, Coteau-du-Lac (Qc) J0P 1B0 (Sortie 19 de l’autoroute 20 ouest).
www.cerclesacerdotal.ca
Informations: 514-289-9362

The Temperament God gave you

Imagine, sirens begin to whirl behind you and you realise that a police car is pulling you over. You think:
-His radar gun couldn't possibly be correct. I was hardly going over the speed limit. The cars in front of me were speeding.
-Oh, no! I've heard of people getting arrested for this!
-Was I driving fast? What's the speed limit on this road, anyway?
-Do I have my wallet? And where did I put the car registration!?

Different responses to the same situation; the first is typical of the choleric temperament, the second of the melancholic, the third the sanguine, and the fourth, the phlegmatic. Now which one do you fit in?

Here is a book that can be a huge help to figure this out in yourself and in others. Art and Larrain Bennett provide a fascinating outline of the four classic temperments already identified centuries ago by Aristotle: choleric, sanguine, melancholic and phlegmatic. Everyone is born with one of these basic tendencies, and will always react in accord with this hard-wired disposition. Though one can change and acquire dominion over oneself, that basic tendency will always be there, ingrained in us like our DNA. I found the descriptions of each temperament very illuminating; one can see that the book is clearly the result of many years of thought and experience. I highly recommend this work to anyone involved in the spiritual direction of souls or anybody who wants to come to have more dominion over his own temperament. Which is everybody. There is a great test at the end to help you figure out your own temperament. It is published by Sophia Press