Mons Samuel Aquila is the new archbishop of Denver...

Returning there after a decade's absence in Fargo; he is a good and effective prelate, so I've read. Mons Richard Malone is the new bishop of Buffalo, until now of Portland in Maine. Whoever puts the Bollettino together is perhaps overworked these days-- this morning's also includes the Holy Office's rules for the discernment of supernatural events which were already online at that Congregation's site at least as early as last week.

As it happens, am reading Elmore Leonard's Raylan...

The plot of which involves the theft and ransoming of human kidneys: Dr Wesley Smith posted earlier about the trade in human organs, here; specifically, kidneys.

... We are suffering in the West from a crisis of character, bred in part, by anti-human exceptionalism that looks at the bodies of the living destitute as if they were mere resources for use in improving our health (in this circumstance) or providing us with sensual pleasure (as in sex trafficking and brothels that serve pedophiles)....

How evil our world has become, alas. Veni, Sancte Spiritus!

Lava quod est sordidum,
riga quod est aridum,
sana quod est saucium.

Flecte quod est rigidum,
fove quod est frigidum,
rege quod est devium.

The Pope's homily at the solemn Mass of Pentecost...

In the English translation provided by Radio Vaticana.

Dear brothers and sisters!

I am happy to celebrate this Holy Mass with you --a Mass animated by the Choir of the Academy of Santa Cecilia and by the Youth Orchestra, which I thank --on this Feast of Pentecost. This mystery constitutes the baptism of the Church, it is an event that gave the Church the initial shape and thrust of its mission, so to speak. This shape and thrust are always valid, always timely, and they are renewed through the actions of the liturgy, especially.

This morning I want to reflect on an essential aspect of the mystery of Pentecost, which maintains all its importance in our own day as well. Pentecost is the feast of human unity, understanding and sharing.

We can all see how in our world, despite us being closer to one another through developments in communications, with geographical distances seeming to disappear, understanding and sharing among people is often superfical and difficult. There are imbalances that frequently lead to conflicts; dialogue between generations is hard and differences sometimes prevail; we witness daily events where people appear to be growing more aggressive and belligerent; understanding one another takes too much effort and people prefer to remain inside their own sphere, cultivating their own interests. In this situation, can we really discover and experience the unity we so need?

The account of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles, which we heard in the first reading, is set against a background that contains one of the last great frescoes of the Old Testament: the ancient story of the construction of the Tower of Babel. But what is Babel? It is the description of a kingdom in which people have concentrated so much power they think they no longer need depend on a God who is far away. They believe they are so powerful they can build their own way to heaven in order to open the gates and put themselves in God's place. But it's precisely at this moment that something strange and unusual happens. While they are working to build the tower, they suddenly realise they are working against one another. While trying to be like God, they run the risk of not even being human --because they've lost an essential element of being human: the ability to agree, to understand one another and to work together.

This biblical story contains an eternal truth: we see this truth throughout history and in our own time as well. Progress and science have given us the power to dominate the forces of nature, to manipulate the elements, to reproduce living things, almost to the point of manufacturing humans themselves. In this situation, praying to God appears outmoded, pointless, because we can build and create whatever we want. We don't realise we are reliving the same experience as Babel. It's true, we have multiplied the possibilities of communicating, of possessing information, of transmitting news --but can we say our ability to understand each other has increased? Or, paradoxically, do we understand each other even less? Doesn't it seem like feelings of mistrust, suspicion and mutual fear have insinuated themselves into human relationships to the point where one person can even pose a threat to another? Let's go back to the initial question: can unity and harmony really exist? How?

The answer lies in Sacred Scripture: unity can only exist as a gift of God's Spirit, which will give us a new heart and a new tongue, a new ability to communicate. This is what happened at Pentecost. On that morning, fifty days after Easter, a powerful wind blew over Jerusalem and the flame of the Holy Spirit descended on the gathered disciples. It came to rest upon the head of each of them and ignited in them a divine fire, a fire of love, capable of transforming things. Their fear disappeared, their hearts were filled with new strength, their tongues were loosened and they began to speak freely, in such a way that everyone could understand the news that Jesus Christ had died and was risen. On Pentecost, where there was division and incomprehension, unity and understanding were born.

We have to choose which impulse to follow and we can do so authentically only with the help of the Spirit of Christ. St Paul lists the works of the flesh: they are the sins of selfishness and violence, like hostility, discord, jealousy, dissent. These are thoughts and actions that do not allow us to live in a truly human and Christian way, in love. This direction leads to us losing our life. The Holy Spirit, though, guides us towards the heights of God, so that, on this earth, we can already experience the seed of divine life that is within us. St Paul confirms: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace”. We note how the Apostle uses the plural to describe the works of the flesh that provoke the loss of our humanity --while he uses the singular to define the action of the Spirit, speaking of “the fruit”, in the same way as the dispersion of Babel contrasts with the unity of Pentecost.

But let's look at today's Gospel in which Jesus affirms: “When he comes, the Spirit of truth, He will guide you to the whole truth”. Speaking about the Holy Spirit, Jesus is explaining to us what the Church is and how she must live in order to be herself, to be the place of unity and comunion in Truth; he tells us that acting like Christians means not being closed inside our own spheres, but opening ourselves towards others; it means welcoming the whole Church within ourselves or, better still, allowing the Church to welcome us. So, when I speak, think and act like a Christian, I don't stay closed off within myself --but I do so in everything and starting from everything: thus the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of unity and truth, can continue to resonate in people's hearts and minds, encouraging them to meet and welcome one another. Precisely because it acts in this way, the Spirit introduces us to the whole truth, who is Jesus, and guides us to examine and understand it. We do not grow in understanding by closing ourselves off inside ourselves, but only by becoming capable of listening and sharing, in the “ourselves” of the Church, with an attitude of deep personal humility.

Now it's clearer why Babel is Babel and Pentecost is Pentecost. Where people want to become God, they succeed only in pitting themselves against each other. Where they place themselves within the Lord's truth, on the other hand, they open themselves to the action of his Spirit which supports and unites them.

The contrast between Babel and Pentecost returns in the second reading, where the Apostle Paul says: “Walk according to the Spirit and you will not be brought to satisfy the desires of the flesh”. St Paul tells us that our personal life is marked by interior conflict and division, between impulses that come from the flesh and those that come from the Spirit: and we cannot follow all of them. We cannot be both selfish and generous, we cannot follow the tendency to dominate others and experience the joy of disinterested service.

Dear friends, we must live according to the Spirit of unity and truth, and this is why we must pray for the Spirit to enlighten and guide us to overcome the temptation to follow our own truths, and to welcome the truth of Christ transmitted in the Church. Luke's account of Pentecost tells us that, before rising to heaven, Jesus asked the Apostles to stay together and to prepare themselves to receive the Holy Spirit. And they gathered together in prayer with Mary in the Upper Room and awaited the promised event. Like when it was born, today the Church still gathers with Mary and prays: “Veni Sancte Spiritus! Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love!”.  Amen.

The new president of France lives in concubinage...

And so it's a stretch to call the lady... the First Lady of France; le Salon Beige has Jean Sévillia's post from l'Homme Nouveau on the subject of M Hollande's living openly with his girlfriend. (We enlightened beings in Eugene say 'partner' but  to my mind the 'girlfriend' more adequately comports with their deviant status.) The woman is evidently not divorced from her own husband, which makes things worse.  How, I wonder, will M Hollande be installed as lay canon at St John Lateran? perhaps he will accept the title but not proceed with the installation rite, which was the route taken by MM Pompidou and Mitterrand.

If last year at Pentecost, the Roman Pontiff...

Spoke in his homily at the solemn Mass of the one work of the divine Persons of the Most Holy Trinity in the Redemption, this morning, if I am reading the Italian text aright, the Pope emphasised the fact that the divine Spirit of Pentecost operates to create the profound unity that is and ought to be found in the Church-- which must have some particular significance in these days, for many, when a certain event of reconciliation is awaited. An English version, when one is made available.

Update on Sunday, May 27, 2012 at 15:13 by Marc

Dr Robert Moynihan, in today's e.mail newsletter, writes:

... Pope Benedict did not use the occasion of Pentecost to issue a decision on the Society of St. Pius X, though some had expected him to make an announcement on the matter today. In the Vatican press office, one well-informed French journalist noted that the Society of St. Pius X has decided to hold its summer meeting in late July, not in June, suggesting that they expect the decision will not be taken during June, but before the end of July. A well-informed traditional Austrian website, kreuz.net, reports on the basis of Vatican sources that the decision will be taken after the June 29 feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. (Link: http://bit.ly/KOddk9 [to the Eponymous Flower blog; Tancred provides a version of the Kreuz.net article --mp]) ....

Doubtless, we all will continue to pray for the Most Holy Father in this dangerous time, when the wolves are growling at his very doors. Dr Moynihan's newsletters are collected at his site.

Saints John of Avila and Hildegard of Bingen...

Will be made Doctors of the Church on Sunday, 7 October next, at the beginning of the Synod of Bishops, the Most Holy Father announced before this morning's Regina caeli.

Veni, Sancte Spiritus...

Am reading a history of the 1937 flood...

That inundated great swathes of land and city along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, killing hundreds of people. David Welky's book The Thousand-Year Flood has thus far clarified one dim corner of my childhood memory-- the Miami Conservancy District (it is the Miami River Valley and the Great Miami River, in Ohio, concerned here) was organised and maintained by a consortium of local governments and private parties (not by the government in DC), and since its dams have been in place, the region hasn't experienced any flooding, not even in '37: I heard the name occasionally when I was young but never understood why it was spoken with a certain pride-- and has puzzled me in one instance. He writes (page 49):

Deadeye marksmen saved Portsmouth, Ohio, by shooting thousands of muskrats tunneling through temporary barriers.

Did those marksmen save the town by plugging the holes with muskrat bodies? Or did they prevent the tunnels from being lengthened or widened sufficiently to cause the barriers to fail? I suppose I'll never know.

Here in the US, Monday is Memorial Day...

And this is Memorial Day weekend, which 'unofficially' (i.e. in the media and at sporting events) marks the beginning of the summer season. Monday is also the 35th anniversary of Joseph Ratzinger's consecration as archbishop of Munich, in 1977, as l'Osservatore Romano has noted in tomorrow's edition, page 5 (grazie, Raffaella). The term of the Most Holy Father's life as a bishop has more or less coincided with mine as a Catholic.  

The name Trivium caught my eye, as I follow Arvo Pärt chronologically...

At Spotify's Ulysses' Classical; while there are two versions there, this one on YouTube from a performance by Jeffrey Smith at Indiana University Bloomington in 2010 is very nice.

I don't know whether it is Trivium because there are three parts or for some metaphorical reason. (The name caught my eye of course because it refers to the first three of the seven fundamental arts i.e. grammar, logic and rhetoric.)

Update on Saturday, May 26, 2012 at 10:28 by Marc

@MikelChamizo drew my attention to Pärt's beautiful De Profundis.

Mons Blaire is doing some 'clarifying'...

Of his America comments about the terrible rightists who may compromise the episcopal campaign for the Church's liberty; well, good enough, so far as that goes. (He doesn't address the question, why patronise America in the first place when those folks think the bishops are already oppressive tools of the GOP's trogs.)  The years to come will demonstrate the fidelity and courage of the reverendissimi domini. Yesterday was the feast of St Bede the Venerable; I read a post somewhere yesterday (but failed to note the address) detailing his commentary in the Historia ecclesiastica on a poor bishop who was in everything but his insistence on an erroneous dating of Easter a paragon of the episcopal ministry: if the greatest of Mons Blaire's iniquities is that he continues to bother with the Jesuits at America, well, that will not end the world.

Update on Saturday, May 26, 2012 at 15:19 by Marc

Eugene's Carl Olson (of Ignatius Press/Catholic World Report) on the subject of Mons Blaire, his 'concerns', his 'clarification', and the realities of political life in the United States.

Update on Saturday, May 26, 2012 at 16:01 by Marc

William Newton at Blog of the Courtier wrote the post on St Bede that I recalled supra. Sometimes, Google Reader's fails are useful. 

St Pope Gregory VII, pray for us...

I always review the saints of the day via the site santibeati.it-- yesterday, e.g., was the feast of St Vincent of Lerins, about whom I intended to post at least some little tribute of veneration-- but scarcely ever manage to get around to writing about any of them. So Professor Michael Moreland at Mirror of Justice has unwittingly come to my assistance for today, at any rate, which is the feast of the reformer St Pope Gregory VII. Professor Moreland cites two paragraphs from Alasdair MacIntyre's Whose Justice? Which Rationality?:

Gregory's particular reforms were all aimed at enabling the concrete organizational forms of the church to express more adequately this universality and this sovereignty [of the church]. The widespread breakdown in maintaining priestly celibacy and in preventing simony, and the tendency of bishops to value the favors conferred by princes rather than the authority of the papacy, were all understood by Gregory as ways in which sex, money, and political power were used to subvert the independence, the libertas, of the church. So that in his identification of the points at which he found himself compelled to enter into political conflict, most notably with the Emperor Henry IV, what is always in question is a vindication of the ability of the church to determine its own structure in a way that conforms to the sovereignty of God.

Libertas, therefore, is a condition for iustitia, and when both political societies and the universal church are ordered in accordance with justice, the appropriate libertas of each will also have been achieved. In affirming the order of iustitia against those ostensibly Christian secular rulers in the established powers of Europe, the Salian Reich and the France of the Capetian kings, whose aggrandizement violated that order, the second responsibility of Gregory VII's papacy was discharged. The order of iustitia is an order embodied in the universal church, an order in which each human being has his or her own allotted place and his or her own allotted duties. To occupy that place and to perform that function well is to be just. To refuse to occupy that place or to discharge its duties badly or to rebel against the order defining that place is to fail in respect of justice.

Did Our Lord pray the Pater noster in Greek?

Or Aramean? It's an interesting question, raised a few years ago by the French Catholic commentator Yves Daoudal (perhaps also by countless others; I don't know). I doubt that this possibility has never been addressed but it seems an intriguing one. Am going to try to translate at least parts of the conference, that was given at the 2008 summer program of the Centre Henri et André Charlier in France.

... There! that was the last argument that has suggested to me that the Pater may have been taught in Greek to the Apostles. But I am not trying to convince you: I've wanted only to surprise you with the fact that no one, to my knowledge, has asked the question.  It goes without saying that if any of you have read a study which contradicts, or supports, my idea, I would be very happy to know of it; that was a small part of the reason for this conference, indeed.

Will look about the Internet....

The Most Holy Father began his allocution to the 64th General Assembly...

Of the Italian Bishops' Conference by repeating his summons to 'continuity rather than rupture' in the reception of the Second Vatican Council.

... "What interests the Council most is that the sacred deposit of the Christian doctrine be protected and taught more effectively," affirmed Blessed Pope John XXIII in his opening address. And it is worthwhile to meditate and read these words. The Pope exhorted the Fathers to reflect further and to present this perennial doctrine in continuity with the age-old tradition of the Church: "to transmit the doctrine pure and integral, without attenuations or distortions," but in a new way, "according to what is required by our times." (Address at the Solemn Opening of Vatican II Ecumenical Council, October 11, 1962). With this key of reading and application-- certainly not from the point of view of an “unacceptable hermeneutics of discontinuity and rupture, but of a hermeneutics of continuity and reform" --to listen to the Council and to make our own the authoritative indications, is the way to identify the way with which the Church can offer a meaningful answer to the great social and cultural transformations of our time, which have visible consequences also on the religious dimension...."

And his Holiness returns to the proper orientation of the Sacred Liturgy:

"... In the preparation of Vatican II, the prevailing question to which the conciliar Assembly intended to give an answer was: “Church, what do you say of yourself?” Reflecting on this question, the conciliar Fathers were, so to speak, led back to the heart of the answer: it was about beginning again from God, celebrated, professed and witnessed. Externally, seemingly at random, but fundamentally not at random, in fact, the first Constitution approved was that of the Sacred Liturgy: divine worship orientates man to the future City and restores to God his primacy, molds the Church, incessantly convoked by the Word, and shows the world the fecundity of the encounter with God. In turn, while we must cultivate a grateful look for the growth of the good seed even in a terrain that is often arid, we perceive that our situation requires a renewed impulse, which will point to what is essential of the faith and of Christian life. At a time in which God has become for many the great unknown and Jesus simply a great personality of the past, there will be no new thrust of the missionary action without the renewal of the quality of our faith and our prayer; we will not be able to give adequate answers without a new reception of the gift of Grace; we will not know how to win men over to the Gospel if we ourselves do not first have a profound experience of God...."

The Pentecost pilgrimage, from Notre-Dame to Chartres...

Will begin in some 48 hours. This is the 30th year for this wonderful Marian event that builds up faith and the Church.  Countercultural Father and his family are already departed.

A reminder from history about the contrariety of the Church...

From Dr Benjamin Wiker, at Catholic World Report; specifically about the same sex marriage nonsense but the lesson can be applied across a broader range, I reckon. There's nothing new here but we can all do with the occasional reminder.  I noticed this because the Wiker was posted at Catholicism Pure and Simple.

Contra the Douglas Kmiecs of the US Catholic world...

Richard Garnett posts this at Mirror of Justice; Mr Obama is an adamant proponent of the use of abortion for any reasons whatever.

While I read that roasted human...

Foetuses had been covered in gold leaf and were being offered for sale with very little surprise, men being capable of the most grievous evil, I have to admit to being momentarily taken aback by the seeing of the photograph that's at the top of the Independent's article that is LifeSiteNews's Kathleen Gilbert's source. One prays for the individuals involved of course but I'm afraid that the Independent will have to scoop the world with news of the Lord's Second Coming before I look at their site again.

A dozen lawsuits were filed today by over 40 Catholic ecclesiastical...

Jurisdictions and institutions, including the Archdioceses of New York and Washington, DC and Catholic University of America and Notre Dame, against Mr Obama's mandate. Professor Richard Garnett at Mirror of Justice and George Weigel put the legal actions (announced by both Cardinal Wuerl and Cardinal Dolan) in some context. Father Zuhlsdorf is in fine form here.

I suppose it's a coincidence that today is the feast of St Cristobal Magallanes Jara and companions, martyrs in Mexico at the hands of vicious anti-clericalists and secularists.

Update on Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 7:28 by Marc

Sheila Liaugminas comments at Mercator.net. Professor Mary Ann Glendon, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, former US ambassador at the Holy See, and Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard, is published in today's Wall Street Journal. From a non-Catholic perspective, Scott Johnson at Power Line. I'll put other posts about the continuing reaction to Mr Obama's mandate here, too. Good intentions et cetera....

Update on Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 20:05 by Marc

Happy to see that his Eminence of New York has ratified my approval of the Glendon and Weigel articles....

Realised I haven't mentioned here the little project...

I'm helping with.  At the blog Countercultural Father, Ben Trovato explains the origin of the hashtag #twitterangelus. Twitter is full of nonsense, and the regular insertion into it of the Marian prayers of the Angelus and Regina Caeli seems to me to be a wonderful idea.  To support the folks who do this, offering "an oasis of prayer and calm", the site www.twitterangelus.org is now online; there are the texts of the Angelus prayers in Latin and the vernacular languages, a place to post prayer intentions, a blog where information about good Twitter usage, videos/music or links or information and the like, useful to our lives of faithful prayer, can be shared; I hope the #twitterangelus project has a happy future, and am finding the participation of so many good and faithful people to be an edifying surprise.

Update on Monday, May 21, 2012 at 6:54 by Marc

Have been catching up on chatter on Twitter and realised that one could, following the usus antiquior, continue the Regina caeli until Trinity Sunday instead of returning to the Angelus on the Monday after Pentecost (i.e. a week from today), as is the practice in the usus recentior. I myself am happy that individuals make their own choices; no one will be put in chains for using one or the other. While it would be disconcerting to say both the Angelus and the Regina caeli on the same day, it might be a useful exercise in the sociological study of religious practices.