Chaminade: Missionary Apostolic

In many countries of the world, the present situation is very similar to the one that followed the French Revolution of 1789. The Faith is not detroyed by a revolutionary wave today. Nevertheless there is a great disarray in our world: its reference points are often not Christian.  The hustle to get more and more of consumerism, progress and sensationalism rather than service is in contempt of the real nature of humankind. In this pluralistic society, Father Chaminade continues to call us to strongly promote the Faith in today's world. We have Good News to bring to everyone. Father Chaminade is topical. And Mary is the guide on the path of Faith and action. Like the disciples of Cana, she calls us to the mission: "Do whatever he tells you."

Chaminade: Mentor for a Life of Prayer

Blessed William Joseph Chaminade was a master of the spiritual life. He was a man of prayer and recommended prayer to those who sought his advice.

For Chaminade, praying is not about words, but rather about living a life of prayer. For him prayer means living in the presence of the God who is in us and around us and among us.

Presence is an interior union with another through conscious attention to the other. It is a relationship that unites us psychologically and spiritually rather than physically. Such a presence, by its nature, communicates to the other something of what we are, and it makes us both in the same way.

Prayer binds us in a way to God; it brings us into communication with God. It merges our spirit with God's spirit, one heart with God's heart.

Chaminade did not see prayer as an isolated event among the many other things that happen during the day. What happens in prayer is meant to overflow into what happens in the rest of our life, and everything we do during the day should dispose us to be with God in prayer. Thus our whole life becomes integrated and focused, permeated with the grace of God through prayer.

Whevever someone consulted Blessed Chaminade and mentioned that they were too busy to pray, could not find the time for prayer, he would answer that they should pray all the more!  And even Jesus himself reminds us, never cease praying.

Chaminade: Consecration to Mary

Blessed William Joseph Chaminade always had a spontaneous relationship with Mary. He would later call this relationship or bond with Mary devoton, dedication, alliance, piety, consecration.  He always saw Mary as the Mother of Jesus and of the Church. She was the Mother of God who "descends," and Mother of human beings who "ascends." For him, Mary, woman and mother, is the maternal womb common to God and to humans. Both meet in her. She is the womb of light, of faith, of joy, of hopeful confidence, of warmth of welcome, of love. Though Mary does not create such graces, she obtains them by her prayers and applies them with love.

Consecration to Mary has profound affective connotations without which it would not achieve completely its fullness or its dynamism; it is not a matter simply of reason and will. "I offer you...my heart, all my being," is a formula used by many Marianists. To know, to love, to serve Mary; to form alliance with her; to be consecrated: all this means to make progress in knowing, loving and serving God, living the alliance with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It means being "consecrated" by the Trinity for the Trinity. We live for God in the maternal womb of Mary, the womb of the Church, from the moment of our Baptism.

Chaminade: Man on a Mission

Our Lady of Good Counsel

Being on a mission means being sent by some one else to achieve a certain purpose determined by the sender. The mission of Christ, for example, was to bring to a world in dire need the saving word of God's love for it, and to lead it into a positive and loving relationship with a God whom it had rejected. Every mission in the Church is in some way a particularization of  that mission of Christ, sharing in it, an explicitation of it in the concrete reality of time and space.

Several insights characetrized Blessed Chaminade's understanding of his mission. First of all, a careful attention to the signs of the times, for they are providential signs. He was a person of great prudence and never in a hurry to act. He placed his intellegience at the service of love. He looked at the situation, weighed it in faith in order to discern God's call. That was his attitude in the face of the great Revolution, of the exile he was forced to endure, of the foundation of the sodalities. He waited patiently for the realization of the dream of Saragossa where he saw "as in a vision" the foundation of the religious institues as a means of rechristianizing France. Over twenty years later was that dream facing reality: the Marianist Family (he called it the "Family of Mary"), composed of laity, priests, religious, single persons, married couples, young and old, all dedicated to a common mission, Mary's.

Whatever he did, it was for the purpose of making Jesus and Mary better known, loved and served, "fully convinced that we cannot lead people to Jesus Christ except through his most holy Mother." "Our work," he said, "is grand; it is in fact magnificent if it is universal, it is because we are mssionaries of Mary who says to us: 'Do whatever he tells you.' Yes, we are all missionaries. To each of us the most holy Virgin has confided a mandate to work at the salvation of our brothers and sisters in the world."

Firm in the Faith

Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.

—John 12:24

The students in both of our Marianist high schools study as part of their religion course the life of Saint Thomas More. In “A Man for All Seasons” Robert Bolt has St. Thomas More affirming the fact that our natural instincts in cases of mortal danger lead to “flight.” The saintly lawyer then goes over how he planned to use all of his skills as a barrister to avoid having his head separated from his body over the “King’s business.” But he concedes that a time comes when all the legal dodging and weaving can’t keep a person from standing firm in his or her faith, even if it means death, when no means of escape are available.

The History Channel a la Vatican

The History Channel aired a two-hour special on the Vatican that featured some rarely-seen footage of Benedict XVI at work and prayer (and play, on the piano) in the papal apartments.The show provides an overview of the history of the Vatican, and focuses on everyday life in the city-state today, and how it all works, or doesn’t, as the case may be. A clip of the pope at work and other elements were segments on science and faith with Jesuit astronomer Brother Guy Consolmagno and the Vatican’s finances with Cardinal Lajolo.

Much of the information in the program may be familiar, but I do think it will be of interest to a lot of Catholics and others, piercing a number of myths and providing a personal portrait of the place and its people.

Lift me from the dark

Adoramus te Rex Gloria
Cum gaudia infinita
Adoramus te infinita
Rex Gloria

Jubilate Deo omina
In saecula infinita
Jubilate Deo omina
Rex Gloria

Can you lift me away
From the dark of this day
Give me courage
And help me be free evermore

Adoramus te Rex Gloria
Cum gaudia infinita
Adoramus te infinita
Rex Gloria

Jubilate Deo omina
In saecula infinita
Jubilate Deo omina
Rex Gloria

Sancto Spiritu Gloria
Jubilate omnia
Sancto adoramus
Rex Gloria

Can you guide me once more
Give me strength to be sure
Send me wisdom
And help me be free evermore

Adoramus te Rex Gloria
Cum gaudia infinita
Adoramus te infinita
Rex Gloria

Jubilate Deo omina
In saecula infinita
Jubilate Deo omina
Rex Gloria