The Conscience of Chilean Society: St. Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga; Photos of a Jesuit Gathering

Today, in Chile and in Jesuit communities around the world, this is the Feast of St. Alberto Hurtado; in Chile, in memory of his social concern for the poor, the nation observes this day as "Solidarity Day".

Last evening, I hosted ten Jesuits from West Africa and the English-speaking Canadian Province to which I belong who, in the spirit of Hurtado, and by various means and ministries strive to keep alive the concern for promoting faith in Jesus Christ and for fostering that quest for justice that Christian faith implies. A couple of photos from the gathering appear below.

Saint Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga (born Luis Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga on January 22, 1901 Viña del Mar, Chile - August 18, 1952, Santiago, Chile), popularly known in Chile as Padre Hurtado (English: Father Hurtado), was a Chilean Jesuit priest, lawyer, social worker and writer of Basque origin, founder of the Hogar de Cristo movement. He was canonized on October 23, 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI, becoming his country's second saint.

As a young man in Chile, Fr. Hurtado experienced poverty when his father died and his mother was forced to sell the family farm. A scholarship allowed Hurtado to study at the Jesuit school in Santiago, and he joined the Jesuits in 1923.

The Spanish government dissolved the Society of Jesus while he was studying theology in 1932; he finished his studies in Belgium where he was ordained.

On returning to Chile, Hurtado exercised a typical Jesuit ministry of teaching and giving retreats. His concern for the poor eventually led him to become director of Catholic Action and in 1944 to ask women on a retreat to think of the men, women and children who were without a home to live in.

The women responded with donations which Hurtado used to open first a hospice for youth and then one for women and children. This was the beginning of El Hogar de Cristo. "Hogar" means home, and the name signifies that people were welcomed into Christ's home. The movement spread not only in Chile but throughout South America.

In 1947 he founded Asociación Sindical Chilena, a trade union movement. Fr. Hurtado also wrote three books on social issues and in 1951 started a monthly magazine, Mensaje ("Message") that explains the Church's social teaching and addresses social issues.

"Science and piety are the spiritual eyes of the priest.
Without one he is partially sighted, without both he is blind."
--St. Albert Hurtado S.J.


A reflection on Hurtado's life as one of love for God and neighbour:
Father Alberto Hurtado, S.J. is one of the great prophets for our contemporary social crisis. Deeply rooted in God, he proclaimed God's will that love and solidarity flourish among human beings and he denounced the injustices that make love and solidarity impossible. His works on behalf of the poor, his writings and the spiritual quality he brought to everything he did made him famous in his lifetime, and that, far beyond the narrow boundaries of his native Chile. The Jesuit Father General, John Baptist Janssens, who had been his superior during his student days at Louvain, sought his collaboration in writing the well known "Instruction" on the Social Apostolate of the Society (1949).

In 1936 he began his priestly ministry in Chile. He was a distinguished educator, National Advisor to the youth of Catholic Action, spiritual director, promoter of religious vocations, social apostle, and pastoral whirlwind. The works for which he is best known are Hogar de Cristo (Christ's Hearth) (1944), a refuge for homeless people which is still going strong, the Association of Trade-Unions of Chile (ASICH, 1947), the review Mensaje (1951), a review which is still published by the Jesuits of Chile.

His death from cancer on August 18, 1952, stirred the whole country. The parliament held a special session in his honour, a tribute repeated a number of times since. His feast day, August 18, has been legally declared "Solidarity Day." At his beatification in Rome, on October 16, 1994, the Eternal City welcomed thousands of Chilean pilgrims, including the President of the Republic and the leading authorities of the nation.

The life of Father Hurtado is the life of a man passionately in love with Jesus Christ. His works and his writings make this abundantly clear. Here, for example, is a paragraph from his personal notes: "Full of trust, let me seek to be stripped of all affection, desiring only Jesus, nothing but Jesus, confident that it is Jesus who wants this more than I do C and even without taking into account the consolation that Jesus gives."

To a young Jesuit who asked him what subject he should consider most important in his course of studies, he answered, "specialize in Jesus Christ!" His own life was nothing but this. In order to follow Jesus Christ, while still a student in secondary school, he devoted himself to serving the inhabitants of a particularly wretched barrio of Santiago. Eager to do battle at Jesus' side, he turned his law studies at the Catholic University and his youthful political militancy into instruments of justice. Once he became a Jesuit, he consecrated his whole life to Jesus. He placed himself in the hands of Jesus Christ as an apostle; this explains why he worked with such enthusiasm, initiative, joy and creativity.





Everything Father Hurtado accomplished was an expression of his boundless love of Jesus Christ. His activity was not so much the cause of his sanctity as its radiance.

Such an expansive love of God could not fail to find expression in love of neighbour. Already in his youth he gave evidence of an affectionate and responsible personality. He took on the care of his mother who was widowed when Alberto was five years old. He delayed his entrance into the Society of Jesus until he was able to provide a secure future for her. He was loved by his friends for his cheerfulness and goodness. In his student days, his pastoral involvement already showed his concern for the alleviation of the suffering of others. The papers he wrote in pursuit of his bachelor and licentiate degrees in law were projected legal solutions of grave contemporary problems of social injustice.

As a Jesuit he was consumed by a drive to serve everybody in a breathtaking variety of good works. But what is remarkable is that every individual with whom he dealt on a day to day basis had the sense of being the only one Father Hurtado was concerned with. For him there were no masses or numbers, only persons. He called all the people he met "patroncitos" (little bosses) C God, of course, was "el patrón" (the Boss).



However, as often happens with disciples of Jesus Christ, he was a controversial figure. There were those who considered him imprudent because of his social commitment; there were those who expected him to support actively the Conservative Party, the familiar political bailiwick of Catholics; there were Jesuit companions who criticized his excessive activity on the grounds that it prevented him from joining in community recreation. Father Hurtado never held a grudge against his detractors.

His love of neighbour gave him the ability to overcome his own feelings of repugnance. He made his rounds gathering the young boys who lived among the trash heaps under the bridges of the Mapocho and he gave them fatherly love. With the same delicate tact he sought to help drunkards, in whom, as he himself said, he found it especially difficult to see the face of Christ.

Father Hurtado's social work sprang from his love of neighbour. In every human being he saw a person endowed with dignity. Thus, he treated everybody with respect, including those who did not consider themselves worthy of it. After welcoming the children and the tramps to the Hogar de Cristo, he would sincerely ask their pardon for not being able to offer them more than a bed and a bit of food. Through this gesture, some of his guests were brought to the realization, for the first time in their lives, that they had a rich gift to give to society which had cast them aside: their forgiveness. In this way, they started on the road to a new life as fully aware children of God and brothers of all human beings.

This inseparable love of God and neighbour made Father Hurtado an exemplary man of the Church. In his book, Humanismo Social, he wrote: "The Church is not an official institution, a purely bureaucratic structure; it is Christ extended and living among us. If we ask the Church how it understands itself, it will tell us that it is the visible manifestation of the supernatural, of the divine, the new reality given us by Christ, the divine in earthly wrappings." (p.84)

In some private notes he said: "Jesus Christ is the head; my brothers and sisters and I are members of his body. Between Him and us there is a shared life; the life of the head is the life of the members."

Father Hurtado called the Church "the great We" because everyone ought to have the sense of being an active part of it. It is one only body and yet personal differences are respected. He liked to compare the Church to a symphony.

Father Hurtado's love of the Church was above the tensions he had to cope with in it. An example was when he stepped down as advisor to Catholic Action. He felt obliged to resign because of the hostility of the Auxiliary Bishop of Santiago, his immediate superior, who had been his fellow student at the university. It was a very painful situation for him.

Once he left the work, which he had brought to its highest effectiveness and importance in the history of Chile, he would not permit any expression of solidarity towards himself. He was aware that such a manifestation could stir up attacks on the hierarchy. He forbade the mass resignations which the Catholic Action youth wanted to present, because that would have decapitated this apostolic body. Nor would he stand for any statement that would offend the person who had been his friend and now exercised ecclesiastical authority.

The Art of Papal Rome: Three Weeks Left to See a Wonderful Exhibition

The National Gallery of Art is right across the street from the Cathedral and my residence. On my way to work, I often see the big banners announcing an exhibition and say to myself, I should take that in. But the execution of my resolve is not always present and there are always three months, two weeks, five days ... and then the exhibition closes without my having so much as crossed the street. I never did get to see the show on Bernini!

Fortunately, I was invited to take part in a private tour of the current exhibition on papal enthusiasms for art (religious and otherwise) over a 100-year period. A beautiful and awesome hour with the chief curator, Dr. David Franklin and several of the staff from the Diocesan Centre took place in late July.



The exhibition is laid out according to the administrations of eleven popes between Pope Julius II (1503-1513) and Pope Clement VII from 1592-1605. "Good Pope Marcellus II" who lived only 22 days in 1555 (remarkably the sixth shortest papacy!) is left out for obvious reasons.

The exhibition, entitled "From Raphael to Carracci" is organized by papal terms and there are some stunning works of art and small gems.

More than 150 paintings and drawings by some of the most celebrated masters of Italian art are included in the National Gallery of Canada's major summer exhibition.

From Raphael to Carracci: The Art of Papal Rome features rare works from 16th-century Rome and the Italian Renaissance. Artists represented include Michelangelo, Raphael, Salviati, Vasari and Barocci.

As well there are works by Titian, El Greco, Federico Barocci, and Annibale Carracci, along with lesser-known but nonetheless superb artists, many of whom have only recently been appreciated for their skill and relevance.

Also on display are recent acquisitions by the Gallery, including Salviati's Virgin and Child With Angel, purchased in 2005.

The exhibition reveals "an amazing diversity and a stunning wealth of works created through the unique arts patronage of the Roman Catholic Church," the National Gallery says in a release.

The period in question was important for the renewal of the Church (the origin of religious orders such as the Theatines, the Jesuits and the Oratory of St. Philip Neri), symbolized by the various sessions of the Council of Trent and the demolition of the Constantian and construction of the new St. Peter's Basilica.

That period also contained several jubilee years, with both positive and negative consequences for the faithful and the Church overall. It was the time of the Protestant Reformation, and reform movements in the Church that became the Counter-Reformation.

I resolved that I would go back and explore more closely items I could only look at cursorily and read some of the interpretations of the exhibit.

My trip to Italy later this week for the latest session of the Vox Clara Committee (devoted to reviewing on behalf of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments the process of the translation of the Messale Romanum into English) and the preaching of the retreat to my English-speaking priests in the first week of September will make the prospect iffy, but I am holding out the possibility.

Meantime, any in Ottawa who have been putting off a visit or return trip, you have exactly three weeks to get cracking; the exhibit is slated to close on Labour Day, September 7.

Anointing of the Sick to Celebrate San Rocco

Today I am visiting one of two Italian-language parishes in the Archdiocese of Ottawa, Madonna della Risurrezione (“Our Lady of the Resurrection”) on the very Feast of San Rocco.

Like many ethnic parishes that keep traditions of their homeland, MDR has special celebrations: an Ecumenical Gathering in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (January), the Celebration of Our Lady’s Queenship (late May) and the celebration in honour of San Rocco St. Roch in English , known as an intercessor for the sick.


The Italian Oblate Pastor, Father Antonio Pannunzi strives to stress the spiritual dimension of these feasts, not only the cultural, social and gastronomic. Accordingly, the Eucharist today will feature the Anointing of the Sick as a way of emphasizing the healing power of Our Lord, with the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Roch and other heavenly patrons.

Iconographic traits of San Rocco/St. Roch include his wound on the thigh, a dog offering bread.

The Story of St. Roch (San Rocco)

Born at Montpellier towards 1295; died 1327. His father was governor of that city. At his birth St. Roch is said to have been found miraculously marked on the breast with a red cross.

Deprived of his parents when about twenty years old, he distributed his fortune among the poor, handed over to his uncle the government of Montpellier, and in the disguise of a mendicant pilgrim, set out for Italy, but stopped at Aquapendente, which was stricken by the plague, and devoted himself to the plague-stricken, curing them with the sign of the cross. He next visited Cesena and other neighbouring cities and then Rome. Everywhere the terrible scourge disappeared before his miraculous power. He visited Mantua, Modena, Parma, and other cities with the same results.

At Piacenza, he himself was stricken with the plague. He withdrew to a hut in the neighbouring forest, where his wants were supplied by a gentleman named Gothard, who by a miracle learned the place of his retreat.

After his recovery Roch returned to France. Arriving at Montpellier and refusing to disclose his identity, he was taken for a spy in the disguise of a pilgrim, and cast into prison by order of the governor,--his own uncle, some writers say,--where five years later he died.

The miraculous cross on his breast as well as a document found in his possession now served for his identification. He was accordingly given a public funeral, and numerous miracles attested his sanctity.

In 1414, during the Council of Constance, the plague having broken out in that city, the Fathers of the Council ordered public prayers and processions in honour of the saint, and immediately the plague ceased. His relics, according to Wadding, were carried furtively to Venice in 1485, where they are still venerated.

His popular cult, originally in central and northern Italy and at Montpellier, spread through Spain, France, Lebanon, the Low Countries, and Germany, where he was often interpolated into the roster of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, whose veneration spread in the wake of the Black Death.

The magnificent 16th-century Scuola Grande di San Rocco and the adjacent church were dedicated to him by a confraternity at Venice, where his body was said to have been surreptitiously translated and was triumphantly inaugurated in 1485; the Scuola Grande is famous for its sequence of paintings by Tintoretto, who painted St Roch in glory in a ceiling canvas (1564).


• A popular Spanish tongue twister is El perro de san Roque no tiene rabo porque Ramón Ramírez se lo ha robado ("Saint Roch's dog has no tail because Ramón Ramírez stole it").

• In Bolivia, Saint Roch's day, though not as celebrated as it once was, is considered the "birthday of all dogs", in which the dogs around town can be seen with colorful ribbons tied to them.

• The main train station of Montpellier, France is named after St. Roch, as well as a church and many squares and streets.

• In Bingen, Germany there is a St. Rochus pilgrimage church on top of a hill. Every year in August a one week pilgrimage -the "St. Rochusfest"- is held in memory of a 17th century vow of the city council.

• Some churches that are named after the saint distribute, as a pietistic practice, the "bread of Saint Rocco" to parishioners on August 16, his feast day.

Solemnity of the Assumption; Raising the Roof of Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica

Our Lady's Assumption from St. Mary's Cathedral Basilica, Halifax

A Large Post Today to Mark this Great Solemnity of Our Lady's

"All-powerful and ever-living God, you raised the sinless Virgin Mary, mother of your Son, body and soul to the glory of heaven. May we see heaven as our final goal and come to share her glory. 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"

August 15 is the day that Catholics have long celebrated what is called the Dormition (falling asleep) or Assumption of the Virgin Mary. The Feast of the Assumption celebrates both the happy departure of Mary from this life by her natural death, and her assumption bodily into heaven. Along with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8) the Assumption is a principal feast of the Blessed Virgin.

Now at the end of the summer season, the Church celebrates the most glorious "harvest festival" in the Communion of Saints -- Mary, the supremely blessed one among women, Mary, the most precious fruit which has ripened in the fields of God's kingdom, is today taken into heaven.

The idea of the assumption of Mary into heaven after her death is first expressed in narratives of the fifth and sixth centuries. Even though these were never official, they bear witness to the very early belief in a teaching of the Catholic Church which was not formally defined as a dogma (a teaching essential to the Catholic faith) until 60 years ago.

Though it was almost universally believed for more than a thousand years, the Bible contains no mention of the assumption of Mary into heaven. The first Church writer to speak of Mary's being taken up into heaven by God is Saint Gregory of Tours (594). Other early sermons on the Feast of Mary's entry into heaven are those of Ps.-Modestus of Jerusalem (ca. 700).

On May 1, 1946, Pope Pius XII, asked all bishops in the world whether they thought this belief in the assumption of Mary into heaven should be defined as a proposition of faith, and whether they with their clergy and people desired the definition. Almost all the bishops replied in the affirmative.

On November 1, 1950, the Feast of All Saints, Pope Pius XII declared as a dogma revealed by God that "Mary, the immaculate perpetually Virgin Mother of God, after the completion of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into the glory of Heaven" (some excerpts follow):

From the APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION
MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS
DEFINING THE DOGMA OF THE ASSUMPTION
by POPE PIUS XII(November 1, 1950)

14. Christ's faithful, through the teaching and the leadership of their pastors, have learned from the sacred books that the Virgin Mary, throughout the course of her earthly pilgrimage, led a life troubled by cares, hardships, and sorrows, and that, moreover, what the holy old man Simeon had foretold actually came to pass, that is, that a terribly sharp sword pierced her heart as she stood under the cross of her divine Son, our Redeemer. In the same way, it was not difficult for them to admit that the great Mother of God, like her only begotten Son, had actually passed from this life.

But this in no way prevented them from believing and from professing openly that her sacred body had never been subject to the corruption of the tomb, and that the august tabernacle of the Divine Word had never been reduced to dust and ashes. Actually, enlightened by divine grace and moved by affection for her, God's Mother and our own dearest Mother, they have contemplated in an ever clearer light the wonderful harmony and order of those privileges which the most provident God has lavished upon this loving associate of our Redeemer, privileges which reach such an exalted plane that, except for her, nothing created by God other than the human nature of Jesus Christ has ever reached this level.

15. The innumerable temples which have been dedicated to the Virgin Mary assumed into heaven clearly attest this faith. So do those sacred images, exposed therein for the veneration of the faithful, which bring this unique triumph of the Blessed Virgin before the eyes of all men.

Moreover, cities, dioceses, and individual regions have been placed under the special patronage and guardianship of the Virgin Mother of God assumed into heaven. In the same way, religious institutes, with the approval of the Church, have been founded and have taken their name from this privilege.

Nor can we pass over in silence the fact that in the Rosary of Mary, the recitation of which this Apostolic See so urgently recommends, there is one mystery proposed for pious meditation which, as all know, deals with the Blessed Virgin's Assumption into heaven.

16. This belief of the sacred pastors and of Christ's faithful is universally manifested still more splendidly by the fact that, since ancient times, there have been both in the East and in the West solemn liturgical offices commemorating this privilege. The holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church have never failed to draw enlightenment from this fact since, as everyone knows, the sacred liturgy, "because it is the profession, subject to the supreme teaching authority within the Church, of heavenly truths, can supply proofs and testimonies of no small value for deciding a particular point of Christian doctrine."(10)

17. In the liturgical books which deal with the feast either of the dormition or of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin there are expressions that agree in testifying that, when the Virgin Mother of God passed from this earthly exile to heaven, what happened to her sacred body was, by the decree of divine Providence, in keeping with the dignity of the Mother of the Word Incarnate, and with the other privileges she had been accorded.

Thus, to cite an illustrious example, this is set forth in that sacramentary which Adrian I, our predecessor of immortal memory, sent to the Emperor Charlemagne. These words are found in this volume: "Venerable to us, O Lord, is the festivity of this day on which the holy Mother of God suffered temporal death, but still could not be kept down by the bonds of death, who has begotten your Son our Lord incarnate from herself."(11)

23. When this liturgical feast was being celebrated ever more widely and with ever increasing devotion and piety, the bishops of the Church and its preachers in continually greater numbers considered it their duty openly and clearly to explain the mystery that the feast commemorates, and to explain how it is intimately connected with the other revealed truths.

25. When they go on to explain this point, they adduce various proofs to throw light on this privilege of Mary. As the first element of these demonstrations, they insist upon the fact that, out of filial love for His mother, Jesus Christ has willed that she be assumed into heaven. They base the strength of their proofs on the incomparable dignity of her divine motherhood and of all those prerogatives which follow from it. These include her exalted holiness, entirely surpassing the sanctity of all men and of the angels, the intimate union of Mary with her Son, and the affection of pre-eminent love which the Son has for His most worthy Mother.

33. In the fifteenth century, during a later period of scholastic theology, Saint Bernardine of Siena collected and diligently evaluated all that the medieval theologians had said and taught on this question. He was not content with setting down the principal considerations which these writers of an earlier day had already expressed, but he added others of his own. The likeness between God's Mother and her divine Son, in the way of the nobility and dignity of body and of soul -- a likeness that forbids us to think of the heavenly Queen as being separated from the heavenly King -- makes it entirely imperative that Mary "should be only where Christ is."(35)

Moreover, it is reasonable and fitting that not only the soul and body of a man, but also the soul and body of a woman should have obtained heavenly glory. Finally, since the Church has never looked for the bodily relics of the Blessed Virgin nor proposed them for the veneration of the people, we have a proof on the order of a sensible experience.(36)

35. In like manner Saint Francis de Sales, after asserting that it is wrong to doubt that Jesus Christ has Himself observed, in the most perfect way, the divine commandment by which children are ordered to honor their parents, asks this question: "What son would not bring his mother back to life and would not bring her into paradise after her death if he could?"(38) And Saint Alphonsus writes that "Jesus did not wish to have the body of Mary corrupted after death, since it would have redounded to His own dishonor to have her virginal flesh, from which He Himself had assumed flesh, reduced to dust."

38. All these proofs and considerations of the holy Fathers and the theologians are based upon the Sacred Writings as their ultimate foundation. These set the loving Mother of God as it were before our very eyes as most intimately joined to her divine Son and as always sharing his lot. Consequently it seems impossible to think of her, the one who conceived Christ, brought Him forth, nursed Him with her milk, held Him in her arms, and clasped Him to her breast, as being apart from Him in body, even though not in soul, after this earthly life.

Since our Redeemer is the Son of Mary, He could not do otherwise, as the perfect observer of God's law, than to honor, not only His eternal Father, but also His most beloved Mother. And, since it was within His power to grant her this great honour, to preserve her from the corruption of the tomb, we must believe that He really acted in this way.

41. Since the universal Church, within which dwells the Spirit of Truth who infallibly directs it toward an ever more perfect knowledge of the revealed truths, has expressed its own belief many times over the course of the centuries, and since the bishops of the entire world are almost unanimously petitioning that the truth of the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven should be defined as a dogma of divine and Catholic faith -- this truth which is based on the Sacred Writings, which is thoroughly rooted in the minds of the faithful, which has been approved in ecclesiastical worship from the most remote times, which is completely in harmony with the other revealed truths, and which has been expounded and explained magnificently in the work, the science, and the wisdom of the theologians -- we believe that the moment appointed in the plan of divine providence for the solemn proclamation of this outstanding privilege of the Virgin Mary has already arrived.

42. We, who have placed our pontificate under the special patronage of the most holy Virgin, to whom we have had recourse so often in times of grave trouble, we who have consecrated the entire human race to her Immaculate Heart in public ceremonies, and who have time and time again experienced her powerful protection, are confident that this solemn proclamation and definition of the Assumption will contribute in no small way to the advantage of human society, since it redounds to the glory of the Most Blessed Trinity, to which the Blessed Mother of God is bound by such singular bonds.

It is to be hoped that all the faithful will be stirred up to a stronger piety toward their heavenly Mother, and that the souls of all those who glory in the Christian name may be moved by the desire of sharing in the unity of Jesus Christ's Mystical Body and of increasing their love for her who shows her motherly heart to all the members of this august body.

And so we may hope that those who meditate upon the glorious example Mary offers us may be more and more convinced of the value of a human life entirely devoted to carrying out the heavenly Father's will and to bringing good to others. Thus, while the illusory teachings of materialism and the corruption of morals that follows from these teachings threaten to extinguish the light of virtue and to ruin the lives of men by exciting discord among them, in this magnificent way all may see clearly to what a lofty goal our bodies and souls are destined.

Finally it is our hope that belief in Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven will make our belief in our own resurrection stronger and render it more effective.

44. For which reason, after we have poured forth prayers of supplication again and again to God, and have invoked the light of the Spirit of Truth, for the glory of Almighty God who has lavished his special affection upon the Virgin Mary, for the honor of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages and the Victor over sin and death, for the increase of the glory of that same august Mother, and for the joy and exultation of the entire Church; by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.

45. Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.

46. In order that this, our definition of the bodily Assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven may be brought to the attention of the universal Church, we desire that this, our Apostolic Letter, should stand for perpetual remembrance, commanding that written copies of it, or even printed copies, signed by the hand of any public notary and bearing the seal of a person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, should be accorded by all men the same reception they would give to this present letter, were it tendered or shown.

47. It is forbidden to any man to change this, our declaration, pronouncement, and definition or, by rash attempt, to oppose and counter it. If any man should presume to make such an attempt, let him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.

48. Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, in the year of the great Jubilee, 1950, on the first day of the month of November, on the Feast of All Saints, in the twelfth year of our pontificate.
PIUS XII

* * * * * *
We have no real knowledge of the day, year, and manner of Our Lady's death. The dates which have been assigned to her death vary between three and fifteen years after Christ's Ascension. Both Jerusalem and Ephesus claim to be the place where she died. (By tradition, Mary lived at Ephesus after the death of Jesus.) Mary's tomb was presumably found in Jerusalem. It is believed that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but that after her burial, her tomb, when opened, was found empty.

Therefore, they concluded that her body had been taken up (assumed) into heaven. Saint Gregory of Tour provided a rationale for the tradition, which is related to her having been preserved from original sin. He said that it is inconceivable to think Mary's sinless body, likened to the Ark of the Covenant which was made of incorruptible wood, should decay in the grave. The text, 'Rise thou and the ark of thy strength' (Ps 132/1:8) was understood to mean that it was God's will that, as Christ had ascended, so too Mary would be received into heaven.

There is an important difference, of course, between the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven after His Resurrection, and the Assumption of Mary. To ascend is to rise up under one's own power; while to be assumed means something that is done to one. Jesus, being the Second Person of the Trinity, had no need of assistance; whereas Mary did not have this power. (A pastor once demonstrated this difference in an unusual way. He asked two children to come to the front of the church. He told one child to walk from one side of the sanctuary to the other; and the other child he carried across.)

According to one tradition, Mary was warned of her approaching end by Saint Michael the Archangel, who conducts souls to Heaven, and was surrounded on her death-bed by the apostles, who were miraculously transported to her bedside from their various mission-fields. It was said that Jesus appeared, bore away her soul, and returned three days after her burial, when angels carried her body to Paradise where it was reunited with her soul under the Tree of Life.

In Catholic countries the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is one of the most popular festivals of the year.

The increased number and splendor of paintings of Mary's assumption into heaven from the late sixteenth century onwards, in which Mary appears as "a woman, adorned with the sun, standing on the moon, and with twelve stars on her head for a crown" (from the description in the Book of Revelation 12:1), attests the depth of popular devotion to this manifestation of divine grace bestowed on the Mother of God.

The theme of the heavenly coronation of the Blessed Virgin as Queen of Heaven, often represented paintings and sculpture, is related to her being assumed into Heaven where she reigns next to her Divine Son.

The title "Mother of God" (in Greek, Theotokos), was officially conferred upon Mary at the Council of Ephesus, in 431. (As an Anglican bishop once responded to Protestant objections to this title for Mary, "If she was not the mother of God, who was she the mother of?")

The Feast of the Assumption has always been loved dearly by the faithful who are children of Mary. It is a sign to us that someday, through God's grace and our efforts, we too may join the Blessed Mother in giving glory to God.

The Assumption is a source of great hope for us, too, for it points the way for all followers of Christ who imitate her fidelity and obedience to God's will. Where she now is, we are meant eventually to be, and may hope to be through Divine grace. Mary's being taken to heaven after her life on earth was ended is the logical outcome of her immaculate nature, uniquely protected -- also by God's grace -- from personal sin. We seek to imitate her self-sacrificing love, her indestructible faith and her perfect obedience.

For Christians, death is not extinction, though, unlike Mary, all ordinary mortals, even the most faithful Christians, the saints, must await the Second Coming of Christ and the general Resurrection to receive our "glorified bodies".

* * * * * *

A New Roof for Ottawa's Catholic Cathedral Basilica

Today, I will preside at two celebrations of the Assumption, this morning at 10AM in Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica, a bilingual liturgy.

This evening I will celebrate in French at the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, located next to the Church of Notre Dame de Lourdes de Vanier (on Montreal Road), at one of the points of entry of Notre Dame Cemetery. There will be a candle-light procession at the end of Mass.

Those attending services at Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica in coming months will note the immense scaffolding erected on the Guigues Street side in anticipation of the removal of the present cathedral roof and the installation of a new steel roof.

When the major renovations to the cathedral were completed in 1999, there was discussion about the advisability of renewing the roof.

Give credit to the engineering consultants who said that the roof would last another ten years for being spot on. Here we are in 2009 and the roof began to leak over the winter, which could put at risk the restoraton.

So the Diocesan College of Consultors, after polling, have recommended to me the immediate start of work on a new steel roof (guaranteed to last a minimum of fifty years, perhaps as many as seventy-five).

The cost is estimated in the $1.8 million range. Plans are being elaborated to invite subscriptions for the project; as a national historical site, there is the possibility of eligibility for stimulus funding, which has been applied for, but in this regard nothing is certain. Assistance from any quarter would, of course, be most welcome and gratefully received.

Assumption Prayer from the Chaldean Church

The lips of man
are not worthy to praise
the Mother of the Lord of angels and of men
for neither can men understand her,
nor angels know her sufficiently.

Admirable in her mortal life,
marvelous in her life-giving death
living she was dead to the world,
dying she raised the dead to life.

The apostles hasten to her from distant lands,
the angels descend from on high,
to pay her honour due.

The Virtues animate each other
The Principalities come forward
like flaming clouds,
The Dominations rejoice,
The Powers exult.

The Thrones redouble their praise:
while the Seraphim cry out:
O blessed and glorious body;
and the Cherubim extol her
with their songs,
as she passes through their midst.

The sky and clouds bend down before her;
the thunder claps, praising her Son;
the rain and dew envy her breasts:
for they indeed nourish the plants,
but she fed the Lord of the plants.

(From The Liturgical Year: Book 13)

St. Maximilian Kolbe, martyr; Ottawa Seminarians' Barbecue; End of Pope Benedict's Letter to Priests

Maximilian Kolbe (8 January 1894–14 August 1941), also known as Maksymilian or Massimiliano Maria Kolbe and "Apostle of Consecration to Mary," born as Rajmund Kolbe, was a Polish Conventual Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland.

He was canonized by the Catholic Church as Saint Maximilian Kolbe on 10 October 1982 by Pope John Paul II, and declared a martyr of charity. He is the patron saint of drug addicts, political prisoners, families, journalists, prisoners, amateur radio and the pro-life movement.Pope John Paul II declared him "The Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century".

* * * * * *

Ottawa Archdiocese Seminarians 2009-2010

Last evening, we had the annual barbecue for entering and returning seminarians. After prayers (drawn from the Holy Father's letter to priests for this Year of the Priesthood and the Prayer for Vocations), we settled into some fine food on a lovely warm day (rare this summer, more common lately). Then they posed for the annual seminarians' photo.

Interested in discerning a call to the Priesthood or Consecrated Life? Contact Father Tim McCauley, Vocations Director (613-445-3054) tmccauley@archottawa.ca.

“The seminary years are a time of journeying, of exploration, but above all of discovering Christ. It is only when a young man has had a personal experience of Christ that he can truly understand the Lord’s will and consequently his own vocation” --Pope Benedict XVI, Address to Seminarians (World Youth Day 2005)

* * * * *

Letter to Priests by Pope Benedict XVI (closing part) photos below, copyright Bruno Rotival

Dear brother priests, the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the death of Saint John Mary Vianney (1859) follows upon the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of Lourdes (1858). In 1959 Blessed Pope John XXIII noted that “shortly before the Curé of Ars completed his long and admirable life, the Immaculate Virgin appeared in another part of France to an innocent and humble girl, and entrusted to her a message of prayer and penance which continues, even a century later, to yield immense spiritual fruits.


The life of this holy priest whose centenary we are commemorating in a real way anticipated the great supernatural truths taught to the seer of Massabielle. He was greatly devoted to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin; in 1836 he had dedicated his parish church to Our Lady Conceived without Sin and he greeted the dogmatic definition of this truth in 1854 with deep faith and great joy.”

The Curé would always remind his faithful that “after giving us all he could, Jesus Christ wishes in addition to bequeath us his most precious possession, his Blessed Mother”.

To the Most Holy Virgin I entrust this Year for Priests. I ask her to awaken in the heart of every priest a generous and renewed commitment to the ideal of complete self-oblation to Christ and the Church which inspired the thoughts and actions of the saintly Curé of Ars. It was his fervent prayer life and his impassioned love of Christ Crucified that enabled John Mary Vianney to grow daily in his total self-oblation to God and the Church.

May his example lead all priests to offer that witness of unity with their Bishop, with one another and with the lay faithful, which today, as ever, is so necessary. Despite all the evil present in our world, the words which Christ spoke to his Apostles in the Upper Room continue to inspire us: “In the world you have tribulation; but take courage, I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33).

Our faith in the Divine Master gives us the strength to look to the future with confidence.

Dear priests, Christ is counting on you. In the footsteps of the Curé of Ars, let yourselves be enthralled by him. In this way you too will be, for the world in our time, heralds of hope, reconciliation and peace!
With my blessing,

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI
From the Vatican, 16 June 2009

Bruno Rotival Photographer: Sept Fons Trappist Ordinations; Letter to Priests (part 9)

Prostration of ordinands during the litany of the Saints (July 22, 2009)

In the mail recently, I received a CD with 322 photographs from Bruno Rotival, a photographer who specializes in images of abbeys and monasteries and who took photos at the ordination ceremony I presided at the Abbaye de Sept-Fons (France) of two monks ordained to the priesthood Brothers M-Nathanael, M-Macaire and another two to the diaconate M-Jerome, M-Joachim. With his permission, I am using some images from that celebration to illustrate Pope Benedict's Letter to Priests, part nine of which is featured today. [Photos: Copyright Bruno Rotival: http://pagesperso-orange.fr/bruno.rotival/].

Please pray for a fruitful ministry for all priests ordained this year.

* * * * * *


Pope Benedict's Letter to Priests (continued)

In this context of a spirituality nourished by the practice of the evangelical counsels, I would like to invite all priests, during this Year dedicated to them, to welcome the new springtime which the Spirit is now bringing about in the Church, not least through the ecclesial movements and the new communities. “In his gifts the Spirit is multifaceted… He breathes where he wills. He does so unexpectedly, in unexpected places, and in ways previously unheard of… but he also shows us that he works with a view to the one body and in the unity of the one body”.

In this regard, the statement of the Decree Presbyterorum Ordinis continues to be timely: “While testing the spirits to discover if they be of God, priests must discover with faith, recognize with joy and foster diligently the many and varied charismatic gifts of the laity, whether these be of a humble or more exalted kind”. These gifts, which awaken in many people the desire for a deeper spiritual life, can benefit not only the lay faithful but the clergy as well.

The communion between ordained and charismatic ministries can provide “a helpful impulse to a renewed commitment by the Church in proclaiming and bearing witness to the Gospel of hope and charity in every corner of the world”. I would also like to add, echoing the Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis of Pope John Paul II, that the ordained ministry has a radical “communitarian form” and can be exercised only in the communion of priests with their Bishop.

This communion between priests and their Bishop, grounded in the sacrament of Holy Orders and made manifest in Eucharistic concelebration, needs to be translated into various concrete expressions of an effective and affective priestly fraternity. Only thus will priests be able to live fully the gift of celibacy and build thriving Christian communities in which the miracles which accompanied the first preaching of the Gospel can be repeated.

The Pauline Year now coming to its close invites us also to look to the Apostle of the Gentiles, who represents a splendid example of a priest entirely devoted to his ministry. “The love of Christ urges us on” – he wrote – “because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died” (2 Cor 5:14). And he adds: “He died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them” (2 Cor 5:15).

Could a finer programme could be proposed to any priest resolved to advance along the path of Christian perfection?

St. Jean Frances de Chantal; Hurley Baptism; Pope's Year for Priests Letter (part 8)

St. Jane Frances de Chantal (1562-1641) -- celebrated on December 12 universally but, because of our observance of Our Lady of Guadalupe that day, observed as an optional memorial in Canada today, in the USA on August 18. Best wishes to the Visitandine Sisters of Ottawa today on their feast day!

Jane Frances was wife, mother, nun and founder of a religious community. Her mother died when Jane was 18 months old, and her father, head of parliament at Dijon, France, became the main influence on her education. She developed into a woman of beauty and refinement, lively and cheerful in temperament.

At 21 she married Baron de Chantal, by whom she had six children, three of whom died in infancy. At her castle she restored the custom of daily Mass, and was seriously engaged in various charitable works.

Jane's husband was killed after seven years of marriage, and she sank into deep dejection for four months at her family home. Her father-in-law threatened to disinherit her children if she did not return to his home. He was then 75, vain, fierce and extravagant. Jane Frances managed to remain cheerful in spite of him and his insolent housekeeper.

When she was 32, she met St. Francis de Sales, who became her spiritual director, softening some of the severities imposed by her former director. She wanted to become a nun but he persuaded her to defer this decision. She took a vow to remain unmarried and to obey her director.

After three years Francis told her of his plan to found an institute of women which would be a haven for those whose health, age or other considerations barred them from entering the already established communities. There would be no cloister, and they would be free to undertake spiritual and corporal works of mercy. They were primarily intended to exemplify the virtues of Mary at the Visitation (hence their name, the Visitation nuns): humility and meekness.

The usual opposition to women in active ministry arose and Francis de Sales was obliged to make it a cloistered community following the Rule of St. Augustine. Francis wrote his famous Treatise on the Love of God for them.

The congregation (three women) began when Jane Frances was 45. She underwent great sufferings: Francis de Sales died; her son was killed; a plague ravaged France; her daughter-in-law and son-in-law died. She encouraged the local authorities to make great efforts for the victims of the plague and she put all her convent’s resources at the disposal of the sick.

During a part of her religious life, she had to undergo great trials of the spirit—interior anguish, darkness and spiritual dryness. She died while on a visitation of convents of the community.

St. Vincent de Paul said of Jane Frances: “She was full of faith, yet all her life had been tormented by thoughts against it. While apparently enjoying the peace and easiness of mind of souls who have reached a high state of virtue, she suffered such interior trials that she often told me her mind was so filled with all sorts of temptations and abominations that she had to strive not to look within herself...But for all that suffering her face never lost its serenity, nor did she once relax in the fidelity God asked of her. And so I regard her as one of the holiest souls I have ever met on this earth” (Butler’s Lives of the Saints).

* * * * * *



The New Birth in Christ of Isabel Clare Hurley took place yesterday evening at Holy Redeemer Parish, Kanata (see earlier notice of her birth on June 23rd).

* * * * * *


Pope Benedict XVI's Letter to Priests (part 8 of 10)

In today’s world, as in the troubled times of the Curé of Ars, the lives and activity of priests need to be distinguished by a forceful witness to the Gospel. As Pope Paul VI rightly noted, “modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses”.

Lest we experience existential emptiness and the effectiveness of our ministry be compromised, we need to ask ourselves ever anew: “Are we truly pervaded by the word of God? Is that word truly the nourishment we live by, even more than bread and the things of this world? Do we really know that word? Do we love it? Are we deeply engaged with this word to the point that it really leaves a mark on our lives and shapes our thinking?” Just as Jesus called the Twelve to be with him (cf. Mk 3:14), and only later sent them forth to preach, so too in our days priests are called to assimilate that “new style of life” which was inaugurated by the Lord Jesus and taken up by the Apostles.

It was complete commitment to this “new style of life” which marked the priestly ministry of the Curé of Ars. Pope John XXIII, in his Encyclical Letter Sacerdotii nostri primordia, published in 1959 on the first centenary of the death of Saint John Mary Vianney, presented his asceticism with special reference to the “three evangelical counsels” which the Pope considered necessary also for priests: “even though priests are not bound to embrace these evangelical counsels by virtue of the clerical state, these counsels nonetheless offer them, as they do all the faithful, the surest road to the desired goal of Christian perfection”.

The Curé of Ars lived the “evangelical counsels” in a way suited to his priestly state. His poverty was not the poverty of a religious or a monk, but that proper to a priest: while managing much money (since well-to-do pilgrims naturally took an interest in his charitable works), he realized that everything had been donated to his church, his poor, his orphans, the girls of his “Providence”, his families of modest means. Consequently, he “was rich in giving to others and very poor for himself”

As he would explain: “My secret is simple: give everything away; hold nothing back” When he lacked money, he would say amiably to the poor who knocked at his door: “Today I’m poor just like you, I’m one of you”. At the end of his life, he could say with absolute tranquility: “I no longer have anything. The good Lord can call me whenever he wants!”

His chastity, too, was that demanded of a priest for his ministry. It could be said that it was a chastity suited to one who must daily touch the Eucharist, who contemplates it blissfully and with that same bliss offers it to his flock. It was said of him that “he radiated chastity”; the faithful would see this when he turned and gazed at the tabernacle with loving eyes”.

Finally, Saint John Mary Vianney’s obedience found full embodiment in his conscientious fidelity to the daily demands of his ministry. We know how he was tormented by the thought of his inadequacy for parish ministry and by a desire to flee “in order to bewail his poor life, in solitude”. Only obedience and a thirst for souls convinced him to remain at his post.

As he explained to himself and his flock: “There are no two good ways of serving God. There is only one: serve him as he desires to be served”. He considered this the golden rule for a life of obedience: “Do only what can be offered to the good Lord”.