Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Author: formafidei
Christ the King
Here at the end of the liturgical year, the Holy Father has today released his encyclical, Evangelii Gaudium .
I have just glanced at it and already see wonderful things in it. As with most any encyclical, too…
all I have to say is: Everyone is going to be uncomfortable by something or another in #EvangeliiGaudium if we are contemplative about it!
— Kathryn Jean Lopez (@kathrynlopez) November 26, 2013
A Fine Month to Think About Death
This is a print of the dust that flew off of a bird, probably a dove, that flew into a window. The print was old so the bird was nowhere to be seen. The second photo is a crop of the first. The third was taken with an Olloclip macro lens on an iPhone. You can see the tiny structures of the feathers by the superfine dust outline. No feathers are photographed here, only dust.
In November when we celebrate All Saints and All Souls, it is good to think about the suddenness of death. Here are two good columns from Cardinal Wuerl on the subject of death:
http://cardinalsblog.adw.org/2013/11/preparing-for-the-grace-of-a-good-death/
http://cardinalsblog.adw.org/2013/11/god-of-mercy/
and another from Msgr. Charles Pope on the beauty of the Requiem Mass.
http://blog.adw.org/2013/11/thoughts-on-the-traditional-latin-requiem-mass-not-really-as-dark-or-dreadful-as-many-say/
Three of Forty
Today we celebrate the memory of three sweet little Catholic girls. NOT. These were three courageous Catholic women, who died for their faith, not in the arena in Rome ‘way back when, but in England in the 16th century. Pope Paul VI on this date in 1970 canonized forty martyrs of England and Wales. Many of those were priests and religious, but there were four laymen and three laywomen. They were:
Margaret Clitherow, a.k.a. “The Pearl of York”
http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-margaret-clitherow/ – pressed to death, which is what is sounds like, in York, 1586. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Clitherow
Saint Anne Line
http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-anne-line/ – hanged, at Tyburn 1601. From the book, They Died at Tyburn, she said “I am sentenced to death for harbouring a priest, and so far am I from repenting for having so done, that I wish with all my soul that where I have entertained one I could have entertained a thousand.”
Saint Margaret Ward
http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-margaret-ward/ – hanged, drawn, & quartered, Tyburn 1588. From the same book, “When brought to trial, she said that never in her life had she done anything of which she repented less; that death for such a cause would be very welcome to her, and that she was willing to lay down not one life only but many if she had them.”
There is a convent near Tyburn today, and in a traffic island there is a little marker for those who were martyred there.
Here is an EWTN reprint of a 1970 L’Osservatore Romano article on the canonization. The last few paragraphs there are moving and meaningful for today.
Augustine on Prayer
The Office of Readings the last few days has had excerpts from Augustine’s letter to Proba, “a Devoted Handmaid of God.” Today’s appears to be from Chapter 14, ttp://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102130.htm . Here’s a Wikipedia entry about her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anicia_Faltonia_Proba. It is wonderful that we have some letters of Augustine to this Christian lady.
All of Chapter 14 of the letter is excellent. This paragraph follows what is excerpted in today’s reading:
But whoever desires from the Lord that “one thing,” and seeks after it, asks in certainty and in confidence, and has no fear lest when obtained it be injurious to him, seeing that, without it, anything else which he may have obtained by asking in a right way is of no advantage to him. The thing referred to is the one true and only happy life, in which, immortal and incorruptible in body and spirit, we may contemplate the joy of the Lord for ever. All other things are desired, and are without impropriety prayed for, with a view to this one thing. For whosoever has it shall have all that he wishes, and cannot possibly wish to have anything along with it which would be unbecoming.
For in it is the fountain of life, which we must now thirst for in prayer so long as we live in hope, not yet seeing that which we hope for, trusting under the shadow of His wings before whom are all our desires, that we may be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of His house, and made to drink of the river of His pleasures; because with Him is the fountain of life, and in His light we shall see light, when our desire shall be satisfied with good things, and when there shall be nothing beyond to be sought after with groaning, but all things shall be possessed by us with rejoicing.
At the same time, because this blessing is nothing else than the “peace which passes all understanding,” [Philippians 4:7] even when we are asking it in our prayers, we know not what to pray for as we ought. For inasmuch as we cannot present it to our minds as it really is, we do not know it, but whatever image of it may be presented to our minds we reject, disown, and condemn; we know it is not what we are seeking, although we do not yet know enough to be able to define what we seek.
Forma Fidei 