My Sheep Hear My Voice

My sheep hear my voice: and I know them, and they follow me.  And I give them life everlasting; and they shall not perish for ever, and no man shall pluck them out of my hand.  That which my Father hath given me, is greater than all: and no one can snatch them out of the hand of my Father.  I and the Father are one.

— St John x, 27-30

This was the Gospel passage read at Mass to-night, which marked this as Good Shepherd Sunday (OF), when in our Easter joy we adore Jesus as our Shepherd, who is truly good: ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός: "good" is really inadequate, for the word means also "beautiful", "admirable", "excellent" and much more. 

Our visiting priest preached a little on the deep truth that God calls each and every one of us, and that this calling (expressed in our Baptism) is our vocation – our calling home to God, which we each are to live throughout life.  Soon-to-be-Blessed John Henry Newman was quoted, referencing his famous words:

1. God was all-complete, all-blessed in Himself; but it was His will to create a world for His glory. He is Almighty, and might have done all things Himself, but it has been His will to bring about His purposes by the beings He has created. We are all created to His glory—we are created to do His will. I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created; I have a place in God's counsels, in God's world, which no one else has; whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by man, God knows me and calls me by my name.

2. God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

3. Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still He knows what He is about.

O Adonai, O Ruler of Israel, Thou that guidest Joseph like a flock, O Emmanuel, O Sapientia, I give myself to Thee. I trust Thee wholly. Thou art wiser than I—more loving to me than I myself. Deign to fulfil Thy high purposes in me whatever they be—work in and through me. I am born to serve Thee, to be Thine, to be Thy instrument. Let me be Thy blind instrument. I ask not to see—I ask not to know—I ask simply to be used.

— Meditations on Christian Doctrine, I. Hope in God—Creator, (2) March 7, 1848

Before Mass, I'd been to confession – that sacrament which is indeed an act of worship, testifying to our true, felt need to always "come back to the Father" – and had been very much consoled when Father reminded me that God's love for me is a far, far stronger thing than my love (as a mere creature) for God.  

This in turn now reminds me of what "the sacred monster of Thomism", Fr Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., called "the principle of predilection": one would not be greater than another did not God love that one more.  I have received so many blessings of nature and, I believe, of grace: in this I have proof of the great love that God has for me, because all I have, and am, is His gift.  God does not love because one is good, no; rather, God's love is active and creative: one whom God loves is made to be good.

How the Gospel corroborates this!  God's choice and election of His beloved cannot be overcome: they are His: "no one can pluck them out of My hand".  "Paschal triumph, Paschal joy, / Only sin can this destroy: / From the death of sin set free / Souls reborn, dear Lord, in Thee."  Great St Pius V died with these wonderful words of song on his lips:

 Quæsumus, Auctor omnium,

In hoc Paschali gaudio,

Ab omni mortis impetu

Tuum defende populum.

O Emmanuel

When in past years I lived in Melbourne, and had the chance to pray daily before the tabernacle at St Dominic's, East Camberwell, I used to use Newman's formula for a short visit to the Blessed Sacrament, from his Meditations and Devotions, consisting of an Act of Faith in the Real Presence, and then one of the O Antiphons:

+ In the Name...

I place myself in the presence of Him, in whose Incarnate Presence I am before I place myself there.

I adore Thee, O my Saviour, present here as God and man, in soul and body, in true flesh and blood.

I acknowledge and confess that I kneel before that Sacred Humanity, which was conceived in Mary's womb, and lay in Mary's bosom; which grew up to man's estate, and by the Sea of Galilee called the Twelve, wrought miracles, and spoke words of wisdom and peace; which in due season hung on the cross, lay in the tomb, rose from the dead, and now reigns in heaven.

I praise, and bless, and give myself wholly to Him, who is the true Bread of my soul, and my everlasting joy.

Sunday: O Sapientia...

Monday: O Adonai...

Tuesday: O Radix Jesse...

Wednesday: O Clavis David...

Thursday: O Oriens...

Friday: O Rex Gentium...

Saturday: O Emmanuel...

These Advent anthems are ideal for worship of Christ in the Eucharist, since they capture the yearning for Him that we ought have before the Blessed Sacrament - since there we wish once more to receive Him in Holy Communion, to be in union with Him, and thereby make our spiritual communion with Him - just as the old farmer explained his method of prayer to the Curé of Ars: "I look at the Good God, and the Good God looks at me." That is true Eucharistic Adoration.

Each week I was glad as Saturday came round, since Saturday was the day to pray O Emmanuel, the greatest of these Advent anthems, since it names Our Lord as the Lord our God, come to save us.

(Please follow the link to the chant, the text and the sources of O Emmanuel.)

Dogma and the Transcendentals

I think someone said that each person tends to be attracted more to one of the transcendentals - the good, the true, the beautiful (accepting for the moment that the beautiful is a transcendental) - than to the others. I suppose in my case it would be the true that captivates me. The beautiful also; the good, less so: hence my sins tend to be about missing the good or going after goods in the wrong way. The true in a sense corresponds with faith, one of the theological virtues; the beautiful, with hope I suppose; and the good with charity.

Alas, love is the virtue I lack. (For this cause, and because of the replacement role it plays in modernist misbelief - filling in for lack of belief in doctrine - I cannot abide talk of social justice. Catholic schooling has permanently inoculated me against it, for ever. Of course, I do try and give alms and such, but I no longer believe the secularist aCatholic claim that it is the trendy left that really help, rather than infantilize, the poor...)

With this in mind, it can be seen how I heartily agree with this statement of Newman's:

“From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion: I know no other religion; I cannot enter into the idea of any other sort of religion; religion, as a mere sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery.”

For this cause, I hate and detest sentimentality, doubt, and the rejection of reason - nothing gets me riled up worse than fools saying "Why don't we just all love Jesus and not worry about these silly doctrines any more?". I am firmly of the opinion that many after the Council delighted in rejecting as much of the Faith as possible, dumbing everything down - evacuating our most holy religion of content. Some people would rather believe nothing - it's more convenient. Stupidity is alive and well in most Catholic churches! I don't mean by this anything against those of low intellect - they are creatures of God - but by this I reprobate those who wallow in ignorance and delight in their own lack of understanding, in a mad kind of pride.

Similarly, while some just "lurrrve" sentimental songs of dubious orthodoxy, such as the lyrics of Marty Haugen or John Bell, I cannot stand their puerile sound and uncatholic message. Compare such unhealthy "fast food" music to the more difficult to appreciate and sing, but holier treasures and more beautiful far that is the prodigious inheritance of sacred music down the ages. Trust our own Philistine and narcissistic age to dump most of this. It is the same with the awful solemnity of the Sacred Liturgy - too many think Mass ought be (aging) hippies gathered with a guitar round a trestle table. Mass like that is an abomination! "O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness" should be the words to heed.

So I do value the beautiful, but not to the extent of running into effete æsthetic excess. Particularly in Australia, the beautiful is often mocked by lazy lax liberals as being "gay" - and of course there is that perversion of beauty around, but abusus non tollit usus. "Bells and smells" cannot be the end of it - as is said of some immoral Anglicans, their holiness ends when the vestments are packed away. (A friend of mine and a female friend of his were horribly scandalized by some High Church types, who invited them to a fancy dress party that turned out to be low and vile - at which those dirty buggers were tricked out in church vestments. I use the term buggers advisedly.)

Liturgy must never be camp; neither must it be feminized as the Novus Ordo too often is, with the only man present in the sanctuary an emasculated old priest, surrounded by women, with a congregation largely of the same. The Mass should be masculine in the true sense of imaging sacrifice, for Christ the Bridegroom gave Himself sacrificially for His Bride the Church, and His priests and their ministers sacramentally represent this truth. If Mass does express this, both men and women will feel comfortable with it. Liturgy, if feminized or effete, repels normal folk of both sexes.

Callista

The last few evenings - as my bedtime reading! - I've gone back to Newman's novel Callista, which sits beside Wiseman's Fabiola in the "Catholic novel" section of my bookshelf (alongside Cather's Death Comes to the Archbishop - no, not a wish-fulfilment fantasy, but a lovely lyric work, well-able to be dipped into as a soothing tonic - Robinson's melodramatic The Cardinal, and Marshall's comic but moving All Glorious Within).

Wiseman and Newman, writing in the mid-1850's, have the quaint old-time habit of interjecting as the omniscient author throughout their works, but that is part of the charm of both books, which deal with Christianity during the great persecutions - Newman's, that of Decius, as it struck North Africa; and Wiseman's, the greatest and last of all, that of terrible Diocletian, in Rome itself, then truly the seat of Antichrist, drunk with the blood of the saints (many of whom have cameo roles in the novel).

Both romances, for their true Christian message, their loving portrayal of the sanctity of the primitive Church, and their old-fashioned style are well-worth reading.  I turn now to a work of non-fiction: Frend's Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church.

Pray for us, all ye holy Martyrs, - That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

By the triumph of Thy grace in all Thy holy Martyrs, – Lord, deliver us.

Novena to St Philip Neri - 1st Day

Today I'm feeling a bit unwell, and taking things slowly...

However, today I must begin my Novena to St Philip Neri, and intend to do so, first of all, by praying each day the Litany of St Philip Neri, which may be found, together with Newman's Novena to him, here.

However, I also wish to post here, since they aren't otherwise online, some other items referring to Holy Father Philip, such as those of Fr Faber's own sermon notes that can be assembled to make up a Novena; and, since Faber's notes on St Philip only extend to eight in the book I consulted, I choose to begin with his sermon notes for Pentecost, since today is Whit Saturday, and also because these notes refer to St Philip's own unique communion with the Holy Ghost:

GOD A GOD OF FIRE. [Whitsunday, 1858]

I. I am come to cast fire on the earth, and what will I but that it be kindled? [Ignem veni mittere in terram, et quid volo nisi ut accendatur?] — St. Luke xii. 49. How strange this sounds from Jesus, meek and humble of heart! [Cf. St. Matthew xi. 29.]
1. Compare the spirit of it with the night of the Incarnation and the night of Bethlehem.
2. Or the quiet fires in the hearts of Mary and Joseph in the holy House of Nazareth.
3. Or with the abysses of the abjection of the Passion.
4. Or with the secret apparitions of the beautiful Forty Days after the Resurrection.
5. Or with the passive, patient stillness of the Blessed Sacrament.
II. Yet the scene at Pentecost.
1. They wait, Mary in the midst, and the chosen few, for Him Who is to be so much to them that it was well that Jesus should go away. [Cf. Acts i. 13, 14; St John xvi. 7.]
2. They wait for Him, Who is eminently the Spirit of Jesus, and who will bring to mind all he said. [Cf. St. John xiv. 26.]
3. For Him with Whom Jesus in His Human Nature has now been ten days in heaven! Oh, the marvellous occupations of those ten days!
4. He comes to them in the vehement majesty of a mighty wind, and scatters Himself in showers of fire like cloven tongues. [Cf. Acts ii. 2, 3.]
5. So that Mary and the Apostles seemed to the multitudes to be drunk with new wine. [Cf. Acts ii. 13.]
III. God always a God of fire.
1. He calls Himself so: The Lord thy God is a consuming fire. Deut. iv. 24. [& Heb. xii. 29.]
2. He appeared as such to Isaias; as a whirlwind and enfolding fire to Ezekiel. [Cf. Ezech. i. 27.] St. John says (Apoc. i. 14), His eyes were as a flame of fire.
3. Burning Bush: in the inner folds of the desert, and ravines of Horeb, to Moses. [Ex. iii. 2.]
4. (Daniel vii. 9, 10.) His throne like flames; the wheels of it like burning fire, and a swift stream of fire issued forth from before Him: vision seen in the first year of Baltassar, King of Babylon.
5. In these sweet fires we are to dwell eternally. Isaias (xxxiii. 14) asks, which of you can dwell with devouring fire? which of you shall dwell with everlasting burnings? and the answer is, he that walketh in justices.
IV. So our religion is a religion of fire.
1. It was the one will of Jesus to kindle this fire on earth.
2. The Holy Ghost is never otherwise in the heart than as fire.
3. The fires of the Eternal Father are to be our everlasting home.
4. What manner of fire should we have then?
Fiery love, fiery faith, fire consuming self, fire burning the world out of our hearts, fire likely to make men think us drunk or mad.
5. What is the case in reality? Do we burn? Are we vehement? Do our hearts throb and beat tumultuously with the love of God? Do we understand that lifelong broken heart of our great father St. Philip, burst with the ball of fire, which was the Holy Ghost? — Oh if our religion be a moral indifference, a calm bargaining with God, a prudential speculation, a discreet fear of hell, a frigid propriety, a servile keeping of the letter of God’s law, — it may be a religion — but is it the religion written in the Bible? Is it the fire which it was our dearest Lord’s one will to kindle?
Oh that the Divine Person would come down upon us with His fire to-day, would break our hearts with the magnificent excesses of the love of God, would burn us with the pain of the great pleasure of His fire! Sweet, gentle, plaintive, vehement, fiery, enthusiast Spirit! — Oh that He would so light His flames in our hearts that from this hour our whole life should be nothing but an unbroken Pentecost!

[Faber, Frederick William. Notes on Doctrinal and Spiritual Subjects. Volume 1. “Mysteries and Festivals.” 3rd ed. London: Burns & Oates, n.d. [post 1866], pp. 103-5]

This certainly makes for a good examination of conscience!

Furthermore, it corresponds to the heartfelt plea of these chants, readings, and collects used at the Ember Saturday Mass today - or rather, to what should be felt in the heart when praying them:

The charity of God is diffused throughout our hearts, alleluia, by the indwelling of His Spirit in us, alleluia. ... [Introit, from Romans v, 5 (which is also read as part of today's Epistle, and is used also for the Feast of St Philip)]

Mentibus nostris, quæsumus, Domine, Spiritum Sanctum benignus infunde: cujus et sapientia conditi sumus, et providentia gubernamur. Per... in unitate ejusdem Spiritus Sancti...

(Into our minds, we beseech, Lord, the Holy Spirit benignly pour: by Whose wisdom we were created and by Whose providence we are governed. Thro'... in the unity of the same Holy Ghost...)

I will pour out My Spirit over all flesh... And moreover over my servants and handmaids in those days I will pour out my Spirit... [From the 1st Lesson - Joel ii, 28-32]

Illo nos igne, quæsumus, Domine, Spiritus Sanctus inflammet: quem Dominus noster Jesus Christus misit in terram, et voluit vehementer accendi: Qui tecum vivit... in unitate ejusdem...

(May the Holy Ghost inflame us with that fire, we beseech, Lord, that our Lord Jesus Christ sent to earth, and vehemently willed to enkindle: Who with Thee liveth... in the unity of the same... [Cf. St Luke xii, 49])

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Thy love. [Alleluia verse after the fourth lesson]

Veni, Sancte Spiritus,
et emitte cælitus
lucis tuæ radium.

Veni, pater pauperum,
veni, dator munerum
veni, lumen cordium.

Consolator optime,
dulcis hospes animæ,
dulce refrigerium.

In labore requies,
in æstu temperies
in fletu solatium.

O lux beatissima,
reple cordis intima
tuorum fidelium.

Sine tuo numine,
nihil est in homine,
nihil est innoxium.

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

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

Da tuis fidelibus,
in te confidentibus,
sacrum septenarium.

Da virtutis meritum,
da salutis exitum,
da perenne gaudium.
Amen. Alleluja.

I try to pray to the Holy Spirit in these terms, and will redouble my efforts!

Blessed John Henry Newman?

Recent news indicates that Ven. Cardinal Newman's beatification may be at last in the offing.   (BTW, to read "Newman on the Argument from Design" by Noel Roberts, a friend of mine whom I've just visited in Hobart, follow this link to New Blackfriars January 2007 issue, and click on the link: it's free.)  With thanks to the excellent Newman Reader site, which makes available all his writings online, I post the prayer Catholics are asked to pray to obtain of God this blessing:

PRAYER

to obtain the Beatification of 

John Henry Cardinal Newman

God our Father,

your servant John Henry Newman

upheld the faith by his teaching and example.

May his loyalty to Christ and the Church,

his love of the Immaculate Mother of God,

and his compassion for the perplexed

give guidance to the Christian people today.

We beg you to grant the favours we ask

through his intercession

so that his holiness may be recognized by all

and the Church may proclaim him a saint.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Please report any favours received to:

The Vice-Postulator

The Oratory, Birmingham

B16 8UE

England