Wisdom from St. Alphonsus Liguori (Part 5)

                                                "Face of Christ" by Georges Rouault

More wisdom from the great Doctor of the Church.  This is from "The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ:"

During the present life this must likewise be our only thought, our only purpose, to go in search of God in order to love him, and in search of his will in order to fulfil it, ridding our heart of all love of creatures.  And whenever some worldly good would present itself to our imaginations to solicit our love, let us be ready prepared with this answer: "I have despised the kingdom of this world, and all the charms of this life, for the sake of the love of my Lord Jesus Christ."

St. Alphonsus Liguori, pray for us.

"More Chinese at church on a Sunday than in whole of Europe"

                                                                This sort of thing is illegal now


So says the BBC.

Europe, when it was Catholic/Christian, was a light to the world.   In those days, many saw its good works, and glorified our Father in heaven.  But now Europe is like salt which has lost its savor.  Our Lord tells us that's "good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men." 

It feels to me like the casting out and the trodding are in progress.

Ah, to live in a Catholic country!

                                            An Easter procession on Malta

95% of the population of Malta calls itself Catholic, and as mentioned in a previous post, it has more holidays than any other EU country.  Malta celebrates 5 national holidays, 9 public holidays, and more than 70 traditional feasts.

According to Wikipedia, Malta also has charmingly Catholic names for the months of the year:

Month	Maltese name
January	the coldest month
February	St. Paul's month
March	St. Joseph, the Annunciation and Sales' month
April	the month of blossoms and St. Gregory
May	the month of harvest, Our Lady of Pompeii
June	the month of reaping, bonfires, St. Peter and St. Paul, and Sacred Heart
July	the month of Monte Carmel
August	the month of fruit, St. Mary and St. Lawrence
September	the month of Victory, the Nativity of Our Lady, and Our Lady of Graces
October	the month of the Rosary
November	the month of fallen leaves, of souls, and of the dead
December	the Christmas and Conception month

Alas, Malta has just voted to permit divorce, so modernity is encroaching on the island.



Since it is her month,

Our Lady of Graces, pray for us

Our Lady of Sorrows

                                               "Pieta" by Vincent Van Gogh

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, a feast known since the 13th century, and made popular by the Cistercians and the Servites (posts regarding the Servites here and here).  The sorrowful hymn "Stabat Mater Dolorosa" was written for the feast, and many composers have set the text to music.  Here is Pergolesi's version:

The first stanza of the text, in Latin and English:

Stabat mater dolorosa juxta Crucem lacrimosa, dum pendebat Filius.

At the Cross her station keeping, stood the mournful Mother weeping, close to her son to the last.

Our Lady of Sorrows is the Patroness of Slovenia, and the feast is a public holiday there.  Malta, the country with the most holidays in the European Union, also keeps the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows as a public holiday, but the Maltese celebrate it on the Friday before Passion Sunday.  In 1969, these two separate feasts of Our Lady of Sorrows, the one celebrated before Holy Week and the other in September, were officially combined.  

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

"The holy cross shines in splendor"

                   "Heraclius entering Jerusalem with the Cross" by Piero della Francesca

Today is the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.  The feast celebrates the discovery of the true cross, which was uncovered during the construction of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre.  In the fourth century AD, St. Helena, Constantine's mother, travelled to Jerusalem to search for the holy places in the life of Christ.  A tradition held that the Temple of Venus had been built over Christ's tomb, so Constantine ordered it razed and the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher erected in its place.  During excavation, three crosses were discovered.  According to tradition, the touch of the remnants of one of these crosses healed a dying woman, and therefore the cross from which these remnants came was deemed to be the true cross. 

The Persians sacked the Basilica and carried off the cross in 614 AD.   The emperor Heraclius re-captured the cross in 629.  There is a story that the emperor intended to restore the relics to the Basilica himself, but found he was unable to enter Jerusalem until he removed his imperial finery and proceeded as a barefoot pilgrim. 

The feast also celebrates the dedication of the Basilica of the Resurrection in Jerusalem in 355 AD.

From the office of Lauds for the feast:

God our Father,  in obedience to your will your Only-Begotten Son endured the cross for our salvation.  Grant that as we have come to know the mystery of the cross here on earth,  we may receive its rewards in heaven.

"Full of Grace"

"Full of Grace: Crowned Madonnas from the Vatican Basilica" is on view now in New Haven, Conn.  No, not at Yale, but at the headquarters of the Knights of Columbus.  Sandro Magister has more here.
I expect the Hicks family will make a visit to New Haven soon.

Enigma Variations: Nimrod

On Sunday, WQXR commemorated 9/11 by playing suitable music suggested by listeners.   Amidst a lot of great music (playlist here,) Elgar's "Enigma Variations: Nimrod" stood out for me.  The piece honors a friend of Elgar's named Jaeger who encouraged the composer to persevere.  Jaeger is the German word for "hunter" and Nimrod, according to Genesis, was "a mighty hunter before the Lord."