Abbey-Roads2

Photo: Dancing Jesuit priest from India.

For those of you who may not care for the way the Jesuit Order has evolved since the Council, the Order’s Father General has an interesting interview concerning the demise of certain orders in the Church through the centuries.  Here is a snippet from Catholic News Agency:

“The Father General of the Society of Jesus, Father Peter Hans-Kolvenbach, said this week no religious congregation or institution has a guaranteed future and that each one “could disappear” if the work entrusted to it by the Lord has been fulfilled, as the history of the Church has shown.

“I am convinced that religious life should always be in crisis, if we really want to be constantly attentive to the Spirit, who never rests.  It’s not enough to follow the constitutions, the rules, in order to have a certain future,” the Jesuit superior said in an interview with the magazine “Jesus” and quoted by the Spanish daily “La Razon.”

In this sense, he said, there must be discernment of what the Lord is asking of each congregation in the different circumstances of life and history, since for example, “He may ask of a certain group of consecrated a specific task during a determined period of time,” and when that is finished, “that institute may disappear.  This is not something new in the history of the Church.”” - CNA 

Of course the Jesuits have been suppressed in previous times and places, and they came back again.  I’ve met excellent Jesuits however, and I respect the Order.  Of course, some people are not in agreement with me on this.  It is for them to have good hope. 

Religious Orders can indeed come and go.  Look at the Sisters of St. Joseph of Corondolet for instance - oh, that’s right, they are still around.  I’m certain some of the newer diocesan congregations will probably not stand the test of time, neither will the increasing numbers of idiosyncratic, free-agent hermits - but these types have sprung up at various points in the history of the Church, and were often incorporated into existing Religious Orders of the time after awhile.

(One local group, The Hermits of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mt. Carmel, was recently incorporated into the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance.  Although the group was pretty much started because they felt the Discalced Carmelites were not observant enough. and now they are O. Carm..  Ironic.) 

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Photo: The actual place, Armageddon.

Korea is launching test missiles into the Sea of Japan today.

Iran is warning Israel against attacking Lebanon.

Our ships are performing military maneuvers off the shores of Iran.

China is developing long range nuclear capabilities to fire missiles at Taiwan and the U.S. - and so on.

Some-days, just reading the headlines on Drudge - it seems like Armageddon.  It could be just around the corner I guess.

I think I hear “Twilight Zone” music… 

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Today is the feast day of St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, a Florentine Carmelite of the ancient observance and a wonderful mystic.  (1566-1607, which means this year is the 400th centenary of her death.)  Here is a detail from her life found at Catholic Online:

Jesus ‘teased’ her:

What her experiences and prayer had given her was a familiar, personal relationship with Jesus. Her conversations with Jesus often take on a teasing, bantering tone that shocks those who have a formal, fearful image of God. For example, at the end of her forty days of graces, Jesus offered her a crown of flowers or a crown of thorns. No matter how often she chose the crown of thorns, Jesus kept teasingly pushing the crown of flowers to her. When he accused her, “I called and you didn’t care,” she answered back, “You didn’t call loudly enough” and told him to shout his love.

Suffering is hard to do 

She learned to regret the insistence on the crown of thorns. We might think it is easy to be holy if God is talking to you every day but few of us could remain on the path with the five year trial that followed her first ecstasies. Before this trial, Jesus told her, “I will take away not the grace but the feeling of grace. Though I will seem to leave you I will be closer to you.” This was easy for her to accept in the midst of ecstasy but, as she said later, she hadn’t experienced it yet. At the age of nineteen she started five years of dryness and desolation in which she was repelled by prayer and tempted by everything. She referred to her heart as a pitch-dark room with only a feeble light shining that only made the darkness deeper. She was so depressed she was found twice close to suicide. All she could do to fight back was to hold onto prayer, penance, and serving others even when it appeared to do no good.

Her lifelong devotion to Pentecost can be easily understood because her trial ended in ecstasy in 1590. At this time she could have asked for any gifts but she wanted two in particular: to look on any neighbor as good and holy without judgment and to always have God’s presence before her.  - Catholic Online

A Mystic of the Holy Spirit 

St Mary Magdalen de Pazzi had a special devotion to the Holy Spirit, here is a prayer to the Holy Spirit from her writings:

Come, Holy Spirit. Spirit of truth, you are the reward of the saints, the comforter of souls, light in the darkness, riches to the poor, treasure to lovers, food for the hungry, comfort to those who are wandering; to sum up, you are the one in whom all treasures are contained.

Come! As you descended upon Mary that the Word might become flesh, work in us through grace as you worked in her through nature and grace.

Come! Food of every chaste thought, fountain of all mercy, sum of all purity.

Come! Consume in us whatever prevents us from being consumed in you.

.

[Paintings: Top, Transverberation of St. Teresa of Avila with St. Joseph and St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi.  Middle, Vision of St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi.]

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Catholic tabloid review 

Is it just me, or is Spirit Daily getting more and more like The Globe or The Star, those tabloids that are on the stands at the check out line in the supermarket?  I check Spirit Daily out daily, just as I do Drudge, because sometimes I find good news items.

Lately, it’s been kind of weird.  Some “nuns” from Iowa insisting that they are not seeing the planet Venus where it should be in the sky, instead it’s some unknown planet X - it’s a sign.  These women are a diocesan community, they dress kind of Carmelite and have cut-off veils - they normally just dress up in the habit when they are off work.  They also live in their own apartments.  I met them at the religious goods store I used to work in.  If you met them you would know why this story is funny.

There are other sensational stories as well; one, “Stephen King’s son writes horror stories too” - oh my gosh!  I’m so scared.  (I hope he’s a better writer than his dad.)  Then the headline for 2 days, “If you love God enough you won’t feel the pains or fear of death.”  So saith some mystic guy.  Right.  One more thing to feel guilty about - how do you love God enough?

I like the headline “Jesus on car window”.  Without checking, I’m sure it’s another miraculous image story, I wonder if he is waving?  Another tagline, “Orangutan goes on rampage” is funny - Drudge is doing lots of animals-in-captivity-attack stories as well.  I love the one about the insane cat who attacked a woman because it was jealous of another cat.

Now, don’t get me wrong, oftentimes there are very good pieces on Spirit Daily - Michael Brown does a very good job.  But it must be a slow news day today, because he has a piece, “Seminary uneasy over gay priests”.  I thought, ‘What! isn’t all of that stuff over?’  As I read the piece I began thinking it could be a chapter out of the book “Goodbye Good Men” - after checking the date of the piece, it was from 2002.  (Those darn gays can sure get the readers, huh?)  But why would you resurrect an old article as if it was happening today?  AsMr. Brown might caption it, “Our sad times”.

Well, it’s a holiday weekend, so things will probably be slow in the blog world.  

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