Abbey-Roads2

What true devotion really is. 

I still can’t get over the story about the state of her soul, revealed in her letters to her confessor and spiritual director…

St. Monica

I have always wondered why St. Monica was deemed the patron saint of alcoholics - yet never was interested enough to find out.  Fr. Zuhlsdorf has the story.  Although it doesn’t sound as if she was a big drinker - she just avoided alcoholism, as the post indicates.

“Mammoni” - it means “mama’s boy” in Italian.*

I must admit I have never had a particular devotion to St. Monica or her son, but not everyone has a special devotion to every saint.  (In other words, I don’t have a statue or medal of them, or make novenas and recite daily prayers in their honor.  Sorry, I do have a 1st class relic of Monica and Augustine - they are in a calendar reliquary.)  Of course, I have a general devotion, and I enjoy reading about them; I hear Augustine wrote rather well - I’m kidding! 

(I’ll bet Augustine’s mistress didn’t get along well with the mother.)

“Prosit!”

*Mammoni - it’s not necessarily a derogatory term - and I don’t mean it as such.  In fact it is still rather common in Italy.  It’s really kind of nice. 

Emulating religious models.

Carmelites always greet visitors at the turn with the exclamation, “Praised be Jesus Christ!” - the reply should be, “Now and forever!”  It’s a beautiful custom, other religious orders have similar greetings signifying the presence of God.  Yesterday, when Mother Marie called me, she didn’t use the normal conventual greeting, she simply said, “Hello, Terry, this is…”  However, if I were to call the monastery, the nuns will answer the phone, “Carmelite monastery, praised be Jesus Christ!”  Whenever I answer my phone I usually say, “This is Terry” - a business habit I haven’t gotten over.  (With caller ID I can also answer more obnoxiously if I’m in the mood.)  However, I like it when the nuns use the Carmelite greeting, but I don’t mind when they don’t either.

When my friend David and I first became ’close’ to the Carmelites - we began to greet people similarly.  In the first place - we had been genuinely impressed with how faith-based the greeting is, and how it could be a sort of witness to outsiders.  There was also an element of spiritual pride in it - we were letting people know we were ‘in the know’ spiritually, and pretty darn close to those holy Carmelites.  In the end, I think we thought it rather pretentious on our part to answer the phone and greet people that way.  So instead - we would only do it for fun, mimicking the tone of voice that characterized the nuns - it was fun to do with the seminarians.  (I can still do it.  LOL!)

Impersonations.

It happens with visitors to monasteries all of the time.  In Church, I often could recognize recent visitors to New Melleray by the fact that they would bow rather than genuflect when reverencing the Blessed Sacrament, or make a simple sign of the cross at the Gospel rather than the 3 little ones we all make.  It isn’t a bad thing, but it can be a way to “singularize” oneself - to use a monastic expression. 

However, some people can be kind of ostentatious about stuff like that - although I’m sure their intentions are good.  Frequently, families with children in orders such as Carmel adopt the same conventual customs in their daily lives.  It is amazing how much more spiritual and devout families of cloistered religious become just because their child has entered a fervent community.  It is often a beautiful witness to the vocation itself, and no doubt genuine.  (Although I wonder what their less religious friends and relatives think when they answer the phone, “Praised be Jesus Christ!”)

Your ’holier than thou’ is showing.

I remember years ago, thanking a holy lay-brother who had done a favor for me with the Carmelite, “God reward you!” - That is often what the nuns say whenever they are thanking someone.  The lay-brother knew I was thanking him, and I’m sure he knew I was trying to sound ‘holy’, yet without batting an eye he smiled and looked up to heaven and replied, “He already has!”  I was kind of embarrassed because I felt my reply was rather pretentious, yet Br. George seemed to take no notice or offense, and by his answer demonstrated something much more authentic.

There is such a big difference between sounding holy or religious - using pious platitudes and expressions - than there is in actually being holy.  Normally, I think it is better just to use ordinary expressions of politeness and leave conventual customs to the religious.

God reward you!

Duh!  Joined with contraception, that was part of the plan of Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood.  It’s called ‘eugenics’.  This news comes as a surprise?

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama, August 24, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Dr. Alveda King, the niece of legendary human rights campaigner, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., told a meeting of Priests for Life, that the killing of a quarter of the black population of the US has not been from the lynch mobs of her childhood days, but from abortionists, “who plant their killing centres in minority neighbourhoods and prey upon women who think they have no hope.

“The great irony,” she said, “is that abortion has done what the Klan only dreamed of.” - LifeSiteNews

And yet today, Margaret Sanger is considered an American hero.  Go figure.

[Photo credit: Truth About Margaret Sanger Blog.]