『Catholic Saints & Feasts』のカバーアート

Catholic Saints & Feasts

Catholic Saints & Feasts

著者： Fr. Michael Black
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概要

 "Catholic Saints & Feasts" offers a dramatic reflection on each saint and feast day of the General Calendar of the Catholic Church. The reflections are taken from the four volume book series: "Saints & Feasts of the Catholic Calendar," written by Fr. Michael Black.

These reflections profile the theological bone breakers, the verbal flame throwers, the ocean crossers, the heart-melters, and the sweet-chanting virgin-martyrs who populate the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church.Copyright Fr. Michael Black キリスト教 スピリチュアリティ 聖職・福音主義
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  • Thursday of Holy Week (Holy Thursday)

    Thursday of Holy Week (Holy Thursday)
    2025/04/16
    Thursday of Holy Week (Holy Thursday)
    c. 33 A.D.
    Triduum; Liturgical Color: White

    No last will and testament has been as heeded as Christ’s

    From the moment Christ first uttered the words at the Last Supper on Holy Thursday evening, the Church has never ceased to be faithful to them: “Do this in memory of me.” These words of a man about to die, if not a dying man, were a commandment more than a request, marching orders more than a mission statement. And everyone in that upper room understood exactly what He meant. No last will and testament of any man has ever been as faithfully fulfilled as these last words of Christ. What Christ ordered to be done has been done, and continues to be done, every day, throughout the world, by every single priest who stands at an altar and recites the words of consecration in persona Christi.

    The world has never moved on from Christ and never will. He is not in the world’s rear-view mirror. He is here, He is present, He is alive. And in every tight corner of the globe, from a tidy Polish village to a rambling Filipino city, from a Palestinian monastery hugging a sun-baked cliff to an Argentinian parish in a sprawling suburb, the Mass makes Him real because it is done in memory of Him. Literally every minute of every day, Mass is celebrated across the globe in a ceaseless offering to God the Father. “From the rising of the sun to its setting,” in a thousand tongues, priests bend slightly over their chalices and the white linens covering their altars and carefully repeat a chain of words in a cadence known to all the faithful: “Take this, all of you, and eat of it…Take this all of you, and drink from it…This is my Body…This is my Blood.” No words are more familiar. None! Not Shakespeare’s, not Caesar’s, not Lincoln’s. The everlasting words of the cross-cultural and cross-generational Christ simply have no equal.

    If we expect from the Church the sacraments, we will never be disappointed. If we receive from the Church more than the sacraments, we should rejoice. The Last Supper fulfills and completes the Jewish Passover sacrifice ordered by God of Moses and the Jews in Egypt. The Last Supper, at the same time, prefigures in an unbloody way the physical sacrifice Christ would make on the morrow on the hill of Calvary. In the Last Supper, Christ also gives priests the perennial form for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The Last Supper, then, is a composite act of Jewish and Christian ritual, of Old and New Testament theology, of historical and spiritual realities all packed into one dense liturgical act which the Church presents anew at every Mass. The Mass is the Christian work of art par excellence. It is the public act which never stops showing. It is the magnet which pulls mankind through the doors of thousands of churches every morning, noon, and night.

    We do this in memory of Him because God deserves worship as a matter of justice, not charity. We do this in memory of Him because He ordered us to do so. We do this in memory of Him because it prefigures what we will hopefully do in heaven for eternity. And we do this in memory of Him for a thousand million reasons locked in the quiet places of a thousand million hearts: For Jill to come back home. So that Robert survives the war. In thanksgiving for a good husband. So that a pain in the gut not be what it might be. In gratitude for the rain that saved the crops. At a king’s crowning, a convict’s death, or the bond of marriage. For the shocked just after the martyrs’ mangled bodies were dragged out of the arena over the blood-stained sand. In thanksgiving because my father did not die of cancer, and in remembrance of my cousin who did. For the fireman who couldn’t find his way out of the building, for the barren woman, for the anniversary of an aged couple, or for the nation on its birthday. There is no end of reasons.

    Month after month, year after year, century after century, until the sands of time run out, the voice of the Lord on Holy Thursday echoes over the waters and down the halls of time: “Do this in memory of me.” *

    Lord Jesus Christ, Your total physical gift of self on Good Friday began internally at the Last Supper. May the faithful often profit from Your priestly ministry by receiving Your body and blood consecrated on Your sacred altars by those who share in Your one priesthood.

    *See “The Shape of the Liturgy” by Dom Gregory Dix for a similar reflection on the Holy Eucharist.
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    6 分
  • April 2: Saint Francis of Paola, Hermit

    April 2: Saint Francis of Paola, Hermit
    2025/03/29
    April 2: Saint Francis of Paola, Hermit
    1416–1507
    Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
    Patron Saint of Calabria, mariners, and naval officers

    He lived a perpetual Lent

    The first followers of Saint Francis of Assisi were known as the “Mendicants from Assisi.” Yet as the group attracted men and women from all over Italy and beyond, a new name, not specific to Assisi, was needed. Saint Francis named his brotherhood the Ordo Fratrum Minorum (O.F.M.). This is typically translated from the Latin as the Order of Friars Minor, implying that there is an Order of Friars Major. A better translation might be the Order of Lesser Brothers. Saint Francis wanted himself, and all of his brothers, to be less in everything—less prideful, less well known, less wealthy, and less well nourished than anyone else.

    Today’s saint, the Padre Pio of his era, was a holy priest from the town of Paola in Southern Italy. He was baptized as Francis by his parents when, after several years of going childless, they made a vow to name any son that might be born to them in the great saint’s honor. Francis of Paola was worthy of his namesake from a young age. His parents took special care with his religious upbringing and brought him to live for a year in a Franciscan monastery when Francis was just twelve. The young Francis developed a reputation for holiness even when just a teen. By the age of twenty, he was living as a hermit in a cave near Paola when local men began to gather around him. The fledgling group adopted the name “the Hermits of Brother Francis of Assisi,” a name later changed to the “Friars Minims,” or just “Minims,” meaning  “less” or “least,” in the spirit of the “Lesser Brothers” that Saint Francis of Assisi had founded centuries before.

    Francis of Paola desired humility, nothingness, and total self-abnegation. He and his followers lived a perpetual Lent. All Minims took the usual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. But they also took a special fourth vow to abstain, all year long and all life long, from meat, eggs, butter, cheese, milk, and all dairy products. The fast never ended. This was mortification on a heroic scale. Vegetarianism, much less veganism, was a step beyond what Saint Francis of Assisi himself had lived. Saint Francis of Assisi ate what was set before him, including meat. He even criticized vegetarian brothers who refused meat, saying such an attitude questioned God’s providence and presumed the future, when a brother should instead gratefully accept whatever dish was placed on the table before him.

    Francis of Paola’s veganism was united to a strict moral code, a community life built around the Sacraments, and a deep spirituality centered on Jesus Christ. To be “one with nature” does not mean to be morally ambiguous or to break with religious traditions. A diet should not be a creed. Saint Francis was organic in that he lived one with God, with nature, with his religious brothers, and with the Church. Francis was perennially concerned with the moral laxity of the Church of his era, and purposefully fasted and did penance in reparation for its sins. While Francis of Assisi lived austerely and suffered debilitating illnesses, he was nevertheless cheerful and animated in his dealings with others. No one ever accused Francis of Paola of being ebullient. He was a fully armed spiritual warrior of the most serious kind. He went barefoot. He slept on a board. He was a desert father without the sand.

    After a very long life of fasting, prayer, miracle working, and wide fame for his holiness even outside of Italy, Saint Francis of Paola died in France. His order had by then spread throughout Europe. His reputation for sanctity was such that he was canonized in 1519, only twelve years after his death. In 1562 Protestant Calvinists in France unsealed his tomb and found his body incorrupt. They then desecrated the saint, scattering his remains. Saint Francis of Paola, after sacrificing everything in life, was not allowed to rest in peace. He was strewn about like trash, ensuring that only trace relics of him remained. Saint Francis wanted to be treated as the least of all. His desire was fulfilled both in life and in death.

    Saint Francis of Paola, you lived an integrated life deeply united to God, nature, and your fellow man. Intercede before the Trinity in heaven on our behalf, assisting us to grow closer to God through death to self, through prayer, and through a deep attachment to Christ.
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    6 分
  • Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

    Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord
    2025/04/12
    Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord
    c. 33 A.D.
    The Sunday before Easter
    Solemnity; Liturgical Color: Red

    Beginning with the end we understand His greatness

    One way to understand a book, or to watch a movie, is to begin at the end. To read, or watch, backwards allows every character and plot twist to be interpreted in light of their conclusions. Working backwards removes much of the drama and tension from a story, of course, but it also makes the story perfectly intelligible. No slow unwinding of the plot, no “whodunit,” no surprise around the corner, and no unexpected deaths. Skipping to the end makes the entire narrative clear, with prior knowledge infusing prior meaning into the story as it unfolds.

    The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are essentially Passion narratives with extended introductions. There is plenty of evidence that the end of Christ’s life, particularly his last seventy-two hours, were well remembered by His disciples, the events being repeated in great detail until they were ultimately written down. The Evangelists eventually supplemented these often-repeated Passion narratives with further details about Christ’s life which had occurred long before Holy Week. These prior narratives are often inconsistent across the Gospels, emphasize diverse aspects of Christ’s life, and omit or add details in a seemingly arbitrary manner. What are very consistent, however, are the Passion narratives. Their vivid details are, without doubt, the heart and soul of the story of Jesus Christ.

    On Palm Sunday we begin with the end. We read our way backwards. It is not possible for any Christian to think of Jesus Christ divorced from how His earthly life ended. Even the earliest Christian writings were composed from a post-Resurrection perspective. The “real” Jesus of history did not have miracles placed on Him like ornaments on a Christmas tree. His miracles were not later adornments hung on His human frame to lend Him credibility. The “real” Jesus is not the simple carpenter lurking in the shadows behind the Christ of Faith created by later generations. There are scant biblical references to Jesus’ occupation as a carpenter, or to His simple and humble existence in a provincial town. There is a massive amount of biblical evidence, on the contrary, that Jesus suffered, died, and rose from the dead. And this biblical evidence is buttressed by an abundance of postbiblical testimony and the universal witness of an army of Apostles, saints, and martyrs.

    All of this means that the “real” Jesus is the Christ of faith! The “real” Jesus did suffer, die, and rise from the dead! The “real” Jesus is not found in the subtext of the Gospels—He is found in the text of the Gospels! And those texts are indisputably ancient. In other words, the narrative read at Mass on Palm Sunday is the oldest, truest, and most well-remembered portion of one of the most fully preserved and extraordinary documents from the ancient world—the New Testament.

    Our faith is rooted in history, a miraculous history. The Passion of Jesus Christ is not a parable, analogy, or metaphor. It is not a story meant to teach us a lesson apart from its facts. It is not a morality play whose actors mean to teach a lesson. The Passion of Christ is theologically significant because it is historically true. If it were not historically true, it would have no significance beyond its power to inspire as a story. But every culture already has myths to inspire its people, or at least mythical figures whose superhuman qualities model greatness. The story of Christ is so much more. It is the true story of a God-man who was betrayed by a friend, suffered calumny from His enemies, was publicly humiliated, made to carry the instrument of His own execution, and then was left to die, naked on a rough-hewn tree.

    This story is not sad by analogy to another story. It is sad in and of itself. This is the story we hear every Palm Sunday. This is how a great man’s life came to an end. It is also the story of how the Son of God conquered death and opened the gates of heaven to all who not only believe in Him but who belong to Him through the Catholic Church.

    Lord of the Passion, You suffered calumny and humiliation, You bore the Cross and did not complain. Intercede before Your heavenly Father that we may bear whatever crosses we must with fortitude. Without Your grace, we are no better than Godless pagans, in search of frivolous signs to lend meaning to life.
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