[Salvation]

Vultus Christi

Cum Ipso Sum in Tribulatione

Sunday, 09 March 2014 08:16

Nestling Under the Shadow of God

Today the sacred liturgy transports us into the desert: an arid wilderness, uncharted, inhospitable, and haunted by evil spirits. This being said, the tone of today’s Mass is reassuring and full of confidence. Psalm 90 (Qui habitat) runs through the Mass of the First Sunday of Lent from beginning to end. “He will give thee the shelter of his arms; under his wings thou shalt find refuge, his faithful care thy watch and ward” (Psalm 90:4-5). The desert is, paradoxically, the very place where, cut off from all else, we experience the closeness of God. The opening verses of Psalm 90 have, in the translation of Ronald Knox, a note of intimacy that may escape us in more familiar translations:

Content if thou be to live with the Most High for thy defence,
under his Almighty shadow nestling still,
him thy refuge, him thy stronghold thou mayst call,
thy own God, in whom is all thy trust” (Psalm 90:1-2).

Christ Praying in Us

Today’s Holy Mass places Psalm 90 in the mouth of Christ. Psalm 90 is the prayer by which Our Lord exorcises the desert, cleanses it, and sanctifies it. The liturgy places the same psalm in our mouths. We repeat it; we pray it; we sing it; we allow it to inhabit us. Held in the heart, Psalm 90 becomes Christ’s own prayer for us, and with us, and in us, to the Father. Psalm 90 functions today as a sacrament of the prayer of Christ. It is that by which we are efficaciously united to the prayer of the Christ in His temptations. It is the means by which Christ’s own prayer to the Father can inhabit all our moments of temptation, loneliness, and fear.

A Psalm for Lent Penitents

Without counting the references to it in the Gospel itself, Psalm 90 occurs no less than five times in today’s Mass — in the Introit, Gradual, Tract, Offertory, and Communion. Psalm 90 is is clearly the great prayer of the day; it is the Church’s principal Lenten meditation. By placing Psalm 90 on the First Sunday of Lent, the Church would have us understand that it contains all that is needed for us to complete the Lenten journey. Psalm 90 is among the most salutary Lenten penances that a confessor can give his penitents. I would, in fact, recommend that priests who hear many confessions have on hand printed copies (in a prayer card format) of the text of Psalm 90, so as to give them to their penitents.

A Psalm in Spiritual Combat

Psalm 90 is like a mother’s provision for the son going off to war. “Take this,” she says, “keep it close to your heart, and when, all around you, the battle rages repeat it, knowing that I am praying it with you.” “Though a thousand fall at thy side, ten thousand at thy right side, it shall never come next or near thee” (Psalm 90:7). Psalm 90 is one of the few psalms that we find used universally in both East and West on a daily basis. When we discover that the practice of the Church is to pray a given psalm every day, it must be because that psalm has, in the light of experience, been found indispensable.

The Noonday Devil

In the East Psalm 90 was assigned every day to the Sixth Hour, that is noon. This particular choice was inspired by verse 6: “Thou shalt not be afraid of . . . the arrow that flieth in the day . . . or of the noonday devil” (Psalm 90:5-6). The fathers and mothers of the desert identified the noonday devil as the evil force that attacks those who are “burned out” and weary. The noonday devil insinuates thoughts of dejection and of disgust for prayer and the things of God. The noonday devil whispers dark thoughts and plants them in the mind: discouragement, despondency, and despair. “Give it up. What’s the use? Why go on? It all means nothing. You’ve been taken in, deceived. There is nothing on the other side. There is no hope for you. Your life is a failure. You are beyond redemption. You are not salvageable.” These are the classic temptations of desert-dwellers from Saint Anthony of Egypt to Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, tempted to suicide during her final illness.

The Terrors of the Night

In the West, thanks to the Rule of Saint Benedict, Psalm 90 was assigned to Compline, the last prayer before going to bed. While Eastern Christians focused on the “noonday devil,” Western Christians were more struck by the references to darkness. “Nothing shalt thou have to fear from nightly terrors . . . from pestilence that walks to and fro in the darkness” (Psalm 90:5-6). The terror of the night: what child has not known the terror of mysterious evil beings lurking in dark closets, hanging behind the curtains and hiding under the bed? What city streets are not haunted at night by demons of violence, addiction, loneliness, and lust? How many people lie awake at night tormented by anxieties, ruminating old hurts, and fearing new ones? The ancient Compline hymn resonates with the psalm: “From all ill dreams defend our eyes, / From nightly fears and fantasies; / Tread under foot our ghostly foe, / That no pollution we may know” (Te lucis ante terminum).

Beasts and Angels

Besides the noonday devil and the terrors of the night, there are in Psalm 90 two other images that we find also in today’s Gospel: wild beasts and angels. The psalm says, “He has given charge to his angels concerning thee, to watch over thee wheresoever thou goest; they will hold thee up with their hands lest thou shouldst chance to trip on a stone” (Psalm 90:11-12). Angels! Now, the beasts: “Thou shalt tread safely on asp and adder, crush lion and serpent under thy feet” (Psalm 90:13). In a single sentence Saint Mark evokes the mysterious reality of the Son of God set around with wild beasts and angels. Jesus, he says, “lodged with the beasts, and there the angels ministered to him” (Mark 1:12). Saint Mark’s wild beasts are those named in Psalm 90: the asp and the adder, the lion and the serpent.

Malign Influences

The wild beasts of the Gospel and of the psalm are figures of the fallen angels, the demons who haunt our desert wildernesses. Cassian explains that “one is called a lion because of his wild fury and raging ferocity, another an adder because of the mortal poison that kills before it is noticed” (Conferences 7.32.5). Saint Peter speaks of the devil as a lion in a text that the traditional Office of Compline associated with Psalm 90: “Be sober and watch well; the devil who is your enemy, goes about roaring like a lion, to find his prey, but you, grounded in the faith, must face him boldly” (1 Peter 5:8).

While the lion seeks to intimidate by roaring, the viper is silent and deadly, striking quickly and without warning. The attacks of evil spirits on us are real. Saint Paul says: “It is not against flesh and blood that we enter the lists; we have to do with princedoms and powers, with those who have mastery over the world in these dark days, with malign influences in an order higher than ours” (Ephesians 6:12).

Ministering Angels

In the fray of spiritual combat and the wastelands of sin, the angels too are present. They watch over us, ready at every moment to rescue us from the treacherous lures of evil. The angels sent by the Father to minister to Christ in his temptations are sent to minister to us in ours. I am struck by this ministry of angels to the tempted and suffering Christ. Saint Mark points to their presence in the desert; for Saint Luke, it is in the garden of Gethsemane, that “an angel from heaven appears to Jesus, strengthening him” (Luke 22:43).

It is good, at the beginning of this Lenten season to recall that while we are tempted and attacked by the noonday devil and the terrors of the night, the holy angels speak to us of the sheltering hand of God, the hand by which we are protected, nourished, and even caressed.

Promises of Glory

In the last part of Psalm 90 we hear the promises of the Father to His beloved Son, suffering and tempted. These are just as truly the Father’s promises to each of us in our hour of testing. “He trusts in me, mine it is to deliver him; he acknowledges my name, from me he shall have protection; when he calls upon me, I will listen, in affliction I am at his side, to bring him to safety and honour. Length of days he shall have to content him, and find in me deliverance” (Ps 90:16).

Driven by the Holy Ghost into the Lenten desert to be with Christ, we are full of confidence. Already the brightness of the Holy Resurrection shines on the horizon, filling us with hope. We will celebrate the sacrament of Lent, as the liturgy calls it, with worthy minds if, beginning today, we fill our days and our nights with the prayer of Christ, a prayer given us in Psalm 90, and made perfect in us by our partaking of the adorable and life–giving Body and Blood of the Lord.

[Salvation]

Vultus Christi

Saint Francesca of Rome

Sunday, 09 March 2014 08:25

This painting, attributed to Antonio da Viterbo the Elder (1450-1516), depicts Saint Francesca being clothed by the Blessed Virgin in the great white veil that, even today, characterizes the Olivetan Benedictine Oblates of Mary she founded in 1433. Our Lady wears a golden mantle, which Saint Paul at the left wraps around Francesca Romana. Saint Paul also holds a scroll. The mystical scene takes place on a cloud; fiery Seraphim accompany the Madonna and Child. Saint Mary Magdalene, in red vesture, and Saint Benedict, in the foreground, drape a protective mantle around twenty Oblates. Note the angel below the Gothic windows at left. He is busy carding golden threads with a warp and loom. Nearby are two frisky dogs and two cats. Francesca’s Oblate Congregation, it is said, was woven together by heavenly graces and harassed by evil spirits in the form of cats and dogs. The grace of Christ prevailed and the Oblates flourished.

In addition to being the First Sunday of Lent, today, February 9th, is the feast of Saint Francesca Romana. Saint Francesca is the patroness of Benedictine Oblates; she is a model of married life and of motherhood, of an active charity and of devotion to liturgical prayer. Loving feastday wishes to our own Oblate Sister Francesca in Oklahoma, to Oblate Sister Françoise–Romaine in California, and to Mrs. Frances Calkins in Pittsburgh. May their patroness obtain for them an abundance of heavenly blessings.

Married Life and Monastic Conversion

Saint Frances of Rome (1384-1440), more properly called by her own name, Francesca, is the patroness of Benedictine Oblates. The Collect for her feast tells us why. The Church has us pray:

O God, Who in Saint Frances of Rome, hast given us a model of holiness in married life and of monastic conversion, make us serve Thee perseveringly, so that in all circumstances we may set our gaze upon Thee and follow Thee.

It is not often that we mention both married life and monastic conversion in the same Collect.  Francesca is there to tell us that it can be done. Another Collect for Saint Francesca highlights the privileged relationship she enjoyed with her Guardian Angel:

O God, Who among other gifts of Thy grace, didst adorn Thy handmaid Francesca with the familiar companionship of an Angel; grant, we beseech Thee, that helped by her prayers, we likewise may deserve to enjoy the company of the Angels.

 

Patronness of Rome

The Romans are extraordinarily proud of their Francesca, even to the point of considering her their special patron. Although they lay claim to Saints Peter and Paul, and to the spiritual richness of innumerable martyrs and glorious Popes, they remain attached to Francesca, a married woman, a servant of the poor, a mother to the sick, a spiritual daughter of Holy Father Benedict, and a mystic.

Enthusiasm for Holiness

Saint Francesca did nothing by half-measures. Being Roman, she lived life with a kind of reckless enthusiasm — not for the usual things Romans get excited over — but for holiness! Her life was extraordinary in some ways. She went in for fasting, austerities, and almsgiving in a huge way. The devil bothered her continually, not as he bothers most of us with boring, nagging temptations, but with spectacular assaults. Francesca was in the same league as Saint Anthony of Egypt and the Curé d’Ars.

Intensely Alive

For me, Francesca’s appeal is in her warm and very human personality. She was no dried up prune of a saint. She was intensely alive to everything human and capable of the grand passions without which life is bleak and dreary. She suffered struggles, endured sorrows, and bore with every manner of disappointment and hurt. One cannot say that Francesca’s holiness was of the tidy sort. One might even say that Francesca’s life was a mess. Her desire to serve God and live for him was continually frustrated by persons and circumstances. It was precisely in the midst of these conditions that Francesca grew in holiness, “setting nothing before the love of Christ” (RB 4:21), and “never despairing of God’s mercy” (RB 4:74).

Married at Thirteen

As a young girl, Francesca did not want to marry. She lived, after all, in the city of the Church’s shining virgin martyrs: Agnes, Cecilia, and so many others. Like them she wanted to consecrate her virginity to Christ, but her parents had other plans for her. The first big decision in her life was out of her hands. At the age of thirteen she gave in to her parents and married Lorenzo Ponziano, the wealthy nobleman they had chosen for her. Francesca was expected to be the perfect socialite, charming, beautiful, witty, and worldly as only Romans know how to be worldly. In her heart she longed for the cloister, but the will of God had placed her, concretely, in a setting far removed from it.

They Never Once Had A Quarrel

Lorenzo, Francesca’s husband treated her always with love and respect. He accepted that he had married an unusual woman, that she would never be like other Roman wives, and that there was something in her that he, try as he might, would never be able to satisfy. Francesca loved Lorenzo. She recognized his qualities and accepted that loving Lorenzo was part of God’s plan for her. It is said that through all their married life, Francesca and Lorenzo never once had a quarrel. For that alone they should both be canonized!

Devotion in a Married Woman

Francesca is best known for a sagacious remark, one that two centuries later Saint Francis de Sales would echo. “Devotion in a married woman,” she said, “is most praiseworthy, but she must never forget that she is a housewife. Sometimes she must leave God at the altar, to serve Him in her housekeeping”. An indication of Francesca’s Benedictine vocation was in her devotion to the Divine Office. One day in praying the Hours she was interrupted five times in succession. Each time she closed her book, attended to what was asked of her, and then returned to her prayer. After the last interruption she found the words of the antiphon she had been trying to pray written in letters of gold. God rewarded her patience as much as her zeal for the Divine Office.

Her Guiding Light

If you have ever seen a painting of Saint Francesca, you may have noticed a little angel standing near her. Francesca lost her little eight-year-old boy, Evangelista, to the plague. After his death he appeared to her announcing the death of yet another child, her daughter Agnese. Francesca’s grief is like described by the prophet Isaias: “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you” (Isaias 49:15). Francesca never forgot the little ones taken from her by death. In exchange for these terrible losses, she was given an unusual grace: that of always seeing her guardian angel. Her angel took on the appearance of a little boy of about eight years (like her son Evangelista); he wore a dalmatic like the deacon at Solemn Mass. Francesca’s guardian angel was with her visibly at every moment, assuring her of the love of Christ, giving her counsel and providing her, even visibly, with a guiding light as she made her way through Rome’s dark streets at night on errands of charity. It was this fact that made Pope Pius XI declare Francesca the patroness of motorists!

Rival Popes

Francesca lived in troubled times. There were two rival Popes, making for schism and Civil War. Lorenzo was wounded fighting on behalf of the true Pope. In the aftermath of the conflicts, he lost his estates. Their home was destroyed and their one surviving son taken hostage. As if that were not enough Rome was beset with looting, famine, and plague. And we think we have troubles!

Mother of the Poor, the Sick, and the Brokenhearted

Francesca rose to the occasion. She fixed up the ruins of her home and opened a hospital. With poor and suffering people all around her, Francesca became a kind of Mother Teresa, compassionate and wonderfully effective. She fed and housed the poor sick picked up on the streets. She arranged for priests to minister to the dying. She reconciled enemies and calmed the rage of those plotting revenge. After the troubles caused by the schism in the Church, Lorenzo came home to her, but he was a broken man both physically and mentally. Francesca cared for him with every tenderness.

Benedictine Oblates

Francesca’s activities did not go unnoticed. Other Roman ladies, many of them war widows, were drawn to her. Little by little a new form of Benedictine life emerged: women living under the Rule of Saint Benedict, not as enclosed nuns, but as Oblates of the Roman monastery of the Olivetans at Santa Maria Nuova. Francesca’s Oblates were free to go out to serve the poor and sick. Their life was shaped to a great extent by the first part of Chapter Four of the Holy Rule, the Instruments of Good Works:

To relieve the poor, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick, to bury the dead, to give help in trouble, to console the sorrowful, to avoid worldly behaviour, and to set nothing before the love of Christ (RB 4:14-21).

Francesca’s Oblates survive to the present day, not only in Rome, but also at Le Bec-Hellouin in France, at Abu-Gosh in Israel, and elsewhere. Most of them wear unchanged the distinctive black habit and long white veil dating from the time of Saint Francesca.

Lorenzo’s Deathbed Declaration of Love

Lorenzo died in 1436. His last words were for his darling Francesca. They are worth quoting. “I feel,” he said, “as if my whole life has been one beautiful dream of purest happiness. God has given me so much in your love.” A husband’s deathbed confession of undying love! No wife could ask for more.

The Angel Beckons

After Lorenzo’s death, Francesca was free to take a fuller role in the Benedictine community she had established. Her sister Oblates elected her prioress. Four years later, on the evening of March 9th her face became radiant with a strange light. “The angel has finished his task,” she said; “he beckons me to follow him”. Francesca was 56 years old. Her death plunged all of Rome into mourning. Miraculous healings abounded. Rome had another saint.

Acceptance of Things As They Are

Francesca’s life tells us that the plan of God for our holiness us unfolds in ways that often contradict our own projects and desires. Our endless planning can be no more than an attempt to control life, to manipulate people and events. Francesca challenges us to detachment from life as we would have it be, and to the acceptance of things as they are. Each of us has unexpected elements that, thrown into the mix, unsettle our plans, making life untidy and somehow bearable at the same time. And each of us has a guardian angel, a light in life’s obscurity, a faithful friend and spiritual counselor.