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Chaplin's Corner
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Fr. Peter Cipriani & Fr Seraphim Rohlman Posting Page
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Triumph of the Cross The idea of a cross can be quite disturbing. After all, as an instrument of torture and execution it is similar to one who would wear a chain with a gold electric chair fastened to it. Yet who of us does not wear a Cross around our neck? There is a fascination about Christ and the Cross because it challenges us to a heroism that perhaps even the greatest Athletes would shy away from embracing…since what is demanded, is no less than one’s whole life…not for an abbreviated season…but everyday, until one’s final breath. And what is at stake is not the collection of some fat paycheck, or raising aloft some trophy…but salvation…whose crown of victory and celebration will last forever. One of the great epics of all time is JRR Tolkien’s the Lord of the Rings. For any one, especially young men, aspiring to be Athletes, as a Coach this would be recommended reading. The main character, a little pint sized Hobbit named Frodo Baggins is entrusted with the impossible mission of traveling through a hell on earth to destroy a ring of power and thus save his existing world from the domination of evil. Despite the overwhelming odds, the repeated failures and defeats, the injuries and the loss of life of companions…Frodo makes his way through miles and months of terrible darkness within and without…to at last arrive at his own Calvary …his body broken…his heart broken. What could possibly motivate him to endure all this misery…to dare and hope that someone so pathetically small like himself can make any kind of a difference, let alone save the world…and to save it through failure, weakness and disappointment…how can that possibly make sense. Frodo volunteers this response: “I have been deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the shire, and it has been saved…but not for me. It must often be so. When things are in danger some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.” Frodo endures because he loves. He loves his people, who though thousands of miles away who think that he has merely gone on holiday have no clue what it is he suffered. They remain in the comfort of their little hobbit holes smoking their pipes, banging their mugs of beer, sitting safe and snug by their fires…Frodo endures, because his Passion…is a Passionate love for others. Have you ever wondered why our favorite stories tend to include an ordinary person overcoming great odds to accomplish something extraordinary? It’s because the capacity and desire to be heroic resides deep within each of us: Rocky Balboa, Luke Skywalker, Forrest Gump, William Wallace, Rudy Ruddager, the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey Team, the 9/11 heroes. One of my great heroes is a woman by the name of Edith Stein. Growing up Jewish in the early part of the 20th century, she had a remarkable intellect. Attending the best European universities, she reached the conclusion that many intellectual elites do: that God is merely a ridiculous childhood fantasy. She abandoned the faith of her people. However it would be the horrors of World War I that would become the catalyst that would propel Edith down the path of truth until she would at last arrive at the Foot of Christ’s Cross upon the Calvary of a war torn Europe . Along this path she encountered a Christian married couple who were her dearest friends. Sadly in 1917 word reached Edith and her friend Anna, that Anna’s husband had been killed in battle. Determined to bring whatever comfort she could to the grieving widow, what she encountered in Anna would radically change the direction of her life. Rather than finding a woman overcome with despair and loss, doubting and hating God, Edith found a committed Christian suffering, but at peace. As Edith herself later admitted: “It was my first encounter with the Cross and the Divine Power that it bestows on those who carry it. For the first time, I was seeing with my very eyes the Church, born from the Redeemer’s suffering, triumphant over the sting of death. That was the moment my unbelief collapsed and Christ shone forth in the mystery of the Cross.” Having converted to Catholicism, Edith would some years later embrace the demands of religious life as a Carmelite Nun. When she made her vows, now Sister Theresa Benedict of the Cross offered her life to Christ for her Jewish people: An offering whose payment would be demanded in full. She along with her own sister Rosa, a converted Carmelite Nun herself, were later arrested by the Gestapo and transferred to the killing camp of Auschwitz where she would complete her passion. Her last recorded words are those spoken to her sister before the doors of the death train had closed: “Come, let us go for our people.” Celebrating and studying the lives of people like Saint Theresa are essential. Just as it is essential that any aspiring athlete study the lives, game film and techniques of those who have gone before him. It is also crucial that we honor anniversaries like 9/11…or remember each year the anniversary of those we love who have passed away. We have to confront those realities and issues that most challenge us to be Christian heroes and saints. What athlete would refuse to show up for the big game because the opponent is too tough? We can face 9/11 like challenges because each year we have celebrations like today: The Triumph of the Cross…It is from here that we draw our strength. But we have to be here…here at Mass…for it is in the reception of Christ in the Eucharist we receive the fullness of that power which enables us to carry our burdens for love of those who need us to…even though they have no clue we are carrying them. As a football player shows up each Sunday to lay his heart and body down on the line for his teammates: facing off against terrible opponents and odds…we must make it to Mass each Sunday for the sake of those we do not merely play for…but fight for. The challenge lies before each of us right now and does so in these concluding words from Saint Theresa Benedict of the Cross: “Therefore, the Savior today looks at us solemnly, probing us, and asks us: ‘Will you remain faithful to the Crucified? Consider carefully! The world is in flames, the battle between Christ and the Anti-Christ has broken into the open. If you decide for Christ, it could cost you your life. The world is in flames. But high above the flames towers the Cross. They cannot consume it. It is the path from earth to Heaven.’” Saint Camilus Amen, I say to you: Tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you. Saint Camillus was born in the year 1550 near the city of Naples. Never a model child, he caused his mother untold pain and misery. Carrying his antagonism and arrogance like a medal of honor, when he was of age he and his father fled the influences of home and city and sought a life more in tune with their desires of personal depravity. Both men, like two rotten fruits falling from the same rotting tree became prolific gamblers and mercenary soldiers whose only cause they cared about: themselves and money. So long as they were paid their mercenary fees and enjoyed the wild life they desired, the rest, like virtue and nobility, mattered nothing to them. Even among the rough soldiers, Camillus and his father were too great a disturbance in the camps. Often, they were turned out. Their gambling aggravated by their own violent tempers led to deadly quarrels, which only incited insubordination and division, which no commander can tolerate. Camillus and his father had sunk to an incredibly low level of moral decadence that even the roughest criminals could not stand to be in their presence. Then an event occurred that would jar Camillus from his road to Hell: His father died, at whose bedside he had been keeping desperate vigil. His only consolation, admittedly a strange and haunting one given his miserable life: that on his father’s deathbed, his old man broke down in sorrow for his past. He then received the last sacraments with true fervor and died a forgiven man. It would not be long before Camillus himself would hit moral and financial rock bottom, having exhausted his funds through gambling and having been emotionally bankrupted by his father’s passing: Camillus turned beggar. And rather than finding a monetary hand out, a wealthy town merchant instead gave him a job which led him to steady work in a hospital. No stranger to the atrocities of war and having been wounded himself, this environment awoke within his wounded soul a fire of charity and compassion for the sick and needy that would inspire him to found a religious order. Taking Saint Paul’s advice: “Humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests but also for those of others”: he discovered the not so secret recipe for personal sanctity and joy in attending to the needs of others. He was especially drawn to black plague victims, the addicted, the young and abandoned, the insane, the destitute, the lonely: in short, the emotional and spiritual tax collectors and prostitutes like himself and his father. Bouncing back and forth between monastery work and hospital work, having found some semblance of financial stability he found the greatest security of all…the mercy of Jesus Christ. One of his closest companions once remarked of him: “When he was taking care of his patients, he seemed to spend and exhaust himself completely, so great was his devotion and compassion. He would have loved to take upon himself all their illness, their every affliction, could he but ease their pain and relieve their weakness.” Camillus had discovered the vocation to selflessness in Christ that Saint Paul referred to when he said: “He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave.” So full had his embrace been of the crucified and suffering Christ in others, that he petitioned Rome to begin a new religious order. Upon their garb would be emblazoned a Red Cross to distinguish them and their service from other religious communities. That same Red Cross which inspired the organization of today’s Red Cross serving the world’s suffering people, especially in war and natural disaster ravaged areas. The Vineyard that Camillus had been called to, that for most of his life he said no to, was hospitals. Here for many years he worked, having been given this job as an opportunity to crawl out of the moral and financial sewer he had so deeply sunk into. Exposed to the miseries and agonies of the fallen human condition, rather than turn away in disgust at these people, he turned to them with love, willing sacrifice and compassion. The hospital had become for him his Calvary, the vineyard of the world’s salvation. Vineyards are of course associated with delicious wine. Wine which Sacred Scripture refers to as having been provided by God to cheer and warm men’s hearts. For us as Catholics we of course associate wine with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Precious Blood of Christ which we enjoy through the reception of Christ’s Body in the Eucharist. This Body of Christ, broken on the Cross which gives us life and healing, found wherever there is a ghetto or hospital, would further inspire Camillus to embrace the Priesthood: the exclamation point upon his miraculous conversion and joy filled enslavement to the poor and sick in body and soul. If only this was our culture’s attitude toward the sick, the elderly, the infirm, the addicted, the weak and vulnerable like those with down syndrome, who when diagnosed with this condition are almost 85 percent of the time aborted. Our culture is threatened by the Cross: threatened and disgusted by a Crucified God whose suffering love places too many heavy demands upon our narcissism. We are shocked and angered at the vulnerability of Jesus Christ. That weak and pathetic baby crying in his cave crib at Bethlehem or weaker and more pathetic still bound and naked as a Savior dying upon the Cross. We would rather have Him risen, that we might grasp His power and glory, His triumph without the blood, sweat, toil and tears that true Christian love demands. In our Abortion mad culture we dare then not look at the Cross of Christ and its desperate plea for compassion and heroic love and sacrifice especially toward the weakest and most vulnerable amongst us. What an appropriate description of Christ in the womb, Herod seeking to destroy this baby. Or Christ upon the Cross, Hell trying to destroy our salvation. Or Christ still vulnerable and exposed in the Eucharist, God trying to guarantee our healing, our recovery, our conversion. That with Saint Camillus, we will wear humbly yet heroically upon our sleeves that which is emblazoned upon our heart: The Red Cross of Jesus Christ. Kolbe For He is our peace…and broke down the barrier of hostility, through His flesh. Who of us do not know the pain of failure, the pain of loss, injustice and anger? Who of us do not know the pain of frustration with a seemingly fruitless faith that seems so insignificant and powerless against harsh realities like genocide, natural disasters, abortion, pornography, broken families, and the inevitability of our own passing away or those we love most? There are those days, perhaps many, when we wonder: Is Christ truly risen, has He indeed conquered Satan, sin, suffering and death when all around still seems so plunged in darkness, especially our own hopes and dreams. Is there then not the temptation to not only continue our hostility toward each other and the world but also focus it upon God crying out: “My God, My God why have you abandoned us…abandoned me?” Saint Maximilian Kolbe had grown up with an obsession to serve his beloved Poland in the military. However, God through the inspiration of the Holy Virgin would draw Maximilian to a more desperate struggle. Though aware of his hope that Poland would someday be free of foreign tyranny, through a deepening faith and devotion to Mary, Maximilian would recognize that this world’s greatest war was that waged against Satan and sin. And the defense of one’s true homeland: Heaven. It is precisely his understanding of life, real life and one’s responsibility to it that would lead Maximilian Kolbe through the horrific desert of Auschwitz, the one name perhaps more than any other in human history associated with Hell on earth, with the exception of a hill outside Jerusalem called Golgotha. The following, written by Kolbe, provoked his arrest by the Nazis: “The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?" Kolbe’s unit, made up mostly of Priests, inspired a deeper hatred and hostility from his enemies. The guards had placed upon their shoulders, literally the heaviest and most demanding labor simply because their Catholic faith and Priesthood were so repulsive to them. A surviving eyewitness had this to report: “The work went on all day without a stop and had to be done running --- with the aid of vicious blows from the guards. Despite his one lung, Father Maximilain accepted the work and the blows with surprising calm. Another eyewitness states: “Although he was suffering greatly, he secretly said Mass, heard confessions in the hospital and spoke to the other inmates of the love of God. In Auschwitz, where hunger and hatred reigned and faith evaporated, this man opened his heart to others and spoke of God's infinite love. He seemed never to think of himself.” Armed with weapons of faith, hope and love, this shepherd of souls found himself in a Parish of hostility and unparalleled cruelty. Afflicted with such horror and hatred, who would not be tempted to curse God and abandon oneself to the darkness of despair? Yet, Kolbe gathered together these prisoners by his gentle and steadfast example of faith be it Jew, Christian, agnostic or atheist. Maximilain Kolbe was never more a Catholic Priest then when in Auschwitz. Every day in secret, he was able to offer the sacrifice of the Mass, often using his hand as an altar…hearing confessions and giving counsel and encouragement to all he met. He understood not only the beauty of the Catholic faith, but its power to transform even the worst sufferings into the greatest blessings…as the Cross of Christ is for us our salvation. The heroic witness of Faith of Maximilain Kolbe would reach its climax when a prisoner having escaped, led to the guards choosing ten people to die in a starvation bunker to discourage any more future attempts of escape. When one of the men protested that he had a wife and children, Saint Kolbe stepped forward and offered his life in this man’s place. An eyewitness recalls: “In the cell of the poor wretches there were daily loud prayers, the rosary and singing, in which prisoners from neighboring cells also joined. Fervent prayers and songs to the Holy Mother resounded in all the corridors of the Bunker. I had the impression I was in a church.” That man would not only survive Auschwitz, but would later be reunited with his whole family. For some, the horrific nightmare of Auschwitz was an undeniable proof that God did not exist and if He did, He was a cruel God. As one theologian remarked: “God really died at Auschwitz…we are alone in a silent, unfeeling cosmos…for omnipotent Nothingness is Lord of All Creation.” How sad, how false. Christ, who is true God and true Man, was in Auschwitz. He was there hearing confessions, celebrating Mass, encouraging the people by his gentle presence, inspiring people of all faiths to sings hymns and prayers though only moments away from entering the hideous gas chambers. He was there enduring all the beatings and punishments administered by the guards. He was fully present and alive in the Priesthood of Saint Kolbe and He continues to remain fully alive in all of us if only we access the powers of our Baptism, which as Saint Peter reminds us, makes us a Royal Priesthood and holy people of God. Jesus Christ in His Incarnate Body has died all our deaths, has already wept all our tears, has already bled all our wounds, has already been shattered into the pieces of our broken hearts. He has already endured all our failures being nailed naked to a Cross. Has already been terrified in all our darkness crying out from our emptiness: “My God, My God why have you forsaken me.” He has accomplished in this same sacred Body our eternal joy, all our peace and healing: inviting us to partake of His Blood in the gift of His Flesh, the gift of His Divinity, the gift of the Eucharist.
This is a message from Fr. Seraphim Rohlman:
Prayer of Blessing of Enemies
Dear brother Knights,
TEMPUS FUGIT, MEMENTO MORI +
Rev. Fr. Seraphim
Ralph Rohlman
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The Prayer for the Canonization of Father Michael J. McGivney |
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| God, our Father, protector of the poor and defender of the widow and orphan, you called your priest, Father Michael J. McGivney, to be an apostle of Christian family life and to lead the young to the generous service of their neighbor. Through the example of his life and virtue we follow your Son, Jesus Christ, more closely, fulfilling the commandment of charity and building up his Body, which is the Church. Let the inspiration of your servant prompt us to greater confidence in your love so that we may continue his work of caring for the needy and the outcast. We humbly ask that you glorify your servant Father Michael J. McGivney on earth according to the design of your holy will. Through his intercession grant the favor. I now present (here make your request). Through Christ our Lord. Amen. |
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