General Chapter

Please pray for our Order as many of our friars are gathered in Rome for the General Chapter....

Vigil of the Solemnity of St. Peter Nolasco, Confessor

Today, marks the Vigil of St. Peter Nolasco, Father and founder of the Mercedarian Order.  In this year, we are graced to be in the glow of the recent ordination of our Brother Justin to the Sacred Order of Deacon.  He was ordained at our parish in Cleveland, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, at the hands of His Excellency, Bishop Anthony Pilla.  It was a markedly exciting time for all of us in the US Vicariate.  Our postulant Patrick Hart took lots of pictures of the ceremony and the celebration afterwards.....

A merchant and a gentle man, St. Peter Nolasco was holy in a radical sense. With a small group of friends and fellow workers with whom he had been associated for some time, he founded the Order of the B.V.M. of Mercy for the Redemption of Captives in 1218. Because of his liberating activity, he was and remains within the church and for the world, the living image of Jesus surrendering himself to the point of death to save and redeem captives, sinners and the lost of this earth.

Being a merchant, a bourgeois born around 1180, he begins to work hard at the beginning of the 13th century. Differently from Francis of Assisi, Peter does not feel the need to break with all forms of money, wealth and buying and selling in order to reach Christ’s radical poverty. He comes to the same conclusion but in a radically different way: he encounters Jesus in the very heart of his business, he meets him in the captives, in the Christian slaves in Moslem lands. This leads him to the center of the social and religious conflict dividing the known world at the time.

Peter was building the lines of a new movement dedicated mostly to the liberation of captives. He was a man of his time, touched to the quick by the problems of his age and responding to them creatively. Jesus’ Gospel began in Galilee, but it keeps on being actualized on earth. Nolasco’s good news has its beginning in Barcelona, between the 12th and the 13th centuries, but it lives on with all its value for mankind

Moments of Grace

In the last few weeks, the friars in Philadelphia have had a number moments of grace.  First, there was the Solemn Celebration of the Sacred Triduum.  At the Easter Vigil, the parish in Philadelphia received 18 into the Faith of the Church.  Beginning on the 3rd Sunday after Easter, the parish also opened its annual observance of the Forty Hours Devotions.  We began with a Solemn High Mass, in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.  Fr James W. Mayer was the celebrant; Fr. Matthew H. Phelan was the deacon; Br. David M. Spencer, was the subdeacon.  Following the Mass there were three days of prayer and petition before the Blessed Sacrament exposed.  Msgr. Joseph Nicolo was the homilist for all three evenings of Vespers.  His theme was on the 'image of God'.  What is our image? How do we come to that image? Is our image limited? Are we open to expanding our understanding of God, His love and His mercy?  Many of his thoughts and words were provocative, calling forth from us to examine our notions and, perhaps, allow them to be transformed by the words of the Gospel.  What better place to have them transformed then in prayer before the Most Blessed Sacrament.

On the final day of 40 Hours, we were graced and privileged with the presence of His Excellency, Timothy Broglio, Archbishop for the Military Services, USA.  He spent time with our community and then presided at the Solemn Pontifical Vespers,  in the Ordinary Form.  The Church was full with the schoolchildren, Third Order, Altar Boys, Bernadette Society, Knights of Malta, Chaplains the Knights of Mercy and the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, prelates and priests were in attendance.  And, lest we forget, many seminarians from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, Overbrook.

Above: Fr. Matthew chants the Gospel and a familiar blogging face, Philip Johnson, 

Feast of St. Peter Armengol, Martyr

Related to the Counts of Urgel, Peter Armengol was born in Guardia dels Prats (Tarragona) in the middle of the thirteenth century. He spent his childhood and adolescence in a quiet family atmosphere of honesty. But having barely reached the threshold of youth, Peter was drawn by bad company to the abyss of dissolute and criminal life of a bandit. In an encounter of armed people sent by James I to rid the area through which the royal suite was to travel of evildoers, with his sword in his hand, libertine Peter Armengol found himself face to face with his own father, Arnaldo. This providential circumstance made Peter lay down his weapons before his progenitor, ask for his pardon and, with iron will, decide to change his life. His father’s prestige saved his son from the deserved punishment and Peter Armengol badgered the Mercedarian friars to accept him in the Order since he wanted to dedicate the rest of his life to the work of mercy of the redemption of captives so that the Lord would use his infinite mercy with him.

After he was received in the Order, Peter was able to go twice to Moorish lands to carry out the ministry of redemption. On his second trip in 1266, he remained as a hostage for captives in Bejaïa. He had stayed behind as a pledge but the money for the ransom did not arrive in time and he was hanged from the gallows. However, thanks to Mary’s singular protection, he was not hurt. The day after the hanging, when Brother Guillermo of Florence arrived with the money agreed upon, he found Peter alive. As a result of his ordeal, he had a twisted neck for the rest of his life. Upon returning to Spain, for almost forty years, Peter lived in seclusion in the convent of Santa María dels Prats where he died a holy death in 1304.

Patron of the Youth, pray for us!!

Feast of Beata Marianna de Jesus

Today, the Order of Mercy celebrates the Feast of one the Order's mystics -- Blessed MaryAnn of Jesus -- the Lily of Madrid.  A woman of great penance and love of the Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, Blessed Mary Ann is a model to us all of how we should love and adore our Divine Saviour.  In her Autobiography, there is the story of Blessed Mary Ann declaring her unworthiness in receiving Our Lord and Our Lord responding to her doubts.....  It is within My children that I wish to dwell, because vessels of gold and precious stones are incapable of receiving and giving love....

These words should give us courage and consolation and humility to realize that Our Lord -- despite our sinfulness and weakness --  still reaches out to us, desiring to be in relationship with each and everyone of us in this world.... Let us not waste the moment. Blessed Mary Ann was beatified by Pope Pius  VI; her body lies incorrupt in Madrid, to this day.

On a sidenote -- the Friars in Philadelphia will begin the Annual 40 Hours Devotions tomorrow -- April 18th.  The opening celebration will be a Solemn High Mass, at 1130am.  All locals and even those who are some reasonable distance away, please come and join us as we begin to give a clear and focused witness of our Love for the Holy Eucharist.

Holy Week

There is a moment in our lives when we have a trigger,  a motivation to change our ways and to see the bigger picture.  Sometimes this moment is dramatic (in the conventual understanding) -- there's lighting, flashes, major action, a BIG BANG!!  Other times, this moment is quiet, is humble, is not too cinema-friendly.  Yet, the significance of each is the same.  These moments bring us closer to Our Lord.

Holy Week takes the two extremes -- excitement and tranquility -- and enfolds them in the one drama of the Passion of Christ.  Many of us have seen Gibson's remarkable work, The Passion of the Christ.  Many of us likewise wept either during or after (or both) the film.  Why?  We see the reality and ugliness of man's infidelity toward his Creator and Redeemer that took place 2000 years ago and we find that it has not changed.  And not just in man -- universally -- but in ourselves.  That's the key of Holy Week and of the entire CHristian experience.  We see OURSELVES personally, individually, uniquely in the schema of original sin and concupiscence.

Yet, in the dramatic movement of Holy Week, the encounter does not end in sourness or pity, but culminates in victory, in that great deep SIGH of the Resurrection.  I can imagine some sports fans after having endured the quarterfinals and semifinals with their team coming through to that one Championship Game.  Sitting on the edge of their seats during that last game where the victor and Champion are ultimately determined.  It comes down to the final minutes of the last quarter in the game and their TEAM WINS!!!!!  The fans jump with excitement, throwing up their hands, which are filled with sodas, hoagies, french fries, hot dogs, beer.... it doesn't matter... all these are thrown up in the air as well and we are CHEERING... YEAH!!!!!.... YEAH!!!!!!..... because we had won! our team had won! -- this same feeling and emotion are to be our anthem.... we are to throw our hands up, screaming in victory and JOY at the Resurrection of Christ..... Let that be our sentiment.  Let us move through these somber and solemn days ahead..... but let us not forget that we don't stop at the Cross; we await at the tomb for the Resurrection of Christ, Victor over DEATH!!! ---- SCORE!!!!!!!!

Msgr. Marini and the Liturgy

Journalist John Allen Jr. Speaks with Msgr. Guido Marini

This article found over at our friends at the NLM suggests a remarkable change in scope and flavor of the orientation of the Church. It is once again a moment for the faithful to realize the precise pastoral sensitivities of the Pontiff.