Ubi Petrus

With his passing so fresh in my memory, it was strange to see my latest edition of First Things come in the mail, flip to the back and read Fr. Neuhaus’ last words in this edition.  I do not know if he had already written for next month’s edition or if these indeed will be the last words from him; either way, it is truly something to be read and shared.  I’m quite certain he wouldn’t mind, but if asked of course I’ll take them down.

As of this writing, I am contending with a cancer, presently of unknown origin.  I am, I am given to believe, under the expert medical care of the Sloan-Kettering clinic here in New York.  I am grateful beyond measure for your prayers storming the gates of heaven.  Be assured that I neither fear to die nor refuse to live.  If it is to die, all that has been is but a slight intimation of what is to be. If it is to live, there is much that I hope to do in the interim.  After the last round with cancer fifteen years ago, I wrote a little book, As I Lay Dying (titled after William Faulkner after John Donne), in which I said much of what I had to say about the package deal that is mortality.  I did not know that I had so much more to learn.  And yes, the question has occurred to me that, ifI have but a little time to live, should I be spending it writing this column.  I have heard it attributed to figures as various as Brother Lawrence and Martin Luther – when asked what they would do if they knew they were going to die tomorrow, they answered that they would plant a tree and say their prayers.  (Luther is supposed to have added that he would quaff his favorite beer.)  Maybe I have, at least metaphorically, planted a few trees, and certainly I am saying my prayers.  Who knew that at this point in life I would be understanding, as if for the first time, the words of Paul, “When I am weak, then I am strong”?  This is not a farewell.  Please God, we will be pondering together the follies and splendors of the Church and the world for years to come.  But maybe not.  In any event, when there is an unidentified agent in your body aggressively attacking the good things your body is intended to do, it does concentrate the mind.  The entirety of our prayer is “Your will be done” – not as a note of resignation but of desire beyond expression.  To that end, I commend myself to your intercession, and that of all the saints and angels who accompany us each step through time toward home.

Today we pray for Rev. Fritz Cerullo OSA and Rev. Anselm Smedile OSB.

Fr. Cerullo was ordained in 1971 and is pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in Dover.

Fr. Smedile is currently the Assistant Director of Campus Ministry for St. Anselm College.

May their work be fruitful and their rest refreshing.  May they bring out in others a love for Christ and His Church and find in themselves that same love renewed and strengthened.  May Mary walk with them and lead them gently to her Son.

Some random patristic reflections on today’s Feast of the Baptism of the Lord:

Saint Ambrose of Milan:

Neither repentance avails without grace, nor grace without repentance; for repentance must first condemn sin, that grace may blot it out.  So then John, who was a type of the law, came baptizing for repentance, while Christ came to offer grace.

Saint John Chrysostom

John was setting forth the anticipatory and ancillary value of his won baptism, showing that it had no other purpose than to lead to repentance.  He pointed toward Christ’s baptism, full of inexpressible gifts.  John seems to be saying:  “On being told that he comes after me, you must not think lightly of him because he comes later.  When you understand the power of Christ’s gift, you will see that I said nothing lofty or noble when I said ‘I am unworthy to untie the thong of his sandal.’  When you hear, ‘He is mightier than I,’ do not imagine that I said this by way of comparison.  For I am not worthy to be ranked so much as among Christ’s servants, no, not even the lowest of his servants, nor to receive the least honored portion of his ministry.”  Therefore John did not simply say “his sandals,” he said “the thong of his sandals,” the part counted the least of all.

Saint Hippolytus

Do you see, beloved, how many and how great blessings we would have lost if the Lord had yielded to the exhortation of John and declined baptism?  For the heavens had been shut before this.  The region above was inaccessible.  We might descend to the lower parts, but not ascend to the upper.  So it happened not only that the Lord was being baptized – he also was making new the old creation.  He was bringing the alienated under the scepter of adoption.  For straightway “the heavens were opened to him.”  A reconciliation took place between the visible and the invisible.  The celestial orders were filled with joy, the diseases of earth were healed, secret things made known, those at enmity restored to amity.  For you have herd the word of the Evangelist, saying, “The heavens were opened to him,” on account of three wonders.  At the baptism of Christ the Bridegroom, it was fitting that the heavenly chamber should open its glorious gates.  So when the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove, and the Father’s voice spread everywhere, it was fitting that “the gates of heaven should be lifted up.

Saint Augustine

In the Scripture many details are mentioned distinguishably of each of the triune Persons individually, such as cannot be said of them jointly, even though they are inseparably together, as when they are made manifest by corporeal sounds.  So in certain passages of Scripture and through certain created beings they are shown separately and successively, as the Father in the voice which is heard:  “Thou art my Son,” and the Son in the human nature which he took from the Virgin, and the Holy Spirit in the physical appearance of a dove.  These are mentioned distinguishably, it is true, but they do not prove that the Three are separated.  To explicate this, we take as an example the unity of our memory, our understanding, our will.  Although we list these distinguishably, individually and in their various functions, there is nothing we do or say which proceeds from one of them without the other two.  However, we are not to think that these three faculties are compared to the Trinity so as to resemble it at every point, for a comparison is never given such importance in an argument that it exactly fits the thing to which it is compared.  Besides, when can any likeness in a created being be applied to the Creator?

Saint Gregory Nazianzen

As man he was baptized, but he absolved sins as God.  He needed no purifying rites himself – his purpose was to hallow water.

Again from the Office of Readings, for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.  It gets really good towards the end:

Christ is bathed in light; let us also be bathed in light.  Christ is baptized; let us also go down with him, and rise with him.

John is baptizing when Jesus draws near.  Perhaps he comes to sanctify his baptizer; certainly he comes to bury sinful humanity in the waters.  He comes to sanctify the Jordan for our sake and in readiness for us; he who is spirit and flesh comes to begin a new creation through the Spirit and water.

The Baptist protests; Jesus insists.  Then John says:  I ought to be baptized by you.  He is the lamp in the presence of the sun, the voice in the presence of the word, the friend in the presence of the Bridegroom, the greatest of all born of woman in the presence of the firstborn of all creation, the one who leapt in his mother’s womb in the presence of him who was adored in the womb, the forerunner and future forerunner in the presence of him who has already come and is to come again.  I out to be baptized by you; we should also add: and for you, for John is to be baptized in blood, washed clean like Peter, not only by the washing of his feet.

Jesus rises from the waters; the world rises with him.  The heavens like Paradise with its flaming sword, closed by Adam for himself and his descendants, are rent open.  The Spirit comes to him as to an equal, bearing witness to his Godhead.  A voice bears witness to him from heaven, his place of origin.  The Spirit descends in bodily form like the dove that so long ago announced the ending of the flood and so gives honor to the body that is one with God.

Today let us do honor to Christ’s baptism and celebrate this feast in holiness.  Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed.  Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of men, for whom his every word and every revelation exist.  He wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shining in the world.  You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven.  You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received – though not in its fullness – a ray of its splendor, proceeding from the one God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever.  Amen. — St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 39 in Sancta Lumina

Today we pray for Bishop John McCormack, the Bishop of the Diocese of Manchester.

Bishop McCormack was ordained to the priesthood in 1960 and ordained to the episcopate in 1995.  He has been the Bishop of the Diocese of Manchester since 1998.

May he be led always by the Holy Spirit and always open to the Spirit’s promptings.  May he, as successor to the Apostles, act always in the best interests of his flock and the Church as a whole.  May he grow in conformity to Christ each day.  May Mary watch over him, shelter him in her mantle and draw him ever closer to her Son.

Today we pray for Rev. Paul McHugh and Rev. Shawn Therrien.

Fr. McHugh was ordained in 1953 and is now retired.

Fr. Therrien was ordained in 1987 and is pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in Claremont.

May they see in each face they meet the Lord who put them there, may they walk quietly that they may hear the Lord speak to them and may they continually grow in deeper love of Christ and His Church and in conformity to Him.  May Mary watch over them and take them by the hand and lead them to her Son.

Today we pray for Rev. Wilfred Demers and Rev. Eric Delisle.

Fr. Demers was ordained in 1959 and is a retired priest in residence at St. Marie’s Parish in Manchester.

Fr. Delisle was  ordained in 2003 and is the Souhegan Deanery Hospital Chaplain and associate pastor for Blessed John XXIII’s Parish in Nashua.

May they in their every act show forth the Christ in whose Name they were ordained and may they continually grow in conformity to Him.  May Mary take them by the hand and lead them to her Son.

Our Diocesan magazine, Parable, has a good interview with one of the nuns in the local contemplative Order, the Sister Adorers of the Precious Blood in Manchester.  Sister Christine Marie Maier entered the Cloister in 1988 and became their Vocations Director in 2008.  In this interview she discusses her early life, her path towards the Cloister and aspects of the life she loves.  I can only hope this article is read by young children (and not-so-young children) far and wide.  The world needs contemplative nuns.

Sister Christine Marie speaks with awe of the special vocation she and her community enjoy. “Contemplative prayer is mysterious; it is the highest form of prayer. This type of prayer comes through God, and you can only make yourself available to it.” Though the vocation comes as a gift, she says, the person must respond in very concrete ways. “When we make our vows, we vow to really focus on our relationship with Jesus Christ. We seek to imitate Christ, to imitate the Blessed Mother. Everything we do in our life, we do with an intention that it is going to make us a better and more complete people, because Christ Himself did everything well.

Today we pray for Rev. Deacon T. Kelly Fitzpatrick and Rev. Deacon Edward Munz.

Deacon Fitzpatrick was ordained in 1989 and is now retired.

Deacon Munz was ordained in 2004 and serves St. Catherine of Siena’s Parish in Manchester.  Yep, he’s our deacon and he’s an all-around pretty doggone smart and spiffy guy.

May they be continually inspired by the example of St. Stephen; may their love for the Lord and His Church grow each day; and may they seek ever to find new ways to serve the People of God and draw more souls to Christ.  May Mary look over them, shelter them in her mantle and lead them to her Son.