Per Christum

And for those wondering?  The composer of that gem is the one and only Andrew Lloyd Webber.

I’d like to introduce you to my new friend, Gianna Molla, in anticipation of her fourth feast day, which the church celebrates tomorrow, April 28.  I like this saint, because I think a lot of modern women can relate to her. Like so many out there, Gianna was a working mom.

Gianna Beretta Molla was born in Italy on October 4, 1922.  From childhood, she served God faithfully. She graduated from the University of Pavia with a medical degree in surgery with honors.  She opened a clinic with her brother, and since she loved babies, she obtained a certificate in pediatrics.  She later married Peter Molla, an engineer, in 1955.

Before she was married, she ministered to young girls through Catholic Action, a group involved with catechesis of young people.  She once said something to the girls, which would prove to some day be tested.  She said: 

“Eternal and earthly happiness depends on the fulfillment of your vocation. Your vocation is one to a material, spiritual and moral maternity, because God has placed in us an inclination to life.

“Each of us should make room for our vocation, for the giving of life.  If, perchance, we may have to die while carrying out our vocation, that would be the most beautiful day of our lives.”

Well, Gianna wanted a big family. She and Peter had a son, Pierluigi, then two daughters, Mariolina and Laura, followed by two miscarriages.  In the summer of 1961, Gianna became pregnant with another child.

Within two months, Gianna developed a large tumor in her uterus that threatened both her life and the life of her baby.  Her doctor advised her to have an abortion in order to save her life.  Instead, she opted for a riskier surgery that would remove the tumor to protect the baby while leaving her own life at risk.

The operation was successful in preserving her baby’s life, but as her pregnancy continued, Gianna had a premonition of what was to come.  She was ready to sacrifice her life so that her child could live.

A few days before the baby was due, she told her husband:  “If you must decide between me and the child, do not hesitate: Choose the child; I insist on it.  Save the baby!”

On Holy Saturday, 1962, after a Caesarian section, Gianna gave birth to a healthy baby girl weighing nearly 10 pounds.  The child was named Gianna as well.  (Today, “little” Gianna is also a medical doctor, a gerontologist.)

That same day, the mother’s condition began to deterioriate.  She was dying of septic peritonitis, an infection of the lining of the abdomen-a result of her choice to preserve the life of her child.  Gianna died a week later on April 28, 1962 (now her feast day).

Many saints aren’t formally recognized by the Church until centuries after their death.  But Gianna’s cause for canonization began within three decades after she died.  The miracles necessary for the process occurred in a relatively short period of time, so that her husband, three surviving children and siblings were all able to attend her canonization by Pope John Paul II on May 16, 2004.

Perhaps our God is trying to promote Gianna’s message of holiness in everyday life to our troubled world at this crucial time, in this culture of death.

Read more about Gianna here.

Prayer of Saint Gianna
Jesus, I promise You to submit myself to all that You permit to befall me,
make me only know Your will.
My most sweet Jesus, infinitely merciful God, most tender Father of souls,
and in a particular way of the most weak, most miserable, most infirm
which You carry with special tenderness between Your divine arms,
I come to You to ask You, through the love and merits of Your Sacred Heart,
the grace to comprehend and to do always Your holy will,
the grace to confide in You,
the grace to rest securely through time and eternity in Your loving divine arms.

- Abridged/adapted from article by Joseph Cunningham, J.D. - The Catholic Answer - November/December 2005 Edition

 I learned today that Pope Benedict insists that a crucifix be placed on the altar when he celebrates the mass.

I very much enjoyed the explanation provided by EWTN about this practice.  They said that it helps the Pope focus on the sacrificial element of the sacrament.  Because it sort of blocks the priest, it also centers all eyes on the sacrament, rather than the person offering the sacrament. 

As David over at Man with the Black Hat says, “The focus on the crucified Christ at the axis of worship, as opposed to the personality of the priest, is part of the Holy Father’s overall strategy to restore the sacred to Catholic worship.”

It makes the Holy Father more human when I realize that even he himself needs help in recognizing what is actually happening during the Eucharist.  What a truly humble man he is, thanks be to God.

Here it is:

Plenty Good Room——————————-Spiritual
Come, O Spirit of God—————————Manolo
Sing Aloud Unto God our Strength————Nelson
Go Up To The Altar Of God——————–Chepponis
Ave Verum Corpus——————————-Mozart
Spirit of God—————————————LeBlanc
Concertato On Grosser Gott
Holy God, We Praise Thy Name
O Spirit All-Embracing————————–Holst/Proulx
Ave Maria—————————————–Dett
O Holy Spirit By Whose Breath—————-Latona
Kyrie————————————————Roberts
Gloria – Mass of the Angels———————Proulx
Lord, Send Out Your Spirit———————-Peloquin
Easter Gospel Acclamation———————-Luckner
Trilingual Intercessions————————–Hay
Let All the World in every Corner Sing——-Argento
Ven Espiritu Sancto
Sanctus - Mass of Creation———————-Haugen
Memorial Acclamation – Mass of Creation—Haugen
Fraction Rite—————————————Honoré
The Lord’s Prayer
Psalm 100 – All the Earth———————–Deiss/Proulx
Jesus Is Here Right Now———————— Roberts
Ubi Caritas—————————————- Hurd
Pange Lingua————————————-Manolo
My God and My All—————————–Zaragoza
Love’s Redeeming Work Is Done————-Ogden

What do you think?

For those of you who are fans of the Busted Halo podcast, I want to let you know that the cantor on the Kyrie, Gloria and Prayers of the People for the Papal Mass at Nationals Park is Paulist Deacon Stephen Bell.  He’s the guy who sometimes sings the theme to their “Church Search.” 

I had the distinct honor of singing for his ordination mass to the transitional diaconate last year in the Crypt Church at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (pics found in the link above).  Of note to Per Christum readers, he’s a convert from the Church of Christ.  He’ll be ordained to the priesthood this June. 

Just finished watching the Holy Father’s arrival ceremony at the White House.  As a military musician in DC, I have participated in ceremonies like this before, but, this time, it was for our guy!  It was such a kick to see all that pomp and circumstance being bestowed on OUR Holy Father.  It made me so very proud.  Kudos to my Army Chorus friends on a job well done. 

Kathleen Battle seemed especially moved during her performance.  Does anyone know if she’s Catholic?

Catholics are often asked why they pray to saints.  The generic answer, which is adequate enough, is:  “Well, you ask your earthly friends and people you consider ‘strong Christians’ to pray for you.  We Catholics ask saints in heaven to pray for us because they are close to God.  Also, we’re not praying to “the dead,” because the saints in heaven aren’t dead.   They’re more alive than you and I.”

Okay.  That’s true.  But I believe that something Pope Benedict said, in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est, really helps to expand this idea in a way that gives it more weight.  It certainly helped me a lot.  It just makes good plain sense.  He says:

The lives of the saints are not limited to their earthly biographies but also include their being and working in God after death. In the saints one thing becomes clear: those who draw near to God do not withdraw from men, but rather become truly close to them.

This statement comes near the end of a document where the Pope really gives us a practical explanation of what love really means, and how we are to exercise this virtue.  In a nutshell, it goes back to Jesus’ commandment that we are to love God and love our neighbor.  Christianity 101.  Simple, yes…but hardly easy.  So, it would follow, that when we read about holy people, the most striking thing about their lives is precisely the love they showed (or show) other people, right?  That, in short, is how we know they’re holy.  We can literally SEE their love for God.  We admire these people…Saint Francis, Mother Theresa, Corrie Ten Boom, etc….  All Christians who didn’t just talk the talk, but they walked the walk.

So far, so good.  Nothing controversial there.

Well, then a question comes up.  At some point, those Christians die and go to heaven.  Then what happens?   What do those faithful saints exactly “DO” in heaven?

Looking back to my pre-Catholic days, I guess if I was pressed to describe what was going on in heaven, I would present a picture of a sea of people worshipping God.  And by that, I would mean that they were just sort of staring at and bowing before him.  I never really stopped to consider any horizontal relationships.  And that’s not surprising.  This was the way I worshipped God in my non-denominational church.  I would close my eyes and do the “me and Jesus” thing.  You might be sitting next to me, but you were individually doing your own version of “me and Jesus.”  I guess in heaven, I would have said, it was just more intense, while still individualistic, because you could literally see Jesus “face to face.” 

In re-examining this belief, I find that it’s inconsistent.  Does someone who spent their life loving God by serving others just die and forget about everyone else and just stare at Jesus, leaving the rest of us in the dust?

No!  What sense does that make?  Their righteousness is perfect in heaven…the righteousness that they cultivated exactly by serving and loving others on earth.  NOW they serve and love others even MORE.  They’d have to.  They can’t help themselves.  To love God is to love others.  The mission hasn’t changed, because love doesn’t change.  Love reaches out…eternally.  The saints in heaven continue to love God and love others.  They pray.  They intercede.  It is what MADE them saints in the first place. 

Further, if we Christians believe we are the family of God, these people are LITERALLY our loving brothers and sisters.  They are not going to be content to rest until all members of their family make it to heaven.  They are a “cloud of witnesses” cheering us on, as Hebrews 12 tells us.   Jesus’ death and resurrection brought “victory o’er the grave.”  Heaven and earth are joined together ( most poignantly and literally in the sacrifice of the mass).   We are one big family.  Our older, wiser and holier brothers and sisters can help us out a lot.  And they do! 

Hello dear readers. Greetings from my first Lent as a Catholic. Whew…it’s harder than it looks. How many days til Easter?

I’ve been listening to archived recordings of Our Father’s Plan, an old EWTN program featuring Scott Hahn and Jeff Cavins. Something Hahn said in the first talk really stuck out to me. He said his source was Thomas Aquinas. The subject is sin and punishment for sin. I’m not sure if he’s correct, but I tried to transcribe what he said accurately in order to study it. Here’s the summary:

God is a loving father, and He desires that we reach the end for which we were made. BUT over and over we sin, and our loving father gives us the punishment that fits the crime. Regarding that punishment, Aquinas says:

Sometimes, it is God’s mercy that causes us to get arrested, fined, or caught. As is often testified to by the many prodigals out there, we discover God’s love when we hit rock bottom. In preventing sinners from prospering in their sin, by forcing us, involuntarily sometimes, to come face to face with the real moral consequences of sin in our marriages, families, friendships, etc…, God shows us that his law is the prescription for our spiritual fitness, and the virtues he calls us to express are essential to mature as sons and daughters of God our Father.

I’d never heard it explained this way, so I figured some of you may not have either. I would enjoy your thoughts and comments.

Image by Danny Hahlbohm

When I was exploring Roman Catholicism, I would tend to only seek witnesses who were like myself…former Evangelicals. Fortunately, I’ve gotten over that. We converts have to be really careful. We tend to bring a lot of theological baggage with us that can unwittingly and innocently put us in the position where we’re spouting heresy.

I was born again in the Protestant sense when I was 7 years old. I’ve studied the faith and the Bible since then, so I thought I had a pretty good handle on what it meant to be a Christian. When I discovered sacraments, liturgy and the saints in the Charismatic Episcopal Church, I guess I thought I would just add them to the mix of what I already knew to be true, and, presto, I’d be a Roman Catholic, ready to teach catechism and theology. In fact, I sometimes resented going through RCIA, because I thought I knew everything. Consequently, I didn’t always do my catechism readings, because I didn’t think I needed it. I KNEW the Bible.

Ha ha. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Recently, this was illustrated to me when I found myself dialoguing with a couple of well-known Calvinists (Steve Camp and James White). I concluded, after reading and hearing what they believed, that, even if I remained a Protestant, I would have never bought into Calvinism. Their idea of total depravity seemed so hopeless and fatalistic.

On the topic of total depravity, Wikipedia states:

The doctrine interprets the Bible as teaching that, as a consequence of the Fall of Man, every person born into the world is enslaved to the service of sin and, apart from the grace of God, is utterly unable to choose to follow God or choose to accept salvation as it is freely offered.

Total depravity is the fallen state of man as a result of original sin . The doctrine of total depravity teaches that people are by nature not inclined to love God with their whole heart, mind, or strength, as he requires, but rather all are inclined to serve their own interests over those of their neighbor and to reject the rule of God. Even religion and philanthropy are destructive to the extent that these originate from a human imagination, passions, and will.

In reformed theology, God must predestine individuals into salvation since man is incapable of choosing God.

I thought, I don’t completely believe that? But what DO I believe? More importantly, what does the Catholic Church teach on this subject of sin?

What I found is that the Catholic position places us in such a more hopeful and, dare I say, “royal” position. I highly recommend a current teaching, available via podcast, from Mark Shea at Catholic Exchange, called, “Concupiscence, Sin and the Mercy of God.”

He reminds us of the Mel Gibson incident, when Gibson was yelling anti-Semitic slurs while he was smashed off his rocker. Many said, “I THOUGHT he was a good guy. I guess not,” implying that this drunken man was the TRUE self. This, my friends, is classic Calvinism.

Goodness is the mask. Corruption is one’s true nature. When we took the mask off Gibson, and he was allowed to be his uninhibited self, we got the real picture.

But is that the way WE want to be judged? When we are at our worst? I don’t. Surely God doesn’t look at us this way. This view says the sinner is the REAL man. The penitent is just “faking it.” This view identifies sin with nature. And it leaves two choices: 1) nature is sinful and bad (Calvinism’s total depravity) OR 2) sin is natural, i.e. if it feels good, do it (leading to war, promiscuity, and a host of other evils).

Shea summarizes it this way.

For a baptized Christian: Sin is normal, but it is NEVER natural. Sin does not constitute who we are. It destroys who we are. It makes us anonymous. Sin is a BETRAYAL of who we are. It is NOT a revelation of who we are. It is only when the human person takes his place as the redeemed creature God made him to be that we begin to see his face and know his name. As a Christian, we have the assurance that man is a creature who has undergone death and resurrection and now sits at the right hand of the Father. If you want to know what a human being TRULY is, look at him. Those members of his body on earth who are undergoing the process of divinization are still capable of sinning and betraying the truth of who they really are.

Do you see how different a view this is? My sin is not ME.

And why is this? Because in Catholic theology, the sacraments are so important and powerful…and real and effective.

I think when I was in the CEC, before I became Catholic, I thought baptism was sort of a replacement of the “born again” experience. Jesus died for my sins. I accepted him as Saviour, and I was going to heaven. Instead of the sinner’s prayer, my baptism effected this work. I don’t know if that’s what I was TAUGHT, per se, but in reflection, it’s what I believed.

But baptism is MUCH more than that. Baptism REMOVES!!!! original sin. It places me in a fully restored relationship with God. Can you believe that? My true self loves God and wants to be with him. I suffer the effects of sin, and I DO sin, but that’s a betrayal of who I really am.

This idea certainly helped me in my last visit to the confession box. My sin separates me from God, because he is holy. When I receive the sacrament of reconciliation, I am restored again to that right relationship. And that’s the way it felt. I felt like the prodigal who had come home again..where I belonged.

When you think about the ramifications of the removal of original sin, believing the doctrines about Mary (who at the moment of her conception was preserved from original sin by her son, Jesus) aren’t so implausible. Many are offended by her exalted position, but she is actually a witness to what we are all called to. So are the saints. They’re incredible.

But we’re all called to be saints. The only reason we’re not is because we don’t want to be. Yes, concupiscence is a big thing, certainly, but saintlihood is possible.

There’s so much more, but this post is already too long.

Thoughts? Questions? Corrections from those who know better than I?

I recently listened to an audio series upon the recommendation of Simple Sinner that has caused me to reflect on the Blessed Mother and her witness to all of us. The talks are by a very old school Franciscan priest who condemns a lot of things as evil that most of us wouldn’t have a problem with. My first reaction? This guy is way too legalistic.

BUT…then I think about the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.

I imagine a scenario where Our Lady needs a ride in my car. I open up the back door of my sporty Mazda and help her in get in. I assist with buckling up her seatbelt, careful not to mess with her Fatima fashions (you know, blue robe, white head covering). I climb in the front seat, turn on the car, and pull out my 80G iPod to find some music for the drive.

What shall I play? What would you play? I scroll through the tunes, rejecting one after another of the secular stuff. Then I move over to the Christian “rock.” No, nothing suitable there either. I don’t know why not. It just doesn’t seem fitting for this spotless rose. I settle on Rachmaninov’s Vespers, followed by Tomas Luis de Victoria’s O Magnum Mysterium, then maybe Elizabeth Poston’s Jesus Christ the Apple Tree. Each piece of music would be carefully selected, so as not to taint Mary’s holiness in any way.

So, the question becomes, why do I put her in this category, and not you? Not me? If I do this out of love for her, shouldn’t I show the same love to everyone? Shouldn’t I have the same supreme desire that none should fall into sin because of me or my actions? Shouldn’t what we present to our fellow brothers and sisters, in our dress, in our words, in our music choices, in our acts of charity, always strive to be virtous? Why are certain things “okay” for me and not for Our Lady? Why do I think “I” can handle it, but she can’t?

On this day, when we celebrate Mary as the Mother of God, I pray that we may remember she is the Mother of us too. May we treat her children, whom she dearly loves, as we would treat her, as holy unto the Lord. She would want nothing less from us.

It’s Advent, and I can’t express enough the joy I’m having in experiencing this season for the first time as a Catholic. I feel as if I’m a child again. This season is so rich with expectation as well as meaningful traditions and rituals.

Week one the reveille trumpet blew, “Brothers and sisters: You know the time;
it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep. For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.”

Last Saturday, we rejoiced as the plot thickened. Jesus, reaching down from the heavens, saved his mother from the clutches of sin and the devil at the point of her conception, in order to allow her, a mere human, to become the Theotokos, the God Bearer.

Week two another player is introduced,”a voice of one crying out in the desert, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” At my parish, many of us availed ourselves of the Tuesday night penance service with six priests hearing confessions. John’s call speaks to us here and today!

The drumbeat, faint at first, is starting to get louder. I can’t wait to hear what’s coming next! This is a lot more fun than the “ritual” of just watching the Charlie Brown Christmas special for the umpteenth time!

I love the conversion stories on The Journey Home, but the problem is you can only download the podcasts of the programs the week the shows airs. After that, if you want to hear older programs, you have to go to the EWTN archive and listen from there via Real Audio.

Until now!

Truthfully, maybe this program has been available for a long time, but I only just heard about it. It’s called Switch. It converts audio files in .wma, .wav or RealAudio format to MP3. It’s free and extremely easy to use.

If you’d like to try it out right away, I recommend listening to the latest Journey Home testimony. It’s really awe-inspiring. The story it chronicles is astonishingly different from the usual conversion tales we’ve heard, which tend to involve a lot of research and study and overall geekiness (guilty as charged!). The couple profiled on the show are obviously quite intelligent, but they’re also a little, how can I put this nicely? uh, nutty!…along the lines of one of our most lovable nuts, Saint Francis. You’ll just have to listen to see what I’m talking about.

Richard and Danielle Borgman have never seen The Journey Home, and I haven’t the foggiest idea where Marcus Grodi even found them. They’ve been hopping around the four corners of the earth serving as missionaries. Hurry on over to EWTN, download the file, listen on your computer or convert it to mp3, put it on your portable player and go take a walk for an hour before it gets too cold outside, or burn it to a CD and be blessed on your commute to work. Our God will amaze you with the tricks He’s got up his very long sleeves!

Growing up, I so enjoyed reading accounts of Christian heroes and martyrs. I would pour over the stories of Brother Andrew, Corrie Ten Boom, Jim Elliott and Amy Carmichael. I also enjoyed the Bible stories of Samson, Joseph and David. These were people that gave me courage to live my Christian life with boldness and hope. The only thing that disappointed me was that there weren’t more of them. In the Christian bookstore, there were only so many biographies of Protestant legends.

Today, as a Catholic, I celebrate with the whole church of the ages the great cloud of witnesses who have run the race and achieved the prize. There are so many of them! A virtual army. A triumphant band.

I see that my need for the saints was innate, even when I was far from the Catholic Church. What an amazing treasure to be brought into something so much greater than I could have ever imagined. Yahoo!!!

“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

Happy All Saints Day!!!!