Yesterday afternoon, on Ash Wednesday, Pope Benedict followed the tradition of going to the top of the Aventine Hill, the highest of Rome’s famed “seven hills.”  He went first to the Benedictine abbey of San Anselmo; from there, there was a procession to our Dominican church of Santa Sabina, just about a block away.  And there, Pope Benedict celebrated Mass and received and then distributed ashes. He spoke about the unity of the human race with the rest of our cosmos, alluding to the second creation story in Genesis 2:7.  For the Church each Ash Wednesday recalls the words that ..read more

On this beautiful feast day of our Church calendar, we discover that what we are celebrating has a number of important elements, each of which is the apt object of meditation and prayer. Let’s look at some of them: ·      This is the feast of the Presentation of Our Divine Lord as a 40-day-old baby in the temple at Jerusalem, in accordance with Jewish worship. ·      It is the time that Jesus is officially and formally presented to God his father in the temple, the dwelling of God among his people. ·      It is the mome ..read more

In the first reading for today’s Mass, we get a beautiful message of love and encouragement from God our Father. The passage is the beginning of Saint Paul’s first letter to the Christian community in Corinth, of whom he was especially fond. But because that letter is divinely inspired, it applies to all of us, and what Saint Paul is saying to the Corinthians, God is saying to you and to me. Saint Paul begins by saying that his fellow-apostle Sosthenes and he send greetings to the Corinthians, “to you who have been consecrated in Christ Jesus and called to be a holy people.” He goes on, “and t ..read more

Our national celebration of Thanksgiving is unique in all the world, as far as I know.  I’m not aware of any other country that has a Thanksgiving Day.  It is to the credit of the American people that we have celebrated it and preserved it during the entire history of our nation.  I’m surprised that the ACLU or some similar organization has not tried to get rid of it, since it is essentially religious.  If you are going to give thanks, then to whom are you going to give thanks?  By its very nature, Thanksgiving requires someone to thank, and, of course, that someone is ..read more

Exactly nine months ago today, on December 8, the universal Church celebrated the Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Mother.  Since there is ordinarily a nine-month period between human conception and birth, we now celebrate the birth of the little girl who had been immaculately conceived nine months previously. This is a unique day in the calendar and liturgy of the Church; it is one of the three—and only three—times each year when we celebrate births.  We humans are usually born without grace, or as we say, “in the state of original sin.” The saints die in grace. So the death of ..read more

Yesterday, August 30, I spoke and wrote of our receiving of our religious habit on August 30, 1956 and thus beginning the year of retreat called the novitiate. Exactly a year and a day after that “vestition” or receiving of the distinctive garb of the Dominican Order, those of us who wished to continue our progress toward the permanent commitment which we call “solemn vows” took temporary or simple vows binding us for three years to this life of ours. That was on August 31, 1957. Then, when those three years had passed, those who continued to aspire to the fullness of the religious life and, f ..read more

In the year 1956 our church calendar had not been altered for many years, and the feast of Saint Rose of Lima fell on August 30. She was a member of the Dominican laity, and was the first person of the entire New World to be canonized, so we Dominicans are very proud of her. And it was customary for the incoming novices to our Order to receive the Dominican habit on her feastday. So on August 30, my classmates and I will celebrate our 55th anniversary of the beginning of our Dominican life. We have worn the habit of Saint Dominic and written “O.P.” — of the Order of Preachers — behind our name ..read more

Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Augustine. He’s a tremendously important figure in Church history. To understand his great position in Christian history, let try to divide the story into segments. First, we had Our Divine Lord and his apostles. They lived in the first century of Christian history. The Church was born and began to spread at that first Pentecost just after Our Lord ascended into heaven. The Roman Empire began to persecute the Church, and continued doing so until the Emperor Constantine in the year 313 allowed it to exist and operate openly. Then there was a great flowering ..read more

Today we celebrate the great Solemnity of Pentecost.  It commemorates the day when, ten days after His Ascension into Heaven, our Divine Lord sent the Holy Spirit upon the infant Church and into the hearts of its individual members, and, as is always the case with our liturgical celebrations, the greatness of that great event is repeated for us in our world today.  Thus, those who celebrate the feast of Pentecost each year with devotion and sincere prayer receive graces similar to what the Apostles and Disciples received in that Upper Room in Jerusalem so long ago. In that beautiful ..read more

This Sunday, the Sunday immediately following Easter Sunday, has been proclaimed to be the Sunday of Divine Mercy. Why? Because the gospel for this Sunday recalls the appearance of the risen Christ to his apostles and his conferring upon them the power to forgive sins. We must always remember that Jesus came into this world to reopen the gates of heaven to the human race. Access to eternal life with God had been lost because of the sin of our first parents and then the subsequent sins of us, their offspring. But the whole reason why God created the human race was to share with us his goodness ..read more