Vultus Christi

Renounce, adore, and submit to my designs

Saturday, 22 July 2017

Life in an Unsuitable House
On Friday, 24 March 1651, Mother Mectilde de Bar, having returned to Paris, was reunited with her daughters (nuns of Rambervillers) in a modest house designated le Bon Amy. Life at le Bon Amy was austere. The menu — mostly peas cooked in water — rarely varied; bread was rationed. There was no convenient place in the house to chant the Divine Office or even to assemble for community reading and conferences. Le Bon Amy had a solitary feeling to it; almost like Carmelites, each of the nuns was obliged to spend long hours alone in her cell for the simple reason that there was nowhere else to go. The deprivation of the ordered spaciousness that Benedictine life requires was no mean hardship. God made use of these deprivations and limitations to grace the little community with a greater fidelity to silence and to personal interior prayer.

Solitude: Vocation or Temptation
Entering deeply into the silence, Mother Mectilde began, from time to time, to experience certain spiritual consolations. She wondered if, after all, she was called to be an anchoress. She thought of

My Mercy is honoured in thy infirmity

Saturday, 22 July 2017

“Mary Magdalene went and said to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that He had said these things to her.” (John 20:18)

Women Apostles
I am thinking, after having sung the beautiful First Vespers of Saint Mary Magdalene, the Apostle to the Apostles, of four women raised up by the Spirit of God in the course of the last century to deliver a message to the Church. Each one prophesied the mystery of the Divine Mercy in her own language, using her own vocabulary, images, and unique feminine sensibility.

Two were French: Thérèse and Yvonne-Aimée; one was Spanish: Josefa Menendez; and one was Polish: Maria Faustina Kowalska. Two were humble laysisters charged with the lowliest tasks in their convents, all the while receiving the secrets of Heaven: Josefa and Faustina. One, Thérèse, was a young Carmelite hidden away in her cloister, and dreaming of doing great deeds for France (like Jeanne d’Arc), for missionaries, and for the salvation of sinners. And one, Yvonne-Aimée, was a heroine of the French resistance during

Dr Peter Kwasniewski at Silverstream Priory

Saturday, 22 July 2017

Liturgical Obedience, the Imitation of Christ, and the Seductions of Autonomy
Audio of Dr Kwasniewski’s Lecture at Silverstream Priory

Dr Peter Kwasniewski delivered a lecture this past Tuesday, July 18, at Silverstream Priory in Ireland, entitled “Liturgical Obedience, the Imitation of Christ, and the Seductions of Autonomy.” The full audio with Q&A may be found here (the lecture is about 45 minutes, and the Q&A 17 minutes).

Some excerpts from the as-yet unpublished manuscript:

Given what I have said about liturgy as inherently hierarchical, otherworldly, ecstatic, and absolute in its demands over us, it is entirely in keeping with the devil’s strategy to destabilize, democratize, secularize, and relativize the liturgy here on earth. He seeks to loosen our bond with a fixed and efficacious tradition. He seeks to smudge in our perceptions, and, eventually, to obliterate in our minds, the distinction between sacred and profane, formal and informal, fitting and unfitting. He seeks to darken or blot out the manifestation of the heavenly hierarchy in the earthly distinctions of sacred ministers and their complementary but non-interchangeable

Monsieur Vincent et Mère Mectilde

Wednesday, 19 July 2017

When Saints Help Saints
I have long believed that saints, like the fruit of the vine, grow in clusters. The history of the saints in every age bears this out. Saint Vincent de Paul was no exception. He was in relation with a myriad of other holy souls of France’s Grand Siècle, the age of what Henri Brémond called her “mystical invasion.”

Saint Vincent de Paul
The ravages of The Thirty Years War in Mother Mectilde’s native Lorraine stirred Saint Vincent de Paul to an active compassion. As soon as Monsieur Vincent was informed of the woes that we desolating the Lorraine, he moved quickly to collect offerings everywhere. He sent to this unfortunate country twelve of his missionaries to whom he joined some brothers of his Congregation, who had secrets to treat the plague and knew medicine and surgery. Thus did Saint Vincent’s Congregation of the Mission bring relief to those distressed by the war, those turned out of their homes and reduced to a miserable poverty.

Homeless Benedictines
In 1639 Mother Mectilde and her Benedictines were among the

Of the Measure of Drink

Wednesday, 19 July 2017

benedicite

CHAPTER XL. Of the Measure of Drink
19 Mar. 19 July. 18 Nov.

Every one hath his proper gift from God, one after this manner, another after that. And, therefore, it is with some misgiving that we appoint the measure of other men’s living. Yet, considering the infirmity of the weak, we think that one pint of wine a day is sufficient for each but let those to whom God gives the endurance of abstinence know that they shall have their proper reward. If, however, the situation of the place, the work, or the heat of summer require more, let it be in the power of the Superior to grant it; taking care in everything that surfeit or drunkenness creep not in. And although we read that wine ought by no means to be the drink of monks, yet since in our times monks cannot be persuaded of this, let us at least agree not to drink to satiety, but sparingly; because “wine maketh even the wise to fall away.” But where the necessity

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Renounce, adore, and submit to my designs

My Mercy is honoured in thy infirmity

Dr Peter Kwasniewski at Silverstream Priory

Monsieur Vincent et Mère Mectilde

Of the Measure of Drink

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